'Rise of the Apes' Director: Film's Hero Inspired by Che Guevara

Here’s Rupert Wyatt, director of the blockbuster movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes in a recent interview:

“(The script) had become very different and much more exciting to me. It became less a story of domesticization of a pet and more about an uprising and a Che Guevara story.”

Here’s the Associated Press review of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”: “Raised much like a human child by a researcher, with help from a veterinarian, Caesar becomes a Che Guevara-style revolutionary, leading a rebellion of apes against their human oppressors.”

Ground control to Director Wyatt: In fact the only genuinely popular rebellion in Cuba in the 20th Century was against Che Guevara’s regime, among the most oppressive in modern history which mandates ( under penalty of prison or firing squad) what its subjects, read, say, earn, eat (both substance and amount) , where they live, travel or work. Wyatt’s inspiration for a freedom-fighter co-founded a regime that jailed more of its subjects than did Stalin’s during the Great Terror and murdered more its subjects in its first three years in power than did Hitler’s in its first six.

In 1959, with the help of Soviet KGB and GRU agents, Rupert Wyatt’s hero against “oppression” helped found, train and indoctrinate Cuba’s secret police. “Always interrogate your prisoners at night,” Che Guevara ordered his goons. “A man’s resistance is always lower at night.” In 1957 this worldwide symbol of “‘anti-imperialism” (who often signed his letters as “Stalin II”) cheered the Soviet invasion of Hungary with its wholesale slaughter of Hungarian freedom-fighting guerrillas. All through the horrifying Soviet massacre, Che dutifully parroted the Soviet script that the workers, peasants and college kids battling Russian tanks in Budapest with small arms and Molotov cocktails were all: “Fascists and CIA agents!” who all deserved prompt execution.

“Caesar is shown to be compassionate, forbidding his followers from killing innocent humans. ” (Wikipedia on Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

Ground control to Director Wyatt: “When in doubt–execute! “raved your inspiration for compassion. “Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. I don’t need proof to execute a man. I only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him. We execute from revolutionary conviction! To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow!”

Now here’s Andy Serkis, with the leading role in Rise of the Planet of the Apes: “I play the character from a child through to a Che Guevara type–How cool is that!”

Ground control to Andy Serkis: Che Guevara had a very bloody (and typically cowardly) hand in one of the major anti-insurgency wars in this hemisphere. Most of these Cuban anti-communist guerrillas were executed on the spot upon capture, a Che specialty. For my book I interviewed several of the lucky (genuine) rebels who managed to escape the slaughter. “We fought with the fury of cornered beasts,” I titled the chapter, using the phrase one used to describe their desperate freedom fight against the Soviet occupation of Cuba through their Stalinist proxies the Castro brothers and Che Guevara.

Mass murder was the order in Cuba’s countryside. It was the only way to decimate so many rebels. These country folk went after the Castroites with a ferocity that saw Fidel and Che running to their Soviet sugar daddies and tugging their pants in panic. Carlos Machado was 15 years old in 1963 when the bullets from the Communist firing squad shattered his body. His twin brother and father collapsed beside Carlos from the same volley. All had resisted Castro and Che’s theft of their humble family farm, all refused blindfolds and all died sneering at their Communist murderers, as did thousands of their valiant countrymen.

“Here’s one other thing that sets Rise apart: it’s smart. This isn’t just an angry ape who wants more bananas, but a brave and canny hero who, having been given super intelligence by his scientist guardian, resolves to use it for the advancement of his species. He’s a rebel, a fighter, a simian Che Guevara.”

Ground control to Director Wyatt: the men who captured your “canny” hero with “super intelligence” in Bolivia seem convinced he was unable to apply a compass reading to a map. Under Che’s own gun dozens of defenseless men and boys died. Under his orders thousands crumpled, mostly bound and gagged. At everything else Che Guevara failed abysmally, even comically. During his Bolivian “guerrilla” campaign, Che split his forces whereupon they got hopelessly lost and bumbled around, half-starved, half-clothed and half-shod, without any contact with each other for 6 months before being wiped out. They spent much of the time walking in circles and were usually within a mile of each other. During this blundering they often engaged in ferocious firefights against each other. “You hate to laugh at anything associated with Che, who murdered so many defenseless men and boys,” says Felix Rodriguez, the Cuban-American CIA officer who played a key role in tracking him down in Bolivia. “But when it comes to Che as “guerrilla” you simply can’t help but guffaw.”

Here’s Rupert Wyatt from a recent interview: “I think the (film directors) Christopher Nolans of the world have really allowed filmmakers to explore things in a more…thoughtful way. If I have the opportunity to make further films, the hope that I have is to really explore wonderful themes.”

Ground Control to Director Wyatt: Thank your lucky stars you were born in England in 1972 instead of in Cuba around 1940. Your symbol of freedom jailed and exiled most of Cuba’s best writers, poets and filmmakers while converting Cuba’s press and cinema-at Soviet-gunpoint-into propaganda agencies for a Stalinist regime.