Taro’s Reviews > La Planète des singes > Status Update

the sun is the proper size for Betelgeuse, and the planet is 70AU from its star. I could see them travelling to after the sun goes into red giant phase, but I'm pretty sure this is not earth. The moon is somewhat paler.
But Ape civilization has stagnated for 10,000 years - in an age like our 1960s. And at an archaeological Ulysses and Cornelius find at the 10000year strata... a talking, *human* doll.

<[Cornélius] was waiting for us beside some massive foliage. He was an alluring chimpanzee, certainly older than Zira, but extremely young for an academic savant >

"[That we are quadrumodal is one of the most important factors in our evolution. It allows us to climb in the trees and navigate the three dimensions, while man with his deformation of only two hands is limited to the plane. We can use tools while our hands are free. It is this ability that elevated apekind to sapience.]"
Also our hero is speaking French (he's learning Simian and Zira French)

When incarcerated on a planet where the locals don't believe your sapience, and don't understand French?
Pythagoras. Euclid. Draw out a triangle and the invalidity that proves validity!

He meets Mi Zaïus, an important prang-outan
Unlike the movie, these apes do not speak French/English, and our hero Ulyssées is having a hard time proving his intelligence. But I did learn the word « guenon », which in its use can best be translated into English as "she-monkey".
there is no separate word for monkey/ape in French, they are all singes. But I haven't found any monkeys yet, it could happen.

Nous étions plongés dans une aventure mille fois plus extraordinaire que celle des premiers navigateurs terrestres et nous préparions notre esprit à affronter les étrangetés qui ont traversé l'imagination de plusieurs générations de poètes à propos des expéditions transsidérales.

Jinn and Phyllis are a couple sailing on solar sails through space, and they find a message in a bottle drifting in space (literally) and inside is a manuscript written in Earth language…
The story of an early earth superlight voyage, and Phyllis keeps on getting surprised at words like “human”

(Reading the original French)
Obvious prediction: Jinn and Phyllis are monkeys