<![CDATA[Apes Caste System?]]>Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Planet of the Apes

jefgg — 9 years ago(September 27, 2016 01:49 PM)

The Planet of the Apes had a strict Caste System. What were the writers trying to say?
Chimpanzees: Intellectuals, Scientists, Doctors
Gorillas: Soldiers, Police, Hunters, Laborers
Orangutans: Politicians, Administrators, Lawyers, Priests
I guess humans were the outcasts.
There is a fourth type of ape called gibbons. I don't think they are represented in any Planet of the Apes book or movie.
I wish Pierre Boulle had written sequels to his original novel. I wonder if he was trying to say something about race relations. Humans frequently go to war with different races and nationalities. But apes got along fairly well despite their Caste System. And the apes were more than different races. They were different species. I can't recall any inter-species ape couples. If they truly were different species they may have been able to produce offspring but they would have been sterile.
I would like to have seen a sequel when the chimpanzees and gorillas join forces to overthrow the orangutans. I can imagine one day a new generation of gorillas that had grown tired of being muscle for the orangutans.

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Boulle very much wrote his book as an analogy about mankind and most societies. He says in the book that the orangutans were the "conservatives." Chimpanzees represented the liberals. Gorillas, in the book anyway, not in the films, were administrators, but he also wrote that behind every gorilla you found a supporting orangutan.
Most human societies tend to be conservative, most people conservative because fear runs so much of human society. Liberals seem to be always bucking the establishment because liberals want progress and change, conservatives tend to be happy with the way things are as long as it favors them.

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