Through
the various versions of the Planet of the Apes (POTA), the figure of the Ape General
is a reoccurring archetype. Although a central figure in many of the various
version and sequels, the figure of the Ape General is no where to be found in
the original novel, Planete De
Singe (1963) by Pierre Boulle.
In the original novel, the main gorillas of
note were Zoram and Zanam. These two kindly lab assistance treat the books hero, Ulysse
Merou
, well while he is in captivity after landing on the distant planet Soror with his fellow space faring Frenchmen. In the film version of the
novel, Planet of the Apes (1968), these two characters are replaced by a single gorilla called Julius, who
takes great joy in tormenting the astronaut Taylor when Zira
, the chimpanzee psychologist, is absent. Although there are various gorilla soldiers, a military
leader is no where to be seen.
Ironically,
although never appearing in the original novel, the figure of the Ape General
was actually first created by Boulle in The
Planet of the Men (1969), a proposed script he wrote for the second ape film. In
his script he created the character Field Marshall Urus, a bumbling gorilla who
fumbles an attack on Taylor and his humans which alters the fate of ape and
human kind. Urus is a military incompetent who charges the human forces in
broad daylight with no real strategy and finds his army out maneuvered and
routed. It is this that leads to the final downfall of ape civilization.
When
the final film version, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) appeared several rewrites later, Field Marshall Urus
emerged as the war monger General Ursus, the leader of the ape military who
leads the gorilla army into the nuclear wasteland of the Forbidden Zone. Not as
buffoonish as Field Marshall Urus, Ursus is a more serious character who
believes that there is a threat dwelling in the Forbidden Zone that needs to be
eradicated if Apedom is to reclaim the area for itself. Soon they stage an
invasion of the Forbidden Zone and find themselves face to face with a
race of mutant humans who still live in the ruins of New
York. Unfortunately they possess a global
killing nuclear missile that, during the slaughter of the pacifist mutants, is
activated by the fugitive astronaut Colonel George Taylor. Suffice to say the earth doesn't survive. In many ways Ursus is the figure of the crazy general, the one who
insanely only sees military solutions to problems and will happily start a war
that will end with disastrous results.
The Battle for Earth's Future
The
next appearance of the Ape General is in Battle for
the Planet of the Apes (1973). He appears here in the form of General Aldo
(Claude Atkins), an ape still bitter about the treatment of his kind before the
revolution and who longs to see all humans in servitude or dead. This is at
odds with the vision of the revolutions leader, Caesar (Roddy McDowell), who sees a positive place for humanity in the new social order. Not
surprisingly, Aldo is the Brutus to Caesar’s Caesar, the traitor who desires to
over throw the king to create a different path for ape society. This new path
would be one human free and naturally guided by him and his gorilla army.
Fortunately for ape society, this potential usurper is finally revealed and
dispatched by Caesar during one final confrontation leaving the future in more
benevolent hands.
The General Comes to TV
After
the movie series finished, the POTA franchise moved to the small screen. It was
here that the figure of the Ape General took on its most well known form, that
of General Urko. On the face of it, the name Urko seems to be an amalgamation
of the names Ursus and Aldo. It is as though he was intended as a composite
character that would be reminiscent of the two general figures from the
cinematic cycle. It appears that in early draft versions of the series the
character was called Ursus and eventually altered to Urso. When actor Mark Lenard
tried to pronounce his characters name through his ape make up, he found that he
had difficulty in pronouncing it, the resulting word sounding more like a term
of abuse that the name of an ape general. And so the name became General Urko
and would become a character that received more screen time than Ursus and Aldo
combined.
Set
in the year 3085, over 800 years before the original film, the TV show tells
the story of two astronauts who have found themselves lost in the future and
being hunted down by the orang-utan politician Councillor Zaius and his chief
of security, General Urko. The role of Urko in this series is different from
that of previous ape generals. If the astronauts, Burke and Virdon are the
archetypal noble outlaws, then Urko is the hard nosed sheriff who doggedly
hunts them down, while they travel about making the world a better place for
human and ape alike. He is a character who is able to have ongoing
adventures and character development in the Planet of the Apes scenario, not one
that must face death at the stories conclusion. We get to see Urko in a range
of situations. We find out that his wife’s name is Elta (The Trap), we
watch him have to work together with a fugitive astronaut (The Trap),
and we see him try and fix a horse race (The Horse Race). Followers of
the POTA series were able to form a stronger attachment to the character and
because of this he has come to be the most well known of the Ape General figures. A good example of this is the fact that he often appears alongside
exclusively POTA movie characters in POTA action figure
sets.
