“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011) is the movie which was directed by Rupert Wyatt and presented as the reboot of the popular “Planet of the Apes” series. The movie focuses on the story of Caesar, a chimpanzee who developed his intelligence and speech skills as a result of experiments conducted by Will Rodman, a young scientist.
The scientist intended to find the drugs for treating Alzheimer’s disease from which his father Charles suffered. The experimental drugs ALZ-112 influenced Caesar, and he improved his mental abilities, but the cure was effective only during a short period; that is why ALZ-113 drugs were developed as the alternative ones.
Having the intelligence and definite human features, Caesar became the leader of chimpanzees, and they started a kind of revolution in San-Francisco when the unexpected effects of ALZ-113 drugs began to influence people negatively.
One of the main ideas provided in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (2011) is the representation of the possible consequences of experiments in which animals can acquire the human qualities and abilities. From this point, the role of sound is significant in the movie. At the very beginning of the movie, chimpanzees express their specific sounds, and their development and intelligence are far from human features.
However, the ability of chimpanzees to learn the sign language later demonstrates the range of skills which they can acquire with the help of people without it. Thus, Caesar demonstrates his ability to speak in the most dramatic situations when it is necessary to express his thought. Caesar shouts “No” when it is necessary to help the other chimpanzees leave and prevent Dodge from stopping them (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 2011).
Caesar’s speech is the sign that is developing speech skills, chimpanzees become closer to humans and can provoke a lot of changes. The ‘evolution of sound’ accentuates the unavoidable rise of the apes because of their developed abilities and skills. Caesar’s “no” is the chimpanzee’s first demonstration of the developed speech abilities.
The problem is in the fact that only people can use the spoken language in such a form as it exists. That is why Caesar’s speech act is a kind of predicting the further inevitable changes because the level of the chimpanzee’s intelligence became extremely dangerous for contacting people and the fact of Caesar’s providing the drugs containing the genetically engineered retrovirus for the other chimpanzees emphasizes the tragedy’s coming.
The chimpanzees with increased mental capabilities are the uncontrollable force for humans. Thus, Caesar demonstrated his intelligence and human qualities when wanted to steal a bicycle to reflect the human actions, and the turning point of his becoming more ‘human’ is the ability to express his thoughts with the help of pronouncing sounds as words with meaning — responding to Will’s phrase.
“Please come home. If you come home, I’ll protect you”, Caesar states, “Caesar is home” (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 2011). Thus, the development of the chimpanzee’s mental abilities continues. That is why, it is important to refer to Caroline Aranha phrase when she speaks about her attitude to chimpanzees, “I love chimpanzees. I’m also afraid of them. And it’s appropriate to be afraid of them” (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, 2011).
Reference
Rise of the Planet of the Apes [Video file] (2011). Web.