In Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, there is a strong sense of duality between the idea of civil liberties versus the idea of slavery. In the beginning of the film we see Captain Davidson, part of the US Airforce, attempting to train a monkey, Pericles, to venture out into space on his own using a virtual reality program. Later in this scene we see a row of cages with a monkey in each. Captain Davidson’s monkey was sent out to collect data on an electrical storm in space when the monkey was lost. Captain Davidson went out to try to find Pericles and was sucked in by the electrical storm and catapulted into a completely new world. This world is one where the apes are the rulers and the humans are the ones in cages. Davison traveled from a world where humans were the ones with civil liberties and the monkeys could be considered the slaves, into a world that was exactly the opposite.
On this new planet, humans are practically hunted and captured, and eventually sold to an ape. Unlike what Captain Davidson was accustomed to, on this planet the humans were the slaves and catered to their ape ruler’s every wish. Captain Davidson asks the question of how this planets ideals became so backwards, but to the apes the idea that apes are masters and humans are slaves is not backwards at all. Not every ape believed that the humans should be treated as slaves though. There was one ape, Ari, who believed that the humans were not deserving of the awful treatment that the apes put them through and tried to help Captain Davidson and some of the other humans escape from the ape.
When watching this movie I found myself asking one big question. Do we feel bad for the humans because we believe that it is wrong to enslave another creature, or simply because it was humans who were the ones being enslaved? The answer to this question may seem obvious to some, but when I watched the movie I realized that when I saw the monkeys in cages I didn’t necessarily feel bad per say. That’s not to say that I think putting animals in cages is right by any means, I love animals, but every day animals like mice and rats are put in cages and used for experiments to further science and many people don’t consider that as enslavement. It wasn’t until I saw the humans being used as experiments in the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes that I made the connection between animals that could be considered enslaved every day, in zoos, for example. In the 1968 version of the film, the nephew of Dr. Zira, Lucius, asks Dr. Zaius “why must knowledge stand still? What about the future?” just before Dr. Zaius was about to blow up the caves that proved that apes evolved from humans. Planet of the Apes shows us that instead of enslaving or committing harmful acts against our own kind we should use each other to further the world around us, and realize that it is only by chance that we are considered the rulers and we could have just easily have been the ruled.
On this new planet, humans are practically hunted and captured, and eventually sold to an ape. Unlike what Captain Davidson was accustomed to, on this planet the humans were the slaves and catered to their ape ruler’s every wish. Captain Davidson asks the question of how this planets ideals became so backwards, but to the apes the idea that apes are masters and humans are slaves is not backwards at all. Not every ape believed that the humans should be treated as slaves though. There was one ape, Ari, who believed that the humans were not deserving of the awful treatment that the apes put them through and tried to help Captain Davidson and some of the other humans escape from the ape.
When watching this movie I found myself asking one big question. Do we feel bad for the humans because we believe that it is wrong to enslave another creature, or simply because it was humans who were the ones being enslaved? The answer to this question may seem obvious to some, but when I watched the movie I realized that when I saw the monkeys in cages I didn’t necessarily feel bad per say. That’s not to say that I think putting animals in cages is right by any means, I love animals, but every day animals like mice and rats are put in cages and used for experiments to further science and many people don’t consider that as enslavement. It wasn’t until I saw the humans being used as experiments in the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes that I made the connection between animals that could be considered enslaved every day, in zoos, for example. In the 1968 version of the film, the nephew of Dr. Zira, Lucius, asks Dr. Zaius “why must knowledge stand still? What about the future?” just before Dr. Zaius was about to blow up the caves that proved that apes evolved from humans. Planet of the Apes shows us that instead of enslaving or committing harmful acts against our own kind we should use each other to further the world around us, and realize that it is only by chance that we are considered the rulers and we could have just easily have been the ruled.
I like how you asked the morality question based on whether or not we feel bad because they are humans. Could you also say though that it isn't bad if humans are put in cages and experimented on to further the advancement of ape sciences?
ReplyDeleteI feel like in the end of the newest movie, when the apes took over again, was inevitable. The apes and humans couldn't work together to further the advancement of science because one side would always have an opposing view. Apes and humans are only different species in the move but yet they talk and act in the same way. Humans are the same but yet we are all different just like the apes and humans. Human nature tells us that no two races or species can co-exist without a dependence on one another. The apes would do just fine without the humans if there were none in existence. -Nick Arceneaux