“The ‘Apes’ franchise has always been a politically loaded one,” variety.com‘s review opines, “and this latest entry states its left-wing credo in ways both allegorically implicit and bluntly direct. (You’d have to be pretty obtuse to miss the pro-gun-control subtext attached to misdeeds on both sides of the man-monkey battle.)” We don’t have any more info on this angle, but we’re sure that our film reviewer Ralph will have something to say about that – both now and after July 9, when Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens nationwide. Watch this space, you damn dirty apes. [h/t DM]

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92 COMMENTS

  1. Good Lord, how many times do they have to remake this friggin’ movie?

    Is this to ‘erase the legacy’ of Charleton Heston’s “cold dead hands”?

  2. It might be an anti gun movie but that’s a double edged sword for hollywood.

    You’re crazy if you think you can show a gorilla with a belt fed weapon to somebody (especially a young person) and tell them they shouldn’t own a machine gun.

  3. Yep, another one. They seem to be fresh out of ideas to use. I would have liked to see the sequel to the one that sent Mark Wahlberg to the future and then dumped him back in the past in a modern world run by apes. Now that could have been interesting.

    • this series has not really been a remake, its nearly the origins of the original series.

  5. @RF, Hollywood promotes gun control while making billions of dollars off of gun splatter movies….you don’t say?!

    • I wanted to say pretty much the same thing: Hollywood makes its living off the exotic and extreme. If guns were as normal as they should be they would lose a major area of appeal in most of their productions. The Hollywood fantasy that feature full-auto guns that never run out of ammo of need to be reloaded everywhere in a constantly exciting war zone has been a staple for them for so long. Shatter that and you lose appeal. The less educated your audience the more you can amaze them.

    • Classic Hollywood “do as I say don’t do as I do”…

      Kinda like the Dems and their “you can’t have guns” mantra from behind their well armed security forces.

  6. Won’t be seeing it. Didn’t see the first one, either. But that goes for most movies these days. I was tempted to rent Kickass 2 because I liked the first one. I ended up borrowing the DVD from a neighbor, so I got to watch it without supporting Jim Carrey [even more happy I didn’t spend money on it after watching it]. Don’t feed the beast.

  7. How does “Planet of the Apes” promote gun control?

    IMO we are moving into aluminum foil hat territory.

    • I understand the quote came from “Variety”, not exactly a bastion of right-wing ideology. However the movie does it, it must be extremely flagrant.

    • It’s not Planet of the Apes. It’s the new movie, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. If I had to, I’d bet it portrays noble innocent apes being corrupted by industrial products including guns.

  9. Speaking of which…

    My wife watches the HBO vampire show “Ture Blood”.

    During last night’s episode, the following super anti-gun propaganda was seen:

    The citizens of a small Louisiana town, fed up that the cops couldn’t protect them from a massacare the night before, march down to the sheriff’s HQ and demand to be given guns “according to our 2nd amendment rights!”

    The black, female deputy in charge says “If you all had guns, you would have all been killed last night”. Implying that an unarmed victim is somehow safer, obviously.

    The crowd- rowdy, religious rightwingers- engage in identity politics with her “you’ve been passed up for promotion because you’re a woman. And black. Don’t let your white boss keep you down”.
    She relents and lets the mob at the weapons stash.

    They, of course, act like idiots, shooting up the station for “target practice” and generally acting like blood thirsty southern gun nuts. Ex. One older lady, dry firing a snub revolver in every direction, says, looking at herself in a mirror “I thnk I can get to like this” or something to that effect.

    It was really the most over the top, disgusting propaganda I’ve ever seen on television.

    • Dumb too, since most folks in rural Louisiana are pretty well armed.

      Maybe these folks were all very recently converted (by said Vamp massacre) former anti-gunners, and that explains why they were such idiots?

      • You missed the trope – people in TV and movies rarely own or know how to use guns, even when they live in an area or are part of a cultural subgroup that is well-known for having them, and knowing how to use them.

        See: every disaster/end of world/foreign invasion movie ever made.

        • Also whenever then do show country folk with guns, they usually only have older style fudd type hunting guns like bolt action rifles or split action double or single barrel shotguns like the dad in the Fargo miniseries. They rarely have semi-autos of any kind unless they are ultra extreme gun nuts like in Tremors.

  10. The first of the new series was certainly a waste of time. I despised the scene where the apes escaped the CHP / PD / SWAT blockade on the bay bridge. Should animals act up, guns are the go to weapons for humans. That’s been a fact since firearms were invented.

    To me the worst anti-gun / anti-hunter themes were in Jurassic Park. All those ‘raptors, and not a single one was shot. Stupid. Cleva girl…
    If I had a shot at a predatory dinosaur or ape I’d just take it and not wait for the other ones. Heck, I’ll take shots 2-7 at a flippin clay pigeon if the first round doesn’t connect. That’s what reloads are for.

    • What are you talking about?

