Today, Fox released a trailer and some concept art for the New Planet of the Apes franchise remake, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
This new film, which is slated for release in August is a remake of the original Prequels, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
It’s interesting that they chose to reboot the franchise again, starting with a part of the story which was originally a prequel, rather than actual make any sequels or prequels to the 2001 film, but that’s a topic for another article.
In the original Prequels, Human society had returned to an age of slavery, except the slaves were not other humans, they were genetically modified apes, designed and bred to be intelligent enough to serve as slaves.
In Conquest, an Ape who had traveled back in time from the time of the first film began teaching other Apes to communicate and speak – speech, and the use of it, being an overriding theme across all five of the original Planet of the Apes films. The Apes rose up and established a place in society for themselves. In Battle, the humans rise up against Ape oppressors, and lose, setting the stage for the Ape-run future depicted in the first film.
Of course, the 2001 reboot did not end in the manner of the original film, which may explain the re-reboot.
In the original film, the space traveler discovers at the end that he is a time-traveler, rather than a space traveler, when he infamously discovers the remains of the Statue of Liberty in the desert.
The reboot does not feature an ending of this kind, and the audience is left to assume that this really is some-kind of strange Ape-world. The ending did set-up a sequel, but I suppose we will never be seeing that.
This new film seems to mostly disregard the events of Conquest and Battle, choosing instead to go for a creepy, almost monster-movie vibe. It will be interesting to see how starting at this point, with such a vastly differnt story will affect the original five-film arc of Planet of the Apes. Also, it really makes me want to spend the day rewatching all the original films. Escape from the Planet of the Apes is the best one, by the way.
These five pieces of artwork give us additional ideas about how the apes fit into the new film.
