History Film / GorillasInTheMist

* TheUnsolvedMystery: The movie ends with a MurdererPOV, Fossey herself was murdered and it continues to be debated and uncertain who was her Murderer!.

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Or in this case, apes. Dian gets her job as part of an anthropology research program focusing on apes because of their remarkable similarity to humans. She ends up viewing the gorillas [[MotherlyScientist as her family]].

* IncurableCoughOfDeath: {{Subverted}}. If you don't know the story of how Dian Fossey died, you're liable to think her nagging cough late in the film, combined with her constant smoking earlier in the film, is foreshadowing a death by lung cancer. [[spoiler:You would be brutally wrong]].

* GoryDiscretionShot: When [[spoiler:Dian is killed in her sleep with a machete, all we see is the killer in shadow and her blood splashing [[RuleOfSymbolism onto a photograph of the gorillas.]]]]

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Or in this case, apes.

* ScarecrowSolution: In one scene, Dian wears a monster mask to scare the superstitious native poachers. It's just as ridiculous as it sounds, but it's something she ''actually did in real life''.

* BerserkButton: Do not hurt the gorillas when Dian's near.

* MamaBear: Dian Fossey came to consider the gorillas her family and was ''very'' protective of them.

* MotherlyScientist: Dian Fossey.

* BittersweetEnding: Dian is murdered by poachers, but her efforts saved the Gorillas from extinction.

* DownerEnding: Dian gets [[spoiler:murdered by poachers]].

* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler:Dian is murdered by poachers.]]

* MamaBear: Dian Fossey came to consider the gorillas her family. So needless to say, she became very protective of them, and when any of them died, she got ''pissed''.

A 1988 film directed by Michael Apted, ''Gorillas in the Mist'' starred Creator/SigourneyWeaver as RealLife naturalist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Fossey Dian Fossey]]. Fossey was one of "Leakey's Angels", at the time the world's leading researchers in the field of primates, inspired by anthropologist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Leakey Louis Leakey]]. In the 1960s, she traveled deep into the isolated jungles of Rwanda to study endangered mountain gorillas. Fossey devoted her life to ending poaching at the cost of her relationships with the people around her. Her fight became more and more heated, to the extreme ends of confronting the Rwandan government and eventually burning down a poachers' village, which quickly put her in their crosshairs.

->You like this ring? You want to keep the hand this ring is on? If I see or hear or smell you anywhere near my gorillas, you'll be writing with your other hand and I'll have a new ashtray.
-->'''Dian Fossey'''

A 1988 film directed by Michael Apted, GorillasInTheMist starred Creator/SigourneyWeaver as RealLife naturalist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Fossey Dian Fossey]]. Fossey was one of "Leakey's Angels", at the time the world's leading researchers in the field of primates, inspired by anthropologist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Leakey Louis Leakey]]. In the 1960's, she traveled deep into the isolated jungles of Rwanda to study endangered mountain gorillas. Fossey devoted her life to ending poaching at the cost of her relationships with the people around her. Her fight became more and more heated, to the extreme ends of confronting the Rwandan government and eventually burning down a poachers' village, which quickly put her in their crosshairs.

* GoryDiscretionShot: When [[spoiler:Dian is killed in her sleep with a machete, all we see is the killer in shadow and her blood splashing [[RuleOfSymbolism onto a photograph of the gorillas.]]]

* RealLifeWritesThePlot

* EvilPoacher: Dian has to defend the gorillas from poachers. [[spoiler: They kill Dian in the end.]]

* AllYourPowersCombined: Universal and Warner Bros. were planning separate movies about Dian Fossey; the two agreed to collaborate on a single movie ([[Film/TheToweringInferno not the first time Warner Bros. did this kind of thing]]).

* DuelingMovies: Averted (see AllYourPowersCombined above).

A 1988 film directed by Michael Apted, GorillasInTheMist starred SigourneyWeaver as RealLife naturalist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Fossey Dian Fossey]]. Fossey was one of "Leakey's Angels", at the time the world's leading researchers in the field of primates, inspired by anthropologist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Leakey Louis Leakey]]. In the 1960's, she traveled deep into the isolated jungles of Rwanda to study endangered mountain gorillas. Fossey devoted her life to ending poaching at the cost of her relationships with the people around her. Her fight became more and more heated, to the extreme ends of confronting the Rwandan government and eventually burning down a poachers' village, which quickly put her in their crosshairs.