      A raptor was shot in the opening scene.

      Remember “shoot her shoot her”?

      • Maybe one raptor, then. Vince Vaugn’s character unloaded (by removing the bullets but not cartridges) what looked like a beautiful double .458 Win Mag rifle from the big game hunter, the Benelli shotgun jams, and the raptors managed to kill dozens of hunters without catching lead. The guns are there, but useless in all of the movies. How many people do you know who could successfully hunt raptors with a Benelli 12 gauge or an AK? That would be none, according to those movies.

        • I’m referring to all of them in one swoop. I think NYPD could’ve accidentally hit some raptors given all the guns and ammo in the sequels. The pro-hunter got smoked pretty fast by two raptors in the first movie. The fact, well “movie fact” that guns were so ineffective for animal defense seems to point to an anti-gun perspective.

          Especially since a Glock clearly works well against an ill-tempered moose blocking a snowmobile trail.

        • I think it was more of lazy writing than being anti-gun. They wanted to remove the guns so there would be more tension as the heros would be defenseless. Another example would be in Blade Runner when Deckard drops his handgun trying to crimb away from Batty. Just a lazy way to serve the plot but you see it used pretty often in films and stories.

          The JP sequels where huge let downs to the original which had enough flaws.

    • “Cleva girl…” Well, at least he un-folded a shoulder-thing that actually went “up”.

  11. Strangely, as I was watching How to Train a Dragon 2 with my toddler, I got a pro 2A sense from it. I’m paraphrasing but the main character states in the middle part of the “when only bad guys have dragons the good guys lose.”

    Transpose the word dragon for gun and you have the most pro 2A kids movie of summer 2014.

  12. +1 Matt & Brian. You to go back to the original…”you blew it up! GD you all to hell.” An anti Vietnam, anti war epic. I found the last one entertaining but not dripping with any message. I’ll arm up for the coming ape apocalypse, the zombie hoards, the black helicopters, the EPA ( lol ). Any anti-gun message will backfire after seeing a 600pound gorilla with a machine gun.

    • the coming ape apocalypse, the zombie hoards, the black helicopters, the EPA

      Those EPA guys scare me.

      • The original ape “Holy Fallout” doesn’t?

        Watched that as a kid in a military base theater, knowing that base likely had at least one nuke with it’s name on it…

    • Yep, kind of odd when you think about it–Heston shouting the anti-Cold War, anti-nuke curse, I mean. Remember when he and Paul Newman had a “debate” over nuclear weapons–Newman was for disarming, of course, and Heston was for keeping the nukes around to keep the Russkies honest.

  15. BTW I quit watching True Blood ( even though I have free HBO ). Humans stupid-vampires & fairies intelligent & evolved. That and Alan Ball’s extreme gay agenda got old…civil rights for everyone & EVERYTHING.

  16. If any of you jokers think that writing a movie review is fun, keep in mind that before you do, you have to watch the whole damn thing. Every. Stinking. Minute.

    Excruciating.

  17. Since you haven’t verified this claim in any way, shouldn’t the headline be more like “Some Guy On The Internet Says The New Planet Of The Apes Movie Promotes Gun Control”? Because, you know, journalism.

        • That makes no sense. If I see the movie and come to the same conclusion, my claim will still be an unverified claim. Won’t it?

        • Presumably, you’re a good enough movie reviewer to explain what happens in the movie to promote gun control. This just says it does, and leaves it at that, with no context or details about how it does so.

          In any case, I certainly won’t be surprised if it turns out the headline is true. I just think that this article and the linked review sort of fail to support the statement in the headline.

  18. I’m a huge ‘Planet of the Apes’ fan and I will reserve judgment until I see the movie on opening night. 😉 I’d be careful not to read too much into what someone else reads into it.

  19. I’m not seeing it to protest the bad math. There are at most 500,000 Great Apes in the world. In one of the trailers, it says the virus wiped out “half the planet”. That still leaves a 3.6 billion humans. In other words, 7,200 humans for every ape.

    If you want to make it more reasonable, then you can limit it to males of military age (20-35). That population cut in half would give a ratio of 1,200 to one. That means you could assign a battalion to fight each individual ape. They could be armed with slingshots and they would still win. Heck, they could just run at them and trample them to death. In a fight between humans and the apes, the humans win easily.

    • You’re talking about a movie audience that probably doesn’t even believe in evolution, and may have forgotten (or never known) that humans ALREADY won an intra-species war against a less intelligent and physically stronger adversary.

      …that first part will probably rile up a few TTAG commenters.

  22. Seriously? I must be “obtuse” then. There is no anti-gun implications in this, it’s a freaking movie. I looked for it, it wasn’t there.

    I’m guessing I need captain obvious to come to my rescue…

  23. At 2:13, There is a brief scene of an ape, the one called Caesar, I think, riding on horseback and dual wielding belt fed machine guns, and hitting everything and nothing. Is Hollywood’s message supposed to be that this kind of behavior is ok for a fictional revolutionary, but illegal for actual people to do for fun?

