"What a wonderful day!"
Noa: When I sleep, I see strange things...
Raka: Memories?
Noa: Not memories. New things. I see everything.
Raka: (Chuckles) That is not... everything.
Raka: Memories?
Noa: Not memories. New things. I see everything.
Raka: (Chuckles) That is not... everything.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the upcoming third sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the reboot series, and tenth overall film in the Planet of the Apes series. Wes Ball (The Maze Runner Series) takes over the director’s chair from Matt Reeves.
The film is set roughly three centuries after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, where apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), builds his empire, a young ape embarks on a journey that will cause him to question all he has ever known and make choices that will define the future of the Earth.
The film is set to release on May 10, 2024.
Previews: Teaser
, Official Trailer.
- Owen Teague as Noa
- Freya Allan as Nova / Mae
- Kevin Durand as Proximus Caesar
- Peter Macon as Raka
- William H. Macy as Trevathan
- Travis Jeffrey as Anaya
- Lydia Peckham as Soona
- Neil Sandilands as Koro
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes contains examples of:
- After the End: More so than the previous two films. The teaser shows that, after about three centuries have passed since War, most of humanity's achievements have been reclaimed by nature and mankind itself have been reduced to little more than feral animals hunted by the now dominant apes. And now history is set to start again as one faction rises with the goal of conquering their own kind. Just like their former oppressors...
- Animal Is the New Man: The teaser shows that apes have taken over the world after human civilization collapsed centuries prior, just like in the original films.
- Arc Symbol:
- A representation of Caesar's window at the Rodman house, often used to represent home throughout the previous trilogy, appears again on the necklace of the orangutan in the trailer, implying that they have at least started to become the spiritual leaders the orangutans were in the original film.
- The window symbol even appears and replaces the traditional 0 on the teaser poster.
- Big Bad: Proximus Caesar, the leader of the Ape Kingdom. Proximus has his apes hunt humans, and he seeks to rediscover lost human technology in order to strengthen his rule.
- Breaking Old Trends: The teaser shows that unlike the previous trilogy, which mostly centered around humanity's fight with apes as they were slowly pushed to ruin as ape-kind's society rose from the ashes, this film is the first to specifically depict a conflict between two different groups of apes as well as take place at a point where humanity is no longer a ragtag group of post-apocalyptic survivors but feral cavemen-like society (if they have one).note
- Call-Back: Once again, the Apes Together Strong maxim is referenced.Proximus Caesar: Together you will die.
Noa: No... together, strong. - Distant Sequel: The teaser shows it is set roughly 300 years after the events of the previous film.
- Dolled-Up Installment: The film was initially intended to be a completely new adaptation with no connection to the previous trilogy. At some point during development, it was ultimately decided to make the film a Distant Sequel instead, with the story taking place three centuries after War for the Planet of the Apes.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The teaser shows the heroes stumbling upon one of these, part of which worryingly enough looks like a nuclear silo...
- Establishing Shot: The teaser opens with a panning shot of a landscape before revealing that wherever it is, it was once a human city that has since been Reclaimed by Nature. This establishes the setting to take place a great deal of time after the last film.
- Evolutionary Levels: In an interview with Empire, the director made the comparison that in the prior movies, we saw the apes in their Stone Age, but in this movie, we will see them in their Bronze Age, i.e. whereas before they were (organized) hunter-gatherers, now they have more permanent settlements, wear clothing, use metal tools, and have a more developed culture with religion and a writing system.
- Formerly Sapient Species: Seemingly the fate of humans in the future, robbed of their higher intellect and speech, and being no more advanced than apes used to be.
- History Repeats: The trailer shows that the ape-populated areas are beginning to impose upon nature much like the humans once did, and they are beginning to fight amongst themselves in their clans. To hammer home the idea that they have become humans in all but look, one is shown with a stun rod, posed much like Dodge back in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
- Once again, a tyrannical bonobo is the Big Bad of the movie, just like Koba in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
- The Hero: Noa, the new ape protagonist that takes over for Caesar from the previous trilogy, as he goes on his quest for knowledge.
- Humans Are Not the Dominant Species: The teaser shows that humankind as we know it is gone. All that remains are the feral, neanderthal-esque people living in the wild, descendants of the last victims of the Simian Flu while the apes have taken their place as the dominant species without resistance. The old cities are overgrown, and the apes are shown exploring abandoned facilities and living in a beached ship.
- Humanity's Wake: Modern humanity is now gone, but their technology still lingers; and its Proximus' desire to attain them so he can use them to rule over apekind as a whole.
- Interspecies Friendship: The principal protagonists–Noa and Mae–are a male ape and a female human, respectively. Circumstances forcing them to work together to survive.
- Ironic Name: Proximus Caesar means "next to Caesar" or "close to Caesar". Yet, being a tyrannical bonobo who kills humans for sport, wages war against his fellow apes, and twists Caesar's ideologies to serve his own agenda, he's a lot closer to Koba.
- Large Ham: Proximus Caesar."WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!''
- Lost Technology: The teaser depicts ape-kind as nowhere near where humanity was at its peak technologically since they aren't as interested in technological progress as their former human masters. This creates a problem when a faction of malicious apes recover some of the technology, particularly weapons and electricity, left behind, giving them an edge over the other ape tribes.
- Meaningful Name: The Big Bad of the film calls himself Proximus Caesar, obviously seeing himself as Caesar's proxy.
- Mythology Gag: From the trailer, the scene with a scared Mae hiding in the tall grass is shot in the same way as the scene of a scared Taylor hiding from the gorilla hunters in the 1968 film. She even runs up a log to avoid the gorillas as Taylor did.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. Prior to learning her name, Raka names Mae "Nova", before revealing that all the captured humans are named "Nova".
- Reclaimed by Nature: The teaser depicts an Earth reclaimed by nature, with the remnants of human civilization claimed by the forests. The poster art also shows how skyscrapers have become giant buttes jutting up to the sky.
- Shout-Out:
- Proximus Caesar's "WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!" can't help but bring to mind the almost identical "OH WHAT A DAY, WHAT A LOVELY DAY!" - another war cry associated with a post-apocalyptic tyrant.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Initial press releases plain revealed that Freya Allan's character was both named Nova and Mae, spoiling the reveal of her real name in the movie. Then one month before release, several trailers and scenes were made public including the one where she is named which also reveals that she can talk, along with another that shows her and William H. Macy's character are intelligent people. In the weak preceding those, director Wes Ball outright told fans to not watch promotional material if they wanted to enjoy the film as intended.
- Trilogy Creep: The film was initially to be a Continuity Reboot to the 2011-2017 films which had a conclusion with War for the Planet of the Apes, only to become a sequel to them.
- Truer to the Text: The previous films focused on the fall of humanity and the rise of ape-kind with only Caesar shown to consistently speak though his voice sounded like his body wasn't made to speak and his vocabulary was initially limited while the others used sign-language. The teaser is set long after humanity has been reduced to little more than feral animals while apes rule as the dominant species, with a culture that includes clothing along with the ability to speak clearly and in whole sentences; overall bringing the franchise into closer alignment with past continuities.
- Uplifted Animal: The teaser shows that ape-kind has developed and expanded to the point they now inhabit a portion of the land Caesar and his people found, divided into different clans and other factions. Unfortunately, this naturally means that at least one such group has risen intending to conquer the others using recovered human technology.
"Apes hunt humans. That… is wrong."
