Comments have been that the fist pump was in peace.
I think the chimp at the time had no interest in the boy as he was busy killing others.
Chimp was shot before we knew what was really going to happen.
The chimp didn't see Jupe as a threat since they were worked closer together than any of the other castmates. The little girl was a threat because she was the one who opened the box and set the balloons free, which popped and scared him. The dad was a threat because he ran up on him in an aggressive way.
I think the fist bump moment is left for the viewer to speculate. Personally, I think when the chimp stopped to try to communicate something to Jupe it might have been him saying that the others were dangerous. The fist bump was a "we're on the same team" type of confirmation.
I agree that the attempted fist-bump strongly implies the chimp was no threat to Jupe
But that's as far as the narrative needs to go
It doesn't matter whether the chimp was ACTUALLY a threat or not.
What matters is how Jupe interpreted the events.
He believed he'd been miraculously spared and therefore had some greater purpose in life. He believed he could communicate meaningfully with "the aliens" because he was special, so special that Gordy the chimp spared his life.
In fact, the chimp may have been about to attack Jupe (though I don't believe it's likely). We don't need to know for the purposes of the story itself
In the RedLetterMedia review they surmise that the reason the chimp didn’t kill him was that he didn’t make eye contact with it since he was distracted looking at the shoe.
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Good point about the shoe; makes sense that Jupe then preserved the shoe as a symbol of his "special purpose"
He was also behind a fabric tablecloth that camouflaged his eyes, just like the bug-mask that OJ puts on Lucky to hide the horse's eyes from Jean Jacket.
It was finished with its rage and had settled down. No longer in attack-mode and even seemed kinda remorseful. So no, it wouldnt have attacked. Still, it had to be put down as it had killed people.What you think is irrelevant.
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