Conquest of the Planet of Apes: a film about conquering

Conquest: The act or process of conquering
Conquest of the Planet of Apes: a film about conquering.

The 4th movie in the Apes series takes place in 1991, 20 years after the events of the Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Cornelius and Zira are dead, but they gave birth to a baby ape who resurfaces as 20 year old ape with a monkey on his back about the treatment of his parents.

Apes have supplanted dogs and cats as household pets due to a virus killing all the world's pets and have replaced human servants as put upon personal assistants. The allegory is they are Black American Slaves.

The conquest begins as Caesar leads his chimp brothers in rebellion against the human oppressors by process of mutiny and then out and out revolt against their masters. This action is ultimately supposed to lead to the events of the Planet of the Apes movie but the Escape movie has created a predestination paradox or time loop. Something cannot come from the future to cause the future as the present has to happen uninterpreted to cause the future! Maybe the Battle for the Planet of the Apes will settle that one...

The movie poster for Escape from the Planet of Apes

The film is particularly brutal in its depictions of violence against both beast and man. The finishing battle royale is a brute of a thing with apes blindly knifing Nazi styled guards and soldiers and bullet based massacres of charging apes.

The movie finishes with Caesar rejecting violence towards man but aiming to dominate them none-the-less with this speech:"But now... now we will put away our hatred. Now we will put down our weapons. We have passed through the night of the fires, and those who were our masters are now our servants. And we, who are not human, can afford to be humane. Destiny is the will of God, and if it is man’s destiny to be dominated, it is God’s will that he be dominated with compassion, and understanding. So, cast out your vengeance. Tonight, we have seen the birth of the Planet of the Apes!"

It was a tacked on ending. The first cut of the film had Caesar order the the execution of all the humans but test audiences found this too bleak and so Caesar's speech as added in. So as I gave praise for the film makers killing everyone in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, I take it away here for chickening out.

It's interesting to note that Caesar's name in Escape from the Planet of the Apes was Milo. I presume it was changed to reflect the life of the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar.

Here's the ending on video: