The
Power of the Emperor Ape
A description of the mutant nature and
faculties of Caesar, the 'Simian Messiah'.
Ability name: Physiological Enhancement
Description: enhanced strength, agility, reflexes,
stamina. Slowed-down process of aging (longevity).
Induction: many sequences in CONQUEST, as well
as in BATTLE, support the evidence.
Ability name: Simian Morphic Resonance
Description: the unconscious access to the
simian morphogenetic field and the related ability of manipulative interface
with it lead to the transfer of cultural "patterns" to all simian
forms of life the subject interacts with, augmenting their cognitive and
intellectual evolution.
Scientific back-up: a 'morphogenetic field' (a subset
of 'morphic field') is a hypothetical biological (and potentially social) field
that contains the necessary information to shape the form of a living thing, as
part of its epigenetics, and may also shape its behaviour and coordination with
other beings. 'Morphic resonance' is a term coined by Rupert Sheldrake for what
he thinks is "the basis of memory in nature.... the idea of mysterious
telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories
within species".
Induction: as evidenced by either CONQUEST and
BATTLE, Caesar stimulated the Humanoid Apes, made them more
"receptive" to language and culture and persuaded them to revolt. He
was the morphic catalyst that "accelerated" their evolution. That's
why the Apes acquired power of speech in a "gap" of merely 30 years
(they were already provided with capable vocal boxes, however).
Ability name: Prenatal Mnemonic Extrapolation
Description: the superhuman intellectual ability
to "absorb" memories, images and concepts from the maternal neuronic
system during the fetal phase. The memories are stored indefinitely, and later
rearranged under the form of conscious intuitions or dream-like visions/hallucinations,
once triggered by a related element that works as "reminder". As side-effect
of this enhancement, long and short term memory capacities are also amplified.
Scientific back-up: helped by the presence of a detail which
acts as catalyst (almost a password giving access), Caesar can unconsciously
tap into Zira's mnemonic images and "suggestions" encoded in his
brain. His neuronic system thus introduces them as spontaneous extrapolations
to his conscious mind.
Induction: in ESCAPE, a newborn Milo/Caesar
was able to pronunce some words under human stimulation. In-between CONQUEST
and BATTLE, inspired by the design of his Cornelius-type circus clothes as
'Salomon', Caesar was able to recreate the Orang/Gorillas uniforms from a
scratch. He also reproduced many other estethical details of the PLANET/BENEATH
Ape civilization when he built and shaped Ape City. In BATTLE, after he
supervised the tapes containing his parents's interviews, he became suddenly
"aknowledged" about the details of the last days of Apeline Alpha.
Special
features in the Humanoid Apes
The few bloopers in the Ape make-up could be
easily 'unflubbed' by rationalizing them as physical characteristics of the
Humanoid Apes. We provide you with the best "truth" possible for
these unnoticeable, irrilevant sacks.
PLANET: we can often see that Cornelius's
neck is lacking hair, being almost naked.
Unflubbing: the Humanoid Apes are slowly
loosing hair. Humans, before they were what they are now were covered with
hair. Some people, especially men still have dark hair over their bodies. Some
men shave others don't. Girls and women shave their legs because hair starts to
become noticeable. I don't think a chimp would react the same way to hair,
seeing as they're covered with a noticeable supply of it. However, the hair on
a human is little because evolution in his greater wisdom saw no reason for it
other then to annoy and please female humans like myself, so he got rid of it.
It is thought that the hair was there to keep us warm and to attract mates.
Since humans gained a brain (if you'd call it that) they have lost the need for
the hair as they now use "layers" to keep themselves warm or
"clothes" and they don't need all that hair to attract a mate because
guys have found various other things attractive in girls, thanks to evolution.
Back to lack of hair on Apes... As you may have noticed Cornelius is wearing
clothes and therefore doesn't need his hair to keep him warm, so that's one
less reason to have it. You may also have noticed that he is also attached.
Though as humans, obviously we fail to see the attraction but seeing as they're
pretty much like humans and they're pretty much clever, lets assume that he is
with Zira for her brains as well as looks. Therefore a pretty set of hair on
their heads... arms... everywhere, while a good pointer, like with humans there
are other things to take into account. Therefore, my point being, the amount of
hair the Humanoid Apes have is slowly being eliminated.
Unflubber: Sophie Ball.
ESCAPE: during the interrogation scene, the
lips of Kim Hunter's "real mouth" are briefly seen. Besides, when
she's lying on her couch, you can see where the make-up appliance starts on her
face.
Unflubbing: 1- Caesar's specific mouth-type is
the result of a slightly-diverged genetic branch. It's actually a
characteristic of his genome. The fact that also Zira presents this trait is
somewhat of an added bonus. Hypothetically, when Zira is panicked or angry, she
opens the mouth wide enough, you can see the "soft pulp" in her mouth.
2- She has a double chin. Quite a few primitive chimpanzees are the same from a
young age (as young as 10). So it's not really anything to be worried about, as
it can be related back to the "normal" chimpanzees of our universe.
Unflubbers: Tiziano Caliendo and Sophie Ball.
ESCAPE: Milo Jr. resembles a de-evoluted,
conventional chimp, whenever Cornelius Jr. in BATTLE shows that an Humanoid
Ape's infant version is way similar to the growed-up "adult".
