There are many dualities in The Planet of the Apes, one of which being civil liberties versus slavery. In my opinion, this is the main underlying conflict of the film; the obvious one being that Davidson wants to get back to his own time. In the beginning, when Davidson is captured along with the other humans, he is put into cages owned by the human trafficker, Limbo, and he starts to brand the humans. This signifies the humans’ capture and that they now belong to the apes. Ari, the only ape that is accepting of the humans, stops Limbo from branding any other more humans. This now introduces the idea that not all apes think lowly of the humans. She is the only one that stands up for the humans and their rights. She believes that they can be trained for better things than what they are used for. The moment she sees Davidson she is drawn to him then buys him and the human girl. Even though she believes that they should have their own rights she still buys them for ownership rather then buying them to set them free, even though she helps them escape later on in the film.
Near the end of the film, starting the climax, you see that Davidson and his group are now in the forbidden area and many other humans start to flood there. Davidson’s group are on the run, they stood up against the suppression of the humans and are trying to gain true freedom. The apes are hunting them because they reject any individuality the humans possess. The humans are seen as nothing more than a group of belongings that have disobeyed their masters. At this point, the apes haven’t changed other than the three that end up in Davidson’s group. Limbo now understands the humans since he was treated like one, even though he is still sleeze. The ape that went with them just because of Ari seems to be more accepting of the humans even though he didn’t really treat them badly in the beginning. Daena, the human girl, through out the film rejected any help from the apes but now is also more accepting of them since their journey together. After the battle the two groups become one. One of the apes says that the graves will not be marked and that all the lives lost will be remembered together as one.
This is Dylan Seals' comment~
ReplyDeleteGood post. Maybe instead of stating how a bunch of characters changed in the last sentences, you could focused more in depth on a couple characters and scenes and explained how their point of view progressed throughout the film.