“I did not start this war. But I will finish it.”
(Announcer Voice) Previously on The Film Lit Pitch:
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
And now, we proudly present: the Apes season finale.
Serendipity has struck The Film Lit Pitch for the second time this year.
Loyal readers will remember the first time, when I got to write about Barbie in the window between the Oscar nominations announcements and Oscar night. (For the less-loyal readers, here’s that Pitch.) Today, I’m writing about War for the Planet of the Apes by night, and teaching Animal Farm—for the first time—by day. (Without getting too deep in the weeds, I’ll go you one better: as of three weeks ago, I had never read Animal Farm.)
It didn’t take me long to find all sorts of connections between Animal Farm and the Apes series, and, as you might imagine, I was not shy about pointing them out to the class as we read the book. This is not the arena to catalog them all, but I can tell you that I did draw parallels between Animal Farm’s Seven Commandments of Animalism and Caesar’s plain and direct precepts: “Apes together strong,” and “Ape not kill ape.” And I mean, how could I not? After all, the animals use white paint to write the Commandments on the barn wall, and Maurice has Caesar’s words written in white on his outdoor classroom wall.
Both stories explore the difficulties of living up to principles. In Animal Farm, characters who confront the difficulties and complexities of abiding by principles just . . . change the principles. Caesar, on the other hand, refuses to change the standards to which he holds himself. As a result, he is a tortured protagonist throughout; the world punishes him when he lives up to his ideals, and he punishes himself when he doesn’t.
“I offered you peace. I showed you mercy. But now you’re here . . . to finish us off.”
The awesome opening en medias res battle sequence does two things: it gives a certain portion of the audience what they came for; and it highlights that Caesar was right to do everything he could to avoid war with the humans. It’s a brutal scene that is costly for both sides.
But, as a tactical matter, his decision to send the soldiers back alive is a mis-read—and one that’s on-brand for the viewers who have watched the series from the beginning. Yes, he’s sincere when he says that he fights “only to protect apes.” And yes, I’m aware that we wouldn’t want Caesar to kill the prisoners and thus become a war criminal. (A legal stickler might point out the low likelihood of anyone successfully securing a conviction for a violation of the Geneva Conventions at this point in earth’s history.)
But in sending the soldiers back, Caesar reveals that his faith in humans is at least as much a character flaw as it is a virtue. After all he’s seen, he still believes that a genocidal opponent will see two returned soldiers and finally understand that Caesar and the apes “are not savages.” And he’s wrong. We know it, and Koba would know it.
It’s not exactly clear how, or if, the released soldiers factored in to any of the Colonel’s raid plan. What we can infer, at the least, is that the raid takes Caesar wholly by surprise; and that suggests that his faith in humans, and in his ability to read them, has put him at a tactical disadvantage.
Giving humans isn’t the benefit of the doubt is certainly not part of the Apes’ code; but it is part of Caesar’s. And it almost gets him killed twice more. The first time is when they encounter Nova, and he almost gets shot by the man who claims he is “only gonna put this down.” The second time is when he stands up and makes himself visible to the army in white—and gets a classic Deus Ex Machina rescue from the avalanche.
“There are times when we must abandon our humanity to save humanity.”
“Ape not kill ape” is a simple and compassionate founding precept of Caesar’s community. And Caesar really believes in it. His dangerous and complicated faith in people extends to apes. I mean, goodness: he still has the compassion to agree with Maurice when he says of Koba, “No one could have known how much darkness was living inside him.” And because that’s true, Caesar’s killing of Winter triggers acute internal torture.
It’s a wonderful scene, one that starts tense and turns the screws. More broadly, it highlights one of the series’ strengths: dilemmas that are, to quote myself from the Dawn Pitch, “at once simple and complicated.”
Winter’s revelation that he betrayed Caesar in itself brings up the conflict between ideals and pragmatism. This conflict has defined the series, and would be fun and sticky to talk about with a Film Lit class. Because look, I’m not here to be an apologist for the Donkeys. It’s easy to villainize and feel sorely disappointed by them, and the treatment they endure from the humans gets uncomfortable fast—especially when you take a second and think about parallels to human history.
And yet, the apologist case for the Donkeys is not unmakeable; in fact, it’s as simple as believing that Winter wants to live, and does not want to die. And until we’ve faced that dilemma—a morally compromised life or a principled death—we’re really in no place to judge. Would I sell out Caesar if I were in Winter’s position? I hope not. But I can’t say for sure.
[Editor’s Note: As I wrote the above paragraph, I had to resist temptations to write threads about Da Mayor in Do the Right Thing, Cypher in The Matrix, and Dr. Mann in Interstellar.]
[Editor’s note about Editor’s Note: Pitches on Do the Right Thing and Interstellar are coming in the next year.]
Along the same lines, the apologist case for Caesar in this scene is not unmakeable. It’s not noble; but it is pragmatic. After all, Caesar’s options aren’t great. If Winter screams, it’s game over for Caesar. So killing Winter saves at least three lives in that moment.
Another apologist argument, of course, would point back to the justification Caesar gave as he killed Koba: “You are not ape.” Koba is no angel; but at least his unhinged vision was one centered on apes taking over the world. Winter has pinned his survival on hopes that the humans will kill all apes. So, if Koba gets disqualified as an ape, then Winter certainly should be disqualified.
But of course, no apologist argument is good enough for Caesar himself. The rule was and is simple. In killing Winter, he has broken it, and deserves to suffer. In addition, for all the cold math that demands that Caesar kill Winter, in the crucial moment, Caesar was acting more as a father than a leader; he let his rage get the best of him, gave in to the dark side, and killed Winter not just because he had to, but because he wanted to.
Caesar’s recurring visions of Koba are visual representations of the soul-searching questions that plague Caesar after he kills Winter—especially the one when Caesar is chained to the wooden X. (The crucifixion imagery is not lost on me, but I would be remiss if I didn’t ask: did anyone else have issue #251 of The Uncanny X-Men come to mind? The one with Wolverine’s fever dream? No? Just me? Okay. We sally forth.) Was I right to kill Koba? Did I enjoy killing Koba, as I did Winter? Have I become a killer at heart? Was Koba’s approach right all along—would his approach have saved us from the certain doom I’ve led us to?
And at least one of the answers to these questions is heartbreaking and accountable: comparing himself to Koba, Caesar says, “I am like Koba. He could not escape his hate. I still cannot escape mine.” I mean, really serious stuff.
“This is our last stand. And if we lose, it will be a planet of apes.”
I’ll close by pointing out that if this film ever made it into Film Lit—maybe in the “War Movies” unit?—it would be fun to talk about the Colonel. He’s a classic example of Bruce Wayne’s comeback in Justice League when Aquaman says, “You’re out of your mind, Bruce Wayne!”: “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” (I’ll say: I dig this movie, and this scene in particular.)
He’s not nearly as sympathetic as Dreyfyus from Dawn, but he’s certainly got a point when he asks Caesar straight-up, “What would you have done?” And it’s not hard to imagine a compelling version of the same story told from his perspective. He knows in his heart that he is the last chance to stop human extinction, and is willing to take on all enemies ape and human to save his species.
“Do not worry, Maurice. You are home now. Apes are strong . . . with or without me.”
See you on August 7th, when we talk about the best sequels of all time, and the new movies I’ve seen this summer.