Unflubbing: Cornelius Jr. is presumibly 8 years
old, even if not stated anywhere. Milo Jr. is a newborn at the time depicted in
ESCAPE. According to Ernst Haeckel's well-renowed 'Theory of Recapitulation'
(first exposed in 1866), the development of the embryo of every species repeats
the evolutionary development of that species fully. Or otherwise put: each
successive stage in the development of an individual represents one of the
adult forms that appeared in its evolutionary history. As Haeckel summed-up:
"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". Thus, the Humanoid Apes phenotype
is designed to present a variant of the 'Biogenetic Law', where the
"physical reminiscences" are concentrated and stretched to the first
month of life.
Technical tidbits:
Rory/Haristas: "The actor's union in
Hollywood at the time wouldn't allow them to glue appliances and hair to a
human baby. They couldn't have even put the makeup on the infant's skin. John
Chambers said it wouldn't harm the infant, but the union wouldn't allow it, so
they had to go with a real chimp".
Hotscheetz: "... but, they did allow them
to put make-up on the baby chimp, to make it resemble the make-up of Cornelius
and Zira more".
In memory of Rory
Monteith a.k.a. Haristas.
CONQUEST: according to IMDB, the apes have
human-shaped feet, while in the earlier movies they have ape-like feet.
Unflubbing: Humanoid Apes can wear boots.
Bruce: "In the first 3 films the
Humanoid Apes do wear "Ape shoes" shaped like their feet with a toe
sticking out on one side. Even thought the Sideshow Caesar (action figure) is
wearing them, the apes in Conquest wear "deck shoes" the same color
as their coveralls".
Tiziano Caliendo: "As a side note, 'ESCAPE FROM
TOMORROW' (TV series episode) shows that the "Ape shoes" really work
like slippers; in a sequence where Councillor Zaius is taken hostage by Virdon
& Burke, the Orang wears his "slippers" (ape-shaped feet)
indoors... then, the two astronauts let him change into his boots before they
left to rescue Galen (all happens off-screen)".
CONQUEST: Frank presents a different colour
of hands. They are sort of brown, opposite to each other gorilla's hands which are
black.
Unflubbing: at the Ape Management Center of
Century City, they tortured Humanoid Apes in order to tame them. Frank's hands
were treated with some burning acid when he refused to perform a trick. The incident
caused his hands to get a different colour, many months after the recovering.
Unflubber: Tiziano Caliendo.
CONQUEST: when Caesar, naked, gets in the
cage with the Orangs, they have large flaps of skin on the sides of their faces,
like our present-day primates do. In the next scene, when Roddy is dressed in
standard green coveralls, there are two Orangs – one on either side of him – who
are also dressed and getting processed. If we assume they are same ones that
were with him in the cage (and even if they're not) the flaps of skin are
missing! Where did they go?
Unflubbing: they belong to an Indonesian branch
of Humanoid Orangs featuring a different facial trait, closer to the Primitive
Apes (or Small Apes). The cheek-flaps can be considered like an ancestral
character in the genome.
Patrick Tilton: "Between the time when Caesar
sneaked into that cage and the moment when the guards led the chained Apes down
into the Ape Management complex, there had to be a moment - a "scene"
not included, and jumped-over with a "jump cut" - when the human guards
shackled the wrists of the newly-arriving Apes so that they could lead them
down that stairway into Ape Management in chains. I propose that after the
truck bringing Caesar and those 3 Orangutans to the Management left the loading
dock, it brought that last truckload to a holding pen where all the other
Orangutans from the full shipment had been waiting. It wasn't until ALL of the
shipment cages had arrived that they THEN chained up the apes and brought them
down into Ape Management, their arrival being announced by the Announcer/Tannoy
guy".
BATTLE: even if quicky re-edited, one of
the edges of Roddy McDowall's "real mouth" is spotted during the
"Fight like Apes!" scene.
Unflubbing: the Apes in POTA are humanoid, not
the regular ones we are confortable with. They can speak; they walk up right
and are basically human-like. They are even supposed to get a more "carnivorous"-oriented
facial conformation, and that implies their teeth aren’t similar to those of
monkeys or ordinary apes. Therefore, one could argue that Caesar's specific
mouth-type is the result of a slightly-diverged genetic branch. By this, it is
meant that the "soft pulp" of his dental apparatus is genetically
designed to be more prominent in comparison with other Humanoid Apes. It's
actually a characteristic of his genome. Hypothetically, when Caesar is
panicked or angry, he opens the mouth wide enough that you can see the "soft
pulp" in his mouth.
Sophie Ball: "In earlier versions of BATTLE
they blurred where Roddy McDowell's mouth could be seen. This can be seen in
the original version and TV viewings in the 80's in the UK. This is 'cause I
first watched BATTLE on video from a recording my dad had taken off air.
However VHS and DVD releases recently seem to have gone back and removed the blur
and made the face appear darker around were his mouth used to be, to make it
appear like the inside of an ape's mouth rather then Roddy's".
Actors' lips and teeth can be seen behind the ape make-up at several points, giving the apes two rows of teeth. One example is Dr. Zaius in his first scene.
ReplyDeleteAlso if you add the television series.
ReplyDeleteThe Horse Race
The gorilla jockey shows some skin on his arm that is neither very hairy nor ape-like.