> *** Michael,
> "Free me glazzies!" Well, I don't know about 20 times... that

> just make me want to snuff it. Although I distinctly disliked THE
> PHANTOM MENACE, there was one little thing about it that got
> me a-speculatin'... Anakin's mom doesn't remember how she
> got preggers, and she's stuck on Tattoine--which is outside the
> bounds of the Republic (and, hence, out of the "sight" of the

> who are oblivious to the Force-potential bloodline going on
> there)... and the Sith are supposedly non-existent (at least,

> what the Jedi had thought, if I remember right)... Could it be

> the Dark Force types, the Sith Lords, have perpetuated
> themselves by "abducting" women and impregnating them, and
> then using the Force to "wipe" their memories, so that they go on
> with their lives not knowing how they got knocked up? Could
> Anakin be the biological son of a Sith Lord--perhaps even
> Palpatine, or Darth Maul? What's it gonna take to eventually drive
> Anakin over to the Dark Side... could it be that he will discover
> that he is the heir to those on the Dark Side, and that they will
> use his familial loyalty to "turn" him against the Jedi? I guess
> we'll all find out when Ep 3 comes out...
>
> In regards to the faggy theme to ENTERPRISE, what particularly
> disappointed me was that they had a golden opportunity to do
> something similar to what they had done before: when STTNG
> came out, they used Jerry Goldsmith's theme from STTMP as
> their theme music (after, of course, the Alexander Courage intro
> bit: "Space... the final frontier..."); I was hoping that

> would take James Horner's theme music to ST2TWOK and use
> IT as their theme. Horner's music for WRATH OF KHAN is my
> favorite of the STAR TREK movie scores, and if guys like Harve
> Bennett could have been in charge of producing the Star Trek
> spin-offs (especially ENTERPRISE), I'm sure we'd have a much
> more satisfying experience watching the show. I'm not all that
> happy with how Star Trek has been handled on TV (that is, from
> NEXT GENERATION and on)--give me the kind of show that feels
> like the original series... back when they knew how to produce a
> great dramatic show that just happened to also be sci-fi. The
> Berman-run group has way too much technobabble in it, and
> seems to think that classic Star Trek fans want to see a boring
> soap opera set in the "Star Trek universe". Not me.
>
> Patrick

> I noticed in a couple of those wallpapers someone used a Planet of

> I forgot to ask Alan M. if you'd like your old fan fic story on the
> site. (even if you said bad things about it)

----- Original Message -----
From: <JamesA1102@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 7:22 AM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: The Sum of Ape Fears


> See attached.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Maxwell" <alan@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 6:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] Ape Font


> > I noticed in a couple of those wallpapers someone used a Planet of
> the Apes font. Is there any chance that someone who has those fonts
> could maybe send them my way please?
>
> I don't know about James, but the ones I used didn't use a font as
> such - I scanned the two newer logos from the video sleeves and the
> "old style" logo from a pressbook, then gave them all a bit of a
> "clean-up" so that I could incorporate them into my pictures without
> them looking like they'd been scanned.
>
> I've yet to see a Planet of the Apes font unfortunately - does anyone
> know of one?
>
> Alan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: <veetus@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 8:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] Ape Font


> There's a company called House Industries that put s out a magazine called
> "House". They did a POTA issue last year and developed an ape font like in
> the movies (it's an artists' mag I guess). You can buy the set for like
$75.
> I believe they have a website ( www.houseindustries.com ?).
> Etc. - - Jeff
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alan Maxwell" <alan@...>
> To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 6:49 AM
> Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] Ape Font
>
>
> > > I noticed in a couple of those wallpapers someone used a Planet of
> > the Apes font. Is there any chance that someone who has those fonts
> > could maybe send them my way please?
> >
> > I don't know about James, but the ones I used didn't use a font as
> > such - I scanned the two newer logos from the video sleeves and the
> > "old style" logo from a pressbook, then gave them all a bit of a
> > "clean-up" so that I could incorporate them into my pictures without
> > them looking like they'd been scanned.
> >
> > I've yet to see a Planet of the Apes font unfortunately - does anyone
> > know of one?
> >
> > Alan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

lol No. I don't know who wrote it. I found the link in a warez forum. It's not legit most likely (at least I hope not), but it's good for a laugh.

ThyPentacle

  veetus@... wrote:

   I don't think Lucas has started writing "Episode 3" yet. Is this by your lady friend who also wrote "Apes 2"? Etc.                                              - - -  Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota

Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 11:19 PM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during my late nite net surfin. The page will take a while to load, so if you're on a 56k modem be prepared to wait a bit. :o)

http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm

ThyPentacle

---

Nice fonts. :o) Thanks for posting them.

ThyPentacle

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 2:49 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

lol No. I don't know who wrote it. I found the link in a warez forum. It's not legit most likely (at least I hope not), but it's good for a laugh.

ThyPentacle

  veetus@... wrote:

   I don't think Lucas has started writing "Episode 3" yet. Is this by your lady friend who also wrote "Apes 2"? Etc.                                              - - -  Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota

Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 11:19 PM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during my late nite net surfin. The page will take a while to load, so if you're on a 56k modem be prepared to wait a bit. :o)

http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm

ThyPentacle

---

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 2:49 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

lol No. I don't know who wrote it. I found the link in a warez forum. It's not legit most likely (at least I hope not), but it's good for a laugh.

ThyPentacle

  veetus@... wrote:

   I don't think Lucas has started writing "Episode 3" yet. Is this by your lady friend who also wrote "Apes 2"? Etc.                                              - - -  Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota

Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 11:19 PM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during my late nite net surfin. The page will take a while to load, so if you're on a 56k modem be prepared to wait a bit. :o)

http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm

ThyPentacle

---

----- Original Message -----

From: Mike Le Master

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 2:43 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

If this is the Episode 3 script I am thinking of...it is the outline Lucas wrote back when he wrote the whole story.  The final script won't look like that but you will see many things  taken from it.  And also, the lady who is the co-writer for the new apes film IS legit.  I shit you not.

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 2:49 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

lol No. I don't know who wrote it. I found the link in a warez forum. It's not legit most likely (at least I hope not), but it's good for a laugh.

ThyPentacle

  veetus@... wrote:

   I don't think Lucas has started writing "Episode 3" yet. Is this by your lady friend who also wrote "Apes 2"? Etc.                                              - - -  Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota

Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 11:19 PM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during my late nite net surfin. The page will take a while to load, so if you're on a 56k modem be prepared to wait a bit. :o)

http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm

ThyPentacle

---

--- In pota@y..., LordTZer0@A... wrote:
> I will never understand how Bill Cliton can ride every female
intern and the
> Regan/Bush prosperity, (into the ground I might add), and take
money from the
> Chinese commies and the Hollywood commies, and then steal every
stick of
> furniture from the White House, trash the offices at the Capital
building,
> and then when Bush the younger steps in get you pinheads to blame
him. Even
> though the economy was going south at least six months before he
was elected.
> But the weather must be nice in Fantasyland. And POTA stands for
Planet Of
> The Apes, and not Politics Of The Assholes. So make your
emotional, non-fact
> based retort and for the benefit of the group I'll do my best to
ignore it.

> Politics is like the sewer system.
> It's necessary, and works most of the time, but it still stinks!

--- In pota@y..., LordTZer0@A... wrote:
> Politics is like the sewer system.
> It's necessary, and works most of the time, but it still stinks!

----- Original Message -----

From: Michael Whitty

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 3:22 PM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Apes Script

Well tell her to kill off Leo, go to a Monkey Planet scenario and get rid of Burton and don't initiate the movie witth a release date.

 

They need Terry Gilliam and Russel Crowe (or Clooney or Bruce Willis), Nicole Kidman would look great as a savage.

 

Point out the sillyness of using old phrases from the originals.

 

If they want to pay tribute they did a better job with how they incorporated Linda - a quick glimpse.

 

Don't invite that old fart Chuck either.

 

And it needs to make sense.  REALLY.

 

They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable monuments created and intact but one is modified.

 

And stop the "comic book" hurling across the screen of characters - it is physically impossible.

 

Michael

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Le Master [mslpel5@...]
Sent: Monday, 3 June 2002 7:43
To: pota@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

If this is the Episode 3 script I am thinking of...it is the outline Lucas wrote back when he wrote the whole story.  The final script won't look like that but you will see many things  taken from it.  And also, the lady who is the co-writer for the new apes film IS legit.  I shit you not.

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 2:49 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

lol No. I don't know who wrote it. I found the link in a warez forum. It's not legit most likely (at least I hope not), but it's good for a laugh.

ThyPentacle

  veetus@... wrote:

   I don't think Lucas has started writing "Episode 3" yet. Is this by your lady friend who also wrote "Apes 2"? Etc.                                              - - -  Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: thypentacle

To: pota

Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 11:19 PM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script

Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during my late nite net surfin. The page will take a while to load, so if you're on a 56k modem be prepared to wait a bit. :o)

http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm

ThyPentacle

---

>From: <veetus@...>
>Reply-To: pota@yahoogroups.com
>To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: [Planet of the Apes] To the Max
>Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 05:30:45 -0700
>
> Cinemax is showing a marathon of the "Planet of the Apes" movies today.
>The "Planet of the Apes" movies are about a topsy-turvy world where apes
>are the the rulers and men the beasts. I recommend them to people who like
>science fiction, adventure movies or monkeys. Charlton Heston is in a
>couple of them. Etc. - -
>- Jeff
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Whitty
> To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 3:22 PM
> Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Apes Script
>
>
> Well tell her to kill off Leo, go to a Monkey Planet scenario and get
>rid of Burton and don't initiate the movie witth a release date.
>
> They need Terry Gilliam and Russel Crowe (or Clooney or Bruce Willis),
>Nicole Kidman would look great as a savage.
>
> Point out the sillyness of using old phrases from the originals.
>
> If they want to pay tribute they did a better job with how they
>incorporated Linda - a quick glimpse.
>
> Don't invite that old fart Chuck either.
>
> And it needs to make sense. REALLY.
>
> They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable monuments
>created and intact but one is modified.
>
> And stop the "comic book" hurling across the screen of characters - it
>is physically impossible.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Le Master [mslpel5@...]
> Sent: Monday, 3 June 2002 7:43
> To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script
>
>
> If this is the Episode 3 script I am thinking of...it is the outline
>Lucas wrote back when he wrote the whole story. The final script won't
>look like that but you will see many things taken from it. And also, the
>lady who is the co-writer for the new apes film IS legit. I shit you not.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: thypentacle
> To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 2:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script
>
>
> lol No. I don't know who wrote it. I found the link in a warez forum.
>It's not legit most likely (at least I hope not), but it's good for a
>laugh.
>
> ThyPentacle
>
> veetus@... wrote:
>
> I don't think Lucas has started writing "Episode 3" yet. Is this
>by your lady friend who also wrote "Apes 2"? Etc.
> - - - Jeff
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: thypentacle
> To: pota
> Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 11:19 PM
> Subject: [Planet of the Apes] OT - Star Wars 3 script
>
>
> Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during
>my late nite net surfin. The page will take a while to load, so if you're
>on a 56k modem be prepared to wait a bit. :o)
>
> http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm
>
> ThyPentacle
>
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------

>We have our share of left wing liberal kooks as well.
>Eh, Jimbo?

>Just curious. What would everyone prefer to see; a sequel to the
>2001 film or one that picks up the storyline from the original
>series?

>
>Not sure if this information has been posted here or not.
>
>The Fall (Prequel novel to Planet of the Apes 2001)
>by William T. Quick
>
>Publisher: Harper Entertainment
>ISBN: 0060086203 (to be published June 2002)
>

>Besides Mandemus' line about 27 years, there's also Mendez's
>line about Kolp's impending attack on Ape City ending "twelve
>years of peace", which Kolp had found to be "boring". This
>suggests, to me, that the Nuke War happened 12 years prior to
>BATTLE, and 15 years after CONQUEST. The conception of
>Cornelius would, then, be within a year or two after the Nuke
>War.

>Don't know if this is legit or not. Just stumbled upon it during my late nite

>
>http://1starwars.4t.com/Star%20Wars%20Episode%20III.htm
>
>ThyPentacle

>They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable monuments created
>and intact but one is modified.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melkor [melkor@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, 4 June 2002 6:14
> To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script
>
>
> >They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable
> monuments created
> >and intact but one is modified.
>
> The apes took over sometime after Thade landed on Earth and chiseled in
> Thade's face over Lincoln's.
>
>
>
>

>
>> Yes guess that's why the budget surplus is gone and we are back in
>> deficients in less than 18 months after 8 years of fiscal responsiblitly.

>I will never understand how Bill Cliton can ride every female intern and the
>Regan/Bush prosperity, (into the ground I might add), and take money from the
>Chinese commies and the Hollywood commies, and then steal every stick of
>furniture from the White House, trash the offices at the Capital building,
>and then when Bush the younger steps in get you pinheads to blame him. Even
>though the economy was going south at least six months before he was elected.
> But the weather must be nice in Fantasyland. And POTA stands for Planet Of
>The Apes, and not Politics Of The Assholes. So make your emotional, non-fact
>based retort and for the benefit of the group I'll do my best to ignore it.

>
>And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN? About 100 years ago?
>
>So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
>Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
>familiar to all of us. Is it just me or does that not work?

--- In pota@y..., "Michael Whitty" <whitty@c...> wrote:
> And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN? About 100 years ago?
>
> So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
> Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the
one
> familiar to all of us. Is it just me or does that not work?
>
> Michael
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Melkor [melkor@m...]
> > Sent: Tuesday, 4 June 2002 6:14
> > To: pota@y...
> > Subject: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script
> >
> >
> > >They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable
> > monuments created
> > >and intact but one is modified.
> >
> > The apes took over sometime after Thade landed on Earth and
chiseled in
> > Thade's face over Lincoln's.
> >
> >
> >
> >

----- Original Message -----

From: Melkor

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 6:50 PM

Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

>
>And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN?  About 100 years ago?
>
>So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
>Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
>familiar to all of us.  Is it just me or does that not work?

No.  The apes took over after the present time and the present Washington
but before 2100 something.  All they changed apparently was the Lincoln
Memorial.  Don't get me wrong, I agree it's a dumb ending.  But you can
(just barely) make sense out of it.


Tom
Free

--- In pota@y..., CheeseGOTAS@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 6/3/02 6:36:24 PM Central Daylight Time,
> JamesA1102@a... writes:
>
> << Doesn't Theo get back around 2150, over 100 years after he left
in
> 2029. >>
>
> Theo? Who's that now?
>
> -Joe

>From: "Mike Le Master" <mslpel5@...>
>If this is the Episode 3 script I am thinking of...it is the outline Lucas

>From: <veetus@...>
>Cinemax is showing a marathon of the "Planet of the Apes" movies today.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Melkor" <melkor@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 3:14 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] POTA and anti-conservatism (partly OT)


> >
> >> Yes guess that's why the budget surplus is gone and we are back in
> >> deficients in less than 18 months after 8 years of fiscal
responsiblitly.
>
> James you are completely right about this.
>
> >I will never understand how Bill Cliton can ride every female intern and
the
> >Regan/Bush prosperity, (into the ground I might add), and take money from
the
> >Chinese commies and the Hollywood commies, and then steal every stick of
> >furniture from the White House, trash the offices at the Capital
building,
> >and then when Bush the younger steps in get you pinheads to blame him.
Even
> >though the economy was going south at least six months before he was
elected.
> > But the weather must be nice in Fantasyland. And POTA stands for Planet
Of
> >The Apes, and not Politics Of The Assholes. So make your emotional,
non-fact
> >based retort and for the benefit of the group I'll do my best to ignore
it.
>
> I am not really thrilled about off topic posts so I'll try to steer this
back
> to something topic related. Sci-fi often sneaks in poltical satire, and
POTA
> is the most politicized sci-fi series ever, so politics will come up once
in
> awhile. The amount of politics in POTA is as high as Gulliver's Travels
and
> Animal Farm, and it's no accident that POTA came out in the 60's and early
> 70's.
>
> POTA is essentially one big bash of conservatism and that
anti-conservative
> theme is consistent and relentless. Given writers like Mike Wilson and
Paul
> Dehn that's no surpise. This anti-conservatism is the one consistent
thing
> about the movie series, tv series, book, and even POTA 2001 and the
cartoon
> series. I've always thought it would be hard for a conservative to be
more
> than a casual POTA fan. Watch it enough and people will soon notice that
the
> villians in the POTA stories are neither the humans nor the apes, they are
> consistently the conservatives of each. Even in the original movie Taylor
> criticizes human conservatives both before "does man...still make war
against
> his brother, and keep his neighbor's children starving?" and after "you
bloody
> bastards!" he meets the apes. Taylor also laughs at the conservative
Landon
> for planting an American flag on the planet, and starts criticizing him
later
> "you were the golden boy of the class of 72". This is the same Landon who
> later is given a lobotomy.
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Melkor" <melkor@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 3:50 PM
Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script


>
> >
> >And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN? About 100 years ago?
> >
> >So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
> >
> >Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
> >familiar to all of us. Is it just me or does that not work?
>
> No. The apes took over after the present time and the present Washington
> but before 2100 something. All they changed apparently was the Lincoln
> Memorial. Don't get me wrong, I agree it's a dumb ending. But you can
> (just barely) make sense out of it.
>
>
> Tom
>

>2029. This is when apes are being genetically engineered.

