Uneasy with

Great Debates
1

I’ve read “Bridge on the River Kwai,” and at least one other novel by Pierre Boulee, but not “Planet of the Apes.”

While I see “Bridge…” as a rather prescient description of what would later be known as the Stockholm Syndrome, I don’t think Boulle was creative enough to come up with “Planet of the Apes” out of his raw imagination. It seems to possible to have come from his wartime experience as a prisoner of the Japanese (one who escapes, just as did his novel’s hero). The shock to the Colonial Europeans at their defeat by Asians could easily find a metaphor in the Astronaut’s suprise on the new planet with ape masters (when we defeated the British at Yorktown the song they played was “The World Turned Upside-Down”). And the Japanese have been slurred as monkeys at least since their 1905 war with Russia.

I can’t begrudge Boulle his resentment toward his former captors - James Clavel suffered it as well and then wrote “King Rat,” and described in interviews his visceral hatred toward anyone Asian he felt for years afterwards. I can only hope each man eventually exorcised his demons through the creative process.

But every time someone like Rod Serling or Tim Burton takes POTA, or any film-maker appropriates any original work to suit a entirely laudable view (race relations, humanity towards other species, etc,) can it wash out the possible bad intentions of the original?

2

Yes, unless you go looking for bad intentions.

3

The last full movie my mother saw in the theatre was Back to the Future in 1985, and after that Gremlins, which she walked out of halfway through. Today, much to my surprise, she invited me to see POTA with her. I don’t care if Tim Burton removed any sense of a plot from the new POTA, but I trust his judgement since the last movie of his I saw, Sleepy Hollow was very enjoyable.

4

Thanks kniz. I’ve placed a hold at the library for the novel Planet of the Apes, so I can offer Boulee the benefit of the doubt. But you’re damn right I’ll go looking for intentions - bad, good or simply potboiler - it’s called “analytical thought,” and for the record, “Gone With the Wind” didn’t stand up to it.

5

I don’t think Boulle was creative enough to come up with “Planet of the Apes” out of his raw imagination.
If you begin your investigation with derision of the creator, then I doubt you will find much of value in the creation.