Escape from the Planet of the Apes

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is a 1971 film starring Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter and Ricardo Montalban.

Cornelius

• My name is Cornelius. This is my wife, Zira.
• Where we come from, apes talk. Humans are dumb.
• Please, do not use the word "monkey"! It is offensive to us. As an archaeologist, I had access to history scrolls which were kept secret from the masses, and I suspect that the weapon which destroyed Earth was man's own invention! I do know this: one of the reasons for man's original downfall was your peculiar habit of murdering one another! Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes!
• (when asked if he can talk too) Only when she lets me!

Zira

• It wasn't our war. It was the gorillas' war.
• When we were in space, we saw a bright, white, blinding light. Then we saw the rim of the Earth melt. Then there was a tornado in the sky.

Otto Hasslein

• Now they've killed. And for that, they must be killed. It has to be done and done quickly before we start a stone growing that'll gather enough poison moss to kill us all!
• Mr. President, the people must be told that the killers of today could become the mass murderers of tomorrow!
• That's what I'm worried about. Later. Later, we'll do something about pollution. Later, we'll do something about the population explosion. Later, we'll do something about the nuclear war! We think we've got all the time in the world!! How much time has the world got?!! Somebody has to begin to care!
• Zira! I want that baby! If you won't give it to me, I'll shoot!

Armando

• You are asking me to risk imprisonment for the sake of two fugitive apes?! My answer is: a thousand times, yes!

Chairman of the Commission

• By a majority vote, the Commission finds no solid evidence for hostility by either ape towards the human race as is presently constituted in this Year of our Lord, 1973. The male's attitude is that of a deeply interested and well-disposed academician who studied the alleged future downfall of the human race with the true objectivity of a good historian. The female's case, however, is different in that she undoubtedly committed actions against the human race of a sort which, if they were to be committed today, would be called atrocities. But would they be so called in two thousand years' time when it is alleged that humans will have become dumb brutes with the restricted intelligence of animals? It has been pointed out that what apes will do to humans is no more than what humans are now doing to beasts. Nonetheless, the Commission is sympathetic to Dr. Hasslein's conviction that the progeny of these apes could, in centuries to come, prove an increasing threat to the human race and conceivably end by dominating it. This is a risk we dare not ignore. Therefore, the Commission unanimously recommends that the birth of the female ape's unborn child should be prevented. And that after its prenatal removal, both the male and the female should humanely be rendered incapable of bearing another. I now declare this Commission dissolved.

Dialogue

Zira: This cage stinks of gorilla. Cornelius, where are we?

Cornelius: What's happened?

Milo: I know where we are. I know what has happened. In some fashion and I lack the intellect to know precisely how. We have traveled from Earth's future to Earth's past.

Cornelius: But we saw the Earth destroyed.

Milo: And Earth will be destroyed, just as we saw it. Only since seeing it, we have passed through... a backward disturbance in time. Did you notice the date meter clicking down... after the shock wave hit our ship?

Cornelius: Yes.

Cornelius: We have returned to Earth nearly 2,000 years before its destruction. That is another reason for us to keep silent. Our human captors will not be edified to learn... that one day their world will crack like an egg and burn to a cinder... because of an ape war of aggression. Apes, at this instant in time... cannot yet talk. For the moment, we should follow their example.

---

Lewis Dixon: Uh Mr. Chairman, members of the commission... ladies and gentlemen... my name is Lewis Dixon, and I am the animal psychiatrist... who has been in charge of these two apes... since they came to the Los Angeles Zoo. My associate, Dr. Stephanie Branton, and I... are ready to answer your questions. What may astonish you is that, um... our chimpanzee friends are ready to answer your questions too. Not by signs, not by looks or movements... but by words.

Otto Hasslein: Dr. Dixon, as a zoologist,I know and respect your work... but if you think you're gonna turn a presidential inquiry... into a ventriloquist's act, I have to inform you...

Lewis Dixon: And I have to inform you, sir, that these two apes have acquired the power of speech.

Chairman of the Commission: Come now, Doctor. You know as well as I do their brain system... is not developed in either the vocal or abstract-thinking area.

Lewis Dixon: Yes, sir, but I repeat that they have the power of speech... and it is for you gentlemen to assess how far that power... can be exercised intelligently.

Chairman of the Commission: Well, may we be told which is the female of the species? Did she rise as a reflex to you having indicated her... or in answer to my question?

Lewis Dixon: That's for you to decide.

Chairman of the Commission: Have you a name?

Zira: Zira.

Chairman of the Commission:Certainly she can articulate... which, in itself, is extraordinary! Uh, but, Dr. Dixon, are we to infer that "Zira" is her name... or, uh, some phrase in her own language?

Lewis Dixon: Infer what you will, Mr. Chairman. I suggest you rephrase the question.

