| “ | Your kind were once our ancestors. Because man was born of apes, and there's still an ape curled up inside of every man. You're the beast in us that we have to whip into submission. You're the savage that we need to shackle in chains. You taint us, Caesar. You poison our guts. When we hate you, we're hating the dark side of ourselves. | „ |
| ~ Breck's famous quote where he explains his hatred to Caesar. |
Governor Breck is the main antagonist in the fourth Planet of the Apes film, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
He was portrayed by legendary actor Don Murray.
Biography
In 1991, the United States has gone from its original form of government to a system headed by governors, whose word is basically law. America has become nearly totalitarian and repressive, with many curfews and restrictions imposed, and surveillance an everyday event. Protests and demonstrations are discouraged, or given time limits. Breck is the authoritarian and magisterial governor.
He is a cruel, ruthless, and oppressive tyrant who has overseen the creation of a class of ape slaves to serve the human population. After the death of Earth's dogs and cats (caused by a plague brought back by a space probe), monkeys and apes took their place as pets – and were genetically engineered to increase their intelligence. Progressing from performing tricks to doing household chores, apes have now become humanity's slaves. The apes are brutally tortured into submission. The government supports this occurrence, since ape servants seem to lessen public discontent. Nobody considers the apes' feelings or best interests, though, and tension is brewing. Governor Breck isn't fond of apes, but he does enjoy bossing them around, even more than the humans in his charge.
Breck witnesses an ape auction one day, and on a whim bids on a young chimpanzee (through his assistant Mr. MacDonald). His bid wins, and he shows the chimp how to choose a name from a book. The name he chooses is "Caesar", pretending to just point randomly. While he is bright, and everyone suspects he was previously "conditioned" and not a wild ape, he makes a mistake in the chore given him (mixing a cocktail for the governor). Breck decides to assign Caesar to his command post, as a messenger.
What Breck doesn't know, but comes to suspect, is that Caesar is actually an evolved ape, whose parents Cornelius and Zira came from Earth's future, when apes are the dominant species. Caesar was brought up by Armando, a human circus owner, who taught him all about humanity, and how to be a leader.
Armando dies in police custody, to protect Caesar's secret. Angry and mournful, Caesar begins to set up an ape revolt, using his job at the command post to stay one step ahead of Breck, and his attempts to control the apes. His second-in-command, Chief Inspector Kolp, double-checks on recent ape shipments to Ape Management, and discovers that Caesar was the lone chimpanzee in a shipment from Borneo, where chimps are not native. He reports this to Breck, who now wants to know exactly what Caesar knows. He also wonders if Caesar can tell him by speaking.
Breck orders MacDonald to turn Caesar over the minute he returns from an errand, but instead MacDonald, who learns Caesar can indeed speak, gives him the chance to escape. Caesar is captured by police, taken to Ape Management, and brought to an interrogation room resembling a torture chamber. Strapped to an electroshock table, Caesar is jolted with higher and higher amounts of electricity, while Breck commands him again and again, "Talk!" In agony, Caesar gasps "Have pity!" and slumps back on the table, exhausted. MacDonald leaves, showing no stomach for what Breck is doing.
Satisfied, Breck departs, and Kolp orders Caesar to be electrocuted immediately. MacDonald finds the room's breaker box, and cuts off the electrical flow to the table. Caesar pretends to die, and everyone else leaves. Killing the handler sent to dispose of his body, Caesar decides the time has come to begin the revolt. Caesar sets the Ape Management building on fire, then seizes the intercom system and pretends to be the governor's spokesman, ordering the guards to release all the apes in custody – even the dangerous ones. With the apes loose, panic begins to spread, and apes around the Ape Management complex begin to riot. More and more fires begin to break out, all over the city.
From his command post, Breck declares martial law, and issues one simple order concerning the rioting apes: "Shoot to kill!" His troops are overwhelmed by the hundreds of apes they find in the streets, though, and nobody can believe the apes have acquired weapons – and the skills to use them, or at least try them out. The apes smash the command post as they take control of Ape Management, seizing Breck, MacDonald and others. Aldo, a gorilla leader, handles Breck as he was once handled by Breck's policemen, as Caesar asks him the final question of why was Breck so hateful toward apes, and toward himself most of all. With nothing left to lose, Breck admits to Caesar that enslaving wild apes was a way of dealing with his own human impulses, and so with other humans. Breck is taken away, presumably to be imprisoned by the apes.
In the fifth and final film, it is revealed that Breck died from radiation poisoning in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Breck's underling Kolp is the new Governor (more specifically, of the underground ruins, after the nuclear war destroyed most of human civilization). Mr. MacDonald also presumably died in the nuclear war or its aftermath. However, his younger brother was spared from the same fate by being rescued by Caesar, and became his human advisor in the new peaceful ape society.
Trivia
- Breck is the primary reason apes took over the Earth in the first place, as his mass slavery of apes created an army he hoped to stop, and his interrogation of Armando ultimately resulted in the man's death, which is what drove Caesar to instigate the revolt.
- Breck can be viewed as a human answer to General Ursus. Both command a military, both use military force to suppress dissent, both are fine with slavery and both attempt to kill their rivals.
- Breck justifies the slavery of apes when he tells MacDonald that he can trace his family back to Breckland in Suffolk, England, where they were slaves to the French.
- In the original ending of the film, Caesar watches as the apes kill Breck in revenge for what he put them through. However, this was changed because it was too dark. In the final film, Breck is spared by the apes. The original ending where Breck is killed was finally restored in the 2008 Blu-Ray release of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
- The decision to spare Breck's life rather than stoop to his level is also why Caesar is more benevolent towards humans in the next film than he is during the events of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.
- Breck was to be the main antagonist once again in Battle for the Planet of the Apes. However, Don Murray did not want to return, so Kolp was the main antagonist instead and Breck is revealed to have died from the nuclear bomb in-between films.
- The original script of the film revealed that Breck's wife was killed by an ape that was being trained, which is why he has such an extreme hatred of apes.
- Breck's first name is never stated in the film. An early draft of the film's script names him 'Harvey Breck III', though in that version, the character is very different than how Breck is portrayed onscreen.
- In the novelization of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, John Jakes gives the name Jason Breck, and establishes his age to be thirty-three.
- Additionally, the comic book miniseries Revolution on the Planet of the Apes, from Mr. Comics calls him Arnold Breck.
- In the novelization of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, John Jakes gives the name Jason Breck, and establishes his age to be thirty-three.
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