"Get your paws off me..."

HBO had 'Planet of the Apes' in it's evening line up tonight. The film, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner was based on the French novel 'La Planete des Singes' by Pierre Boulle translated as Monkey Planet. I thought it worth mentioning in a follow up to our Podcast where we discussed films and the novels they were based on. The original novel had an unseen couple on a spaceship read a message in a bottle that detailed the adventure of an earth man trapped 700 years in his future after his ship crashed. The apes found to rule the derelict planet reveal the secret history of the original human rulers of the world and the astronaut learns it is actually earth. In the end the couple reading the message are found to be apes themselves who discard the story as fake since a human would not be intelligent enough to write it.

The chief difference between the novel and the film is the setting. The film is set in America of the distant future, where the novel is set in the distant future of Paris. The change here is cosmetic and transient with little effect on the story or the impact of the message. There is another most notable change. In the novel, after the planet is shown to be earth, the mysterious couple seen to be reading the message in a bottle are revealed to be in fact apes draining the emotional impact to little more than permanent isolation of the human survivor mentally and physically. This also isolated the story to a forgettable one hit wonder.

However the film drew out the mysterious history of the planet as well as the secret of the fall of man. The final, wonderful, bitter moment when Heston's Taylor is read the cryptic quote from the Lawgiver exposing the true nature of man, and he find the half buried Statue of Liberty showing this wasteland to be earth is perhaps the most recognizable moment in modern film. The film used the ape culture to criticize the religious battle of evolution versus origin and at the same time wave a finger of disgust at man's destructive nature. This viewer puts this as film over book.

Another movie i caught again recently on HBO was 'A.I.' The film we got to see in theaters in 2001 was produced, directed and co-written by Steven Speilberg (Dick). It is of course famous for having been based on years of work done by legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick based on the short story "Super Toys Last all Summer Long' by Brian Aldiss. This is a case where the for personal reasons i give the vote for book over film. Now what you get in the film is an attempt to match Kubrick's sterile world and somber cinematography. But all i can see is Speilberg's (Dick's) rip off dressed up as an homage.

I am openly admitting my disdain here and it may have biassed my review. So when i say he stole work from a legend that was better off never being made without him and pissed on his still warm grave by putting it in that legend's memory, it may be because i am compromised emotionally. The reason i give this to the book is because Kubrick would have done better and that is all. The film was received well and made a modest box office draw, were the short story is not even known to exist in some circles. So basically Aldiss gets it because i will not give it to Speilberg (Dick).