>The only question that remains is how Thade escaped to Earth.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Whitty" <whitty@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 2:36 PM
Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script


> And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN? About 100 years ago?
>
> So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
> Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
> familiar to all of us. Is it just me or does that not work?
>
> Michael
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Melkor [melkor@...]
> > Sent: Tuesday, 4 June 2002 6:14
> > To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script
> >
> >
> > >They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable
> > monuments created
> > >and intact but one is modified.
> >
> > The apes took over sometime after Thade landed on Earth and chiseled in
> > Thade's face over Lincoln's.
> >
> >
> >
> >

----- Original Message -----

From: Mike Le Master

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 5:01 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

Its quite simple to figure this part out.  Leo arrives hundreds, maybe thousands of years after 2029(the beginning of hte movie).  Thade also arrives sometime after 2029.  This is when apes are being genetically engineered.  Thade leads the revolt (think Conquest).  The apes then begin to adapt to our technology.  Hundreds, maybe thousands  of years later, the Apes have totally consumed our technology and everyday life. Remember, they could NOT advance our technology, only CONSUME it.  So Leo arrives hundreds/thousands of years later and sees our Earth run by apes.  The apes also resculpted Lincoln's face and message to show that Thade freed them all.

 

The only question that remains is how Thade escaped to Earth.

 

*Mike

----- Original Message -----

From: Melkor

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 6:50 PM

Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

>
>And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN?  About 100 years ago?
>
>So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
>Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
>familiar to all of us.  Is it just me or does that not work?

No.  The apes took over after the present time and the present Washington
but before 2100 something.  All they changed apparently was the Lincoln
Memorial.  Don't get me wrong, I agree it's a dumb ending.  But you can
(just barely) make sense out of it.


Tom
Free

> Good points, though Heston apparently didn't have a problem with it, and
>Zanuck didn't see any message at all. I thought Heston was a good sport in
>POTA2001, though maybe he didn't notice it was playing with his gun stance.
>Etc. - - - Jeff
>
>> I am not really thrilled about off topic posts so I'll try to steer this
>back
>> to something topic related. Sci-fi often sneaks in poltical satire, and
>POTA
>> is the most politicized sci-fi series ever, so politics will come up once
>in
>> awhile. The amount of politics in POTA is as high as Gulliver's Travels
>and
>> Animal Farm, and it's no accident that POTA came out in the 60's and early
>> 70's.
>>
>> POTA is essentially one big bash of conservatism and that
>anti-conservative
>> theme is consistent and relentless. Given writers like Mike Wilson and
>Paul
>> Dehn that's no surpise. This anti-conservatism is the one consistent
>thing
>> about the movie series, tv series, book, and even POTA 2001 and the
>cartoon
>> series. I've always thought it would be hard for a conservative to be
>more
>> than a casual POTA fan. Watch it enough and people will soon notice that
>the
>> villians in the POTA stories are neither the humans nor the apes, they are
>> consistently the conservatives of each. Even in the original movie Taylor
>> criticizes human conservatives both before "does man...still make war
>against
>> his brother, and keep his neighbor's children starving?" and after "you
>bloody
>> bastards!" he meets the apes. Taylor also laughs at the conservative
>Landon
>> for planting an American flag on the planet, and starts criticizing him
>later
>> "you were the golden boy of the class of 72". This is the same Landon who
>> later is given a lobotomy.

Thanks for the updates. Especially the Dragon flick one. Dragons have always fascinated me actually. Looking forward to seeing any movie with them in it. Of course ape flicks are almost as good...... almost. :o)

ThyPentacle

P.S. Forgive me if I don't seem together right now... I just woke up from a nap.

  veetus@... wrote:

  Wasn't Richard Zanuck supposed to remake "Journey to the Center of the Earth" for Fox? Well, the latest word ( www.cinescape.com ) is that writers John Glenn and Travis Wright are working on it for Paramount, though no word if Zanuck is involved. Some here have expressed interest in the flick so I thought I'd bring it up. Glenn and Wright are also scripting remakes of "The Warriors" and "Clash of the Titans" (the latter suggesting "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" have made it safe for fantasy films again).

  Speaking of which, there's a positive review of Zanuck's dragon flick "Reign of Fire" over at aintitcool.com . It's a mix of "Jurassic Park", "Aliens" and "Mad Max" using dragons, directed by "X-Files" movie's Rob Bowman. If it's a big hit it'll give Zanuck more leverage for an "Apes" sequel (or maybe he'll do a "Reign of Fire" sequel instead). But we'll see; last I heard, dragons were still not big attractions at the box office. Etc.                                               - - - Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Mike Le Master

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 5:01 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

Its quite simple to figure this part out.  Leo arrives hundreds, maybe thousands of years after 2029(the beginning of hte movie).  Thade also arrives sometime after 2029.  This is when apes are being genetically engineered.  Thade leads the revolt (think Conquest).  The apes then begin to adapt to our technology.  Hundreds, maybe thousands  of years later, the Apes have totally consumed our technology and everyday life. Remember, they could NOT advance our technology, only CONSUME it.  So Leo arrives hundreds/thousands of years later and sees our Earth run by apes.  The apes also resculpted Lincoln's face and message to show that Thade freed them all.

 

The only question that remains is how Thade escaped to Earth.

 

*Mike

----- Original Message -----

From: Melkor

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 6:50 PM

Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

>
>And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN?  About 100 years ago?
>
>So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
>Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
>familiar to all of us.  Is it just me or does that not work?

No.  The apes took over after the present time and the present Washington
but before 2100 something.  All they changed apparently was the Lincoln
Memorial.  Don't get me wrong, I agree it's a dumb ending.  But you can
(just barely) make sense out of it.


Tom



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service

> I'd rather it pick up the storyline from the book. It might as well.

> where they got that ending from.

> The ending could've been better, but I appreciate that they at least tried
>to make it surprising. I'm sure all the criticism of the ending will make
>them go in the opposite direction with a sequel and give us a pat,
>simplistic "feel good" ending. Too bad. Etc. - - - Jeff
>

----- Original Message -----
From: <LordTZer0@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] New POTA sequel... and thoughts on a
post-BATTLE con...


> > I'd rather it pick up the storyline from the book. It might as well.
> That's
> > where they got that ending from.
> *** I agree with T. A faithful adaptation of Boulle's novel would be
> preferable to both a sequel of Burton's film and to the original series'
> storyline.
>
> I don't think you could do a faithful adaptation of the book at this
point.
> The angle I'm taking on it is that since Leo is now in a technologically
> advanced Ape society, covering the main plot points in the book is the
most
> logical choice. After his arrest you can introduce a Zira character who's
> charge he can be placed in and they can go through the major scenes from
the
> book, i.e., the trail, the party, the search for the truth of ape origins
on
> Earth, etc . . . I don't really see any other viable storyline.
> And since the last film has left us in what it the closest setting to the
> original book you may as well purse those themes. Now that I have
stimulated
> your imaginations I'll leave you to guess how I'd have Thade turn things
> around. I'll tell you when you're getting warm.
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----

From: veetus@...

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 5:08 AM

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Back to 'Earth' (OT)

  Wasn't Richard Zanuck supposed to remake "Journey to the Center of the Earth" for Fox? Well, the latest word ( www.cinescape.com ) is that writers John Glenn and Travis Wright are working on it for Paramount, though no word if Zanuck is involved. Some here have expressed interest in the flick so I thought I'd bring it up. Glenn and Wright are also scripting remakes of "The Warriors" and "Clash of the Titans" (the latter suggesting "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" have made it safe for fantasy films again).

  Speaking of which, there's a positive review of Zanuck's dragon flick "Reign of Fire" over at aintitcool.com . It's a mix of "Jurassic Park", "Aliens" and "Mad Max" using dragons, directed by "X-Files" movie's Rob Bowman. If it's a big hit it'll give Zanuck more leverage for an "Apes" sequel (or maybe he'll do a "Reign of Fire" sequel instead). But we'll see; last I heard, dragons were still not big attractions at the box office. Etc.                                               - - - Jeff

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Mike Le Master

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 5:01 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

Its quite simple to figure this part out.  Leo arrives hundreds, maybe thousands of years after 2029(the beginning of hte movie).  Thade also arrives sometime after 2029.  This is when apes are being genetically engineered.  Thade leads the revolt (think Conquest).  The apes then begin to adapt to our technology.  Hundreds, maybe thousands  of years later, the Apes have totally consumed our technology and everyday life. Remember, they could NOT advance our technology, only CONSUME it.  So Leo arrives hundreds/thousands of years later and sees our Earth run by apes.  The apes also resculpted Lincoln's face and message to show that Thade freed them all.

 

The only question that remains is how Thade escaped to Earth.

 

*Mike

----- Original Message -----

From: Melkor

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 6:50 PM

Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

>
>And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN?  About 100 years ago?
>
>So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.
>
>Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
>familiar to all of us.  Is it just me or does that not work?

No.  The apes took over after the present time and the present Washington
but before 2100 something.  All they changed apparently was the Lincoln
Memorial.  Don't get me wrong, I agree it's a dumb ending.  But you can
(just barely) make sense out of it.


Tom
Free

----- Original Message -----

From: veetus@...

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 8:14 PM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] New POTA sequel... and thoughts on a post-BATTLE con...

  I know the perfect solution to the "Apes" sequel. First you simply gut Tim
Burton, then you string the carcass up.
     - - - Jeff


----- Original Message -----
From: <LordTZer0@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] New POTA sequel... and thoughts on a
post-BATTLE con...


> > I'd rather it pick up the storyline from the book.  It might as well.
> That's
> > where they got that ending from.
> *** I agree with T. A faithful adaptation of Boulle's novel would be
> preferable to both a sequel of Burton's film and to the original series'
> storyline.
>
> I don't think you could do a faithful adaptation of the book at this
point.
> The angle I'm taking on it is that since Leo is now in a technologically
> advanced Ape society, covering the main plot points in the book is the
most
> logical choice.  After his arrest you can introduce a Zira character who's
> charge he can be placed in and they can go through the major scenes from
the
> book, i.e., the trail, the party, the search for the truth of ape origins
on
> Earth, etc . . .  I don't really see any other viable storyline.
> And since the last film has left us in what it the closest setting to the
> original book you may as well purse those themes.  Now that I have
stimulated
> your imaginations I'll leave you to guess how I'd have Thade turn things
> around.  I'll tell you when you're getting warm.
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the .

> >The only question that remains is how Thade escaped to
> Earth. He used Leo's pod that was in the water. Remember
> the scene where Thade kills the only other apes who know
> about the Pod?
> I believe that scene was a last minute add-on by Burton to
> try to make more sense about the ending. Thade didn't want
> anyone else to know that Leo was an astronaut with a
> spaceship.
> An earlier scene where Thade says "Get me that spaceman"
> was cut out and replaced by the Thade cover up scene.

> > The official PotA movie web site said that Ari, with the help

> > Ape Senate, later raised Leo's pod from the bog where it had
> > crashed.
>
> That seems absurd to me. Anyone who has ever tried to dry

> knows that after a few time you're going to have to get a new

> thing sitting at the bottom of a swam isn't likely to be space

> less survive going back through that EM storm. Seems to me

> with another pod showing up as a late arrival rescue mission.

> suspend my disbelief so much.

----- Original Message -----

From: LordTZer0@...

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 2:19 AM

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] Re: Apes Script

  

The official PotA movie web site said that Ari, with the help of the
Ape Senate, later raised Leo's pod from the bog where it had
crashed.

That seems absurd to me.  Anyone who has ever tried to dry out a wet Walkman knows that after a few time you're going to have to get a new one.  That thing sitting at the bottom of a swam isn't likely to be space worthy, much less survive going back through that EM storm.  Seems to me they should go with another pod showing up as a late arrival rescue mission.  I can only suspend my disbelief so much.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the .

>
>> The official PotA movie web site said that Ari, with the help of the
>> Ape Senate, later raised Leo's pod from the bog where it had
>> crashed.
>
>That seems absurd to me. Anyone who has ever tried to dry out a wet Walkman
>knows that after a few time you're going to have to get a new one. That
>thing sitting at the bottom of a swam isn't likely to be space worthy, much
>less survive going back through that EM storm. Seems to me they should go
>with another pod showing up as a late arrival rescue mission. I can only
>suspend my disbelief so much.

>
>Remember that Thade was left alone and unharmed in the
>Oberon console room. Plenty of time to play with the ship's
>computers (there was still a little bit of power left in the ship).
>
>The official PotA movie web site said that Ari, with the help of the
>Ape Senate, later raised Leo's pod from the bog where it had
>crashed. Ari, Limbo and Daena would have known where the
>pod was. Thade could easily stolen the pod, but I'm not sure
>how he could have gotten an ape army to Earth.
>

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melkor [melkor@...]
> Sent: Thursday, 6 June 2002 5:03
> To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: Apes Script
>
>
>
> >
> >> The official PotA movie web site said that Ari, with the help of the
> >> Ape Senate, later raised Leo's pod from the bog where it had
> >> crashed.
> >
> >That seems absurd to me. Anyone who has ever tried to dry out a
> wet Walkman
> >knows that after a few time you're going to have to get a new one. That
> >thing sitting at the bottom of a swam isn't likely to be space
> worthy, much
> >less survive going back through that EM storm. Seems to me they
> should go
> >with another pod showing up as a late arrival rescue mission. I can only
> >suspend my disbelief so much.
>
> Well unless you subscribe to Patrick's ideas you can say the same
> thing about
> Milo's resurrection of Taylor's ship. I think the simpler
> explanation would be
> that the pods were designed to be able to withstand the water.
> It's not like
> we can't build machines that can be in the water.
>
>
>

>
>Just when you blow the hatch it is hard to imagine that the INTERIOR would
>be resitant to water - know what I mean?
>
>Michael
>

>>I think only Thade went to Earth. But it's still a lame ending because
>>why would the genetically altered apes on Earth need any help from Thade with
>>their Revolution? All Thade really brings to Earth is a militant attitude.
>>But it seems like with his contempt for humans he wouldn't last very long
>>in an Earth dominated by humans. They should have left the Thade statue
>>out of the ending.
>
>You're thinking too two dimensionally here.

----- Original Message -----
From: "james611102" <JamesA1102@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 6:52 AM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Happy Birthday Leo!!


