DVD - Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees

7 1/2 out of 10

We share 98.4% of our genes with chimpanzees.

Positives:
Archival footage from the 60s brought to life using digital technology. Cute footage of twin babies. Interesting footage of family dynamics. That one younger chimp throwing rocks at Jane and her protege, and hearing "Rat" off screen from Jane. That chimp had attitude problems, but this is really interesting, b/c they pointed out that he had a rather cold mother and now is always causing trouble for everyone in the family, doing ANYTHING to get attention - whether it's good or bad, he doesn't give a damn. That's something to think about when associating with human beings in our world. He doesn't care if he gets bad attention, he just desperately needs attention. And it's not his fault. All creatures need and want attention, unless they are solitary animals. We are not solitary animals.

Now, think about this chimp, think about the complex family structure of chimps, with great dependence upon each other. Think about human beings, who are becoming increasing isolated from each other. Who spend more and more time alone, separated from society. Separated from the whole. Think about all the devices and inventions that are making your life so easy; each one makes it a little easier and seemingly more fun. But a little lonelier. Bit by bit by bit. I have somewhat changed my theories on the popularity of the cell phone. At least people are communicating more - at a wild rate, in fact. But, they can't see or smell or touch the person they're on the phone with. And, they ignore the people around them who they can. There's something completely illogical about that. I think it has something to do with trust issues, fear that we all have. But, I also believe that these devices make it easier to change our lives so we can avoid having to get over the hurdle of trust, and I fear that it's going to create a snowball effect - in that, we won't talk to strangers at all anymore, and then we'll fear them because we never talked to them, and then we'll teach future generations that strangers are bad because, well, we never talked to them, so there must be a good reason for it though we won't remember what the reason was.

Eh, this is why I like watching animals and movies like these. They stimulate my mind. Forty years ago there were 3-4 million chimps in 25 African countries, now there are scarcely 150,000 left. In the past 10 years alone, I don't know the number exactly (I'll have to look it up, and I may or may not update this entry), but human beings have increased in number by about 1.5 billion and climbing. There's something wrong with those numbers. Chimps are being hunted, sold, eaten, taken as pets, their habitat burned and destroyed and paved over. Human beings, STOP BREEDING! Sterilize yourself! And, stop sucking up all of the oil of the earth - get your fat ass up and walk!

I looked up something about Koko the Sign Language Gorilla today. I have this picture that rotates onto my desktop of her cradling this kitten, entranced by it, but also giving and receiving affection. The first kitten she had, I think it was called All Balls or something. The kitten escaped and got hit by a car. When they showed Koko a picture of a cat that looked like Balls, she signed "Sad. Cry. Frown." She had other kittens after that, but this kind of thing just makes me question how human beings can hunt these animals for their skulls and eat their testicles to become more manly and make their hands into ashtrays. Who would have such a thing in their house? And, why doesn't anyone burn their house down when they pull out the gorilla hand ashtray for guests?

My cats watched this entire movie.

Negatives:
I don't know if there were any. I am going to have to think about this.

I wished this movie/documentary had gone on for a lot longer. As it was, it was only 40 minutes, but supposedly we're told that this alone to 14 weeks to shoot. They also did an IMAX movie out of this footage, which showed you the wilderness from the perspective of a chimp. That must have been an awesome IMAx. But, it fits in with the whole mission of the Jane Goodall Institute in educating the public about the plight of chimpanzees and other great apes, so this was probably a very good idea to get the message out.