John Landon

John Landon is a fictional astronaut and a supporting character featured in the Planet of the Apes film franchise. He appeared in the original 1968 production of Planet of the Apes where he was played by actor Robert Gunner. A character named John Landon also appeared in the 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes, where he was played by actor Brian Cox.

Biography
John Landon was a human astronaut who joined the ANSA program some time in the 1960s. According to his colleague, George Taylor, Landon was an ambitious scientist who "wanted to live forever".

Along with Taylor and fellow astronauts Dodge and Stewart, Landon participated in a mission to journey to another star. The crew of the Liberty 1 (nicknamed "Icarus") launched out of Cape Kennedy in 1971 and spent over six months in outer space. Taylor, commander of the mission, placed the crew into a state of suspended animation, in preparation for the second leg of their journey. While they slept, the Icarus passed through a Hasslein Curve, a twist in space, that propelled the ship several centuries into the future. The ship crash-landed back on Earth in the year 3978. Splashing down into a stagnant salt lake, the crew revived and scurried to freedom.

Landon was an adventurer and a patriot. As such, he found it hardest of the three to come to terms with their fate and argued strongly with Taylor after their crash-landing. Taylor maintained a rigid attitude, while Dodge committed himself towards finding a means to survive on this new world. Landon meanwhile, found himself the target of Taylor's acerbic wit. Taylor even chided Landon for placing a small American flag in the sand near the lake where they crashed.

Landon's most startling surprise however, came when he discovered that this world was populated by horseback-riding, talking apes. A troupe of gorilla hunters attacked a grove of trees where several mute humans had been dwelling. Landon and the others were swept up into the hunt and Landon was captured. The gorillas brought him back to Ape City, where he was examined and later lobotomized. During Taylor's subsequent trial, he was shown Landon and became furious at what Dr Zaius had done to him. Landon is taken back to his cage, while Zaius later admits he knew Landon could talk, and had him operated on to keep his people ignorant.

When Brent visited Zira and Cornelius in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Cornelius told him that Taylor nearly ended up a museum specimen "like his two friends", which suggests that Landon was also dead and displayed alongside Dodge by that point. It's possible that during a skirmish or shooting practice involving gorilla soldiers, Landon was shot and killed.