Zira quotes from Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Zira

It wasn't our war. It was the gorillas' war.

Zira

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

Cornelius

What's happened?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Have you a name?

Zira

Zira.

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.

What is your name?

Zira

Zi-ra!

One might as well be talking to a parrot.

Zira

A parrot?

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

Cornelius

Only when she lets me.

Dr. Hasslein?

Otto Hasslein

No. Nothing.

Lewis Dixon

Mr. Chairman.

Uh, yes? What is the male's name, please?

Cornelius

Cornelius.

Zira

My lawfully wedded spouse.

Wedded?

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.

Where do you come from, Cornelius?

Cornelius

I'm not sure.

Zira

Dr. Milo was sure.

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.

From where, Cornelius?

Cornelius

I told you. I'm not sure.

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.

Yes? cornelius, you spoke of war.

Otto Hasslein

War between whom?

Cornelius

The gorillas and whoever lives- lived.

Zira

Will live.

Who won the war?

Cornelius

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

But you left before the war had ended.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Zira, you worked in a room like this.

Zira

Bigger, not so pretty.

And there you practiced...?

Zira

Comparative.

Comparative what?

Zira

An, an, an, an...

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

Zira

Yes.

So you dissected other apes.

Zira

Yes. When they died a natural death.

And humans, too, of course.

Zira

Yes. As they were made available.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Zira

Of course not. He could talk already.

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.