> Guess what? It's Marky Mark's birthday today.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Melkor" <melkor@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 12:16 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: Apes Script


> >
> >Remember that Thade was left alone and unharmed in the
> >Oberon console room. Plenty of time to play with the ship's
> >computers (there was still a little bit of power left in the ship).
> >
> >The official PotA movie web site said that Ari, with the help of the
> >Ape Senate, later raised Leo's pod from the bog where it had
> >crashed. Ari, Limbo and Daena would have known where the
> >pod was. Thade could easily stolen the pod, but I'm not sure
> >how he could have gotten an ape army to Earth.
> >
>
> I think only Thade went to Earth. But it's still a lame ending because
> why would the genetically altered apes on Earth need any help from Thade
with
> their Revolution? All Thade really brings to Earth is a militant
attitude.
> But it seems like with his contempt for humans he wouldn't last very long
> in an Earth dominated by humans. They should have left the Thade statue
> out of the ending.
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Melkor" <melkor@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 4:31 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] re: Planet of the Apes] Water Resistance


> >
> >Just when you blow the hatch it is hard to imagine that the INTERIOR
would
> >be resitant to water - know what I mean?
> >
> >Michael
> >
>
> True, it's hard to defend the ending of POTA 2001. But raising and
repairing
> the Oberon pod is really no different, easier actually, than doing the
same
> for the Icarus. And since the President said that Milo's spacecraft was
> the same as Taylor's, there is no reason not to accept it...unless you
prefer
> Patrick's mothership scenario.
>
> -Tom
>
>
>

> >Besides Mandemus' line about 27 years, there's also Mendez's
> >line about Kolp's impending attack on Ape City ending "twelve
> >years of peace", which Kolp had found to be "boring". This
> >suggests, to me, that the Nuke War happened 12 years prior to
> >BATTLE, and 15 years after CONQUEST. The conception of
> >Cornelius would, then, be within a year or two after the Nuke
> >War.
>
> The nuclear war had to have happened within days, or weeks at the latest, after CONQUEST. Kolp implies this in BATTLE when he blames Caesar's revolt for the war. Within 24 hours of CONQUEST the acting governor (probably the lieutenant governor, not Kolp) would have called out the national guard and requested federal troops. Caesar would have to leave the city almost immedietely, and his relatively small force of several hundred (or dozen?) apes who could barely communicate wouldn't have been able to hold out much longer than a few days or weeks. A sudden nuclear war would also explain why the American government hadn't got around to revealing the existence of the Alpha-Omega bomb yet.
>
> There's another potential novel or fanfic story, between CONQUEST and BATTLE.

--- In pota@y..., Haristas@a... wrote:
>
>
>
> > Los Angeles Times Magazine
> >
> > June 2, 2002
> >
> > Open the Labs and Set Them Free?
> >
> > USC's Craig Stanford Believes That Chimpanzees Are as Intelligent as
> > 2-Year-Old Children. If He's Right, Zoos and Research Laboratories Have a
> > Lot of Explaining to Do.
> >
> > By DOUGLAS FOSTER, Special To The Times
> >
> > Adam Stanford teeters atop a log, studying Jerrard. They gaze at each other
> > through a glass divider--a flaxen-haired 5-year-old boy and his 12-year-old
> > counterpart--as if assessing a possible playmate. Adam is wearing a modish
> > blue shirt, pressed khaki shorts and sneakers. Jerrard is wearing no
> > clothes at all, because that's not required of chimpanzees living in the
> > Mahale Mountain enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo.
> >
> > Jerrard turns, showing off his broad shoulders, lanky arms and a
> > resplendent, hairy, heavily muscled back. Adam turns too, shaking his arms
> > as if working out kinks or comparing physiques, aping the chimpanzee. "You
> > know, we are an ape,"he murmurs. Adam's father cracks up. "I didn't put him
> > up to that," he says.
> >
> > Craig Stanford, 44, is chair of the anthropology department at USC and an
> > emerging star in a new generation of great ape field researchers. He
> > regularly commutes from Los Angeles, where he teaches at USC and co-directs
> > the university's Jane Goodall Research Center, to the rolling hills of the
> > Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, where he's engaged in a
> > long-term study of gorillas and chimpanzees. It feels a bit surreal to
> > stand outside this enclosure with Stanford. Mahale Mountain, after all, is
> > the name of an actual wild chimpanzee study site in Tanzania. Next to the
> > zoo's faux mountain is a faux Gombe, a kitsch representation of Jane
> > Goodall's storied study site in the same country. A tent much like the one
> > she lived in during her early field studies opens over a concrete walkway,
> > and copies of her early notes are on display under glass. Stanford
> > conducted research at the real Gombe, and he only heightens the dissonance
> > by turning away from the captive chimpanzees to say they're quite unlike
> > the wild creatures he's studied over the years. "They're just different
> > animals," he says. "The chimpanzees I work with evolved in an African
> > forest in response to pressures of an African forest."
> >
> > The implication is that you can't learn what you need to know about
> > chimpanzees by observing them in captive circumstances. This notion has not
> > endeared Stanford to the nation's zookeepers and their in-house
> > primatologists. But what really rankles some of his colleagues is
> > Stanford's belief that captive apes are akin to young human children.
> > "Keeping great apes in zoos is morally questionable, and in laboratories
> > reprehensible," he writes in his latest book, "Significant Others." "The
> > intellect of a chimpanzee is similar to that of a small child or a
> > cognitively impaired adult."
> >
> > In addition to the estimated 200,000 chimpanzees still alive in Africa,
> > there are 1,700 or so chimps in zoos around the world and hundreds in
> > primate research centers for use in everything from behavioral studies to
> > biomedical research. Stanford is challenging not only the most invasive
> > sort of medical research--say, injecting chimpanzees with viral strains and
> > caging them in close quarters to see what happens--he's also taking aim at
> > behavioral experiments in laboratory settings and even the practice of
> > keeping apes in the country's best zoos, like this one.
> >
> > Taking his invocation literally would mean shutting down most great ape
> > research in this country. Monkeys still would be kept in captivity for HIV,
> > malaria and tuberculosis research as well as studies on juvenile
> > aggression. But the four kinds of primates that are most closely related to
> > human beings from an evolutionary point of view--chimpanzees, bonobos,
> > gorillas and orangutans--would be placed off limits, as they are in New
> > Zealand. The debate over the ethics of "imprisoning" great apes has bubbled
> > away among primate specialists for years, often beneath the surface.
> > They've fussed with one another about whether likening apes to human
> > children is accurate or fair, about whether brainpower should be the trump
> > factor for figuring out which animals deserve special protection, and
> > whether genetic relatedness to human beings should carry special weight in
> > bioethical considerations.
> >
> > "Look," says Stanford, gesturing at the group of chimpanzees gamboling near
> > the enclosure's waterfall. "From a neurological point of view, these
> > animals are the most complex creatures on earth, maybe in the universe,
> > besides dolphins, whales and us. The only thing that separates them from
> > 2-year-old children is that we're human, they're not. Eventually, you have
> > to make a decision about where to draw the line."
> >
> > During her first few years at Gombe in the early 1960s, Jane Goodall, an
> > unknown researcher without a college degree, knocked a rather large hole in
> > the idea of the traditional dividing line--tool use--between human beings
> > and apes. Since then, painstaking incremental progress has followed from
> > both field studies of wild apes and experiments with captive animals around
> > the world. These studies have demonstrated that great apes use tools,
> > recognize themselves in mirrors, have diverse "traditions," manage
> > complicated social lives, engage in sophisticated politics and have the
> > ability to count and use symbolic language. Brilliant apes such as <A HREF="http://www.greatapeproject.org/census/westcoast/washoe.htmlquot;>Washoe</A>,
> > the chimpanzee whose expertise in sign language was made famous by Roger
> > Fouts, and <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/gapnews/KANZI.htmlquot;>Kanzi</A>, the bonobo who communicates complicated messages to Sue
> > Savage-Rumbaugh by pointing at symbols on a board, reinforced the popular
> > expectation that primate research would simply continue to flesh out the
> > similarities.
> >
> > Stories about these breakthroughs have filled gee-whiz columns in
> > newspapers and fueled decades of National Geographic broadcasts. Less
> > visible from a general reader's point of view are the often fierce
> > critiques by contrarian scholars who feel their colleagues downplay deep
> > differences between humans and other primate species. "They're trying to
> > make chimps into human beings, trying to mold them in our image!" one
> > scholar has complained to me.
> >
> > It's a minor irony that Stanford wound up in the midst of this debate after
> > backing into chimpanzee research in the first place. In 1988, as a graduate
> > student in anthropology studying a monkey called the capped langur in
> > Bangladesh, he wrote to Jane Goodall, asking if he could come to Gombe. He
> > was curious not so much about the chimpanzees but about the colobus monkeys
> > that were hunted by the chimps.
> >
> > For six years in the early 1990s, Stanford followed both the hunted colobus
> > monkeys and the hunting chimps through a series of bloody encounters. He
> > documented 120 of these chimpanzee hunts in a novel way, recording them
> > from the point of view of both predator and prey. "Everybody told me I
> > wouldn't be able to do this," Stanford remembers. "What I did is comparable
> > to standing in the middle of a herd of zebras and watching the lion
> > attack--from the prey's perspective."
> >
> > Stanford made his mark with the hunting study. In a series of scholarly
> > journal articles and two books ("The Hunting Apes" and "Chimpanzee and Red
> > Colobus"), he fleshed out his view that the acquisition and sharing of meat
> > is a kind of proxy for power in chimp society. He also drew a fair share of
> > critics, particularly those who thought his theory was sexist for placing
> > too much emphasis on the males, who do most of the hunting. One noted
> > scholar, Adrienne Zihlman, calls Stanford's research "a throwback" to
> > anthropological studies that overemphasized the dominance and status of
> > men.
> >
> > Once hooked on great ape research through his exposure to chimpanzee
> > hunting, Stanford didn't let go. For the past dozen years he's been
> > shuttling regularly from a quiet academic life in this country to field
> > work in Africa. In his office at USC on the day before our visit to the
> > zoo, we screen videotapes of wild chimpanzees from the early years at
> > Gombe. These aren't images for the squeamish.
> >
> > "Oh, my gosh, that's the one of Frodo killing Apricot," Stanford calls out
> > as we watch an adult male chimpanzee snatch a tiny monkey infant from its
> > mother's arms, swiftly bite the baby in the brain and rend its flesh. A few
> > reels on, we view a scene more amenable to a soft heart. A group of chimps
> > stumbles across a dead bushbuck, its carcass already hollowed out. The
> > chimps hoot, screaming as if in protest. They run their hands along the
> > antelope's skin. Then Gigi, an adult female, caresses the antelope's head,
> > draping its legs over her shoulders as if wearing a stole.
> >
> > "She's not treating it like food, that's for sure," Stanford says. Perhaps
> > Gigi was putting herself in the other animal's place for a moment. Many
> > cognitive psychologists don't believe that great apes have what they call
> > "theory of mind," the ability to put oneself in another's shoes. Stanford
> > is quick to point out that Gigi's play provides only anecdotal evidence,
> > the suggestion of a possibility. But who's to say for sure whether great
> > apes in the wild can place themselves in another's skin?
> >
> > Stanford also pulls out pictures of his study site in the Bwindi
> > Impenetrable National Park. He's excited about several new discoveries. On
> > a trip in the spring of 2001, he came across a group of chimpanzees
> > spending long periods of time standing upright in the trees. Since
> > "bipedality" is among the key differences between early human beings and
> > the great apes, such observations could help flesh out an understanding of
> > how early hominids developed the ability to stand on two feet for extended
> > periods.
> >
> > During that visit, Stanford and John Bosco Nkurunungi, a Ugandan researcher
> > who works with him, also chanced upon a group of chimpanzees and gorillas
> > feeding peacefully side by side in the park. The encounter was surprising;
> > wouldn't the two species compete for scarce food resources or seek
> > different foods to avoid conflict?
> >
> > "I'd just finished identifying most of this community of chimpanzees, when
> > all of a sudden there was this much blacker face in the middle of all the
> > chimps," Stanford recalls. They watched as a large male gorilla joined the
> > lone gorilla in a group of chimpanzees; the gorillas sat a few feet away,
> > ignoring the chimps. Field assistants working with Nkurunungi and Stanford
> > also have reported that they've seen an infant gorilla trying to play with
> > an infant chimp.
> >
> > These fresh discoveries reinforce Stanford's feeling for what he calls a
> > "custodial obligation" toward the apes and his deepening belief that
> > chimpanzees, as living links between a primate "common ancestor" and
> > ourselves, deserve special protection. Differences in behavior and
> > cognition, he says, will prove to be matters of degree, not kind. He
> > predicts that human brains will turn out to be "exploded versions of the
> > chimpanzee mind."
> >
> > We don't pen 2-year-old children in outdoor enclosures to educate us, or
> > cage them in laboratories for biomedical experiments to help save us from
> > disease, or train them to act ferocious in feature films such as Tim
> > Burton's "Planet of the Apes" to entertain us. Why, then, Stanford asks, do
> > our close primate cousins deserve this treatment?
> >
> > For years animal-rights activists, notably the organizers of the
> > Portland-based Great Ape Project, have campaigned for the preservation of
> > apes' liberty and their protection from torture. And plenty of purists have
> > complained all along that great ape researchers fight only for the
> > improvement of conditions for chimpanzees, not for other animals as well.
> > What is new is the intensity of the argument among primatologists
> > themselves. A wedge has opened between field researchers and laboratory
> > experimenters in a debate now put in increasingly fervent, and personal,
> > terms.
> >
> > In a panel discussion about ethics at the national convention of the
> > American Society of Primatologists in Savannah, Ga., last summer, this
> > split was on display when a questioner suddenly set off an agitated flurry.
> > "Why do we hold these animals in captivity at all?" she asked. One of the
> > presenters, Joseph Bielitzki, former chief veterinary officer at the
> > National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center in
> > California, reacted as if he'd been slapped. He launched an impassioned
> > attack on the idea that great apes have inherent rights. Critics were
> > "granting moral authority to the great apes," Bielitzki said. "I can't do
> > that. I just don't think they have the same moral agency as the people in
> > this room." One zoo primatologist replied flatly that without apes and
> > other exotic animals on display, the drawing power of zoos would disappear.
> > A biomedical specialist pointed out that testing thalidomide and other
> > chemicals on nonhuman primates had protected untold numbers of human beings
> > in this country from illness, birth defects and deaths.
> >
> > Stanford doubts whether anyone can show that invasive biomedical research
> > on great apes is necessary. He points to the calamitous history of HIV
> > research on chimpanzees. For years federal researchers bred chimpanzees in
> > the search for AIDS treatments. More than 100 chimps were injected with the
> > human version of the virus. But these infected chimps proved to be poor
> > study subjects largely because the disease incubates slowly in chimpanzee
> > bodies. Now the primate research centers have been left to care for 100
> > infected, and dying, young chimps.
> >
> > "Everybody asks whether I would feel the same if cancer could be cured
> > through research on chimpanzees," Stanford says. "But the key word is 'if.'
> > How many cases do we have where great apes were actually the critical
> > testing ground in curing disease? The idea that this kind of invasive
> > biomedical experimentation will lead to a breakthrough is just a fallacy. I
> > don't see any evidence that there is a real prospect for some breakthrough
> > in chimps as opposed to research using rats and rabbits."
> >
> > This is all hotly contested territory, including Stanford's claim that
> > chimpanzees deserve a hold on our collective conscience because they have
> > the intelligence of 2-year-old children. I quickly discovered how tricky
> > the issue is during a presentation by Daniel Povinelli at last summer's
> > annual convention of the American Psychological Assn. in San Francisco.
> > Povinelli, a psychologist from the University of Louisiana, is the young
> > bete noire of researchers who stress the similarities between great apes
> > and human beings. Introduced by an elderly researcher from Stanford
> > University as "the best scientist in the world on chimpanzee cognition,"
> > Povinelli showed a beautiful shot of an exuberant chimpanzee grinning, a
> > photo you might expect to gin up a lecture about how apes are Just-Like-Us.
> > But for any psychologist in the audience expecting such a presentation, he
> > threw a quick curve. Chimpanzees do not have, he said in a deadpan tone, "a
> > watered-down version of the human mind."
> >
> > During the past decade, Povinelli has devoted much of his time to
> > unraveling the core arguments of researchers like Stanford who think that
> > the differences between human beings and great apes are matters of degree.
> > "Cut through all the BS. The more you work with chimpanzees and with human
> > children, the more you start to see that there's this profound mixture of
> > similarity and difference at every age from birth forward," he said after
> > his talk. He repeated the phrase a few times, perhaps fearful that I'd miss
> > it: "Similar and different from birth forward."
> >
> > Chimpanzees and humans naturally share basic neural circuitry and cognitive
> > patterns, thanks to a common ancestor, Povinelli says. But he thinks
> > there's a qualitatively different overlay--a sort of parallel
> > system--operating in humans. This system, which Povinelli believes
> > distinguishes us from all other animals, allows human beings to speculate
> > about the internal lives of other beings and to track the effects of unseen
> > forces. The basis for the difference, Povinelli suspects, is an impulse to
> > construct narrative, to link past, present and future in a story.
> >
> > Povinelli argues that great ape conservationists are making a big strategic
> > mistake when they liken chimpanzee minds to the cognition of 2-year-old
> > human children. That could boomerang, he says, making the great apes more
> > vulnerable instead. He supports conservation efforts in Africa and improved
> > conditions for captive apes at home. "We should treat chimps with respect
> > and take into consideration their real interests and needs. But all of
> > those things can be taken care of without saying they are the same as
> > humans--that's one thing I know they're not."
> >
> > In many ways, friction over such disparate theories is rooted in
> > decades-old rivalry between laboratory experimenters and field researchers.
> > Experimenters focused on the intricate workings of cognition tend to
> > dismiss wild ape researchers as irrelevant romantics too enamored of their
> > own anecdotes. "You could do that kind of work for a thousand years,
> > observing natural behavior, spontaneous behavior, and you'd never, ever
> > come closer to understanding whether great apes have a theory of mind,"
> > Povinelli says. Scholars who observe apes in the wild tend to think of
> > those who work with captive animals as narrow-minded dopes focused on neat
> > lab tricks, sophisticated data manipulation and arcane theory that only
> > obscures a deep understanding of real animals. Animals held in captivity,
> > especially highly intelligent and social apes, are invariably impoverished,
> > they argue. If they behave quite unlike animals in the wild, what's the
> > value of research? "It's like looking through a cracked window," Stanford
> > says softly. Like many other prominent great ape researchers, he opposes a
> > proposed Povinelli study in which orphaned baby chimpanzees would be raised
> > in human homes for several years to observe whether they develop more
> > human-like ways of thinking. "What Povinelli does, holding out these
> > animals as normal, it's absurd," Stanford says. "Think it through. What
> > would you learn about normal children by studying Bosnian war orphans?"
> >
> > At stake is the future direction of primate research, which hangs in the
> > balance in the midst of potentially divisive bids for public support. So
> > too does an altered view of human nature, for how we end up thinking about
> > the great apes shapes how we see ourselves.
> >
> > The two Stanfords and I take seats on a platform overlooking the Mahale
> > Mountain enclosure at the L.A. Zoo to watch the chimps and their primate
> > cousins. Adam's attention is now fixed on dozens of teenage Homo sapiens
> > held back by a railing. Stanford scuffs his sandals on the ground and
> > shifts uncomfortably as I press him about zoo exhibits like this one.
> > Perhaps he's torn between increasingly firm opinions and his friendships
> > with the keeper here and a network of researchers who study captive apes in
> > centers around the world.
> >
> > "So what do you mean to suggest?" I ask, pointing past a crowd of people
> > calling out to the chimps. The 38,000-square-foot enclosure is surrounded
> > by ficus, magnolia and banana trees. Palms and rock promontories shadow a
> > grassy expanse. Faux logs are stuffed with nuts and leaves to keep the
> > chimps active. "Are you saying this enclosure shouldn't exist?"
> >
> > Judeo, a formidable senior male in the group, shows off his impressive
> > pectorals, throwing his arms wide. "A few might still exist for education
> > purposes maybe," Stanford says. But he adds that no more great apes should
> > be bred in captivity, and most of those already held should be released
> > into large sanctuaries where they can live more normal lives. When I reach
> > Cathleen Cox, research director at the Los Angeles Zoo, she listens when I
> > read her the conclusion of Stanford's book. She asks me to back up and read
> > the paragraphs again in which Stanford calls keeping great apes in zoos
> > "ethically questionable."
> >
> > Cox was instrumental in designing the Mahale Mountain enclosure, pressing
> > hard to build and maintain an exhibit that provides naturalistic
> > stimulation for the apes. Recent studies of their social behavior informed
> > its architecture. The chimps are kept in a fairly large group and they've
> > been allowed to raise several infants, which Cox thinks will prove key to
> > their ability to "experience a joyful, fulfilling life."
> >
> > She explains the prime reasons for keeping well-designed enclosures like
> > hers open. There's tremendous education potential, she says, and as a
> > result of seeing great apes in the zoo, people may learn and act on a new
> > sense of connection with chimpanzees.
> >
> > Her argument draws support from a somewhat surprising source: Jane Goodall.
> > "There's always the gray area," Goodall says when I track her down between
> > speaking engagements in Washington, D.C. "And here the gray area is the
> > terrible plight of chimpanzees in Africa." Goodall agrees with Stanford's
> > comments about the immorality of biomedical research on great apes and
> > shares his qualms about Povinelli's proposed project. But she bristles at
> > the notion that these positions should be based on his underlying
> > assumption. "What I particularly hate is comparing chimpanzee intellect to
> > a small human child or a mentally impaired adult. They're way above a
> > 2-year-old child--in the way they can plan for the immediate future, in the
> > way they quickly adjust to the arrival of a new guy in the group who
> > happens to be higher ranking than they are. No 2-year-old child could do
> > anything like that, nor could a mentally disturbed adult."
> >
> > Cox offers no opinion about the difference between chimp and human
> > cognition, relying instead on reports of the plight of wild great apes.
> > Since they're threatened in the wild all over the world, Cox suggests,
> > perhaps captive animals should be valued as the keepers of precious
> > "genetic material." If they're wiped out in Africa, future generations of
> > Jerrard's offspring one day might be used to repopulate the wild.
> >
> > "I don't like that argument. It's too fatalistic," Stanford replies. "It's
> > like saying, 'If I put you in a cell, you're not going to get hit by an
> > automobile.' "
> >
> > Instead, he says, a new international campaign to protect great ape home
> > ranges is needed. As for the argument that zoos contribute, directly and
> > indirectly, to conservation efforts, the Los Angeles Zoo makes little
> > direct contribution to conservation efforts aimed at great apes in the
> > wild. The Mahale Mountain exhibit, in other words, isn't used as a vehicle
> > for keeping the real Mahale Mountain chimpanzees alive.
> >
> > Cox is searching for common ground. "Craig is right on in a way. It is
> > morally questionable to do this work. As you confront the [ethical]
> > question, it ought to move you in the direction of really being sure that
> > you're protecting them and ensuring the most satisfying life they can
> > possibly have."
> >
> > Judeo, the wizened older male at the Mahale Mountain enclosure, sports a
> > white goatee, a broad chest and a domineering manner that dares you to
> > question who's in charge. Galloping across the grass on all fours, he
> > clambers up the rocks and then rises fully upright, looking as if he
> > intends to spoof that timeworn illustration about evolution that begins w
> > ith a monkey and gives rise to a man.
> >
> > Even if you didn't know that Judeo is a close genetic match for me, our DNA
> > overlapping by more than 98%, going to the railing for a closer look is
> > like observing oneself in a fun-house mirror. There's the initial shock of
> > recognition that primate researchers always mention. But sometimes, too,
> > there's a powerful crosscurrent, a kind of visceral shock, even revulsion.
> > Judeo's eyes are bright, his brow furled in a familiar way, his mouth
> > upturned in what looks like a malevolent grin. Get a load of that gaping
> > mouth, pink gums and sharp canines. His chest is a fireplug of muscles,
> > like the torso of a dwarf bodybuilder. His long arms stretch down past
> > stumpy legs.
> >
> > Perhaps such push-pull reactions explain why apes and monkeys were used for
> > centuries as symbols of the impulsive or demonic side of human nature.
> > Maybe this deep ambiguity even underpins the tendency of some to see the
> > connection between apes and humans as a lightly graded continuum and
> > others, studying the same animals, to highlight vast differences.
> >
> > The two Stanfords, one a lively miniature of the other, wander off to look
> > at hippos and giraffes. Along wide concrete walkways on our way back to the
> > zoo entrance, volunteers have brought various other animals out to allow
> > visitors a closer look. We stop to check them out. An attendant offers a
> > bulbous boa constrictor as thick as your wrist for patrons to touch. When
> > it moves, rippling its muscles, the snake's body shimmers. Adam hesitates,
> > but only for a beat before running his open hand along the leathery
> > snakeskin.
> >
> > I watch over his shoulder, studying Adam as he scopes out the boa
> > constrictor. He looks up shyly. But he doesn't try shimmying his own body,
> > doesn't stroke his own skin, aping the snake as he'd done an hour before
> > with Jerrard. Adam doesn't lie down on the ground to mimic the snake's
> > slithering. Neither does he turn back, to me or to his father, to say with
> > quiet authority: "You know, we are a snake."
> > ___
> >
> > Douglas Foster, a visiting professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of
> > Journalism

