Planet Of The Apes Satire Essay, Research Paper

The setting of the movie compared to the setting in the book makes Planet of the Apes one of the greatest satires. In the movie, the setting takes place on earth in the future where apes deny and are afraid of the past, whereas the setting in the book is on a different planet where apes are civilized and technologically advanced, and the humans were primitive creatures. The orangutans in the movie prevent what happened to the humans from happening to the apes. Orangutans, such as Zaius went to great work as destroying the cave where the evidence of the humans reigned is revealed and removing Landen s memory. In the book civilization of humans on Earth is equal to and may even surpass the civilization of the apes on Sorror. The point of view in the book is through Ulysees mind. He is clam and patient. Taylor in the movie is an impatient angry man who is never satisfied and is outraged by the fact that apes are running the planet and have locked him up. In the movie Taylor is a misanthrope who is hot-tempered and not respectful to the apes. He calls them “Bloody Baboons!” Taylor left Earth to find a better place and ended up where he started. In the book, Ulysee is kind and respectful towards the apes, and he was granted citizenship to their civilization and begins to assign apes human features. Ulysee was granted citizenship because of the speech he made before them. He gave that speech with respect and loyalty towards the apes for acceptance. The tones in the book and the movie are different, the tone in the movie is unpredictable and fearful as opposed to the book, which had a calm mellow tone. In the movie, Taylor creates outbursts such as when he tries to escape and puts up a fight. He is taunts and fights the apes that tried to return him to the prison area. This led to one of the most important scenes in the movie, where Taylor says his first words to the apes. In the book, Ulysee patiently waits for the apes to recognize his superiority over the other humans. Ulysee prevents himself from creating outbursts and shows how intelligent he is instead. Satire in Book has the ideas of mimicry as compared to the idea of humans ending our own lives through nuclear annihilation in the movie. In the movie, humans destroy each other by nuclear warfare, which is shown at the end of the movie when Taylor finds the remains of the Statue of Liberty. In the book, mimicry is revealed at the end where the apes drive machines that resemble in every aspect, vehicles of Ulysees age. Mimicry is also shown when Cornelius shows Ulysee the talking human or Sorror. The human explains that the apes mimicked the humans and learned speech to spread ideas. She explains that the apes basically over thew the humans.

Humans are the target of satire because of the nuclear warfare in the movie opposed to the apes mimicry of humans in the book. The movie shows that the humans are uncontrollable, dangerous, primitive creatures when Zaius explains that the forbidden zone is desert because the humans destroyed the land making it in fertile. This points to the arrogance of humans in that they didn t care if they ruined the Earth. The book shows the apes mimicry of the humans when on the expedition they find a human doll, representing a little girl. This reveals that the humans roamed this planet first and they apes just mimicked everything they did.

A new perspective of humans destroying ourselves is gained by the end of the movie as compared to the apes overtaking humans because of humans teaching them to be like us in the book. Humans end up destroying each other in the movie as revealed by the ending, but we gain the chance to change it all to prevent the end of our cultures. This was of great importance from when the movie was made, during the Cold War, when nuclear weapons were being developed. The apes overtaking us in the book shows us what could happen, not only with teachings of apes, but also the dangers of technology. The ideas of apes taking control over humans and humans ending our own superiority are both possibilities of the future, but the idea of the apes taking over Earth is more likely to be substituted by machines.