Trama

In 2029, an Air Force astronaut crash-lands on a mysterious planet where evolved, talking apes dominate a race of primitive humans.

In the year 2029, astronaut Leo Davidson boards a pod cruiser on a Space Station on a rescue and recovery mission, but an abrupt detour through a space time wormhole lands him on a strange planet where talking apes rule over the human race. With help from sympathetic chimpanzee activist Ari and a small band of human rebels, Leo leads the effort to evade the advancing Gorilla Army led by General Thade and his most trusted warrior Attar. Now the race is on to reach a sacred temple within the planet's Forbidden Zone to discover the shocking secrets of mankind's past--and the key to its future.—Tim1370

An astronaut trying to rescue a chimpanzee astronaut in space ends up landing on a planet inhabited by talking human-like apes. Leo Davidson finds himself captured by the apes and placed in a cage with other humans. All the apes take this same 'human hating' attitude, with one exception. A kind female ape called Ari sees something different in these humans and plans to help them in whatever they need to do.—FilmFanUK

In 2029, aboard the United States Air Force space station Oberon, Leo Davidson works closely with apes who are trained for space missions. His favorite ape co-worker is a chimpanzee named Pericles. With a deadly electromagnetic storm approaching the station, a small space pod piloted by Pericles is used to probe the storm. Pericles's pod heads into the storm and disappears. Leo takes a second pod to find Pericles. Entering the storm, Leo loses contact with the Oberon, and in 5021 A.D., crashes on a planet called Ashlar. He learns that the world is ruled by intelligent apes who treat humans as slaves.

Leo meets a female chimpanzee named Ari, who protests the mistreatment humans receive. Ari decides to buy Leo and a female slave named Daena to have them work as servants in the house of her father, Senator Sandar. Leo escapes his cage and frees other humans. Limbo, an orangutan trader in captured humans, sees them but is taken prisoner to ensure his silence. The murderous General Thade and his gorilla junior, Colonel Attar, march ape warriors to pursue the humans. Leo discovers Calima, the forbidden, holy temple of "Semos", the first ape, whom the apes revere as a God.

Calima turns out to be the remains of the Oberon which had crashed on the planet's surface and now looks ancient (the name Calima comes from the sign "CAution LIve aniMAls", the relevant letters being the only ones not covered in dust). According to the computer logs, the station has been there for thousands of years. Leo realizes that when he entered the vortex, he was pushed forward in time, while the Oberon, searching after him, was not, crashing on the planet long before he did.

The Oberon's log reveals that the apes on board, led by Semos, organized a mutiny and took over the vessel after it crashed. The human and ape survivors of the struggle left the ship, and their descendants are the people Leo has encountered since landing. The apes arrive and attack the humans who have gathered to see Leo, although he evens the odds when he uses the Oberon's last fragments of fuel to fire a final blast at the first wave of apes. The battle stops when a familiar vehicle descends from the sky, which Leo immediately identifies as the pod piloted by Pericles, the chimpanzee astronaut who was pushed in time as Leo was and had just now found his way to the planet, the electromagnetic storm releasing people from it in an opposite direction in time to their entrance because they were traveling backward not forward in time. When Pericles lands and the pod opens, the apes bow, interpreting his arrival as the return of Semos, and hostilities between humans and apes suddenly cease.

Pericles runs into the wreck of the Oberon and Leo runs after him, followed by General Thade. Thade and Leo fight. Pericles tries to help Leo, but Thade throws him hard against a wall. Thade takes Leo's gun from him and tries to fire it at Leo. Leo sees that Thade is within the pilot's deck and closes the automatic door, trapping Thade inside. Thade fires the gun repeatedly at the door, but the ricochets create sparks that scare Thade, who huddles under a control panel. Deciding to escape Ashlar and return to Earth, Leo gives Pericles to Ari, who promises to look after him. After saying farewell to Ari and Daena, Leo climbs aboard Pericles's undamaged pod and travels through the same electromagnetic storm.

Leo crashes in Washington, D.C., on Earth and looks up at what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial, only to find that it is now a monument memorializing General Thade. A swarm of police officers, firefighters, and news reporters descend upon him, revealed to all be apes as Leo realizes that he is on ape-dominated Earth.