Williams- Planet of the Apes, Planet of the Humans. Why can't we all just get along?

        In Tim Burton's movie Planet of the Apes he definitely sparks up a conversation on the duality of civil liberties and slavery and which species gets to be the master. In the beginning of the movie, the audiences see Captain Davidson trying to train a chimpanzee how to maneuver a flight simulator. He teases the chimp but over all he kind. One could compare him to a kind master. He is not cruel, but he is strict and not one to confuse the chimp as a person with emotions. The whole purpose of training the chimps is because to humans they are considered sentimental beings. In other words their life is not of equal value as it is to a human. Which brings up the first question. Who has the right to put a value on someone's or something's worth? Since man has the weapons and supposedly can have intellectual thought, they consider themselves superior.

        When Captain Davidson is taken to a new dimension in which apes are the superior and humans are considered lower than dirt. The positions of master and slave are switched. Davidson does a good job describing what humans do to apes when he tries to explain his world to Ari. Chimps belong in cages in the zoo. Humans have nearly killed the few remaining apes in the wild. Their land is is torn and they hunted just like the earlier scene in the movie when the apes try to capture the humans out of the jungles tie them up and put them in cages. They are like poachers. This brings up the second question of who should feel pity for. On the movie most humans say they feel sympathy for the humans. After all most humans don't believe they belong in a cage or forced out of their homes and treated like a slave. This then relates to two controversial topics. Men taking other men from their homes and treating them like slaves as in American history or humans taking animals from their home and putting them into zoos as means for entertainment. This is leads us to the third question of whether or not it is ethically alright to treat animals in a way no human would want to be treated? the struggle for dominance is harsh and often time immoral which is what I think Tim Burton is trying to portray. He may not be actually talking about animals rights and more subtly talking about the injustices we do to our fellow men, but either way, the message is still powerful.