Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Last weekend, I took my two sons, 13 and 21, to see “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” which we thoroughly enjoyed on several levels. It’s a rousing slave revolt, an entertaining techno-thriller, a drama about a dysfunctional household (chimp included) dealing with disability and job-related stresses (in the conflicted genetic engineer played by James Franco). (Manohla Dargis liked it, too, as did my sons’ favorite critics, the team at Spill.com.
It’s also a film about the troubled relationship of Homo sapiens to its closest kin, the other species in our taxonomic family, the Hominidae. Abuses have occurred from the forests of the Congo basin and Borneo to the research centers of drug companies and universities.
In the realm of drugs and medicine, there’s certain research that can only be done on apes or other primates. Where does one draw the line, in terms of which research goals are lofty enough to justify killing or causing pain to animals. Are some animals too sentient for such uses?
These questions go well beyond our treatment of other hominids, of course, and arise in considering everything from factory farming to the global trade in endangered species to the routine use of countless other species in medical and other testing.
The film, not surprisingly, got a seal of approval from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which also gave an award to the director, Rupert Wyatt, for insisting that no real apes be used during filming (something possible thanks to the geniuses assembled by Peter Jackson in New Zealand.
I was heartened to see that the film did not completely tilt toward the predictable Hollywood approach to “Big Pharma” of an evil corporation plotting terrible things in the pursuit of money.
While the new “Apes” film has the greedy head of a biotech firm only concerned about profits and dismissively referring to the company’s research chimps as property, its human star, Franco, represents something of a middle path. He plays a researcher who is willing to use apes as test subjects for drugs aimed at improving the human condition (including that of his father, fading from Alzheimer’s) — but who had an ethics-based line he wouldn’t cross.
We all have benefited, knowingly or not, from all manner of research involving animals. (I’m sure the post-stroke levels of coumadin in my blood right now were worked out on other species first.)
These are tough issues. I think the film will help nudge people to consider the potential ethical failures that underlie their health care. Another helpful prod was an Op-Ed article today by Representative Roscoe G. Bartlett, a Republican of Maryland, who makes a powerful argument for ending all laboratory work with chimpanzees.
Yesterday, I was able to spend 45 minutes interviewing the film’s screenwriters, Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, who conceived the story after collecting string on various instances in which a chimpanzees ended up beingraised in human households, almost always with bad outcomes. (Listen to more on “The Idea” by clicking that link in the audio box.)
Only after their research was well under way did Jaffa have a “classic lightbulb moment,” Silver recalls, where he realized they had the seed of a fresh approach to the seemingly dormant “Planet of the Apes” franchise.
They described the remarkably smooth effort to pitch their new take on the “Apes” saga to 20th Century Fox executives. (Click “The Pitch” in the audio box at left for more.)
But we mainly focused on issues related to research labs where the animals are housed and studied, some of which I reported on in the 1990s. (Click “The Issues” button in the audio box.)
I noted how, while watching the scenes in the film of chimps watching TV, I was reminded of my tour of a onetime New York University chimp center in Tuxedo, N.Y., where the televisions were showing “The Wizard of Oz.”
We explored how the fast-forward pace of scientific knowledge and technical skill is seemingly outpacing humans’ capacity to comprehend and honestly grapple with the ethical issues that arise.
In discussing the ethical issues, Silver said: “It’s easy to be shrill,” but added that they sought a more nuanced approach. “Would you test on a chimp to save someone you loved?” she asked, alluding to the quandary of the Franco character. “The deepest moral questions are the ones that force you to make difficult moral choices."