Based on a 1963 Swiftian satire by French author Pierre Boulle set in 1968, Planet Of The Apes was an ostensibly goofy science-fiction tale directed by Franklin J Schaffner about a team of astronauts led by a chisel-jawed George Taylor (Charlton Heston) who blast off from Earth in the suitably futuristic year of 1972 and, by some dint of inconvenient Einsteinian time dilation, end up on a planet ruled by chimps, gorillas and orangutans.
The original French novel plays a trick on its readers. The story is actually told from the perspective of sentient apes but we don't know that until the story ends. Original screenwriter Rod "Twilight Zone" Serling irons out the literary conceit and instead adds the iconic Statue of Liberty ending.
