Taylor (Planet of the Apes)
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Colonel George Taylor, played by leading man Charlton Heston, is an American astronaut, and the leader of a space expedition, in the 1968 science fiction film Planet of the Apes.
In the opening minutes of the movie, Taylor is watching his crewmates enter a state of hibernation aboard their ship (the Icarus), which is accelerating to nearly the speed of light, as he records his final report before joining them. Taylor muses about the fact that hundreds of years have already passed on Earth, in the six months the ship's clock has recorded, and hopes that whoever is receiving his report on Earth belongs to a better breed than they left behind, when their ship launched in 1972. He then climbs into his bunk, passing into hibernation, as the ship continues on auto-pilot to a faraway star.
When Taylor and two of his crewmates awake (discovering that a fourth, a woman named Stewart, died from an air leak while they were hibernating), the ship has crash-landed in a lake, on what they take to be an Earth-like, but largely barren, planet orbiting a Sun-like star in the constellation Orion. The ship begins to take on water, and sink rapidly, barely leaving the three astronauts time to break out survival kits and a life raft, and take an Earth-time reading: The year is 3978, leaving them just over two thousand years away from their starting point.
Rowing the raft to dry land, Taylor assumes command of what they now know will be a no-return mission, but it pulls him and his companions, Dodge and Landon, together and they begin a search for life on this new planet. Landon believes they may be on a planet in orbit around Bellatrix, but Dodge disagrees, pointing out the light is too white. They also discuss their motivations for joining the mission; Taylor's is his quest to find something or someone wiser than humanity. As they leave their crash site behind, the astronauts first find a flowering plant, then a row of what appear to be scarecrows or a boundary line, then finally a lush valley with a waterfall and pool, where they peel off their uniforms and go swimming.
Noticing their equipment and clothing has vanished, and finding footprints leading away from where they'd left them, Taylor and his crewmates next discover primitive, mute humans destroying everything the astronauts brought with them. The three men assess their chances of taking over if these humans are the brightest the planet has to offer. Their speculation on domination is quickly dashed when they learn to the sound of gunfire and traps being sprung, that this planet has another dominant species; evolved apes. All three try to run, but Dodge is killed outright, Landon suffers a head wound, and Taylor receives a bullet wound in his throat, preventing him from speaking.
Taken to Ape City and caged, Taylor and a female mute, whom he later names Nova, share a laboratory cell, and chimpanzee psychologist Dr. Zira hopes the two will mate. When Zira discovers that Taylor has intelligence beyond any human she has ever seen, writing a message on her notepad, she takes him out of the laboratory to meet her fianceè, Dr. Cornelius. Both disbelieve Taylor's assertion that he is actually a visitor from a faraway planet, but think he might be living proof of human intelligence – if not a missing link between humans and their "evolved superiors", the apes.
Learning also of Taylor's intelligence, and of his ability to speak as his throat recovers, Dr. Zaius wants Taylor first gelded, then put to death – but first he wants to know where Taylor "really comes from" in the Forbidden Zone, and information about his "tribe". Taylor of course cannot tell Zaius anything he wants to know, and blames Zaius for what happened to Landon – who is brought to Taylor in a lobotomised, animal-like state. When Zira's nephew Lucius breaks Taylor out of the laboratory, and he joins Cornelius and Zira as they flee to the Forbidden Zone, Taylor deliberately takes a rifle for himself, and declares nobody else is in charge of him, from here on. He also brings Nova, despite the apes' objections.
Dr. Zaius tracks the fleeing party down, but Taylor captures him, forcing Zaius to promise both to let him and Nova escape, and to drop the charges he's made against Zira and Cornelius. Zaius agrees, but nonetheless condemns Taylor and all humans as doomed to folly. One scene shows Taylor and Zaius arguing over the contents of an archaelogical site Cornelius has excavated before Taylor's arrival. Dr. Zaius believes that it is an ancient ape site, whereas Taylor argues that it is the remnants of a house much like one back on his homeworld of Earth. Taylor shows ancient remnants of an artificial heart, eyeglasses, and a doll which cries like a baby to show that this once belonged to a man in poor health who had a little daughter. Taylor believes maybe there was once a human society like his on this planet, but maybe they went extinct. After Taylor and Nova depart, Zaius destroys the cave holding the evidence that would exonerate Cornelius and Zira, and takes them back to Ape City under escort.
Finally free of the apes, Taylor discovers that he hasn't been on a faraway planet at all, but has returned to Earth in its distant future, as he and Nova encounter the ruins of the Statue of Liberty along the shoreline. He was devastated to learn that humanity indeed had destroyed themselves, as Zaius asserted.
Heston returned as Taylor for a brief appearance in the second Apes movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, as he and Nova encounter strange sights and sounds in what should be an empty landscape. When Taylor discovers a wall where there was none before, he tries to tear into it – and disappears, leaving the horrified Nova alone on their horse.
Later in the movie, another astronaut named Brent, sent on a doomed mission to rescue Taylor and his companions, is fleeing with Nova from a squad of gorilla soldiers into the Forbidden Zone, when they come upon an entryway to the underground remains of New York City, and its mutant human inhabitants, whom as it turns out led them in deliberately – as they earlier had Taylor, through the illusory wall. After probing both Taylor and Brent for what they know about the apes and their intentions, they force the two men to fight to the death, but Nova's sudden reappearance breaks their jailer's control. All three nearly escape, when Nova is shot and dies as the apes attack the underground city. Taylor loses hope, but he and Brent each grab weapons and fight against the apes.
Taylor is shot trying to reach the console that controls the Alpha-Omega (ΑΩ) missile the mutants worship. Rising, he attempts to dismantle its nuclear warhead before either the mutants can trigger it, and destroy the whole planet, or the apes can set it off by their carelessness. Desperate, he calls out to Dr. Zaius for help, who flatly refuses him on the grounds that humans create "nothing but destruction". Taylor falls for the last time, his hand plunging the trigger mechanism with his last breath, and the Earth is destroyed.
Taylor appears in references during the third Apes movie, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and a few times in flashbacks, but his (and Heston's) role in the series was complete after the first two installments. Heston hadn't wanted to come back, but the studio held him to his contract; he agreed to appear if his salary were donated to charity, and if the original storyline (which had Taylor and Nova surviving, to found a new human breed) were changed to keep him from having to return for another sequel.
[edit] Quotes
- "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"
- "You did it! You cut up his brain, you bloody baboon."
- "Oh my God. I'm back...I'm home. All the time, it was...we finally really did it!! You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God...damn you all to hell!"
- "You...bloody..bastard!" (His last lines)
- (Landon tells Taylor he is 'prepared to die') "Doesn't that make you misty? Chalk up another victory for the Human spirit!"