  24. Is it just me and my sensitivity or is it a real change in the film industry that almost every movie I watch anymore is pushing a political agenda like gun control, gay rights, or some other liberal agenda? Went to Jump Street 22 this weekend, definitely pushing a gay rights agenda.

    • No, it’s not just you. Hollywood is a part of the propaganda machine more today than at any time in history except for WW2. The same can be said of newspapers, TV and most media.

  25. 64 comments and not a single Red Dawn of the Planet of the Apes joke? I’m disappointed in you all. A cross-over of the two movie franchises seems inevitable.

    I’m sure some studio executive is reading this right now thinking, “Yeah, we need to make that…”

    General Urko, we need more banana clips for our AK-47s…

  26. From that trailer I feel Like I just watched the entire movie, so I won’t need to go see it now….

  27. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdG3K90LSDs

    This debate is over. We have heard the arguments for boths sides, and issue the following decree.

    Since it has not been ascertained with certainty that humanoids do indeed possess language, we are not prepared at this moment to condemn their species to extermination. They may be hunted, in the usual manner, for legitimate sport. They may be captured alive, and used for menial labor, or as domestic pets. And for study, by our chimpanzee behavioral scientists.

    However, if indeed it is proven that the humanoid animals have developed language, then according to Article 18 of the Book of Simian Prophecy, we will destroy them no matter what the cost might be.

    This emergency session of the Supreme Council is now adjourned.

  28. Have seen PoA yet, but last night’s HBO True Blood had some of the expected ant-gun crap in it.

    A mob went to the police station to take all the guns and demanded their second amendment rights to be armed. The officer on duty told them not go full hillbilly NRA on her or words to that effect.

    I expect to see more of this.

  29. Gun control? What about ANIMAL EXPERIMENT CONTROL?

    Hint to the brainy nutjobs of the world: if you keep trying to make monsters that are faster and smarter than humans, you just might succeed.

    But yeah, this movie looks super corny. Keep my the Heston original anyday, or even the Wahlberg time travel one.

  30. I hope Gary Oldman’s character shoots every last one of those damn dirty apes, and maybe a few of the libtards to.

  31. It sure does! We can’t let automatic weapons fall in to the hands of primates!

    Seriously, guys?

    • You must be new to the internet. The writers and readers of gun blogs — but especially this one — can see gun control in anything.

      Rumor has it that Farago is experimenting with a new CAPTCHA system for comments, that consists of a Rorschach Test. If you don’t “see” gun control in whatever blot is dispalyed, the software assumes you’re a spambot.

  33. Humans technically are apes which is what makes this whole series rather ridiculous. Technically, there is more in common genetically between a human and a chimpanzee than between a chimpanzee and a gorilla. Human is a short-haired, long-legged, upright-walking ape, one designed for terrestrial movement, not arboreal (designed for trees).

  34. I also have to say that the black guy is wrong in saying that the apes (non-human apes) are “stronger” because they don’t need power, light, heat, etc…neither do humans if we decided to live as primitively as the apes. But mastering the use of fire allowed us to create all manner of tools and weapons that we otherwise could not create. Similarly, if the non-human apes expected to do the same, they’d at the very least need fire. Also, unlike the non-human apes, humans are designed for distance movement in the heat. That is why we have such short-body hair. For cold climates, we can make clothing.

    The narrative is thus backwards. It would be the non-human apes saying about the human, “You know what makes them so scary? They don’t need physical strength. They are capable of such advanced tool making that they can kill any animal, no matter how large and powerful, without even getting close to it.”

    There’s also a trade-off between physical strength and intelligence. Intelligence requires a powerful, energy-sucking brain. The human brain uses up to 40% of our body’s energy. If non-human apes were to start getting the intelligence of humans, they’d either see a drop-off in their physical strength to what humans have or a massive decline in their population numbers due to all of the food that they would need for each ape.

    As an ape, humans are a nasty, nasty and brutal effer of a primate. If any apes decide to take on humans, you’re taking on the ape that:

    1) Is supremely-designed to be able to throw projectiles overhand (non-human ape anatomy prevents them from having this capability).

    2) Is supremely-designed for distance-movement capability (so good luck trying to catch them)

    3) Is supremely designed for terrestrial movement (moving as a non-human ape does expends a lot more energy than just walking upright on two legs like a human)

    4) Is supremely designed for tool-making (opposable thumbs)

    5) Can adapt to hot or cold climates

    It would be the apes that would have to worry about the humans in this situation, not the other way around IMO.

  35. Anyone notice that in the trailer they say the abes don’t need light and heat and that is why they are stronger. Yet in one of the scenes the apes have a bon fire, light+heat, looks like they need it anyway. Besides the fact most primates are warm climate animals, even us humans are really warm climate lifeforms/animals.

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