I swear i'll be writing more in 2014

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

A Theologian Roundtable Discussion of Planet of the Apes

What a contrast between Kubrick's space scenes with what whatever this nameless director did here. 2001 was just so ahead of it's time. I can't reiterate that point enough. Another great decision for Kubrick was to go with nameless actors (of course, when there's no dialogue, why would one need popular actors) but could you imagine if he chose Chuckie Heston to be "Dave" and how every single line would've been overacted to a Herculean degree? I'm convinced that once Heston played Moses in The Ten Commandments, he decided to play that role in every movie from then on and deliver his lines accordingly unless Michael Moore had a camera in front of his face.

In Planet of the Apes it kind of works because well, this isn't the greatest movie and overacting makes it more fun. After all, lines like "Never trust anyone over 30!" and the closer, "Damn you all to hell!" are classics. Could anyone else besides Heston have the gonads to land on a what they think is a brand new planet in outer space, and take off their mask to breathe in the atmosphere? I say no. Maybe Vin Diesel, but if he did it, surely the atmosphere would be disagreeable, his head would explode and there'd be much rejoicing. YEY!

What's best about this movie though, is that if you get through all the cool ape costumes and Heston's Moseseque dialogue, you have a movie that really wants to make fun of organized religion, and how can you not enjoy that? There's a scene where the apes even say, "FACTS DENOUNCING RELIGION! COVER YOUR EARS! There's something about apes believing in an organized religion and covering their ears like 5 year olds finding out there's no Santa Claus when it comes to science that's really satisfying. Some apes call the others baboons too, which I believe is a racial blast (or is me thinking its a racial blast, a racial blast?)

The question then is, do apes and baboons have a different set of religious views? They obviously share in the belief that they are both much better than man, but do some primates believe the God of the Planet of the Apes wanted them to explore the forbidden zone, or not? What about gorillas and monkeys too? It's interesting how all the primates put aside what could be vast differences in religious views and unite in their hatred for man-kind. Maybe it's time for man to put aside its petty differences, and go on a primate killing spree. That'll learn'em. Of course we wouldn't hurt any monkees, after all, they can imitate us and smoke cigars.

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