Boulle’s intention was to hold up a mirror to his peers with his satire, published in 1963. He did this by having a reporter and two scientists travel to the future. They land on a seemingly unknown planet. Evolution took place here with the opposite signs. Civilized monkeys rule people who have remained at a primitive level of culture. They hunt them, mistreat them and conduct experiments on them in laboratories. A few years later, Hollywood discovered the explosive material. The first part was released in 1968 with Charlton Heston as a stranded astronaut and legendary monkey masks. The production, a mix of action and science fiction, became a box office hit. Their pacifist message and criticism of technology and science were very topical and even progressive at the time. They struck a chord with the audience.
