One of the first things I noticed in Planet of the Apes was the obvious criticism of slavery. The treatment of the humans by the apes is very similar to how Americans used to treat their slaves and how many cultures in history treated their slaves as well. Two scenes I would like to compare is one on the spaceship and one where Leo has just landed on the future Earth. In the first scene, we see Leo with his chimp on the spaceship bringing him back to his cage after training. He seems to care for his chimp for he treats him kindly, but he keeps him in a cage just as many other monkeys are kept as well. I am sure many people would consider this a lot more humane than the next scene, however. In the second scene, we see Leo in a caged cart with other captured humans. To take them out of the cage, the apes grab them harshly around the neck and lead them along. The apes push them around, physically harm them, brand their skin, etc. The apes treat the humans extremely badly, but as I said earlier it is no worse than how we used to treat our slaves. Going back to the first scene, however, while yes the humans are in no way physically harming the monkeys, they are still abusing them. They are locking them in cages and taking away their freedom. The reason why they are in the cages on a spaceship in the first place is because the humans destroyed the forests. The apes on the spaceships are the only ones left on Earth. Humans destroyed the apes homes for their own selfish reasons and then after leaving them homeless they put them in cages. I think this film is pointing out that we have not improved as much as we believe we have. We are no longer allowed to keep other humans as our slaves, but we still have racism, bullying, discrimination, etc. Burton is not just pointing out how humans are killing the Earth, but he is also commenting on how we still treat each other. We live in a world full of crime, violence, hatred, and destruction, and we show no evidence of change. If we do not change our ways maybe we will end up with a planet where apes rule.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Jump - Planet of the Apes
One of the first things I noticed in Planet of the Apes was the obvious criticism of slavery. The treatment of the humans by the apes is very similar to how Americans used to treat their slaves and how many cultures in history treated their slaves as well. Two scenes I would like to compare is one on the spaceship and one where Leo has just landed on the future Earth. In the first scene, we see Leo with his chimp on the spaceship bringing him back to his cage after training. He seems to care for his chimp for he treats him kindly, but he keeps him in a cage just as many other monkeys are kept as well. I am sure many people would consider this a lot more humane than the next scene, however. In the second scene, we see Leo in a caged cart with other captured humans. To take them out of the cage, the apes grab them harshly around the neck and lead them along. The apes push them around, physically harm them, brand their skin, etc. The apes treat the humans extremely badly, but as I said earlier it is no worse than how we used to treat our slaves. Going back to the first scene, however, while yes the humans are in no way physically harming the monkeys, they are still abusing them. They are locking them in cages and taking away their freedom. The reason why they are in the cages on a spaceship in the first place is because the humans destroyed the forests. The apes on the spaceships are the only ones left on Earth. Humans destroyed the apes homes for their own selfish reasons and then after leaving them homeless they put them in cages. I think this film is pointing out that we have not improved as much as we believe we have. We are no longer allowed to keep other humans as our slaves, but we still have racism, bullying, discrimination, etc. Burton is not just pointing out how humans are killing the Earth, but he is also commenting on how we still treat each other. We live in a world full of crime, violence, hatred, and destruction, and we show no evidence of change. If we do not change our ways maybe we will end up with a planet where apes rule.
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I like how you related the mistreatment of the humans to have a deeper meaning than just relating to the treatment of apes. I thought that too. Burton does paint a bigger picture of how people treat other people as well . I however think this also matches well with how we treat the environment. good post, you had great points of interest.
ReplyDelete-jackie