This weekend’s new films were accompanied by a fresh trailer for the Planet of the Apes prequel/reboot.
Previous trailers have mostly been about showcasing the action scenes. This new trailer gives us some insight into the plot and the apparent emotion power of the film.
This was something we didn’t see before: Caesar is the only intended test subject, and it is he who ‘infects’ the rest of the apes with Harry Osborn’s special brain drug.
We also get a glimpse of a scene, likely from near the climax of the film, in which Caesar is standing menacingly over the bed of whom we can presume is the scientist and his spouse, while they sleep. This suggests a powerful Frankensteinesque confrontation between creator and creation will play a major role in the resolution of the conflict. In fact, it may be presented as a Frankenstein story right from the beginning, which would make a lot of sense.
The themes we see here certainly support that. While the original prequel, showing the origin of the intelligent apes seemed to be more about revolution against slavery and oppression, this film seems like it will focus more on the ‘what does it mean to be human?’ types of themes. Things like: the role of intelligence in identity and artificial sentience vs. humanity.
In addition to this trailer, we’ve gotten an insider spoiler:
Someone from inside the production has revealed that Caeser will have one line of dialog. Near the end of the movie, he will speak one word of dialog: “Bananas.” Nothing about the context or meaning of that one line, but we know that the character is not going to be doing a lot of talking.
If nothing else, we can certainly expect that there are plans for The Rise of The Planet of the Apes to be only the first on a new franchise. Of course, as always, that will depend on the box office draw.