--- In pota@y..., thypentacle <thypentacle@y...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the updates. Especially the Dragon flick one. Dragons have always fascinated me actually. Looking forward to seeing any movie with them in it. Of course ape flicks are almost as good...... almost. :o)
> ThyPentacle
> P.S. Forgive me if I don't seem together right now... I just woke up from a nap.
> veetus@e... wrote: Wasn't Richard Zanuck supposed to remake "Journey to the Center of the Earth" for Fox? Well, the latest word ( www.cinescape.com ) is that writers John Glenn and Travis Wright are working on it for Paramount, though no word if Zanuck is involved. Some here have expressed interest in the flick so I thought I'd bring it up. Glenn and Wright are also scripting remakes of "The Warriors" and "Clash of the Titans" (the latter suggesting "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" have made it safe for fantasy films again). Speaking of which, there's a positive review of Zanuck's dragon flick "Reign of Fire" over at aintitcool.com . It's a mix of "Jurassic Park", "Aliens" and "Mad Max" using dragons, directed by "X-Files" movie's Rob Bowman. If it's a big hit it'll give Zanuck more leverage for an "Apes" sequel (or maybe he'll do a "Reign of Fire" sequel instead). But we'll see; last I heard, dragons were still not big attractions at the box office. Etc.

--- In pota@y..., "Melkor" <melkor@m...> wrote:
> It was common in the 1960's for movies to have a liberal viewpoint, and still
> is I guess. I doubt that Heston thought much about the politics while he was
> making the film, it was just an interesting role for him. Nowadays it seems
> ironic that Heston played a big role in POTA. But it is not so ironic when
> you consider that Jacobs wanted Heston precisely because of his earlier roles
> in defending western values, so that this subordinate situation in POTA would
> pack more of a punch.
>
> Zanuck was always clueless, which is probably one reason POTA 2001 turned out
> so bad. All Zanuck gets credit for is for finally allowing Jacobs to make POTA
> and for getting Linda Harrison in the movie.
>
> -Tom
>
>
> > Good points, though Heston apparently didn't have a problem with it, and
> >Zanuck didn't see any message at all. I thought Heston was a good sport in
> >POTA2001, though maybe he didn't notice it was playing with his gun stance.
> >Etc. - - - Jeff
> >
> >> I am not really thrilled about off topic posts so I'll try to steer this
> >back
> >> to something topic related. Sci-fi often sneaks in poltical satire, and
> >POTA
> >> is the most politicized sci-fi series ever, so politics will come up once
> >in
> >> awhile. The amount of politics in POTA is as high as Gulliver's Travels
> >and
> >> Animal Farm, and it's no accident that POTA came out in the 60's and early
> >> 70's.
> >>
> >> POTA is essentially one big bash of conservatism and that
> >anti-conservative
> >> theme is consistent and relentless. Given writers like Mike Wilson and
> >Paul
> >> Dehn that's no surpise. This anti-conservatism is the one consistent
> >thing
> >> about the movie series, tv series, book, and even POTA 2001 and the
> >cartoon
> >> series. I've always thought it would be hard for a conservative to be
> >more
> >> than a casual POTA fan. Watch it enough and people will soon notice that
> >the
> >> villians in the POTA stories are neither the humans nor the apes, they are
> >> consistently the conservatives of each. Even in the original movie Taylor
> >> criticizes human conservatives both before "does man...still make war
> >against
> >> his brother, and keep his neighbor's children starving?" and after "you
> >bloody
> >> bastards!" he meets the apes. Taylor also laughs at the conservative
> >Landon
> >> for planting an American flag on the planet, and starts criticizing him
> >later
> >> "you were the golden boy of the class of 72". This is the same Landon who
> >> later is given a lobotomy.
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "patrickmichaeltilton" <patrickmichaeltilton@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 9:09 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: Open the Labs and Set them Free?


