The Beginning of the End: An Interpretive Analysis of DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
With the new Planet of the Apes movie coming out in a couple of weeks, I take a look back at the last movie released in the franchise...
**THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR DAWN OF PLANET OF THE APES THROUGHOUT- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**
I have long held the belief that the best science fiction films are the ones that serve as allegories and make a statement about our current world. Many apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films use their imagined settings to show us what might happen if society collapsed, thereby exploring the nature of humanity within the small group(s) of survivors. I enjoy the vast majority of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films, even though many of them are similar in the way that they warn us about what the future could look like in the event of a worldwide crisis. What’s interesting though is that a lot of these films present the direct aftermath of the apocalypse, rather than focusing in depth on what caused the collapse in the first place. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) is unique in that is a post-apocalyptic film that isn’t really about the apocalypse at all. The story, which takes place ten years after the “Simian Ape Flu” has wiped out much of humanity, follows a small band of human survivors in San Francisco who come across a group of apes living in a forest, leading to hostility and tension between the two sides. An emotional, character-driven drama, Dawn’s story examines a variety of complex issues that are applicable to all human beings, both today and in any time in human history. The film’s central point of interest is conflict, and among some of the most important ideas that make up Dawn’s thematic framework are fear, mistrust, good and evil, and humans vs apes.
The film begins with an extended sequence showing how the apes have evolved into their own nomadic community. Led by Caesar, the apes have built a small village high up in the Muir Woods. They have also created their own educational system, complete with writing and a sign language system that they all use to communicate with one other. Through Cesar’s conversation with the orangutan Maurice, we learn that it has been two years since the apes last saw any humans, making the apes believe that humans are either gone or dead. All seems well until a man named Carver stumbles across a couple of younger apes in the forest. As Carver and the apes notice each other, they instinctively react out of fear, having never encountered a member of the opposite species before. Carver defensively pulls out his gun and panics after a few moments, fatally shooting one of the apes. With this act of violence, the conflict between humans and apes is set into motion. Caesar and the rest of the apes do not trust the humans, and the humans do not trust the apes. After the apes go to the human colony and warn them to stay out of their territory, all of the humans begin to freak out as their leader, Dreyfuss, tries to reassure them that the apes will “be sorry if they ever come back.” This scene demonstrates how powerful fear of the unknown can be. So many people in the world don’t trust what/whom they don’t understand, and in turn, they fear what/whom they don’t trust. Most of the humans in the film automatically perceive the apes to be dangerous just because they are “the other,” who are assumed to automatically pose a threat to the survival of humans (being that the virus that destroyed human civilization originated from the apes).
On the ape side of things, the character who embodies the mistrust of humans is Koba. In the previous film, Rise, Koba was shown to be one of the apes who was held captive and experimented on in the Gen-Sys laboratory. Due to his mistreatment, Koba holds a grudge against humans. An early scene where Koba confronts Caesar perfectly encapsulates Koba’s mistrust. After questioning Caesar’s decision to let the humans gain access to the hydroelectric dam, Caesar tells Koba, “Let the humans do their work.” Koba responds by repeatedly shouting, “Human work,” pointing to all of the visible scars on his body and his damaged eye. Only experiencing the ugly side of humanity, Koba has created a negative stereotype that all humans are evil and just want to kill and control apes. As Caesar tells his son, “From humans Koba learned hate. But nothing else.” Thinking about the harsh political climate of America today, I can’t help but draw a parallel between Koba’s narrow-minded views and Islamophobia, with the way that many right-wing conservatives are prejudiced against Muslims, believing that militant terrorist groups like ISIS are representative of all of Islam. In general though, Koba conveys the unfortunate way that prejudice and bigotry work in the world. Negative thoughts and actions toward a specific group are always acquired attitudes, which often arise from contextual influences at a young age and continue for the rest of a person’s life.
Contrasting Koba is Caesar, who has a very different perspective on humans. In many ways, Koba and Caesar are different sides of the same coin, such as in the way that Koba aggressively acts on instinct, while Caesar carefully thinks things over to make rational decisions, with the opposing ideologies of the two reflecting their past experiences with humans. Unlike Koba, Caesar has seen both the good and bad in people. As a baby ape, Caesar was taken in and cared for by Will, one of the Gen-Sys scientists, who gave Caesar a home where he grew up learning to love his human family. But Caesar has also been subjected to the cruelty of humans while he was at the primate shelter. Because he has experienced the best and the worst sides of humanity, Caesar takes into account individual differences and recognizes that not all humans are evil. After acknowledging these two differing worldviews, the film reaffirms Caesar's instead of Koba's, showing us that there are some humans who fear and mistreat apes (such as Carver), but that there are also other humans who treat apes with respect and decency (i.e. Malcolm and his family).
