Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Rated PG-13 (violence, mild language, allegory)
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Written by: Mark Bomback (story), Rick Jaffe and Amanda Silver (story and characters), and Pierre Boulle (novel "La Planète des Singes")
*** 1/2 out of ****

"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." -  Battlestar Galactica

I went to this flick because I thought it would at least LOOK good. I wasn't expecting a think piece, but, here we are.

I love science fiction. It shows us what we can be, but, as Rod Serling showed us, it's even better at showing us what we ARE.

What's the movie about? It's a sequel to a reboot that I haven't seen.

Apes, under the leadership of a chimpanzee named Caesar (Andy Serkis), think that humans are extinct. "Ten winters. Two without seeing them," intones Maurice (Karen Konoval), an orang-utan teacher. The Apes have a good life. A village, fire, food, a home. A future. Maurice teaches the children the Laws of the Apes. The chief law is "Ape does not kill Ape." Caesar's son, Blue-Eyes (Nick Thurston) is one of his students. He's also a teenager. Caesar's best friend is Koba (Toby Kebbell), a former lab chimpanzee, who bears the scars of "human work".

The humans that live in San Francisco are running out of fuel. Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) sends an expedition to a nearby hydroelectric dam. The group, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke) crosses paths with Blue-Eyes and his friend. A shot is fired in panic and anger, and... You can see where this is going.

I started with a quotation from the 2004 version of "Battlestar Galactica" for a reason. Because it's fitting.

I'm watching the movie, which opens with Apes and subtitles. I'm sold before we even get to the post-apocalyptica (which I love).

But, as the story moves forward, bits of the amateur scientist in my brain get activated.

Homo Sapiens is the dominant hominid species on the planet, but we weren't (and possibly still aren't) (not to get into Bigfoot bullcrap) always the only ones.

Let's say that h. sapiens comes across h. neanderthalensis. One is smarter (we think), one is stronger (we know). What happens? Do we fight? Humans love fighting. Do we  fuck? Humans love fucking almost more than we love fighting. Do we, dare I dream, try to communicate and coexist?

All three probably happened, but, eventually, we "won".

The original film (the one with Charlton Heston and the damn dirty apes) was obviously an allegory for race relations. This one doesn't shy away from it. Koba bears the scars, memories and hatred of his servitude. Caesar had a different upbringing, and has different ideas about how humans are. In a couple of scenes, Koba actually employs minstrelry to fool humans. Very clever, and very, very angry.

Language was addressed, but not as well as I would have liked. Amongst themselves, the Apes used sign language,  with grunts and rumbles for emphasis. With humans, some chimpanzees had a limited verbal vocabulary. Short, declarative sentences. I don't know if the crew studied chimpanzee anatomy and the films of the "talking chimps" of the early 20th century or not, but, for the most part, the words that they used seemed physically possible.  Sadly, this fell apart towards the end.

One thing I really liked was the fact that the "noble savage" archetype was avoided. The Apes didn't need the White Man to save them, or one of their own to show them the path to salvation. An uneasy truce is the best that can be hoped for.

I don't want to say that the filmmakers are being cynical, but, it seems that war is inevitable. The people in power, or who want to be in power, while they think they have the best interests of society at heart, are short-sighted, selfish and genocidal. But, regardless of our fear of "The Other", we need hope.

One big question is: at least in the world of the movie, does humanity need to survive? The Apes are doing just fine. They've adapted to their new world. They have fire, food, water, shelter and family. Humanity needs technology. The Apes have tools, but humanity had forgotten how to make them. We can repair what we have, but we can no longer create.

At every They Might Be Giants show I've been to, the band divides the audience into "Apes" and "Humans", and, while the band jams, the audience shouts their allegiance. The Apes always win.