After watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes yesterday, my girlfriend—who, it should be noted, never cared about monkeys at all beforehand, and has repeatedly and adamantly refused my valiant attempts to show her the original Planet of the Apes—proclaimed that she had quite enjoyed the film, but also that she felt there were, and I quote,
Not enough monkeys.
My response—that Rise of the Planet of the Apes has about the best monkey-to-human ratio one can ask for in contemporary cinema—was largely ignored, as she went on to note that “John Lithgow’s character was useless and boring and old” and that “James Franco should only play stoners.” Legitimate points, perhaps… but Blogtown, I put it to you: WHAT IS THE PERFECT MONKEY-TO-HUMAN RATIO IN FEATURE FILMS?
Technically, neither the original nor the two subsequent remakes had any real monkeys in it. And to be even more precise, chimpanzees and gorillas are NOT monkeys. But you already knew that.
I don’t need to remind you or your partner of what happen to those in the movie that used that highly offensive term.
Give Herzog a cast of a thousand monkeys and he could make a better movie than anyone else with any number of humans.
@TSW: If it were up to me, you would win Comment of the Week for that comment. In perpetuity.
@Sūṕër Ḉḩüñdŷ: If you really want to be technical, you should also note that 100:0 isn’t a ratio.
Yeah, but she said the same thing about “Last Year at Marienbad.”
@SC: That’s not entirely true anymore. Recent developments in taxonomy have changed how the classifications of various primates are categorized; also “ape” and “monkey” aren’t really exact terms.
Seriously, how many times do I have to repeat myself? FOR THE LAST TIME: Monkey = any gorilla, chimp, or ape you can put in a red jumper and roller skates.
I imagine it would be pretty difficult — and quite possibly fatal — to put a red jumper and roller skates on a gorilla.
Steve has a red jumper and roller skates. Wait that might have just been a sunburn.
I bet all ‘Asians’ look alike too, don’t they Humphrey?
@spindles: That’s because all Asians do look alike.
Graham, if you believe that you’re not watching enough Japanese AV.