YMMV / Gorillas in the Mist

• Adaptation Displacement: Many know about this film, little know that the gist of the story came from an article by Harold T. P. Hayes.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Dian purchasing a monster mask to scare the poachers? She really did that.
  • Dian beating her chest to attract gorillas' attention and blend in better? Without turning them hostile or scaring them away? This really did happen in her early days. Fortunately, she quickly learned not to do it.
  • While Dian and Bob's love affair seems like something made up by a bunch of Hollywood producers to give the film a romantic subplot, she really did have an affair with him and he really did intend to leave his wife to be with her. She even got pregnant from their relationship, but got an abortion because she reasoned that National Geographic wouldn't want pictures of an unmarried pregnant woman on their magazine covers, something the film omits.
• Award Snub: Rick Baker didn't even earn an Oscar nomination for the astonishingly realistic gorilla suits he created for this film. In fact, the film's marketing really underplayed his involvement, instead focusing on the shots that featured actual gorillas in the wild.
• Nightmare Fuel: The brutal murder of Dian's favorite gorilla, Digit. And if seeing him killed wasn't enough, we are "treated" to a shot of his headless, handless corpse.
• Tear Jerker: A solid candidate for the most heartbreaking film of 1988 that doesn't involve Sakuma Fruit Drops. Given that Dian was being played by the always-phenomenally-talented Sigourney Weaver, well... prepare for your heart to be crushed in epic fashion.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: In the scenes where gorillas and humans need to closely interact, it's gorilla suits created by Rick Baker - which look so believable that it's hard to tell them apart from the real gorillas appearing in the other scenes.

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