The Simian Flu causes the near extinction of the human
species. The smallest organisms are the most adaptable and therefore the most probable
downfall of a “grand” civilisation of advanced intelligent species.
The apes use jewellery, sign language, war paint and adopt
team tactics to hunt. They also have social organisation and use resources to
construct basic architecture.
The gun is a very strong symbol for power in this movie. The
guns (brought and used by the human scout party) is the cause of initial
mistrust. The stockpiled weapons are also the reason for confidence of the
human settlers. And later Koba uses it to usurp power. Even more significantly,
the apes later take over the weapon stockpiles and turn it on the human
survivor colony.
Interpersonal vs political trust. Caesar and Malcolm strike
up a friendship through needing to trust each other in various tenuous
situations. They do not want to fight. Yet they will be unable to change the
tide and control their respective sides. War has already begun between their
sides as Caesar rightfully put it. Interpersonal trust is much easier to
construct. Political trust is at best temporary. Koba and Caesar also lose their
interpersonal ape trust (Which Caesar thought to be uncorruptible) over issues
of political trust.
Koba is able to frame the humans for the assassination of
Caesar and use their emotions to launch a fast offensive against the humans.
This serves as a caution against reactionary politics. No matter how
devastating the attack, we must always rationalise and execute a deliberated
follow-up to the situation lest we play into the advantage of scheming parties.
“Dehumanising” the enemy (Apes) is ironic since the enemy isn’t
human to begin with. Dreyfus repeatedly refers to the apes as “animals” even
though they clearly possess intelligence, culture and technology. In this
instance, his dehumanisation of the apes seeks to emphasize their “evil” ways and
“unhuman-like” rationality. So the apes cannot and should not be reasoned or
bargained with. The apes will not show
the humans mercy. Therefore likewise the humans cannot reason, bargain and show
mercy to the apes. The other interesting example of this element is when Koba purposefully
animalises himself so as to trick the human weapon testers to gain their
confidence and lowers their guard. He eventually kills them as they thought of
him as no more than an animal and not capable of “human” trickery.
It is hard to rationalise who is the wiser leader in the
end? Koba or Caesar? It is easy to think of Caesar as the better as he is “kinder”
but Koba’s political approach to the human colony is rational on some levels as
it is pre-emptive. Eventually the humans and apes would clash as the humans
would seek to rebuild their world and the apes, as another advanced colony,
would be a direct competitor in a world of little and scarce resources. The
humans would have the weapons stockpile and therefore the tactical advantage.
So Koba’s approach is to wipe them out while the apes had the element of
surprise before the humans wiped the apes out (eventually). Caesar’s approach
was not entirely clear in the movie. He allowed for them to repair the dam and
was not going to meddle in the humans’ affairs. It is left unseen whether he
would then seek to strengthen the ape colony defences but it is arguable how
much he would be able to do before the 2 colonies came into conflict
eventually. It is not certain whether this short term peace would be able to
translate into a long term peaceful co-existence between the 2 colonies.
Another important issue in this movie is that of perspectivism. Ultimately, Koba has reason...no...REASONS...to mistrust humans given his life experiences. Caesar was much more privileged in that sense and therefore can trust humans to a larger degree. Their different life experiences therefore form their two differing but equally valid perspectives. In issues of politics, it is important (but difficult) to put aside one's own prejudices and perspectives and approach the matter based on cold hard rationalism.
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