> *** Check out the latest issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, which has an
> article on how non-alpha male orangutans have evolved a behavior that
> ensures their genes get passed on to the next generation: Rape. The
> article is kind of disturbing, and should, perhaps, be thought of as
> yet one more simian similarity to (some) human behaviors which have
> recently been controversially put forward (I'm thinking of a recent
> book that studies Rape from an evolutionary standpoint, as a behavior
> that evolved over the course of millions of years--I can't remember
> the title of the book, but it came out last year, I think, and caused
> a storm of controversy).
>
> Patrick
>
>
> --- In pota@y..., Haristas@a... wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > Los Angeles Times Magazine
> > >
> > > June 2, 2002
> > >
> > > Open the Labs and Set Them Free?
> > >
> > > USC's Craig Stanford Believes That Chimpanzees Are as Intelligent as
> > > 2-Year-Old Children. If He's Right, Zoos and Research Laboratories
Have a
> > > Lot of Explaining to Do.
> > >
> > > By DOUGLAS FOSTER, Special To The Times
> > >
> > > Adam Stanford teeters atop a log, studying Jerrard. They gaze at each
other
> > > through a glass divider--a flaxen-haired 5-year-old boy and his
12-year-old
> > > counterpart--as if assessing a possible playmate. Adam is wearing a
modish
> > > blue shirt, pressed khaki shorts and sneakers. Jerrard is wearing no
> > > clothes at all, because that's not required of chimpanzees living in
the
> > > Mahale Mountain enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo.
> > >
> > > Jerrard turns, showing off his broad shoulders, lanky arms and a
> > > resplendent, hairy, heavily muscled back. Adam turns too, shaking his
arms
> > > as if working out kinks or comparing physiques, aping the chimpanzee.
"You
> > > know, we are an ape,"he murmurs. Adam's father cracks up. "I didn't
put him
> > > up to that," he says.
> > >
> > > Craig Stanford, 44, is chair of the anthropology department at USC and
an
> > > emerging star in a new generation of great ape field researchers. He
> > > regularly commutes from Los Angeles, where he teaches at USC and
co-directs
> > > the university's Jane Goodall Research Center, to the rolling hills of
the
> > > Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, where he's engaged in a
> > > long-term study of gorillas and chimpanzees. It feels a bit surreal to
> > > stand outside this enclosure with Stanford. Mahale Mountain, after
all, is
> > > the name of an actual wild chimpanzee study site in Tanzania. Next to
the
> > > zoo's faux mountain is a faux Gombe, a kitsch representation of Jane
> > > Goodall's storied study site in the same country. A tent much like the
one
> > > she lived in during her early field studies opens over a concrete
walkway,
> > > and copies of her early notes are on display under glass. Stanford
> > > conducted research at the real Gombe, and he only heightens the
dissonance
> > > by turning away from the captive chimpanzees to say they're quite
unlike
> > > the wild creatures he's studied over the years. "They're just
different
> > > animals," he says. "The chimpanzees I work with evolved in an African
> > > forest in response to pressures of an African forest."
> > >
> > > The implication is that you can't learn what you need to know about
> > > chimpanzees by observing them in captive circumstances. This notion
has not
> > > endeared Stanford to the nation's zookeepers and their in-house
> > > primatologists. But what really rankles some of his colleagues is
> > > Stanford's belief that captive apes are akin to young human children.
> > > "Keeping great apes in zoos is morally questionable, and in
laboratories
> > > reprehensible," he writes in his latest book, "Significant Others."
"The
> > > intellect of a chimpanzee is similar to that of a small child or a
> > > cognitively impaired adult."
> > >
> > > In addition to the estimated 200,000 chimpanzees still alive in
Africa,
> > > there are 1,700 or so chimps in zoos around the world and hundreds in
> > > primate research centers for use in everything from behavioral studies
to
> > > biomedical research. Stanford is challenging not only the most
invasive
> > > sort of medical research--say, injecting chimpanzees with viral
strains and
> > > caging them in close quarters to see what happens--he's also taking
aim at
> > > behavioral experiments in laboratory settings and even the practice of
> > > keeping apes in the country's best zoos, like this one.
> > >
> > > Taking his invocation literally would mean shutting down most great
ape
> > > research in this country. Monkeys still would be kept in captivity for
HIV,
> > > malaria and tuberculosis research as well as studies on juvenile
> > > aggression. But the four kinds of primates that are most closely
related to
> > > human beings from an evolutionary point of view--chimpanzees, bonobos,
> > > gorillas and orangutans--would be placed off limits, as they are in
New
> > > Zealand. The debate over the ethics of "imprisoning" great apes has
bubbled
> > > away among primate specialists for years, often beneath the surface.
> > > They've fussed with one another about whether likening apes to human
> > > children is accurate or fair, about whether brainpower should be the
trump
> > > factor for figuring out which animals deserve special protection, and
> > > whether genetic relatedness to human beings should carry special
weight in
> > > bioethical considerations.
> > >
> > > "Look," says Stanford, gesturing at the group of chimpanzees gamboling
near
> > > the enclosure's waterfall. "From a neurological point of view, these
> > > animals are the most complex creatures on earth, maybe in the
universe,
> > > besides dolphins, whales and us. The only thing that separates them
from
> > > 2-year-old children is that we're human, they're not. Eventually, you
have
> > > to make a decision about where to draw the line."
> > >
> > > During her first few years at Gombe in the early 1960s, Jane Goodall,
an
> > > unknown researcher without a college degree, knocked a rather large
hole in
> > > the idea of the traditional dividing line--tool use--between human
beings
> > > and apes. Since then, painstaking incremental progress has followed
from
> > > both field studies of wild apes and experiments with captive animals
around
> > > the world. These studies have demonstrated that great apes use tools,
> > > recognize themselves in mirrors, have diverse "traditions," manage
> > > complicated social lives, engage in sophisticated politics and have
the
> > > ability to count and use symbolic language. Brilliant apes such as <A
HREF="http://www.greatapeproject.org/census/westcoast/washoe.htmlquot;>Washoe</A
>,
> > > the chimpanzee whose expertise in sign language was made famous by
Roger
> > > Fouts, and <A
HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/gapnews/KANZI.htmlquot;>Kanzi</A>, the bonobo who
communicates complicated messages to Sue
> > > Savage-Rumbaugh by pointing at symbols on a board, reinforced the
popular
> > > expectation that primate research would simply continue to flesh out
the
> > > similarities.
> > >
> > > Stories about these breakthroughs have filled gee-whiz columns in
> > > newspapers and fueled decades of National Geographic broadcasts. Less
> > > visible from a general reader's point of view are the often fierce
> > > critiques by contrarian scholars who feel their colleagues downplay
deep
> > > differences between humans and other primate species. "They're trying
to
> > > make chimps into human beings, trying to mold them in our image!" one

> > > scholar has complained to me.
> > >
> > > It's a minor irony that Stanford wound up in the midst of this debate
after
> > > backing into chimpanzee research in the first place. In 1988, as a
graduate
> > > student in anthropology studying a monkey called the capped langur in
> > > Bangladesh, he wrote to Jane Goodall, asking if he could come to
Gombe. He
> > > was curious not so much about the chimpanzees but about the colobus
monkeys
> > > that were hunted by the chimps.
> > >
> > > For six years in the early 1990s, Stanford followed both the hunted
colobus
> > > monkeys and the hunting chimps through a series of bloody encounters.
He
> > > documented 120 of these chimpanzee hunts in a novel way, recording
them
> > > from the point of view of both predator and prey. "Everybody told me I
> > > wouldn't be able to do this," Stanford remembers. "What I did is
comparable
> > > to standing in the middle of a herd of zebras and watching the lion
> > > attack--from the prey's perspective."
> > >
> > > Stanford made his mark with the hunting study. In a series of
scholarly
> > > journal articles and two books ("The Hunting Apes" and "Chimpanzee and
Red
> > > Colobus"), he fleshed out his view that the acquisition and sharing of
meat
> > > is a kind of proxy for power in chimp society. He also drew a fair
share of
> > > critics, particularly those who thought his theory was sexist for
placing
> > > too much emphasis on the males, who do most of the hunting. One noted
> > > scholar, Adrienne Zihlman, calls Stanford's research "a throwback" to
> > > anthropological studies that overemphasized the dominance and status
of
> > > men.
> > >
> > > Once hooked on great ape research through his exposure to chimpanzee
> > > hunting, Stanford didn't let go. For the past dozen years he's been
> > > shuttling regularly from a quiet academic life in this country to
field
> > > work in Africa. In his office at USC on the day before our visit to
the
> > > zoo, we screen videotapes of wild chimpanzees from the early years at
> > > Gombe. These aren't images for the squeamish.
> > >
> > > "Oh, my gosh, that's the one of Frodo killing Apricot," Stanford calls
out
> > > as we watch an adult male chimpanzee snatch a tiny monkey infant from
its
> > > mother's arms, swiftly bite the baby in the brain and rend its flesh.
A few
> > > reels on, we view a scene more amenable to a soft heart. A group of
chimps
> > > stumbles across a dead bushbuck, its carcass already hollowed out. The
> > > chimps hoot, screaming as if in protest. They run their hands along
the
> > > antelope's skin. Then Gigi, an adult female, caresses the antelope's
head,
> > > draping its legs over her shoulders as if wearing a stole.
> > >
> > > "She's not treating it like food, that's for sure," Stanford says.
Perhaps
> > > Gigi was putting herself in the other animal's place for a moment.
Many
> > > cognitive psychologists don't believe that great apes have what they
call
> > > "theory of mind," the ability to put oneself in another's shoes.
Stanford
> > > is quick to point out that Gigi's play provides only anecdotal
evidence,
> > > the suggestion of a possibility. But who's to say for sure whether
great
> > > apes in the wild can place themselves in another's skin?
> > >
> > > Stanford also pulls out pictures of his study site in the Bwindi
> > > Impenetrable National Park. He's excited about several new
discoveries. On
> > > a trip in the spring of 2001, he came across a group of chimpanzees
> > > spending long periods of time standing upright in the trees. Since
> > > "bipedality" is among the key differences between early human beings
and
> > > the great apes, such observations could help flesh out an
understanding of
> > > how early hominids developed the ability to stand on two feet for
extended
> > > periods.
> > >
> > > During that visit, Stanford and John Bosco Nkurunungi, a Ugandan
researcher
> > > who works with him, also chanced upon a group of chimpanzees and
gorillas
> > > feeding peacefully side by side in the park. The encounter was
surprising;
> > > wouldn't the two species compete for scarce food resources or seek
> > > different foods to avoid conflict?
> > >
> > > "I'd just finished identifying most of this community of chimpanzees,
when
> > > all of a sudden there was this much blacker face in the middle of all
the
> > > chimps," Stanford recalls. They watched as a large male gorilla joined
the
> > > lone gorilla in a group of chimpanzees; the gorillas sat a few feet
away,
> > > ignoring the chimps. Field assistants working with Nkurunungi and
Stanford
> > > also have reported that they've seen an infant gorilla trying to play
with
> > > an infant chimp.
> > >
> > > These fresh discoveries reinforce Stanford's feeling for what he calls
a
> > > "custodial obligation" toward the apes and his deepening belief that
> > > chimpanzees, as living links between a primate "common ancestor" and
> > > ourselves, deserve special protection. Differences in behavior and
> > > cognition, he says, will prove to be matters of degree, not kind. He
> > > predicts that human brains will turn out to be "exploded versions of
the
> > > chimpanzee mind."
> > >
> > > We don't pen 2-year-old children in outdoor enclosures to educate us,
or
> > > cage them in laboratories for biomedical experiments to help save us
from
> > > disease, or train them to act ferocious in feature films such as Tim
> > > Burton's "Planet of the Apes" to entertain us. Why, then, Stanford
asks, do
> > > our close primate cousins deserve this treatment?
> > >
> > > For years animal-rights activists, notably the organizers of the
> > > Portland-based Great Ape Project, have campaigned for the preservation
of
> > > apes' liberty and their protection from torture. And plenty of purists
have
> > > complained all along that great ape researchers fight only for the
> > > improvement of conditions for chimpanzees, not for other animals as
well.
> > > What is new is the intensity of the argument among primatologists
> > > themselves. A wedge has opened between field researchers and
laboratory
> > > experimenters in a debate now put in increasingly fervent, and
personal,
> > > terms.
> > >
> > > In a panel discussion about ethics at the national convention of the
> > > American Society of Primatologists in Savannah, Ga., last summer, this
> > > split was on display when a questioner suddenly set off an agitated
flurry.
> > > "Why do we hold these animals in captivity at all?" she asked. One of
the
> > > presenters, Joseph Bielitzki, former chief veterinary officer at the
> > > National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center
in
> > > California, reacted as if he'd been slapped. He launched an
impassioned
> > > attack on the idea that great apes have inherent rights. Critics were
> > > "granting moral authority to the great apes," Bielitzki said. "I can't
do
> > > that. I just don't think they have the same moral agency as the people
in
> > > this room." One zoo primatologist replied flatly that without apes and
> > > other exotic animals on display, the drawing power of zoos would
disappear.
> > > A biomedical specialist pointed out that testing thalidomide and other
> > > chemicals on nonhuman primates had protected untold numbers of human
beings
> > > in this country from illness, birth defects and deaths.
> > >
> > > Stanford doubts whether anyone can show that invasive biomedical
research
> > > on great apes is necessary. He points to the calamitous history of HIV
> > > research on chimpanzees. For years federal researchers bred
chimpanzees in
> > > the search for AIDS treatments. More than 100 chimps were injected
with the
> > > human version of the virus. But these infected chimps proved to be
poor
> > > study subjects largely because the disease incubates slowly in
chimpanzee
> > > bodies. Now the primate research centers have been left to care for
100
> > > infected, and dying, young chimps.
> > >
> > > "Everybody asks whether I would feel the same if cancer could be cured
> > > through research on chimpanzees," Stanford says. "But the key word is
'if.'
> > > How many cases do we have where great apes were actually the critical
> > > testing ground in curing disease? The idea that this kind of invasive
> > > biomedical experimentation will lead to a breakthrough is just a
fallacy. I
> > > don't see any evidence that there is a real prospect for some
breakthrough
> > > in chimps as opposed to research using rats and rabbits."
> > >
> > > This is all hotly contested territory, including Stanford's claim that
> > > chimpanzees deserve a hold on our collective conscience because they
have
> > > the intelligence of 2-year-old children. I quickly discovered how
tricky
> > > the issue is during a presentation by Daniel Povinelli at last
summer's
> > > annual convention of the American Psychological Assn. in San
Francisco.
> > > Povinelli, a psychologist from the University of Louisiana, is the
young
> > > bete noire of researchers who stress the similarities between great
apes
> > > and human beings. Introduced by an elderly researcher from Stanford
> > > University as "the best scientist in the world on chimpanzee
cognition,"
> > > Povinelli showed a beautiful shot of an exuberant chimpanzee grinning,
a
> > > photo you might expect to gin up a lecture about how apes are
Just-Like-Us.
> > > But for any psychologist in the audience expecting such a
presentation, he
> > > threw a quick curve. Chimpanzees do not have, he said in a deadpan
tone, "a
> > > watered-down version of the human mind."
> > >
> > > During the past decade, Povinelli has devoted much of his time to
> > > unraveling the core arguments of researchers like Stanford who think
that
> > > the differences between human beings and great apes are matters of
degree.
> > > "Cut through all the BS. The more you work with chimpanzees and with
human
> > > children, the more you start to see that there's this profound mixture
of
> > > similarity and difference at every age from birth forward," he said
after
> > > his talk. He repeated the phrase a few times, perhaps fearful that I'd
miss
> > > it: "Similar and different from birth forward."
> > >
> > > Chimpanzees and humans naturally share basic neural circuitry and
cognitive
> > > patterns, thanks to a common ancestor, Povinelli says. But he thinks
> > > there's a qualitatively different overlay--a sort of parallel
> > > system--operating in humans. This system, which Povinelli believes
> > > distinguishes us from all other animals, allows human beings to
speculate
> > > about the internal lives of other beings and to track the effects of
unseen
> > > forces. The basis for the difference, Povinelli suspects, is an
impulse to
> > > construct narrative, to link past, present and future in a story.
> > >
> > > Povinelli argues that great ape conservationists are making a big
strategic
> > > mistake when they liken chimpanzee minds to the cognition of
2-year-old
> > > human children. That could boomerang, he says, making the great apes
more
> > > vulnerable instead. He supports conservation efforts in Africa and
improved
> > > conditions for captive apes at home. "We should treat chimps with
respect
> > > and take into consideration their real interests and needs. But all of
> > > those things can be taken care of without saying they are the same as
> > > humans--that's one thing I know they're not."
> > >
> > > In many ways, friction over such disparate theories is rooted in
> > > decades-old rivalry between laboratory experimenters and field
researchers.
> > > Experimenters focused on the intricate workings of cognition tend to
> > > dismiss wild ape researchers as irrelevant romantics too enamored of
their
> > > own anecdotes. "You could do that kind of work for a thousand years,
> > > observing natural behavior, spontaneous behavior, and you'd never,
ever
> > > come closer to understanding whether great apes have a theory of
mind,"
> > > Povinelli says. Scholars who observe apes in the wild tend to think of
> > > those who work with captive animals as narrow-minded dopes focused on
neat
> > > lab tricks, sophisticated data manipulation and arcane theory that
only
> > > obscures a deep understanding of real animals. Animals held in
captivity,
> > > especially highly intelligent and social apes, are invariably
impoverished,
> > > they argue. If they behave quite unlike animals in the wild, what's
the
> > > value of research? "It's like looking through a cracked window,"
Stanford
> > > says softly. Like many other prominent great ape researchers, he
opposes a
> > > proposed Povinelli study in which orphaned baby chimpanzees would be
raised
> > > in human homes for several years to observe whether they develop more
> > > human-like ways of thinking. "What Povinelli does, holding out these
> > > animals as normal, it's absurd," Stanford says. "Think it through.
What
> > > would you learn about normal children by studying Bosnian war
orphans?"
> > >
> > > At stake is the future direction of primate research, which hangs in
the
> > > balance in the midst of potentially divisive bids for public support.
So
> > > too does an altered view of human nature, for how we end up thinking
about
> > > the great apes shapes how we see ourselves.
> > >
> > > The two Stanfords and I take seats on a platform overlooking the
Mahale
> > > Mountain enclosure at the L.A. Zoo to watch the chimps and their
primate
> > > cousins. Adam's attention is now fixed on dozens of teenage Homo
sapiens
> > > held back by a railing. Stanford scuffs his sandals on the ground and
> > > shifts uncomfortably as I press him about zoo exhibits like this one.
> > > Perhaps he's torn between increasingly firm opinions and his
friendships
> > > with the keeper here and a network of researchers who study captive
apes in
> > > centers around the world.
> > >
> > > "So what do you mean to suggest?" I ask, pointing past a crowd of
people
> > > calling out to the chimps. The 38,000-square-foot enclosure is
surrounded
> > > by ficus, magnolia and banana trees. Palms and rock promontories
shadow a
> > > grassy expanse. Faux logs are stuffed with nuts and leaves to keep the
> > > chimps active. "Are you saying this enclosure shouldn't exist?"
> > >
> > > Judeo, a formidable senior male in the group, shows off his impressive
> > > pectorals, throwing his arms wide. "A few might still exist for
education
> > > purposes maybe," Stanford says. But he adds that no more great apes
should
> > > be bred in captivity, and most of those already held should be
released
> > > into large sanctuaries where they can live more normal lives. When I
reach
> > > Cathleen Cox, research director at the Los Angeles Zoo, she listens
when I
> > > read her the conclusion of Stanford's book. She asks me to back up and
read
> > > the paragraphs again in which Stanford calls keeping great apes in
zoos
> > > "ethically questionable."
> > >
> > > Cox was instrumental in designing the Mahale Mountain enclosure,
pressing
> > > hard to build and maintain an exhibit that provides naturalistic
> > > stimulation for the apes. Recent studies of their social behavior
informed
> > > its architecture. The chimps are kept in a fairly large group and
they've
> > > been allowed to raise several infants, which Cox thinks will prove key
to
> > > their ability to "experience a joyful, fulfilling life."
> > >
> > > She explains the prime reasons for keeping well-designed enclosures
like
> > > hers open. There's tremendous education potential, she says, and as a
> > > result of seeing great apes in the zoo, people may learn and act on a
new
> > > sense of connection with chimpanzees.
> > >
> > > Her argument draws support from a somewhat surprising source: Jane
Goodall.
> > > "There's always the gray area," Goodall says when I track her down
between
> > > speaking engagements in Washington, D.C. "And here the gray area is
the
> > > terrible plight of chimpanzees in Africa." Goodall agrees with
Stanford's
> > > comments about the immorality of biomedical research on great apes and
> > > shares his qualms about Povinelli's proposed project. But she bristles
at
> > > the notion that these positions should be based on his underlying
> > > assumption. "What I particularly hate is comparing chimpanzee
intellect to
> > > a small human child or a mentally impaired adult. They're way above a
> > > 2-year-old child--in the way they can plan for the immediate future,
in the
> > > way they quickly adjust to the arrival of a new guy in the group who
> > > happens to be higher ranking than they are. No 2-year-old child could
do
> > > anything like that, nor could a mentally disturbed adult."
> > >
> > > Cox offers no opinion about the difference between chimp and human
> > > cognition, relying instead on reports of the plight of wild great
apes.
> > > Since they're threatened in the wild all over the world, Cox suggests,
> > > perhaps captive animals should be valued as the keepers of precious
> > > "genetic material." If they're wiped out in Africa, future generations
of
> > > Jerrard's offspring one day might be used to repopulate the wild.
> > >
> > > "I don't like that argument. It's too fatalistic," Stanford replies.
"It's
> > > like saying, 'If I put you in a cell, you're not going to get hit by
an
> > > automobile.' "
> > >
> > > Instead, he says, a new international campaign to protect great ape
home
> > > ranges is needed. As for the argument that zoos contribute, directly
and
> > > indirectly, to conservation efforts, the Los Angeles Zoo makes little
> > > direct contribution to conservation efforts aimed at great apes in the
> > > wild. The Mahale Mountain exhibit, in other words, isn't used as a
vehicle
> > > for keeping the real Mahale Mountain chimpanzees alive.
> > >
> > > Cox is searching for common ground. "Craig is right on in a way. It is
> > > morally questionable to do this work. As you confront the [ethical]
> > > question, it ought to move you in the direction of really being sure
that
> > > you're protecting them and ensuring the most satisfying life they can
> > > possibly have."
> > >
> > > Judeo, the wizened older male at the Mahale Mountain enclosure, sports
a
> > > white goatee, a broad chest and a domineering manner that dares you to
> > > question who's in charge. Galloping across the grass on all fours, he
> > > clambers up the rocks and then rises fully upright, looking as if he
> > > intends to spoof that timeworn illustration about evolution that
begins w
> > > ith a monkey and gives rise to a man.
> > >
> > > Even if you didn't know that Judeo is a close genetic match for me,
our DNA
> > > overlapping by more than 98%, going to the railing for a closer look
is
> > > like observing oneself in a fun-house mirror. There's the initial
shock of
> > > recognition that primate researchers always mention. But sometimes,
too,
> > > there's a powerful crosscurrent, a kind of visceral shock, even
revulsion.
> > > Judeo's eyes are bright, his brow furled in a familiar way, his mouth
> > > upturned in what looks like a malevolent grin. Get a load of that
gaping
> > > mouth, pink gums and sharp canines. His chest is a fireplug of
muscles,
> > > like the torso of a dwarf bodybuilder. His long arms stretch down past
> > > stumpy legs.
> > >
> > > Perhaps such push-pull reactions explain why apes and monkeys were
used for
> > > centuries as symbols of the impulsive or demonic side of human nature.
> > > Maybe this deep ambiguity even underpins the tendency of some to see
the
> > > connection between apes and humans as a lightly graded continuum and
> > > others, studying the same animals, to highlight vast differences.
> > >
> > > The two Stanfords, one a lively miniature of the other, wander off to
look
> > > at hippos and giraffes. Along wide concrete walkways on our way back
to the
> > > zoo entrance, volunteers have brought various other animals out to
allow
> > > visitors a closer look. We stop to check them out. An attendant offers
a
> > > bulbous boa constrictor as thick as your wrist for patrons to touch.
When
> > > it moves, rippling its muscles, the snake's body shimmers. Adam
hesitates,
> > > but only for a beat before running his open hand along the leathery
> > > snakeskin.
> > >
> > > I watch over his shoulder, studying Adam as he scopes out the boa
> > > constrictor. He looks up shyly. But he doesn't try shimmying his own
body,
> > > doesn't stroke his own skin, aping the snake as he'd done an hour
before
> > > with Jerrard. Adam doesn't lie down on the ground to mimic the snake's
> > > slithering. Neither does he turn back, to me or to his father, to say
with
> > > quiet authority: "You know, we are a snake."
> > > ___
> > >
> > > Douglas Foster, a visiting professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School
of
> > > Journalism
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: "patrickmichaeltilton" <patrickmichaeltilton@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 9:52 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Heston's politics & POTA [somewhat OT]


