Planet of the Apes (1968 film)

Astronauts Taylor, Landon, and Dodge are in deep hibernation when their spaceship (non-canonically known as Icarus) crash-lands in a lake on an unknown planet in 3978 after a 2006-year voyage at near-light speed (the crew ages only 18 months due to time dilation). The astronauts awaken to find that their fourth companion and only female, Stewart, has died in space due to an air leak and that their ship is sinking. They use an inflatable raft to reach shore. Once there, Dodge performs a soil test and pronounces the soil incapable of sustaining life. Taylor suggests they are on a planet in the constellation of Orion some 320 light years from Earth but admits he is not sure.

The three astronauts set off through the desert, finding first a single plant and then others. They find an oasis at the edge of the desert where they decide to take a swim, ignoring strange 'scarecrows'. While they are swimming, their clothes are stolen. Pursuing the thieves, the astronauts find their clothes in shreds and the perpetrators — a group of mute, primitive humans — contentedly raiding a cornfield. But shortly, the astronauts and other humans are being pursued by gorillas on horseback. Dodge is shot and killed during the pursuit, while Taylor and Landon are captured and taken back to Ape City; Taylor is shot in the throat, but survives due to the surgical efforts of two chimpanzee scientists, Zira and Galen. Upon his recovery, Taylor is put in a cage with a woman, Nova, who was captured on the same hunt. Due to the throat injury, he has temporarily lost his ability to speak.

Taylor discovers that the apes, who can talk, are in control and are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are hunted and used for scientific experimentation.

Zira and her fiancé, Cornelius, an archaeologist, take an interest in Taylor because of his lip movements. While Cornelius and Zira are talking to their boss, Dr. Zaius, Taylor writes in the dirt and attempts to call Cornelius and Zira's attention to it, but he becomes frustrated when they do not notice the writing. Zaius sees some letters on the dirt and realizes that Taylor possesses intelligence and hastily erases the letters with his cane. Taylor manages to steal paper and a pencil from Zira and convinces her and Cornelius that he is intelligent.

Zaius orders Taylor to be gelded (emasculated), but he makes an escape. Running through the ape city Taylor discovers the stuffed remains of astronaut Dodge on exhibit in a museum. He is recaptured and while hanging in a net stuns the crowd by speaking, shouting the famous line, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" He is put on trial to determine his origins (in a parody of the Scopes Monkey trial). During the trial, he is treated like a beast with little or no rights. Taylor tells of his two comrades and explains that one was killed and the other lost. At this point the court is directed to a group of humans that were captured at the same time as Taylor where he sees Landon, who has been lobotomized. Landon isn't seen again but the sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes revealed that he was killed.

Later, Taylor is taken to see Dr. Zaius, who threatens to lobotomize him as well if he doesn't tell the "truth" about where he came from. But Cornelius and Zira execute a plan to free Taylor, who insists that Nova also be brought along. They flee to the Forbidden Zone, where, a year earlier, Cornelius had discovered a cave with artifacts of an advanced society. Dr. Zaius, along with a band of gorilla soldiers, manages to find them. After a struggle, Taylor finds a talking human doll in the cave that proves that intelligent humans were on the planet long before the apes gained control. Taylor and Nova are allowed to escape on horseback. Zaius lets them go without further confrontation, knowing that Taylor will find "his destiny." After they leave, Zaius has the soldiers blow up the cave to prevent future research.

Soon after his escape, in the final, iconic scene, Taylor discovers a damaged Statue of Liberty half-buried in the beach. He realizes that he has been on Earth all along, and that humanity must have destroyed its own civilization with war, thereby paving the way for the Planet of the Apes.