Legendary British naturalist Charles Darwin's famous -- and controversial -- Theory of Evolution, which offered a surprising (and in many cases, shocking) perspective on not only how all species of living things (including humans, animals, and plants) on Earth might have been created, but also how most of them managed to evolve by adapting to their changing environments over many a millennia, continues to be a subject of both discussion and debate today. As stated in the previous sentence, Darwin's theory remains controversial -- the greatest example of which came when he stated that modern-day man might have evolved from an earlier form of the ape that existed in prehistoric times, something that no doubt upset (and more often than not, outraged) nearly everybody associated with religion back then, including both Biblical scholars and religious groups who grew up reading the Holy Bible, and probably still do today.
Of course, if Darwin were around in 1963, when French author Pierre Boulle's literary masterpiece La planète des singes (French for Monkey Planet, according to translator Xan Fielding, a noted British writer who also translated Boulle's other famous novel, The Bridge over the River Kwai, into English), more known today as Planet Of The Apes -- about a futuristic planet dominated by apes who talk and think like humans -- was first published, a best-selling novel that would spawn a successful show business franchise five years later, he might have a lot to think about. But then, both Boulle's novel and the subsequent films and TV shows it inspired have certainly also given several generations of audiences who've been entertained by them much to think about, too -- one of many testaments to how and why the science fiction genre that has flourished in mass media for over a century has both influenced and changed the real world that we live in.
By the early-1960's, Pierre Boulle was already a popular author in not only his native France, but also the rest of the world, thanks mostly to his World War II novel The Bridge over the River Kwai, first published in 1952, and which inspired British filmmaker David Lean's Academy Award-winning The Bridge on the River Kwai five years later. Boulle, a World War II veteran who was now able to write his own ticket since becoming a successful author, began to write what would become Planet Of The Apes, combining science fiction with social commentary. In Boulle's original novel, three Frenchmen take off in a spaceship that can travel at nearly the speed of light as they explore outer space -- ultimately ending up on an Earth-like planet that they name Soror (Latin for sister), which is much like our actual planet, but with one difference: this planet is run by talking apes who prove to be more advanced in terms of intelligence, while the human population whom they hunt, capture, and use for scientific experiments is primitive, just like the prehistoric humans who existed on our world centuries ago! Ulysse Mérou, one of the Frenchmen who lands on Soror, and who ends up becoming the sole survivor of the trio landing on the planet, gets captured by his ape captors, and winds up the subject of scientific experiments conducted by some of the planet's chimpanzee scientists, including Zira and her fiancé Cornelius, who end up being convinced of Ulysse's intelligence; however, trying to convince the orangutans that run the planet's ape government, including elderly scientist Dr. Zaius, is a different matter.
Ulysee ends up befriending a primitive young woman named Nova (who ends up becoming the mother of their newborn child) -- and later on in the book, learn the truth about Soror's past after coming across an archaeological dig which helps to reveal how the planet ended up in its present state, a chilling example of what is referred to as dystopia (which refers to both the horrible conditions and way of life in certain parts of the world). Naturally, Dr. Zaius and his fellow orangutans, upon learning the truth, decide to eliminate all of Soror's humans, which eventually prompts Ulysse and his new family to blast off in the spaceship that brought him here and eventually head back to Earth -- now ruled by talking and thinking apes just like those on Soror!
Needless to say, Boulle's novel became a global literary sensation when it was first published in 1963, when the world we live in was already changing greatly, due in part to the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union that would result in the former country putting a man on the moon by decade's end -- but then, science fiction in the 1960's was already reflecting the tempo of the times, including the advances in technology that were already making outer space travel a reality. But it would take Hollywood to immortalize Planet Of The Apes even further.