Chairman of the Commission: What is your name?

Zira: Zi-ra!

Chairman of the Commission: One might as well be talking to a parrot.

Zira: A parrot?

Chairman of the Commission: Mechanical mimicry. Unique in an ape vocally, without a doubt... but, uh, does the other one talk?

Cornelius: Only when she lets me.

Chairman of the Commission: Dr. Hasslein?

Otto Hasslein: No. Nothing.

Lewis Dixon: Mr. Chairman.

Chairman of the Commission: Uh, yes? What is the male's name, please?

Cornelius: Cornelius.

Zira: My lawfully wedded spouse.

Counciller: Wedded?

Chairman of the Commission: We'll take that up later, Your Eminence. Cornelius, do you and your lawfully wedded spouse... speak any language other than English?

Cornelius: What is English? I speak the language taught to me by my father and mother... who were taught by their fathers and mothers before them. It has been the language of our ancestors for nearly 2,000 years. As to its origins, who can be sure? The gorillas and orangutans of our community... believe that God created the ape in his own image. And that our language

Zira: Nonsense! Cornelius, as an intellectual, you know damned well... the gorillas are a bunch of militaristic nincompoops... and the orangutans a bunch of blinkered, pseudoscientific geese! As to humans, I've dissect I- I've examined thousands of them... and until now, I've only discovered two who could talk in my life. God knows who taught them.

Cornelius: Where we come from... apes talk. Humans are dumb.

Chairman of the Commission: Where do you come from, Cornelius?

Cornelius: I'm not sure.

Zira: Dr. Milo was sure.

Chairman of the Commission: Oh.

Cornelius: Dr. Milo was a genius well in advance of his time. When the spacecraft first landed on our seaboard... it was Dr. Milo who salvaged it. He studied it and, uh, half understood it. Half? Was half enough? It was enough for us to escape when war became inevitable. Enough for Dr. Milo to be murdered in your zoo. Enough for my wife and I to be here now.

Chairman of the Commission: From where, Cornelius?

Cornelius: I told you. I'm not sure.

Chairman of the Commission: Maybe the female knows.

Zira: Of course the female knows! We came from your future! That doesn't make any sense. It's the only thing that does.

Otto Hasslein: Mr. Chairman.

Chairman of the Commission: Yes? cornelius, you spoke of war.

Otto Hasslein: War between whom?

Cornelius: The gorillas and whoever lives- lived.

Zira: Will live.

Chairman of the Commission: Who won the war?

Cornelius: I don't know. Chimpanzees are pacifists. We stayed at home.

Chairman of the Commission: But you left before the war had ended.

Councillor: In a spaceship.

Cornelius: Which Dr. Milo learned to navigate. Correct.

Otto Hasslein: Cornelius. Did you know a Colonel Taylor?

Cornelius: No. Is he a soldier?

Zira: Look, we are peaceful creatures. We are happy to be here. May we be unchained?

---

Cornelius: Zira!

Zira: Cornelius, I think we should tell them.

Cornelius: No.

Zira: But o-only to Lewis and Stevie.

Cornelius: Oh, Zira.

Zira: I have to be honest with someone. Cornelius, please. You tell them. Well, you see... we did know Colonel Taylor. We came to love him.

Lewis Dixon: I don't understand what harm there could be in telling that to the commission.

Cornelius: Where we come from, uh, apes did not love humans. They, uh, hunted them for sport... uh, much as you would animals.

Zira: Yes. We used their bodies, alive and dead... experimentally for anatomical dissection and scientific research.

Lewis Dixon: Well, uh, we do the same thing to animals. I mean, as a scientist, I sympathize... but, uh, I agree that that's a revelation... the masses would not take kindly to. I think you did the right thing in denying knowledge of Colonel Taylor.

Zira: There was another reason.

Lewis Dixon: What?

Zira: They would have asked if he was still alive.

Lewis Dixon: And is he?

Zira: Oh, no, no, no, he can't be.

Lewis Dixon: Well, how do you know?

Zira: Because

Lewis Dixon: Well?

Cornelius: From the windows of the spaceship We saw the Earth... destroyed.

---

Otto Hasslein: That's your voice, isn't it?

Zira: How can I tell? I- I don't even remember.

Cornelius: Why don't you remember?

Zira: Because Dr. Hasslein made me drunk!

Interrogator: Why did you tell something to Dr. Hasslein when drunk... that you never told the commission when sober? Because you and your husband were frightened... for the safety of yourselves and your unborn child?

Zira: I-I withheld nothing. Nobody asked me.

Interrogator: But if somebody had asked?

Zira: I should have said that chimpanzees... had no part in the destruction of Earth. Only the gorillas and the orangutans.

Interrogator: What's the difference? You're all monkeys.

