August 17th is the Time for the “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes”

August 17, 2026

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Ever wonder how we went from the swinging Sixties and Seventies to the brutal oppression of apes over humans? Conquest of the Planet of the Apes tells that story. The child of Cornelius and Zira, whom we saw as a newborn in the last movie, is now all grown up now. He doesn’t like what he sees, in a world where apes are enslaved, humans are decadent, the architecture is brutal, and turtlenecks are all the rage. As you might expect from the title, the status quo is about to endure a hammer blow!

Plus, since this movie was filmed in part on the campus of our alma mater, we have a lot to say about the Southern California locations where this was filmed. Was this the first dystopia set in a suburb? If so, where are all the fast food restaurants?

Heavy-handed allegory! Animal cruelty! Animals who get cruel right back at the humans! Ape disobedience statistics! Shopping malls! Hordes of apes in jumpsuits left over from a lousy TV show! Retcons of the history of the future! The third role for the producer’s wife! It’s all here.

Ancient Geeks is a podcast about two geeks of a certain age re-visiting their youth. We were there when things like science fiction, fantasy, Tolkien, Star Trek, Star Wars, D&D, Marvel and DC comics, Doctor Who, and many, many other threads of modern geek culture were still on the fringes of popular culture. We were geeks before it was chic!

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2 responses to “August 17th is the Time for the “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes””

Kathy

August 17, 2026 at 11:06 am

I don’t recall seeing this one. I think this is a good thing.

I do recall, vaguely, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. It’s odd, because I recall watching it daily (dubbed, on a local channel), but can’t recall one ep. I recall some of the characters, and the rather preposterous “aero sub”.

I do better with the Time Tunnel. I can recall the gist of a few eps. I think I’ve mentioned before it was one of the “going home” shows that were common at the time, like Lost in Space, The Land of the Giants, Land of the Lost, etc.

I wish I could say the genre has died, but it keeps popping up. See Quantum leap (which wasn’t bad), and Voyager (Also not bad. But damage that would have put the Enterprise D in drydock for a year, gets repaired between eps; and they keep outsmarting the Borg an unlikely number of times).

Reusing props was common. It might still be. Legend has it Stanley Kubrick ordered all sets, costumes, models, and props from 2001 destroyed, precisely so they couldn’t be used in lesser productions in the future (well).
Richard Gardner

August 18, 2026 at 4:45 am

Brutalist architecture, ha, I too know all those buildings. UCI.
That area has changed and stayed the same. Do they still call the mall Fascist Island (Fashion Island)? I’m sure I can’t afford my old student digs on Balboa Island (part of a Sparks song) where I’d walk past Buddy Ebsen’s home (watching it get flooded at high tide, not new) and sailed past John Wayne’s home. There were 7 file cabinets for student records in Engineering and one cabinet was for the letter N (Ng, Ngo, Nguyen, Nilsen – and I remember one student changing his name to Phil, from Phuc). My chemistry professor was awarded a Nobel Prize. I was recruited by the Irvine Company but turned it down (dumb me?). Zot!!!

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