Martinez- Planet of the Apes

The duality between civil liberties and slavery in Planet of the Apes helps develop the characters of the movie because depending on what side each character stands on with this conflict is how they unravel as a character. Ari, for example, is against the humans being treated so harshly and she says several times in the movie that she wants equality between apes and humans. One scene in particular, the scene in which one of the other apes who is in charge of holding the humans tells her that if her father wasn’t such an important man that they would kill her. When he says that she just stands there because she knows he is right. The reason she can be as vivacious as she is with her view that humans and apes should be equals is because she is immune from all punishments from authority. Because of this, she is a prominent character in the movie because she stands out in the eyes of the audience and the characters in the movie as a proud activist of equality between the two species.

A second scene that deals with the issue of civil liberties and slavery is when one of the guests at the dinner party trips one of the slaves and slams his head on the table. It is here that the audience sees that the humans are the slaves of the apes and the apes are their owners. This brings up the question of at what point do we start categorizing each other as “master” and “slave.” This makes the audience question under what conditions does one group of people become dominant over another group of people or species. This reflects directly back to the time when slavery was a common part of life here in the United States. Clearly one group of people claimed themselves superior over another group of people and made them become their slaves. Seeing the humans work for the apes as servants further emphasizes the difference between the world the Captain came from and the planet he is on now. The apes treat their human slaves in similar ways that humans in our world today treat other people or other animals. This makes the audience think about how dominant humans think they are above everything else. The enslavement of the humans signifies how much power the apes have over them and how weak the humans are. The apes have so much power and control over their land that the humans do not stand a chance next to them.

The duality of civil liberties and slavery in this movie makes the audience think about the importance of equality because one group of people should never enslave another species just because of their appearance.