It’s really interesting to me that for the most part in KOTPOTA, I think with the exception of the really oddly placed scene of Mae asking Noa if he likes Soona, I can almost rationalize Noa and Mae’s entire relationship and arc into enemies to reluctant allies to friends (eventually, though I’ll concede to a possibility of them ending as enemies again), and that’s it. Friends with a very close bond, mind you, and with experiences only the two of them can understand. Platonic with a capital p as much as I have become severely allergic to that word for various reasons. They’re both continuously challenged in their views about the other, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, and in the end we’re left with the big fat question of the trilogy; can apes and humans live together in peace? It’s less about Noa and Mae as individuals and more what they represent to each other, and it could very well be left at that. I can see that, as much as I love the possibility of LOVE between the two being at least a partial answer to that question. They can keep it platonic all they want and I can’t point to any one scene in the movie and be like ‘wait!! this has romantic undertones/overtones and can’t be anything else!’
They even end it with Noa taking Soona to the observatory, somewhere very important to him. As unsatisfying and out of no where that relationship came from, I took it as the movie telling us point blank to NOT ship the ape with the human girl no matter how much chemistry is oozing out of the performances. Fine, sure, I’ll just ship it for fun and accept that they’re not trying for a romantic angle.
Except.
EXCEPT.
What is with that deleted scene? A tight, tense hug from behind? And, again, I’m a rational girl over here. I know that Noa wrapping his arms around Mae was so that the other two apes couldn’t smell her and detect them. He placed his hand over her head to cover the wound. When he released her and looked at his hand too, he could have looked at her blood and thought a number of things there. He could have been grossed out, he could have marveled at the idea that humans bleed the same as apes, he could even maybe feel guilt. Him protecting her like that doesn’t even have to necessarily be about him being protective of her specifically; they were both in danger, he was protecting them both.
The giant elephant in the room is that they didn’t have to block the scene out like that at, or even create it at all. The reasons why Noa wrapped her in his arms don’t matter, his thoughts on the situation afterwards don’t even matter as much as the director creating a scenario where Mae has to be held by him at all, and that’s driving me a little crazy over here. It’s like the scene was only created for us to go ‘aww’ at.
That’s not even touching on the still of them embracing or whatever funky little thing they got going on there. It’s only disheartening that they’re deleted scenes, like any romantic undertones they decided to walk back. To which I say, LAME! It might be controversial but it sure would get a lot of people talking about it! To me as well it just raises the stakes that much higher if we’re even more invested in their relationship, and people love romance, so I hope they just decide to not be cowards and milk what they got.