> *** Heston has a reputation, earned over the last couple decades, of
> being a "staunch conservative", which implies that he buys into ALL of
> the agenda that conservative spokespersons (i.e. Rush Limbaugh, etc.)
> tend to endorse. Personally, I think that Heston is conservative on
> more issues that concern him politically, hence his endorsement of
> Republicans in most (all?) major elections. Yet he marched with Martin
> Luther King, which wasn't exactly a "conservative" thing to do.
> Heston's NRA stance on guns isn't exactly against the "philosophy" of
> the POTA series (at least, the 1st film): as Taylor, he endures all
> sorts of degrading experiences... but when he acquires a gun of his
> own, after Zira & Lucius smuggle him out to Cornelius' wagon of
> supplies, he becomes empowered to protect himself from any further
> harassment by Zaius' gorilla forces. Why did Cornelius bring guns
> along, unless he anticipated having to use them later on? Is he afraid
> of wild animals? When Taylor aims his gun at Zaius, Cornelius tries to
> get him to put the rifle down... why? Doesn't he know that Zaius'
> gorillas will shoot Taylor dead, given the chance? The only thing
> keeping Taylor alive at this point--and keeping Cornelius and Zira
> from immediate arrest--is Taylor's having a gun, and pointing it at
> Zaius. That rifle "leveled the playing field", and I'm sure that
> Heston in particular appreciated that aspect of the story.
>
> I tend to find myself endorsing the platform of the Libertarian party,
> a political party that can best be summed up as "fiscally conservative
> yet socially liberal". I find the "Right Wing/Left Wing" schism in our
> country to be disturbing; the American symbol--the Eagle--can't fly as
> high or as far with only one of its wings, regardless of which one
> [right or left] it flaps... it needs both. Yet it could live with both
> wings cut off: it just couldn't fly, then.
>
> I tend to find myself disagreeing vehemently with "liberals" who have
> agendas regarding Gun Control and Welfare (to state two examples) that
> I feel are anathema to the Constitution and to the "values" of
> traditional Americanism (i.e. rewarding laziness rather than hard
> work); I also tend to find myself disagreeing vehemently with
> "conservatives" whose agenda regarding Organized Religion (to state
> just one example) flies in the face of the principles upon which our
> Republic was founded (by a group of Rationalists who were primarily
> Deists who did not want the U.S. government entangled with religion--
> as the Constitution plainly shows). When anti-Evolutionist, pro-
> Creationist, School-Prayer advocating, Free-Speech suppressing
> Christian religious fanatics became a sizeable bloc in the Republican
> party, it made it that much more difficult for an agnostic like me to
> want ANY Republican to get elected, regardless of his/her virtues,
> since voting Republican (at least, during the Reagan years) went part-
> and-parcel with empowering the Jerry Falwell/Pat Robertson types out
> there.
>
> Happily, the trend of history has been such as to advance the socially
> "liberal" agenda with which I agree (pro-1st Amendment, etc.), as well
> as the "conservative" agenda regarding topics such as Gun Control
> (which NO politician, after 9/11, will ever dare to espouse, since gun
> sales skyrocketed after the Al-Qaeda attacks). Getting rid of guns is
> an impossibility--and if "liberals" were successful, outlaws would
> easily outgun law-abiding citizens (as well as the police), and
> foreign aggressors would be all-the-more willing to fight us, since we
> couldn't shoot back; I think that executing murderers is the best
> deterrent to gun violence (yeah, yeah, I know that the "experts" claim
> that it isn't a deterrent, but it sure as hell prevents convicted
> murderers from killing again), and if executions were public--
> broadcast on CNN, FOX news, etc.--then the creeps out there
> contemplating the use of a gun in a crime just might think twice...
> [by the way, did anybody else see the pics of the Columbine killers in
> the NAT'L ENQUIRER, as I did? I think those pics should be required
> viewing in all high schools: show any other potential school-age
> would-be murderers what their dead bodies will look like, when the
> shooting's done].
>
> Hmmm... I seem to be ranting here. I better sign off before "T" gives
> me a hard time about it.
>
> Patrick
>
> --- In pota@y..., "Melkor" <melkor@m...> wrote:
> > It was common in the 1960's for movies to have a liberal viewpoint, and
still
> > is I guess. I doubt that Heston thought much about the politics while
he was
> > making the film, it was just an interesting role for him. Nowadays it
seems
> > ironic that Heston played a big role in POTA. But it is not so ironic
when
> > you consider that Jacobs wanted Heston precisely because of his earlier
roles
> > in defending western values, so that this subordinate situation in POTA
would
> > pack more of a punch.
> >
> > Zanuck was always clueless, which is probably one reason POTA 2001
turned out
> > so bad. All Zanuck gets credit for is for finally allowing Jacobs to
make POTA
> > and for getting Linda Harrison in the movie.
> >
> > -Tom
> >
> >
> > > Good points, though Heston apparently didn't have a problem with it,
and
> > >Zanuck didn't see any message at all. I thought Heston was a good sport
in
> > >POTA2001, though maybe he didn't notice it was playing with his gun
stance.
> > >Etc. - - - Jeff
> > >
> > >> I am not really thrilled about off topic posts so I'll try to steer
this
> > >back
> > >> to something topic related. Sci-fi often sneaks in poltical satire,
and
> > >POTA
> > >> is the most politicized sci-fi series ever, so politics will come up
once
> > >in
> > >> awhile. The amount of politics in POTA is as high as Gulliver's
Travels
> > >and
> > >> Animal Farm, and it's no accident that POTA came out in the 60's and
early
> > >> 70's.
> > >>
> > >> POTA is essentially one big bash of conservatism and that
> > >anti-conservative
> > >> theme is consistent and relentless. Given writers like Mike Wilson
and
> > >Paul
> > >> Dehn that's no surpise. This anti-conservatism is the one consistent
> > >thing
> > >> about the movie series, tv series, book, and even POTA 2001 and the
> > >cartoon
> > >> series. I've always thought it would be hard for a conservative to
be
> > >more
> > >> than a casual POTA fan. Watch it enough and people will soon notice
that
> > >the
> > >> villians in the POTA stories are neither the humans nor the apes,
they are
> > >> consistently the conservatives of each. Even in the original movie
Taylor
> > >> criticizes human conservatives both before "does man...still make war
> > >against
> > >> his brother, and keep his neighbor's children starving?" and after
"you
> > >bloody
> > >> bastards!" he meets the apes. Taylor also laughs at the conservative
> > >Landon
> > >> for planting an American flag on the planet, and starts criticizing
him
> > >later
> > >> "you were the golden boy of the class of 72". This is the same
Landon who
> > >> later is given a lobotomy.
> >

----- Original Message -----
From: "patrickmichaeltilton" <patrickmichaeltilton@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 8:40 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: New POTA sequel... and thoughts on a
post-BATTLE conundrum


> --- In pota@y..., "Melkor" <melkor@m...> wrote:
> > >Besides Mandemus' line about 27 years, there's also Mendez's
> > >line about Kolp's impending attack on Ape City ending "twelve
> > >years of peace", which Kolp had found to be "boring". This
> > >suggests, to me, that the Nuke War happened 12 years prior to
> > >BATTLE, and 15 years after CONQUEST. The conception of
> > >Cornelius would, then, be within a year or two after the Nuke
> > >War.
> >
> > The nuclear war had to have happened within days, or weeks at the
latest, after CONQUEST. Kolp implies this in BATTLE when he blames Caesar's
revolt for the war. Within 24 hours of CONQUEST the acting governor
(probably the lieutenant governor, not Kolp) would have called out the
national guard and requested federal troops. Caesar would have to leave the
city almost immedietely, and his relatively small force of several hundred
(or dozen?) apes who could barely communicate wouldn't have been able to
hold out much longer than a few days or weeks. A sudden nuclear war would
also explain why the American government hadn't got around to revealing the
existence of the Alpha-Omega bomb yet.
> >
> > There's another potential novel or fanfic story, between CONQUEST and
BATTLE.
>
> *** Caesar's revolt (i.e. the revolt of "apes on the five continents"
> against human oppression) may very well have been the "cause" of the
> war, as far as Kolp is concerned; but to suggest that Caesar, by
> seizing power in one single city, was the catalyst for a NUCLEAR war
> that wipes out human civilization, is going a bit too far. The Ape
> Revolt against enslavement must have taken some time to spread--not
> just days or weeks.
> The apes who were transported overseas to America, it seems, are NOT
> "primitive" apes who can't speak at all, but seem to be TALKING apes
> who just don't know English yet... and are prudent enough to shun the
> use of vocal language while in their state of servitude. How else are
> we to explain how Lisa--who, undoubtedly, had been shipped over from
> "A-for-Africa, ex French Cameroons" (or some such)--is able to
> actually SPEAK the word "No!" at the end of CONQUEST... and is
> perfectly fluent in English throughout BATTLE? And let's not forget
> old Mandemus, who--being able to speak as an old orangutan--must have
> been able to speak when he was young, too. Where/how did HE acquire
> the physical ability to speak? He is old enough to have been the one
> who taught Virgil, when Virgil was a child; was Virgil a child in
> 1991? Virgil speaks of "our servitude"--implying that HE himself had
> suffered as a servant under human dominance, enduring the "electrical
> conditioning" to the "negative imperative", like all the other apes
> who were sent through Ape Management.
> There are 2 distinct time intervals given in BATTLE: Mendez tells Kolp
> that IF they invade the Apes' village, they'd be ending "twelve years
> of peace"--which means that the Nuclear War had to have happened AT
> LEAST that many years prior to BATTLE; and, lastly, Mandemus
> explicitly tells Caesar that he has been the guardian of Caesar's
> armory "for twenty-seven years"--and we have MacDonald's testimony
> that Mandemus' mind is "as sharp as a razor" (meaning, he isn't a
> deranged, senile old coot who can't tell time). Like it or not, this
> line by Mandemus places the events of BATTLE at no earlier than 27
> years after CONQUEST, or approximately 2018 A.D., with the Nuclear War
> having happened in 2006 (if, that is, Mendez's line about ending 12
> years of peace is in reference to the Nuke War, and not about some
> OTHER incident of warfare after the Nukes).
>
> I agree that there's all sorts of stories that take place between
> CONQUEST and BATTLE, but I agree with Mandemus that there's some 27
> years of time between those two stories. I don't think that the
> Russians or the Chinese (or whoever) would automatically lob ICBMs
> over into America just because of a bunch of ape slaves had trashed
> one city over here. Kolp's accusations against Caesar (that the apes
> had made humans weak, etc.) are really just the rantings of a mad jerk
> who has planned--in the event he is defeated--on having Alma detonate
> the Alpha Omega bomb, just so the apes don't "win" after all.
>
> Patrick Michael Tilton
> EARTH-TIME 6-05-2002
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----
From: <veetus@...>
To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 11:20 PM
Subject: [Planet of the Apes] They shoot, he scores! (OT)


