It never ceases to amuse and amaze me, how completely different the story of Planet of the Apes would have been if Captain Taylor had landed and all the apes spoke french.

Cornelius
D'accord, j'avais tort. C'était impossible que ma théorie soit vraie. Les humains sont complètement stupides. Tuez-le. Tuez-le.

Taylor
Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty apes!

Dr Zira
(gasps)
Qu'est-ce qui se passe? Il peut parler!

Cornelius
Oui, mais il parle en anglais. On n'a aucun besoin d'un autre anglophone, humain ou autre.
Tuez-le quand-même.

What a phenomenal stroke of luck on Taylor's part, to have landed in a world where apes evolved from men and also happened to speak English!

Yeah, yeah, I know it was all explained in the later movies, but I don't consider them authoritative. Can you blame me?
Bien merci à Senso et themanwho pour le leçon en grammaire!

Noder's Note: Oh good grief, I just discovered that the story actually was originally written in french: La Planète des Singes -- "The Planet of Monkeys." Also, kenata tells me that in that book, the apes actually did speak a different language, which was why they couldn't tell Taylor was speaking at all at first.

OH MY HOT FUCK. RalphyK informs me that the author of La Planète des Singes, Pierre Boulle, was in fact an honest-to-god chimpanzee. THIS IS NOT A WORD OF IT THE HELL A LIE GODDAMN IT! This is the same the hell damn chimp who wrote Pont de la rivière Kwai! Yeah, you thought a human wrote that, didn't you, idiot.