This tape opens with the film already running, although it’s still the pre-titles sequence, so not much has been missed.
Charlton Heston is taylor, an astronaut, part of a four person crew on a spaceship. Since I missed the beginning I’ve no idea where they were travelling.
The crew are three men and one woman, although once the credits have rolled, and Taylor wakes up, the one woman on the crew is already dead. Nice work, the patriarchy.
Their ship lands in water, and then sinks, which isn’t what they planned for. One of the astronauts doesn’t believe that 2000 years has passed, because of time dilation. Doesn’t seem like a fact that an astronaut on this particular mission should have doubts about. And Taylor seems to be a bit of a misanthrope, as another of them tells him “You thought life on Earth was meaningless, you despised people.” Good God, what kind of astronaut selection was going on when these bozos got picked?
It’s not long before they’ve found some vegetation, and go swimming, have their clothes nicked by unseen humans, and then get attacked by a lot of Apes on horseback. After killing the woman, Jeff Burton, the only black astronaut is the next to go.
Taylor gets captured and taken to the Apes’ village. He’s been shot in the throat, but luckily not dead. But it means he can’t talk, like all the other humans, so at first they don’t know he’s different. It’s not until he steals a notepad and pencil that he can let them know he’s not like the others.
Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) ask him about how he learned to write, where he came from, etc. It’s all very new to them. But Dr Zaius doesn’t approve of them doing this, and orders Taylor to be gelded.
Taylor escapes, and there’s a lot of running around. There’s a truly chilling moment when he’s in a museum, with displays of humans, and he finds his colleague, presumably stuffed.
Once his back in captivity, he’s talking to his female cohabitee, whom he has dubbed Nova. There’s a really revolting speech here, as he says he’s never needed anyone on Earth. “Oh there were women, lots of women, lots of… lovemaking” just in case we think he might have been gay, I suppose. But it gets worse, as he talks about the woman astronaut who died. “Now there was a lovely girl. The most precious cargo we brought along. She was to be the new Eve, with our hot and eager help, of course. Probably just as well she didn’t make it this far.” Nauseating.
Taylor regains his voice, and has to stand trial, although for what isn’t made clear. He finds his remaining colleague, Landon, but the Apes have already seen to it he can’t speak.
The story then becomes about how Zaius is trying to keep the Apes ignorant of their possible origins, and the possibility that humans were once advanced. It does get a bit boring at this stage, and really only picks up with the very end, where Taylor goes further into the Forbidden Zone, and discovers that the planet he’s on is actually future Earth.
After this, recording switches to an episode of St Elsewhere. It’s a bit of a nothing episode, notable only for the first appearance of Cindy Pickett as Dr Carol Noveno.
After this, recording stops and underneath there’s a bit of CNN news. God, US News was a joke. There’s a section about Nuclear arms talks that’s basically whining about all the jargon involved with the talks, as if that’s the reason there’s no agreement on arms limitations. It’s almost infantile.
Then, Thames TV hands over to TV-AM, at which point the tape stops.
In the ads, an advert for the Atari ST, a computer I never professionally programmed for, but our company did several products for it/
Adverts:
- Sanyo
- Lyons Original Coffee
- Bran Flakes
- Eat The Rich in cinemas
- Ford
- Castlemaine XXXX
- Fosters – Paul Hogan
- The Hit Factory
- Crunchy Nut Cornflakes
- Atari 520 ST
- Viennetta
- Stork Special Blend – Roy Hudd
- Tia Maria
- Michael Jackson/Diana Ross – Love Songs
- Job Training Scheme
- Planters Peanuts
- Castlemaine XXXX
- Sanyo
- Ford
- trail: Send Me No Flowers
- trail: Splash
- Lyons Original Coffee
- Job Training Scheme
- Bols
VHiStory 