How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from 12 Monkeys.
Quote #1
"…5 billion people will die from a deadly virus in 1997… the survivors will abandon the surface of the planet… once again the animals will rule the world…" —Excerpts from interview with clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic
April 12, 1990
Baltimore County Hospital
The movie opens with a record of nature taking humanity to the mat. Our humbling defeat comes not from an asteroid, volcano, sharknado, or other typical Hollywood disaster. Rather, it's a disease that puts the world-conquering humans in their place.
Quote #2
[James Cole wanders the ruins of Baltimore in the year 2035. Encased in a plastic hazmat suit, he encounters several animals, such as a bear, lion, and Madagascar cockroach, among the derelict, empty buildings.]
This scene depicts the entropy that humanity's accomplishments will suffer in time. Our buildings will crumble, our societies will fall, and our pop culture will lose all its fizz. But nature will outlast us and take back the land that once belonged to it. The opening scene puts us in a fatalist mood right from the start—unless, of course, you're that lion and you just inherited a slightly used Baltimore.
Quote #3
TV NARRATOR: These dramatic videotapes, secretly obtained by animal rights activists, have aroused public indignation. But many scientists vehemently disagree.
GOINES: Torture experiments. We're all monkeys.
COLE: They hurt you?
GOINES: Not as bad as what they're doing to the Easter Bunny. [Goines chuckles.]
COLE: Look at them. They're just askin' for it.
TV NARRATOR: Animals inside the lab—
COLE: Maybe the human race deserves to be wiped out.
Of course, there was a time when humanity was more master than subject to nature, and we've done some truly heinous things in the name of science and continual mastery. Looking your way, Dr. Skinner. Being members of the human race, we'd like to keep open the debate about whether we should be wiped out.