> Those who liked Elfman's "Apes" score might like to know that his score
> for "Spiderman" came out Tuesday, not to be confused with the album that
has
> two Elfman cuts and the rest pop songs.
> Has anyone seen the sci-fi flick "Pitch Black", I guess it was out a
> couple years ago. They're planning, not one, not two, but 3 sequels. I
> didn't even know it was a hit. And here Zanuck is trying to scrape
together
> one "Apes" sequel. Etc. - - Jeff
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "patrickmichaeltilton" <patrickmichaeltilton@...>
> To: <pota@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 8:40 PM
> Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: New POTA sequel... and thoughts on a
> post-BATTLE conundrum
>
>
> > --- In pota@y..., "Melkor" <melkor@m...> wrote:
> > > >Besides Mandemus' line about 27 years, there's also Mendez's
> > > >line about Kolp's impending attack on Ape City ending "twelve
> > > >years of peace", which Kolp had found to be "boring". This
> > > >suggests, to me, that the Nuke War happened 12 years prior to
> > > >BATTLE, and 15 years after CONQUEST. The conception of
> > > >Cornelius would, then, be within a year or two after the Nuke
> > > >War.
> > >
> > > The nuclear war had to have happened within days, or weeks at the
> latest, after CONQUEST. Kolp implies this in BATTLE when he blames
Caesar's
> revolt for the war. Within 24 hours of CONQUEST the acting governor
> (probably the lieutenant governor, not Kolp) would have called out the
> national guard and requested federal troops. Caesar would have to leave
the
> city almost immedietely, and his relatively small force of several hundred

> (or dozen?) apes who could barely communicate wouldn't have been able to
> hold out much longer than a few days or weeks. A sudden nuclear war would
> also explain why the American government hadn't got around to revealing
the
> existence of the Alpha-Omega bomb yet.
> > >
> > > There's another potential novel or fanfic story, between CONQUEST and
> BATTLE.
> >
> > *** Caesar's revolt (i.e. the revolt of "apes on the five continents"
> > against human oppression) may very well have been the "cause" of the
> > war, as far as Kolp is concerned; but to suggest that Caesar, by
> > seizing power in one single city, was the catalyst for a NUCLEAR war
> > that wipes out human civilization, is going a bit too far. The Ape
> > Revolt against enslavement must have taken some time to spread--not
> > just days or weeks.
> > The apes who were transported overseas to America, it seems, are NOT
> > "primitive" apes who can't speak at all, but seem to be TALKING apes
> > who just don't know English yet... and are prudent enough to shun the
> > use of vocal language while in their state of servitude. How else are
> > we to explain how Lisa--who, undoubtedly, had been shipped over from
> > "A-for-Africa, ex French Cameroons" (or some such)--is able to
> > actually SPEAK the word "No!" at the end of CONQUEST... and is
> > perfectly fluent in English throughout BATTLE? And let's not forget
> > old Mandemus, who--being able to speak as an old orangutan--must have
> > been able to speak when he was young, too. Where/how did HE acquire
> > the physical ability to speak? He is old enough to have been the one
> > who taught Virgil, when Virgil was a child; was Virgil a child in
> > 1991? Virgil speaks of "our servitude"--implying that HE himself had
> > suffered as a servant under human dominance, enduring the "electrical
> > conditioning" to the "negative imperative", like all the other apes
> > who were sent through Ape Management.
> > There are 2 distinct time intervals given in BATTLE: Mendez tells Kolp
> > that IF they invade the Apes' village, they'd be ending "twelve years
> > of peace"--which means that the Nuclear War had to have happened AT
> > LEAST that many years prior to BATTLE; and, lastly, Mandemus
> > explicitly tells Caesar that he has been the guardian of Caesar's
> > armory "for twenty-seven years"--and we have MacDonald's testimony
> > that Mandemus' mind is "as sharp as a razor" (meaning, he isn't a
> > deranged, senile old coot who can't tell time). Like it or not, this
> > line by Mandemus places the events of BATTLE at no earlier than 27
> > years after CONQUEST, or approximately 2018 A.D., with the Nuclear War
> > having happened in 2006 (if, that is, Mendez's line about ending 12
> > years of peace is in reference to the Nuke War, and not about some
> > OTHER incident of warfare after the Nukes).
> >
> > I agree that there's all sorts of stories that take place between
> > CONQUEST and BATTLE, but I agree with Mandemus that there's some 27
> > years of time between those two stories. I don't think that the
> > Russians or the Chinese (or whoever) would automatically lob ICBMs
> > over into America just because of a bunch of ape slaves had trashed
> > one city over here. Kolp's accusations against Caesar (that the apes
> > had made humans weak, etc.) are really just the rantings of a mad jerk
> > who has planned--in the event he is defeated--on having Alma detonate
> > the Alpha Omega bomb, just so the apes don't "win" after all.
> >
> > Patrick Michael Tilton
> > EARTH-TIME 6-05-2002
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >

> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----

From: LordTZer0@...

Sent: Sunday, June 02, 2002 8:17 PM

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Planet of the Apes] Ape Font

 

I've yet to see a Planet of the Apes font unfortunately - does anyone
know of one?

Yeah but they're expensive.

----- Original Message -----

From: Melkor

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 12:38 PM

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] re: The Fall - PotA2001 prequel novel

 

>

>Not sure if this information has been posted here or not.
>
>The Fall (Prequel novel to Planet of the Apes 2001)
>by William T. Quick
>
>Publisher: Harper Entertainment
>ISBN: 0060086203  (to be published June 2002)
>

I would like to see a lot more POTA novels, comic stories and fanfic.
This is an area where POTA falls far short of other sci-fi.  There are
some great stories in the original movie series waiting to be told,
before and after the movie stories.  How about some stories about Caesar
growing up?  How about the story of Milo, Zira, and Cornelius between
BENEATH and ESCAPE?


-Tom




Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the

----- Original Message -----

From: Michael Whitty

Sent: Monday, June 03, 2002 2:38 PM

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Subject: RE: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script

 

And Lincoln was assassinated WHEN?  About 100 years ago?

So the apes came in 100 years ago and chiselled over the face.

Then they proceeded to buil a Washinton that is identical to the one
familiar to all of us.  Is it just me or does that not work?

Michael

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melkor [melkor@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, 4 June 2002 6:14
> To: pota@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Planet of the Apes] re: Apes Script
>
>
> >They need to explain why Washington has all recognisable
> monuments created
> >and intact but one is modified.
>
> The apes took over sometime after Thade landed on Earth and chiseled in
> Thade's face over Lincoln's.
>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

> I'm more inclined to believe that he came sometime just prior
> to Leo's return, maybe on Earth they had already begun
> experimenting on creating the intelligent apes, after all, they
> were doing it on the Oberon. He got some of these smarter
> apes together, took over, then just kept all the human stuff...
> i.e. buildings, vehicles, technology. Then they set about
> replacing the monuments to eradicate human reminders.

----- Original Message -----

From: Melkor

Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 4:52 PM

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: Apes Script

 

>>I think only Thade went to Earth.  But it's still a lame ending because

>>why would the genetically altered apes on Earth need any help from Thade with
>>their Revolution?  All Thade really brings to Earth is a militant attitude.
>>But it seems like with his contempt for humans he wouldn't last very long
>>in an Earth dominated by humans.   They should have left the Thade statue
>>out of the ending.
>
>You're thinking too two dimensionally here.

Why don't you post your own scenario and subject it to feedback and criticism
of the group?






Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the

----- Original Message -----

From: patrickmichaeltilton

Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 9:11 PM

To: pota@yahoogroups.com

Subject: [Planet of the Apes] Re: Open the Labs and Set them Free?

 

*** Check out the latest issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, which has an
article on how non-alpha male orangutans have evolved a behavior that
ensures their genes get passed on to the next generation: Rape. The
article is kind of disturbing, and should, perhaps, be thought of as
yet one more simian similarity to (some) human behaviors which have
recently been controversially put forward (I'm thinking of a recent
book that studies Rape from an evolutionary standpoint, as a behavior
that evolved over the course of millions of years--I can't remember
the title of the book, but it came out last year, I think, and caused
a storm of controversy).

