I was reflecting today on the horror and science fiction films I saw over Halloween, including a weekend long running of the Planet of the Apes franchise films and some of the 1970s television program. I also reflected on the usual news of a nuclear North Korea, Iran moving toward nuclear weapons and assembled AR-10 rifle, Muslim on Muslim violence in Pakistan, and the rest of the all too common inhumanity to humanity that takes place each day.
I find it interesting that Planet of the Apes came out at the end of the 1960s, around the same time as the Star Trek television series aired, yet both portray dramatically different assessments of the human condition, and the potential to transcend it. In Star Trek we have a humanistic optimism where Gene Roddenberry portrayed a twenty-third century humanity that moved beyond human depravity through education and technology. On the other hand we have a more pessimistic view of human nature through post-apocalyptic self-destruction in Planet of the Apes as portrayed in its screenplay through the imagination of Rod Serling and his fellow scriptwriters. In light of human history, including that which has unfolded since the 1960s and into the present, I think Serling and Planet of the Apes had it right. Perhaps this is best summarized in a scene near the conclusion of Planet of the Apes where Cornelius reads from the sacred scrolls of the apes with the Lawgiver’s denunciation of man. I think the scroll might be on to something in its indictment of humanity.
Yes, the scroll is “onto something,” but the most significant part of this scene is the expression on Charlton Heston’s face as he listens to the indictment of humanity in the ape scriptures. Surely he must be remembering his own earlier misanthropic attitude, expressed at the beginning of the film in the spaceship when he wonders if “man, that glorious paradox of the universe, still makes war upon his brother and lets his neighbour’s children starve,” and a little later, after the astronauts’ arrival on the planet, when he tells Landon that “somewhere in the universe there must be something better than man.”
His situation changes dramatically when he is put in the position of having to be a defender and representative of his own species. In some ways this illustrates the problem with misanthropy–no matter how justifiably bitter we are about human failings, we can’t escape being a part of humanity–its fate is still our fate.