Director Matt Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes continues the franchise tradition of exploring prejudice and power. Reeves’ contribution to the Apes mythos is a sense of inevitable catastrophe that pushes Dawn across a spectrum of genres: from allegory to action movie to tragedy.
Humanity’s struggle to find its place in a new world where apes talk and hunt with spears drives events, but the movie centers on Caesar (Andy Serkis), a chimpanzee who embodies all that is noble and good in ape culture. He contends with prejudices and grudges in an attempt to preserve a utopia and avoid war with humanity.
SQ Reviewers gather in the lot behind San Quentin’s education department to discuss the tragic elements in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
As men in prison, each of us has an element of tragedy in our stories: anger that blinded us, fears that drove us, and circumstances that swallowed us. We know firsthand how tragedy often stems from some weakness or moral failing in character that make an otherwise avoidable catastrophe inevitable. Emile DeWeaver poses the question: why was war inevitable and why was the utopia created by the apes doomed?
“I think intelligence ruined everything for the apes,” says Juan Meza. “Before intelligence, there were no evil apes. It reminds me of Adam and Eve in the garden. When they got knowledge, that’s when the bad came.”
“I see your point,” said DeWeaver. “But it breaks down for me because in the movie the apes built a utopia, and they needed intelligence to do that.”
Rahsaan Thomas locates the tragic elements in a vengeful ape named Koba and a bigoted humans like Carver. “I think the tragedy came from the inability to forgive,” he says. “Koba couldn’t understand why Caesar worked with humans, but Caesar knew the humans weren’t going to give up on that dam.”
In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the central conflict revolves around a hydraulic dam in ape territory that humans will stop at nothing to restore.
“Caesar used intelligence to avoid war, so intelligence isn’t evil per se,” Thomas continues. “It all fell apart because Koba couldn’t forgive humans, and the humans like Carver blamed apes for the flu epidemic that killed off most of the humans.”
Meza holds up one finger, seeking to clarify his point. “What I’m trying to say about intelligence is that it brings ambition with it. For me, Koba wanted to be the leader. Caesar was trying to stop war, but Koba wanted to be in charge so he could go to war.”
“Caesar was just stalling war out,” Thomas says. “Eventually it was going to happen anyway. Humans were going to grow and need more space. And the history of America is that when they need more space, they take it.”
“OK,” DeWeaver says. “Humanity definitely has a history of taking the space we think we need. But what’s the quality that describes this taking-mentality, since we’re trying to pinpoint tragic elements?”
Thomas covers his mouth while he thinks. “In the movie, it was the us/them mentality – us humans against those apes.”
DeWeaver closes the meeting with a last thought. “I think the tragic element was fear. When I look at why some apes hated humans or why humans mistrusted talking apes, I see anger and mistrust as defenses against something feared in the future. Koba said he didn’t want humans to have power because they would enslave apes with it. People who are loath to forgive a slight often fear they’ll be slighted again, but what I took from the movie is that letting fear rule us leads right back to the catastrophe we’re trying to avoid.”
We rated Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 3.5 dinner cookies out of 5.
Contributors: Emile DeWeaver, Rahsaan Thomas, Juan Meza, John Chiu