The General Gets Animated
This
popularity was also strengthened when another version of General Urko (Henri
Corden) appeared in the animated series, Return
to the Planet of the Apes (1975). What
is interesting about this incarnation is that it incorporates many elements of
previous Ape Generals in the one character. Set in an alternate version of the
original POTA story, Urko works along side Doctor Zaius in the 38th century, as Ursus did in Beneath. Like Ursus, he stages
various military incursions into the Forbidden Zone as he seeks to eradicate
the human/mutant threat. Like the original Urko, this version is continually
hunting for the fugitive astronauts and like Aldo, he longs to usurp the
government and seize power for himself. This scheming eventually leads to him
being suspended from duty for three months for fraudulent activity. During this
time he is replaced by another gorilla, Colonel Rotok, who is actually secretly
taking orders from Urko. It’s at this point in the franchise that the figure of
the Ape General has fully crystallised. Now all the facets of previous
versions find a place with in the one character. However this would be the
last Gorilla incarnation of the Ape General on screen. In POTA comics, other
incarnations would appear, such as General Ollo, General Ignatius, General
Gorodon and Peace Officer Brutus. However on screen the future of the Ape General lay in the hands of another simian species.
Rise
of the Chimps
In
the years between POTA movies, the gorilla had lost its position as the killer
ape to its African cousin, the chimpanzee. Genetically closer to humans, the
chimpanzee is known to hunt small animals for food and murderously go to war
against rival tribes over territory. In many ways they are the most like us of
all the great apes and this realization has caused the role of the Ape General to be recast. In 2001 Tim Burton directed Planet of the Apes, a
re-imaging of the original story that mixed elements from both the book and the
original movie with new characters and scenarios. In this film gorilla soldiers, such as Colonel Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), are subservient to the
chimpanzee General Thade (Tim Roth). The story revolves around an astronaut,
Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg), who leaves the space station Oberon in the year
2029 to search for a lost research chimp. The chimp, Pericles, was sent out in
a space pod to investigate a nearby electro-magnetic space storm and never
returned. While searching for the chimp, Leo enters the storm and finds himself
sent forward in time to the year 5021 crashing on an alien planet. While on the
planet he finds that it’s occupied by apes and humans, the later existing as a
slave class and treated like animals. Soon Leo is introduced with General
Thade, a murderous chimpanzee descended from the ape messiah Semos with a
vicious hatred of humans. Thade knows from family tradition that once humans
ruled over the apes and that as long as they existed they would be a threat.
Little does he realise that he, and all others on the planet, were actually
descendants of the apes and crew of the Oberon that had passed through the same
space/time storm that Leo had passed through. Due to a strange time dilation
effect, the space station had crashed many centuries before, it’s survivors
populating the planet before Leo's arrival.
Despite
being a chimp, Thade is in some ways similar to the General Urko character of
the cartoon series. He chases political power and seeks to see the subjugation
or destruction of all things human. He understands that humans pose a real
threat to ape domination and he will go to lethal lengths, even against fellow
apes, to make sure their legacy stays intact. Unlike previous Ape Generals,
Thade also wants to assert his sexual dominance and claim Ari, the main female
chimp, as his mate. Ari is a human sympathizer and seemingly infatuated with
the very human Leo. This love of his most hated species seems to fire Thade's
lust to posses Ari, who makes a very public display of rejecting his advances.
When Ari escapes with Leo and a band of humans into the Forbidden Zone, Thade
announces that she has been kidnapped and uses it as an excuse to declare marshal
law. The
final outcome of this movie sees Leo escaping in Pericles' space pod back to
earth, only to find that Thade had preceded him, seemingly having escaped to Earth in Leo's original craft, passing through the same space/time storm. The final scene shows a newly landed Leo
standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, now wearing the face of General Thade and surrounded by ape
police.
The General Breaks the Glass Ceiling
One
lone female version of the Ape General is found in the Dark Horses comics series, The Planet of the Apes: Human War (2001). Although not technically a general,
this story features, Minister Shiva, a chimpanzee descendant of General
Thade. The armour wearing Shiva carries the same narrative function as her
anti-human military predecessors. In the years following the human revolution
lead by Leo Davidson, Minister Shiva and her army continue the fight against the remnants of the up rising, seeking the near extinction of humanity and supreme political power. Despite the change of species and gender, the characteristics of the Ape General character type cease to change.
To date, the new POTA movies haven't featured an Ape General. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) do feature Koba, a bonobo, who functions
as Caesar's right hand ape. In many ways he is a Brutus, a re-imagining of the Aldo
figure from the original series. Despite not having a rank, Koba has a similar function to Ape Generals in other movies. He is the human hating zealot who seeks to over throw the
more moderate leadership of the status quo in order to institute a policy of human enslavement or
extermination.
Through out much
of the POTA saga, the figure of the Ape General
has been present. They represents
the desire for military might and xenophobia to over throw moderate
government and institute marshal law. They are the symbol of armed opposition to
human liberation and of ape supremacy. As with many character types in the POTA series, they are a reflection of some of the darker elements of human kind, showing us ourselves through a simian reflection.