Cornelius: Please! Do not use the word "monkey. " It is offensive to us. As an archaeologist, I had access to history scrolls... which were kept secret from the masses. And I suspect that the weapon which destroyed Earth... was man's own invention. I do know this. One of the reasons for man's original downfall... was your peculiar habit of murdering one another. Man destroys man. Apes do not destroy apes.

Otto Hasslein: Cornelius. This is not an interracial hassle, but a search for facts. We do not deny the possibility of man's decline and fall. All we want to find out is how apes rose.

Cornelius: Well, it began in our prehistory with the plague that fell upon dogs.

Zira: And cats.

Cornelius: Hundreds and thousands of them died. And hundreds and thousands of them had to be destroyed in order to prevent the spread of infection.

Zira: There were dog bonfires.

Cornelius: Yes. And by the time the plague was contained, man was without pets. Of course, for man, this was intolerable. I mean, he might kill his brother, but he could not kill his dog. So humans took primitive apes as pets.

Zira: Primitive and dumb, but still twenty times more intelligent than dogs or cats.

Cornelius: Correct. They were quartered in cages, but they lived and moved freely in human homes. They became responsive to human speech and, in the course of less than two centuries, they progressed from performing mere tricks to performing services.

Interrogator: Nothing more or less than a well-trained sheepdog could do.

Cornelius: Could a sheepdog cook, or clean the house, or do the marketing for the groceries with a list from its mistress, or wait on tables?

Zira: Or, after three more centuries, turn the tables on their owners.

Hasslein: How?

Cornelius: They became alert to the concept of slavery. And as their numbers grew, to slavery's antidote which, of course, is unity. At first, they began assembling in small groups. They learned the art of corporate and militant action. They learned to refuse. At first, they just grunted their refusal. But then, on an historic day, which is commemorated by my species and fully documented in the sacred scrolls, there came Aldo. He did not grunt. He articulated. He spoke a word, a word which had been spoken to him time and again without number by humans. He said: "No".

Hasslein: So that's how it all started.

---

Interrogator: Zira, you worked in a room like this.

Zira: Bigger, not so pretty.

Interrogator: And there you practiced...?

Zira: Comparative.

Interrogator: Comparative what?

Zira: An, an, an, an...

Interrogator: Anatomy? Whose anatomies did you compare? Apes and humans? Zira, say "Yes" if you mean "Yes".

Zira: Yes.

Interrogator: So you dissected other apes.

Zira: Yes. When they died a natural death.

Interrogator: And humans, too, of course.

Zira: Yes. As they were made available.

Interrogator: Available?

Zira: Gorillas hunted them for sport with nets and with guns. The survivors were put in cages. The army used some of them for target practice. We could take our scientific pick of the rest.

Interrogator: And in the interest of science, you dissected, removed and statistically compared...?

Zira: Bones, muscles, tendons. And veins, arteries, kidneys, livers, hearts. Stomachs, reproductive organs. Nails, tongues, eyes. Noses, nervous systems, the various reflexes.

Interrogator: Reflexes? Of the dead?

Zira: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Of the living. You can't make a dead man's knee jump any more than you can test a corpse's reaction to a prefrontal lobotomy.

Interrogator: You mean you were advanced enough to perform experimental brain surgery on living humans?

Zira: Oh, yes. We even tried to stimulate their atrophied speech centers.

Interrogator: Did you try to stimulate Colonel Taylor's speech centers?

Zira: Of course not. He could talk already.

Interrogator: When you left, was Colonel Taylor still alive?

Zira: We loved Taylor. We did all we could to help him, Cornelius and I.

---

Cornelius: Savages!! They are savages! Jabbing needles into my pregnant wife!

Zira: I've done that, too, dear. And worse. Taylor thought we were savages at first.

Cornelius: Did they make you tell them about Taylor, too?

Zira: They made me tell them everything, Cornelius.- Brutes. Shall I tell you something? I'm glad I did.

Cornelius: We can't live with lies. After this, I doubt we shall be allowed to live at all.

Zira: Do you mean that? Oh. How long?

Cornelius: A week. Maybe sooner. They treated you like dirt.

---

Armando: Now, wait a second. Just a moment. Let me get this straight. You are asking me to risk imprisonment... for the sake of two fugitive apes? Well, the answer is, a thousand times.....yes. Oh, yes. I do it for you and for Stevie... and for your two distinguished friends.

Lewis Dixon: Uh, "notorious" now.

Armando: The hell with notoriety. What is a husband expected to do stand by and see his wife insulted? Good God. Aren't we rude enough to each other... without having to be rude to animals? And anyway, he didn't mean to kill the boy. It was an accident.

External links

• Escape from the Planet of the Apes quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Rotten Tomatoes