Related to its exploration of human nature, the film is also interested in whether notions of “good” and “evil” even exist during times of war. As opposed to many other Hollywood films, there are no clear-cut villains in Dawn. For example, at the end of the film, Dreyfuss calls in the military and tries to blow up the high-rise tower where all of the apes are, because as he puts it, he is “saving the human race.” Dreyfuss had just been a part of the first post-Simian Flu battle between the apes and humans, which to him seemed like a transgression by the apes, who launched an assault to kill all of the humans (Dreyfuss and the rest of the humans didn’t know that Koba’s betrayal was what led to all of the apes attacking). In this context, Dreyfuss’ behavior makes sense, as he wants to try to stop the group of apes, now led by Koba, from killing and imprisoning the rest of the human population. Even with Koba, who is the closest thing to the antagonist of the film, we can still understand all of the motivations behind his actions. Essentially starting the whole war between humans and apes, Koba does a lot of things that could be classified as “evil,” but from his perspective, he is simply doing what he thinks is right, and the film acknowledges where he is coming from. The actual action set-piece where the apes attack the humans underscores the point that there are no good guys or bad guys. Watching the apes and the humans kill each other is not exciting in the slightest; rather, it is deeply saddening. The violence is shot and directed in a way that stylistically emphasizes the destructive impact caused by war, highlighted by the shot where the camera is mounted on the tank as it rotates more than 360 degrees around to give us an all-encompassing look at the human and ape casualties. The reason why this scene works so well dramatically is that there is no one to root for here. The apes and the humans are both helpless to the devastation they are inflicting on one another, illustrating how horrific the loss of life in war is- regardless of who it involves.
Although many of the apes and humans feel afraid of each other because they think they are different, the film makes it a point to recognize how similar the two really are. In fact, at one point, after Caesar has been shot by Koba and is recovering in his old home, Caesar says, “I always think ape better than human. I see now how much like them we are.” This could come across as a heavy-handed piece of dialogue, but thankfully, the film does not just tell us this, it repeatedly shows us how the apes and humans are alike. For instance, there are a lot of characters who are aligned with similar counterparts in the opposite species. Malcolm and Caesar are both the diplomatic members of their respective groups, who take charge and try to preserve peace for as long as possible. They both also place great significance on taking care of their families, which serve as their primary motivation for them wanting to help each other and avoid war. Dreyfuss and Koba are also similar in that both of them are radicals who don’t trust the other group and are inclined to go to war to resolve the issue. More broadly, both the humans and apes share common values and emotions that are mirrored in the film. This can be seen most clearly after the power comes back on and Dreyfuss breaks down crying as he looks at old pictures of his family on an iPad, while similarly, Caesar finds a camera with a video of him as a young ape with Will, his previous human owner, when he briefly returns to his old home. Caesar remembers this fond memory and tears up as he looks on. Unable to look past their obvious physical differences, the majority of humans and apes never realize that they have the same goal of wanting to peacefully co-exist. The apes can be read metaphorically as various historically marginalized people (most obviously Native Americans), but the exact group they represent it not important. By highlighting the parallels between apes and humans, the apes are meant to stand in for other humans in general. Ultimately, no matter what group or nation we belong to, we are all human beings, and we shouldn’t try to kill each other.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is one of the most thoughtful anti-war films ever made, dissecting how human conflicts often start because of arbitrary reasons like miscommunication and misunderstanding. Even with the sense of fatalism that hangs over the film- eventually we’re going to get to the timeline of the original Planet of the Apes- if the humans and apes had simply followed the leads of Malcolm and Caesar, the war between the humans and the apes could have easily been avoided. Again and again, we are given these small, intimate moments where the humans and apes interact with each other in a friendly manner (the baby ape playing with Ellie, Malcolm’s son reading a book to Maurice, Malcolm and Ellie treating Caesar’s sick wife with antibiotics, the apes helping Malcolm repair the dam, etc.), only to have our hope snatched away as the mutual mistrust leads to war. Echoing Malcolm’s sentiment that he expresses to Caesar at the end when he says, “I thought we had a chance,” it’s a truly heartbreaking story. The final shot of the film, which slowly zooms in on Caesar’s eyes as he looks at the camera, brings the film full circle, displaying the deep regret and sorrow that Caesar feels about everything that has occurred. He knows that an all-out war is now imminent and that many more apes and humans will die in the days to come. It is as if Caesar is staring into the audience’s soul, in one last desperate plea for peace. Unlike the characters in the film, hopefully we’ll realize this message sooner than they did, before we inevitably destroy ourselves.
