Danny ChaiFinally saw the original Planet Of The Apes last night. Absolutely loved it. Henry will hate it because it’s “slow”, cerebral and it shows its age in certain ways. But I liked it.
I’m actually one of the few people that liked the remake OK. But all the reasons I liked the remake I found were better in the original, all these interesting issues like science and faith and racism and what it means to have a soul and other fascinating things. One fascinating thing about the movie is that it brings up issues that it doesn’t pretend to answer. Like an ape asks, “What is it that separates simians from all other animals?” And he doesn’t answer the question.
Which is an interesting question philosophically. I dunno, from what I read, a lot of philosophers historically have believed that spoken language is this defining characteristic. Was it Descartes? Someone believed that spoken language was the only proof that someone had a soul, and it had fascinating implications for deaf / mute people. And, it’s also interesting from an AI standpoint, because it’s a fully functional criterion. But anyway.
It’s interesting nowadays because of those experiments nowadays where they teach simians sign language. I dunno, at least for me, the implications are a little disturbing and I’m not sure what to make of it. Especially if one is not religious, it’s weird to think about. Dunno if this stuff was happening when they made the movie, but yeah, it’s a very interesting issue.
And one thing the movie touched on that the remake developed much more was how the thing that separated humans from simians (since it wasn’t intelligence) was ingenuity. Absolutely fascinating, I think. The movie was full of interesting issues like this. I dunno, for me personally, I thought it was brilliant. In light of it, the remake seems terrible. All the issues that were interesting became heavy-handed and confusing. My opinion. And Estella Warren isn’t even that attractive.