Patrick


--- In pota@y..., Haristas@a... wrote:
>
>
>
> > Los Angeles Times Magazine
> >
> > June 2, 2002
> >
> > Open the Labs and Set Them Free?
> >
> > USC's Craig Stanford Believes That Chimpanzees Are as Intelligent as
> > 2-Year-Old Children. If He's Right, Zoos and Research Laboratories Have a
> > Lot of Explaining to Do.
> >
> > By DOUGLAS FOSTER, Special To The Times
> >
> > Adam Stanford teeters atop a log, studying Jerrard. They gaze at each other
> > through a glass divider--a flaxen-haired 5-year-old boy and his 12-year-old
> > counterpart--as if assessing a possible playmate. Adam is wearing a modish
> > blue shirt, pressed khaki shorts and sneakers. Jerrard is wearing no
> > clothes at all, because that's not required of chimpanzees living in the
> > Mahale Mountain enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo.
> >
> > Jerrard turns, showing off his broad shoulders, lanky arms and a
> > resplendent, hairy, heavily muscled back. Adam turns too, shaking his arms
> > as if working out kinks or comparing physiques, aping the chimpanzee. "You
> > know, we are an ape,"he murmurs. Adam's father cracks up. "I didn't put him
> > up to that," he says.
> >
> > Craig Stanford, 44, is chair of the anthropology department at USC and an
> > emerging star in a new generation of great ape field researchers. He
> > regularly commutes from Los Angeles, where he teaches at USC and co-directs
> > the university's Jane Goodall Research Center, to the rolling hills of the
> > Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda, where he's engaged in a
> > long-term study of gorillas and chimpanzees. It feels a bit surreal to
> > stand outside this enclosure with Stanford. Mahale Mountain, after all, is
> > the name of an actual wild chimpanzee study site in Tanzania. Next to the
> > zoo's faux mountain is a faux Gombe, a kitsch representation of Jane
> > Goodall's storied study site in the same country. A tent much like the one
> > she lived in during her early field studies opens over a concrete walkway,
> > and copies of her early notes are on display under glass. Stanford
> > conducted research at the real Gombe, and he only heightens the dissonance
> > by turning away from the captive chimpanzees to say they're quite unlike
> > the wild creatures he's studied over the years. "They're just different
> > animals," he says. "The chimpanzees I work with evolved in an African
> > forest in response to pressures of an African forest."
> >
> > The implication is that you can't learn what you need to know about
> > chimpanzees by observing them in captive circumstances. This notion has not
> > endeared Stanford to the nation's zookeepers and their in-house
> > primatologists. But what really rankles some of his colleagues is
> > Stanford's belief that captive apes are akin to young human children.
> > "Keeping great apes in zoos is morally questionable, and in laboratories
> > reprehensible," he writes in his latest book, "Significant Others."   "The
> > intellect of a chimpanzee is similar to that of a small child or a
> > cognitively impaired adult."
> >
> > In addition to the estimated 200,000 chimpanzees still alive in Africa,
> > there are 1,700 or so chimps in zoos around the world and hundreds in
> > primate research centers for use in everything from behavioral studies to
> > biomedical research. Stanford is challenging not only the most invasive
> > sort of medical research--say, injecting chimpanzees with viral strains and
> > caging them in close quarters to see what happens--he's also taking aim at
> > behavioral experiments in laboratory settings and even the practice of
> > keeping apes in the country's best zoos, like this one.
> >
> > Taking his invocation literally would mean shutting down most great ape
> > research in this country. Monkeys still would be kept in captivity for HIV,
> > malaria and tuberculosis research as well as studies on juvenile
> > aggression. But the four kinds of primates that are most closely related to
> > human beings from an evolutionary point of view--chimpanzees, bonobos,
> > gorillas and orangutans--would be placed off limits, as they are in New
> > Zealand. The debate over the ethics of "imprisoning" great apes has bubbled
> > away among primate specialists for years, often beneath the surface.
> > They've fussed with one another about whether likening apes to human
> > children is accurate or fair, about whether brainpower should be the trump
> > factor for figuring out which animals deserve special protection, and
> > whether genetic relatedness to human beings should carry special weight in
> > bioethical considerations.
> >
> > "Look," says Stanford, gesturing at the group of chimpanzees gamboling near
> > the enclosure's waterfall. "From a neurological point of view, these
> > animals are the most complex creatures on earth, maybe in the universe,
> > besides dolphins, whales and us. The only thing that separates them from
> > 2-year-old children is that we're human, they're not. Eventually, you have
> > to make a decision about where to draw the line."
> >
> > During her first few years at Gombe in the early 1960s, Jane Goodall, an
> > unknown researcher without a college degree, knocked a rather large hole in
> > the idea of the traditional dividing line--tool use--between human beings
> > and apes. Since then, painstaking incremental progress has followed from
> > both field studies of wild apes and experiments with captive animals around
> > the world. These studies have demonstrated that great apes use tools,
> > recognize themselves in mirrors, have diverse "traditions," manage
> > complicated social lives, engage in sophisticated politics and have the
> > ability to count and use symbolic language. Brilliant apes such as <A HREF=" http://www.greatapeproject.org/census/westcoast/washoe.html"">Washoe</A>,
> > the chimpanzee whose expertise in sign language was made famous by Roger
> > Fouts, and <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/gapnews/KANZI.html"">Kanzi</A>, the bonobo who communicates complicated messages to Sue
> > Savage-Rumbaugh by pointing at symbols on a board, reinforced the popular
> > expectation that primate research would simply continue to flesh out the
> > similarities.
> >
> > Stories about these breakthroughs have filled gee-whiz columns in
> > newspapers and fueled decades of National Geographic broadcasts. Less
> > visible from a general reader's point of view are the often fierce
> > critiques by contrarian scholars who feel their colleagues downplay deep
> > differences between humans and other primate species. "They're trying to
> > make chimps into human beings, trying to mold them in our image!" one
> > scholar has complained to me.
> >
> > It's a minor irony that Stanford wound up in the midst of this debate after
> > backing into chimpanzee research in the first place. In 1988, as a graduate
> > student in anthropology studying a monkey called the capped langur in
> > Bangladesh, he wrote to Jane Goodall, asking if he could come to Gombe. He
> > was curious not so much about the chimpanzees but about the colobus monkeys
> > that were hunted by the chimps.
> >
> > For six years in the early 1990s, Stanford followed both the hunted colobus
> > monkeys and the hunting chimps through a series of bloody encounters. He
> > documented 120 of these chimpanzee hunts in a novel way, recording them
> > from the point of view of both predator and prey. "Everybody told me I
> > wouldn't be able to do this," Stanford remembers. "What I did is comparable
> > to standing in the middle of a herd of zebras and watching the lion
> > attack--from the prey's perspective."
> >
> > Stanford made his mark with the hunting study. In a series of scholarly
> > journal articles and two books ("The Hunting Apes" and "Chimpanzee and Red
> > Colobus"), he fleshed out his view that the acquisition and sharing of meat
> > is a kind of proxy for power in chimp society. He also drew a fair share of
> > critics, particularly those who thought his theory was sexist for placing
> > too much emphasis on the males, who do most of the hunting. One noted
> > scholar, Adrienne Zihlman, calls Stanford's research "a throwback" to
> > anthropological studies that overemphasized the dominance and status of
> > men.
> >
> > Once hooked on great ape research through his exposure to chimpanzee
> > hunting, Stanford didn't let go. For the past dozen years he's been
> > shuttling regularly from a quiet academic life in this country to field
> > work in Africa. In his office at USC on the day before our visit to the
> > zoo, we screen videotapes of wild chimpanzees from the early years at
> > Gombe. These aren't images for the squeamish.
> >
> > "Oh, my gosh, that's the one of Frodo killing Apricot," Stanford calls out
> > as we watch an adult male chimpanzee snatch a tiny monkey infant from its
> > mother's arms, swiftly bite the baby in the brain and rend its flesh. A few
> > reels on, we view a scene more amenable to a soft heart. A group of chimps
> > stumbles across a dead bushbuck, its carcass already hollowed out. The
> > chimps hoot, screaming as if in protest. They run their hands along the
> > antelope's skin. Then Gigi, an adult female, caresses the antelope's head,
> > draping its legs over her shoulders as if wearing a stole.
> >
> > "She's not treating it like food, that's for sure," Stanford says. Perhaps
> > Gigi was putting herself in the other animal's place for a moment. Many
> > cognitive psychologists don't believe that great apes have what they call
> > "theory of mind," the ability to put oneself in another's shoes. Stanford
> > is quick to point out that Gigi's play provides only anecdotal evidence,
> > the suggestion of a possibility. But who's to say for sure whether great
> > apes in the wild can place themselves in another's skin?
> >
> > Stanford also pulls out pictures of his study site in the Bwindi
> > Impenetrable National Park. He's excited about several new discoveries. On
> > a trip in the spring of 2001, he came across a group of chimpanzees
> > spending long periods of time standing upright in the trees. Since
> > "bipedality" is among the key differences between early human beings and
> > the great apes, such observations could help flesh out an understanding of
> > how early hominids developed the ability to stand on two feet for extended
> > periods.
> >
> > During that visit, Stanford and John Bosco Nkurunungi, a Ugandan researcher
> > who works with him, also chanced upon a group of chimpanzees and gorillas
> > feeding peacefully side by side in the park. The encounter was surprising;
> > wouldn't the two species compete for scarce food resources or seek
> > different foods to avoid conflict?
> >
> > "I'd just finished identifying most of this community of chimpanzees, when
> > all of a sudden there was this much blacker face in the middle of all the
> > chimps," Stanford recalls. They watched as a large male gorilla joined the
> > lone gorilla in a group of chimpanzees; the gorillas sat a few feet away,
> > ignoring the chimps. Field assistants working with Nkurunungi and Stanford
> > also have reported that they've seen an infant gorilla trying to play with
> > an infant chimp.
> >
> > These fresh discoveries reinforce Stanford's feeling for what he calls a
> > "custodial obligation" toward the apes and his deepening belief that
> > chimpanzees, as living links between a primate "common ancestor" and
> > ourselves, deserve special protection. Differences in behavior and
> > cognition, he says, will prove to be matters of degree, not kind. He
> > predicts that human brains will turn out to be "exploded versions of the
> > chimpanzee mind."
> >
> > We don't pen 2-year-old children in outdoor enclosures to educate us, or
> > cage them in laboratories for biomedical experiments to help save us from
> > disease, or train them to act ferocious in feature films such as Tim
> > Burton's "Planet of the Apes" to entertain us. Why, then, Stanford asks, do
> > our close primate cousins deserve this treatment?
> >
> > For years animal-rights activists, notably the organizers of the
> > Portland-based Great Ape Project, have campaigned for the preservation of
> > apes' liberty and their protection from torture. And plenty of purists have
> > complained all along that great ape researchers fight only for the
> > improvement of conditions for chimpanzees, not for other animals as well.
> > What is new is the intensity of the argument among primatologists
> > themselves. A wedge has opened between field researchers and laboratory
> > experimenters in a debate now put in increasingly fervent, and personal,
> > terms.
> >
> > In a panel discussion about ethics at the national convention of the
> > American Society of Primatologists in Savannah, Ga., last summer, this
> > split was on display when a questioner suddenly set off an agitated flurry.
> > "Why do we hold these animals in captivity at all?" she asked. One of the
> > presenters, Joseph Bielitzki, former chief veterinary officer at the
> > National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center in
> > California, reacted as if he'd been slapped. He launched an impassioned
> > attack on the idea that great apes have inherent rights. Critics were
> > "granting moral authority to the great apes," Bielitzki said. "I can't do
> > that. I just don't think they have the same moral agency as the people in
> > this room." One zoo primatologist replied flatly that without apes and
> > other exotic animals on display, the drawing power of zoos would disappear.
> > A biomedical specialist pointed out that testing thalidomide and other
> > chemicals on nonhuman primates had protected untold numbers of human beings
> > in this country from illness, birth defects and deaths.
> >
> > Stanford doubts whether anyone can show that invasive biomedical research
> > on great apes is necessary. He points to the calamitous history of HIV
> > research on chimpanzees. For years federal researchers bred chimpanzees in
> > the search for AIDS treatments. More than 100 chimps were injected with the
> > human version of the virus. But these infected chimps proved to be poor
> > study subjects largely because the disease incubates slowly in chimpanzee
> > bodies. Now the primate research centers have been left to care for 100
> > infected, and dying, young chimps.
> >
> > "Everybody asks whether I would feel the same if cancer could be cured
> > through research on chimpanzees," Stanford says. "But the key word is 'if.'
> > How many cases do we have where great apes were actually the critical
> > testing ground in curing disease? The idea that this kind of invasive
> > biomedical experimentation will lead to a breakthrough is just a fallacy. I
> > don't see any evidence that there is a real prospect for some breakthrough
> > in chimps as opposed to research using rats and rabbits."
> >
> > This is all hotly contested territory, including Stanford's claim that
> > chimpanzees deserve a hold on our collective conscience because they have
> > the intelligence of 2-year-old children. I quickly discovered how tricky
> > the issue is during a presentation by Daniel Povinelli at last summer's
> > annual convention of the American Psychological Assn. in San Francisco.
> > Povinelli, a psychologist from the University of Louisiana, is the young
> > bete noire of researchers who stress the similarities between great apes
> > and human beings. Introduced by an elderly researcher from Stanford
> > University as "the best scientist in the world on chimpanzee cognition,"
> > Povinelli showed a beautiful shot of an exuberant chimpanzee grinning, a
> > photo you might expect to gin up a lecture about how apes are Just-Like-Us.
> > But for any psychologist in the audience expecting such a presentation, he
> > threw a quick curve. Chimpanzees do not have, he said in a deadpan tone, "a
> > watered-down version of the human mind."
> >
> > During the past decade, Povinelli has devoted much of his time to
> > unraveling the core arguments of researchers like Stanford who think that
> > the differences between human beings and great apes are matters of degree.
> > "Cut through all the BS. The more you work with chimpanzees and with human
> > children, the more you start to see that there's this profound mixture of
> > similarity and difference at every age from birth forward," he said after
> > his talk. He repeated the phrase a few times, perhaps fearful that I'd miss
> > it: "Similar and different from birth forward."
> >
> > Chimpanzees and humans naturally share basic neural circuitry and cognitive
> > patterns, thanks to a common ancestor, Povinelli says. But he thinks
> > there's a qualitatively different overlay--a sort of parallel
> > system--operating in humans. This system, which Povinelli believes
> > distinguishes us from all other animals, allows human beings to speculate
> > about the internal lives of other beings and to track the effects of unseen
> > forces. The basis for the difference, Povinelli suspects, is an impulse to
> > construct narrative, to link past, present and future in a story.
> >
> > Povinelli argues that great ape conservationists are making a big strategic
> > mistake when they liken chimpanzee minds to the cognition of 2-year-old
> > human children. That could boomerang, he says, making the great apes more
> > vulnerable instead. He supports conservation efforts in Africa and improved
> > conditions for captive apes at home. "We should treat chimps with respect
> > and take into consideration their real interests and needs. But all of
> > those things can be taken care of without saying they are the same as
> > humans--that's one thing I know they're not."
> >
> > In many ways, friction over such disparate theories is rooted in
> > decades-old rivalry between laboratory experimenters and field researchers.
> > Experimenters focused on the intricate workings of cognition tend to
> > dismiss wild ape researchers as irrelevant romantics too enamored of their
> > own anecdotes. "You could do that kind of work for a thousand years,
> > observing natural behavior, spontaneous behavior, and you'd never, ever
> > come closer to understanding whether great apes have a theory of mind,"
> > Povinelli says. Scholars who observe apes in the wild tend to think of
> > those who work with captive animals as narrow-minded dopes focused on neat
> > lab tricks, sophisticated data manipulation and arcane theory that only
> > obscures a deep understanding of real animals. Animals held in captivity,
> > especially highly intelligent and social apes, are invariably impoverished,
> > they argue. If they behave quite unlike animals in the wild, what's the
> > value of research? "It's like looking through a cracked window," Stanford
> > says softly. Like many other prominent great ape researchers, he opposes a
> > proposed Povinelli study in which orphaned baby chimpanzees would be raised
> > in human homes for several years to observe whether they develop more
> > human-like ways of thinking. "What Povinelli does, holding out these
> > animals as normal, it's absurd," Stanford says. "Think it through. What
> > would you learn about normal children by studying Bosnian war orphans?"
> >
> > At stake is the future direction of primate research, which hangs in the
> > balance in the midst of potentially divisive bids for public support. So
> > too does an altered view of human nature, for how we end up thinking about
> > the great apes shapes how we see ourselves.
> >
> > The two Stanfords and I take seats on a platform overlooking the Mahale
> > Mountain enclosure at the L.A. Zoo to watch the chimps and their primate
> > cousins. Adam's attention is now fixed on dozens of teenage Homo sapiens
> > held back by a railing. Stanford scuffs his sandals on the ground and
> > shifts uncomfortably as I press him about zoo exhibits like this one.
> > Perhaps he's torn between increasingly firm opinions and his friendships
> > with the keeper here and a network of researchers who study captive apes in
> > centers around the world.
> >
> > "So what do you mean to suggest?" I ask, pointing past a crowd of people
> > calling out to the chimps. The 38,000-square-foot enclosure is surrounded
> > by ficus, magnolia and banana trees. Palms and rock promontories shadow a
> > grassy expanse. Faux logs are stuffed with nuts and leaves to keep the
> > chimps active. "Are you saying this enclosure shouldn't exist?"
> >
> > Judeo, a formidable senior male in the group, shows off his impressive
> > pectorals, throwing his arms wide. "A few might still exist for education
> > purposes maybe," Stanford says. But he adds that no more great apes should
> > be bred in captivity, and most of those already held should be released
> > into large sanctuaries where they can live more normal lives. When I reach
> > Cathleen Cox, research director at the Los Angeles Zoo, she listens when I
> > read her the conclusion of Stanford's book. She asks me to back up and read
> > the paragraphs again in which Stanford calls keeping great apes in zoos
> > "ethically questionable."
> >
> > Cox was instrumental in designing the Mahale Mountain enclosure, pressing
> > hard to build and maintain an exhibit that provides naturalistic
> > stimulation for the apes. Recent studies of their social behavior informed
> > its architecture. The chimps are kept in a fairly large group and they've
> > been allowed to raise several infants, which Cox thinks will prove key to
> > their ability to "experience a joyful, fulfilling life."
> >
> > She explains the prime reasons for keeping well-designed enclosures like
> > hers open. There's tremendous education potential, she says, and as a
> > result of seeing great apes in the zoo, people may learn and act on a new
> > sense of connection with chimpanzees.
> >
> > Her argument draws support from a somewhat surprising source: Jane Goodall.
> > "There's always the gray area," Goodall says when I track her down between
> > speaking engagements in Washington, D.C. "And here the gray area is the
> > terrible plight of chimpanzees in Africa." Goodall agrees with Stanford's
> > comments about the immorality of biomedical research on great apes and
> > shares his qualms about Povinelli's proposed project. But she bristles at
> > the notion that these positions should be based on his underlying
> > assumption. "What I particularly hate is comparing chimpanzee intellect to
> > a small human child or a mentally impaired adult. They're way above a
> > 2-year-old child--in the way they can plan for the immediate future, in the
> > way they quickly adjust to the arrival of a new guy in the group who
> > happens to be higher ranking than they are. No 2-year-old child could do
> > anything like that, nor could a mentally disturbed adult."
> >
> > Cox offers no opinion about the difference between chimp and human
> > cognition, relying instead on reports of the plight of wild great apes.
> > Since they're threatened in the wild all over the world, Cox suggests,
> > perhaps captive animals should be valued as the keepers of precious
> > "genetic material." If they're wiped out in Africa, future generations of
> > Jerrard's offspring one day might be used to repopulate the wild.
> >
> > "I don't like that argument. It's too fatalistic," Stanford replies. "It's
> > like saying, 'If I put you in a cell, you're not going to get hit by an
> > automobile.' "
> >
> > Instead, he says, a new international campaign to protect great ape home
> > ranges is needed. As for the argument that zoos contribute, directly and
> > indirectly, to conservation efforts, the Los Angeles Zoo makes little
> > direct contribution to conservation efforts aimed at great apes in the
> > wild. The Mahale Mountain exhibit, in other words, isn't used as a vehicle
> > for keeping the real Mahale Mountain chimpanzees alive.
> >
> > Cox is searching for common ground. "Craig is right on in a way. It is
> > morally questionable to do this work. As you confront the [ethical]
> > question, it ought to move you in the direction of really being sure that
> > you're protecting them and ensuring the most satisfying life they can
> > possibly have."
> >
> > Judeo, the wizened older male at the Mahale Mountain enclosure, sports a
> > white goatee, a broad chest and a domineering manner that dares you to
> > question who's in charge. Galloping across the grass on all fours, he
> > clambers up the rocks and then rises fully upright, looking as if he
> > intends to spoof that timeworn illustration about evolution that begins w
> > ith a monkey and gives rise to a man.
> >
> > Even if you didn't know that Judeo is a close genetic match for me, our DNA
> > overlapping by more than 98%, going to the railing for a closer look is
> > like observing oneself in a fun-house mirror. There's the initial shock of
> > recognition that primate researchers always mention. But sometimes, too,
> > there's a powerful crosscurrent, a kind of visceral shock, even revulsion.
> > Judeo's eyes are bright, his brow furled in a familiar way, his mouth
> > upturned in what looks like a malevolent grin. Get a load of that gaping
> > mouth, pink gums and sharp canines. His chest is a fireplug of muscles,
> > like the torso of a dwarf bodybuilder. His long arms stretch down past
> > stumpy legs.
> >
> > Perhaps such push-pull reactions explain why apes and monkeys were used for
> > centuries as symbols of the impulsive or demonic side of human nature.
> > Maybe this deep ambiguity even underpins the tendency of some to see the
> > connection between apes and humans as a lightly graded continuum and
> > others, studying the same animals, to highlight vast differences.
> >
> > The two Stanfords, one a lively miniature of the other, wander off to look
> > at hippos and giraffes. Along wide concrete walkways on our way back to the
> > zoo entrance, volunteers have brought various other animals out to allow
> > visitors a closer look. We stop to check them out. An attendant offers a
> > bulbous boa constrictor as thick as your wrist for patrons to touch. When
> > it moves, rippling its muscles, the snake's body shimmers. Adam hesitates,
> > but only for a beat before running his open hand along the leathery
> > snakeskin.
> >
> > I watch over his shoulder, studying Adam as he scopes out the boa
> > constrictor. He looks up shyly. But he doesn't try shimmying his own body,
> > doesn't stroke his own skin, aping the snake as he'd done an hour before
> > with Jerrard. Adam doesn't lie down on the ground to mimic the snake's
> > slithering. Neither does he turn back, to me or to his father, to say with
> > quiet authority: "You know, we are a snake."
> > ___
> >
> > Douglas Foster, a visiting professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of
> > Journalism