Why didn't they eat the monkey?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Flight of the Phoenix
Adam60z — 15 years ago(August 06, 2010 09:21 PM)
Ratbag's joked about it, but they could have considered it. After all Peter Gabriel did sing, "eat, the monkey, yeah"or something like that.
Play the game existence 'til the endof the beginning -
kshiarella — 15 years ago(March 01, 2011 06:50 PM)
Maybe because they were not starving (they had cases of pressed dates). They established early in the story that food was not an issue. But I did wonder if they could have put the camel's blood in the distillery for the water. I think the issue was not to side-track the story with them butchering a monkey or a camel.
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prettyboy2000 — 11 years ago(April 05, 2014 10:52 PM)
Why keep the monkey alive when it would have needed to consume from their water supply to stay alive itself?
Also, I always found it stupid that Towns unloaded their only weapon into that camel when he could likely have done it with two shots. Not sure if Watson was carrying any additional ammo. -
movies789 — 11 years ago(July 29, 2014 05:25 PM)
Yes, the firing of all six shots was pretty absurd. Not only might they have been heard by the cutthroats who'd just left the camel, but that ammo could have been used for defense against other thugs, to maintain order among the passengers, to shoot food later, or to signal other people sighted later.
And the camel didn't have to be shot at all. Just remove its load, untie it, and let the poor guy find water and fend for itself. Lots of animals & people survive while lame. The camel was useless for carrying a load, but load-free it might have survived just fine.
Eating the monkey would have been borderline cannibalism. It was part of the group, consumed very little, and contributed to the group's morale. Besides, divided among seven men, it wouldn't have gone far (a light snack, at best - the equivalent of one or two of the figs that were plentiful). -
darryl-tahirali — 11 years ago(February 16, 2015 10:27 AM)
Also, I always found it stupid that Towns unloaded their only weapon into that camel when he could likely have done it with two shots. Not sure if Watson was carrying any additional ammo. - prettyboy2000
It's easy to be an armchair quarterback. I've always taken Towns's unloading the pistol into the camel as his emotional outburst, his rage and futility at having seen that two men with whom he'd been living for several days in extreme conditions have had their throats cut by the bandits. One would hope to think more clearly than he in those kinds of conditions.
As for the monkey, I agree with the other poster who noted that it would not have amounted to much food. I suspect that had the food run out before the water, the monkey would be on the menu. And the camel. And the men already dead. But as for the camel, I wonder if its meat is salty, and whether anyone knew that, which is why it was not seized upon as a food source.
Those are the headlines. Now for the rumors behind the news. - Firesign Theatre -
darryl-tahirali — 11 years ago(February 16, 2015 10:17 AM)
After all Peter Gabriel did sing, "eat, the monkey, yeah"or something like that. - zensixties
"Shock the Monkey" is Peter Gabriel's song. They could have hooked up the monkey to the generator, though.
Those are the headlines. Now for the rumors behind the news. - Firesign Theatre -
Adam60z — 11 years ago(March 12, 2015 05:56 PM)
Shock the Monkey" is Peter Gabriel's song. They could have hooked up the monkey to the generator, though.
Yes, if they had run out of cartridges they could've just used monkey power!
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Hollywood (;-p)