2. In famous ending of Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston (SPOILER ALERT) figures out he's on earth by seeing ruins of Statue of Libertypic.twitter.com/yCrJ77xyu2
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2. In famous ending of Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston (SPOILER ALERT) figures out he's on earth by seeing ruins of Statue of Libertypic.twitter.com/yCrJ77xyu2
3. That scene has a pre-history. Almost as soon as Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, people began imagining it as a ruin.
4. John Ames Mitchell's novel The Last American (1889: 3 years after Statue of Liberty built) about Persians in 2951 CE who visit ruined USA
5. One of the first sights the 30th century Persians see in post-apocalyptic USA is Statue of Libertypic.twitter.com/gnNGfYU7az
6. As @john_clute has traced out, visions of a Statue of Liberty as a misunderstood ruin show in other SF novels before Planet of the Apes.
7. Reason for recurring image is science fiction was product not only of industrial age but also discovery of deep history by archeology.
8. In late 18th and early 19th century, archeology created a new sense of past as a living presence in the form of ruins: a littered past.
9. Percy Shelley was among the poets most influenced by new awareness of the past as ruins: "Ozymandias" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias …
10. It's no accident that the ruin-loving Shelley was married to first real science fiction writer: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
11. Science fiction is an attempt to apply historical thinking to the future: to imagine a future as different as the past.
12. One powerful trope in science fiction is the ruins of futurity: imaging contemporary monuments turning into Ozymandias' statue.
13. There's a second aspect to the ruins of futurity, which is that the destruction of monuments is secretly thrilling.
14. Think of the countless science fiction movies where the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, White House, Taj Mahal, Pyramids are destroyed.
15. In 1927, the Russian fantasist Sigismund Krzyzanowski imagined the Eiffel Tower coming to life.pic.twitter.com/8kssuCMfqH
16. Krzyzanowski's fantasy is rooted in the fear monuments can provoke. They loom over us, burden us, belittle us. We want to destroy them
17. Here's a 1953 cover for Fantastic Universe which might have influenced the Planet of the Apes final scene.pic.twitter.com/hqtTEvWTDQ
18. And here's the same artist (Alex Schomberg) riffing on theme in 1964 (four years before Planet of the Apes).pic.twitter.com/8KPAX6l6oi
19. I'll just end with the great Jack Kirby riffing on this them, post-Planet of the Apes, in Kamandipic.twitter.com/Ss7sSsxaMB
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