Movie Moments: #17

"Get your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"

George Taylor (Charlton Heston)

Planet of the Apes (1968)

In the 2001 remake a human touches ape Colonel Attar, who says "Take your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty human!", mirroring the original line from Charlton Heston.

Heston has a cameo role as an ape in the remake, as Zaius, the father of head ape General Thade. In the original POTA, Dr Zaius was the Minister of Science and main ape bad guy, the one who knew that humans had once been the dominant species but who kept that information suppressed.

At the end of the original Planet of the Apes, Heston comes to the realisation that he is not on a different planet but on Earth many years in the future. Seeing the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, he realises that nuclear war reduced humankind to the level of animals and that apes have evolved into the dominant species. He falls to his knees and says “Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” In the remake, as an ape, he says of humans: “Damn them... damn them all to hell!”   It is also interesting to note that in the POTA remake, he produces an old handgun to illustrate how dangerous humans can be.  Charlton Hestoin in real life was the President of the National Rifle Association and vocal advocate for the right of Americans to bear arms.

Bonus pic:

I love this...