Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Interesting. So the new human female character is either from the old age of humanity when humans were still smart before the virus destroyed their intelligence, possibly by cryogenics or she's an astronaut from space who just returned to Earth after a long time of cryogenic sleep in space.

It might also be that the humans are slowly regaining their previous intelligence, given that they're evidently doing stuff like making and wearing clothes and such - hardly the sort of thing animals do. It's also possible that this is confirming the theory that the virus doesn't actually take away intelligence and make humans primal, it just robs them of the ability to speak in a way that's easily mistaken for such (which was speculated by proponents of that theory to be why the Colonel killed himself; after getting infected, he realized that he killed his son for nothing because the guy had just become mute, not "devolved").

I think it’s doubtful that it just takes away their speech, or else the humans would be putting up more meaningful resistance to the apes if they still had all their mental faculties.

I would also like to point out the constrast between the main human woman's clothes and the other human clothes. The other clothes are stereotypical cavemen clothes. Her clothes are far more modern. I really like the theory that she's the astronaut.

I’m watching the other films to prepare for this one. Started with the Serkis trilogy. Man Matt Reeves is good!

Wonder who would direct a sequel to Kingdom if Ball is gonna be busy with Zelda?

Saw it today. Still very good, even if not to the heights of Dawn and War. But I think it's because they introduced a whole new cast, while the others were more impactful for continuing Caesar's story. Am more than willing to wait for further sequels.

Regarding the speculation: After the opening scroll and Caesar's funeral, a card reads "Many generations later". So it's a Distant Sequel, and sometimes it's proven by how some details of Caesar's time are getting mucked up by apes retelling them. And it's impressive how some human-made things still work after decades if not centuries of abandonment. And the leading human - Mae, though for Mythology Gag reasons the apes try calling her 'Nova' - is part of a group that still keeps intelligence and speech, but lives isolated.

Edited by igordebraga on May 9th 2024 at 11:27:33 AM

I’m gonna try and go tomorrow. Very interested.

Bumping. I just saw it. Had a lot darker of an ending than I expected. Human and apes going to war soon it seems.

If Wes Ball’s gonna be busy with the Zelda movie, who do you see directing the next one?

Edited by BigBadShadow25 on May 11th 2024 at 4:42:36 AM

^Huh. Might just be me, but I my take away from the ending was that they could still go either way. At least I hope future sequels are nuanced enough to go in the direction of humans and apes actually trying to make coexistence work, and thus make the inevitable war genuinely more tragic. 

Pros:

• CGI is spectacular as to be expected.
• I like the idea of the apes domesticating eagles as a parallel to humanity domesticating canines, for presumably similar purposes (and the film hints at that with the eagles catching fish for the village).
• I dug the main trio, and Raka's a highlight.
• Settlements of intelligent humans still kicking around was a pleasant surprise, and Mae herself fully speaking was as well.

Cons:

• Proximus is not given as much time as he should have. I know it's a consequence of making sure the trailers don't spoil the big twist of Mae talking and intelligent humans still around, but frankly, he should have been in it from the start. Like, have Noa be captured five minutes in, and then Proximus is introduced and from then on shows up in like every third scene or whatnot.

• I feel like Mae's intentions to bring humanity back to what it once was is incredibly forced and I daresay is mostly an Informed Attribute, because aside from two lines, one given by William H Macy's character who has known her for all of a day and a half, and a vague one said by Mae herself, there's no real indication that she even hates Apes aside from Proximus. Maybe the sequels will, again hopefully, clarify things in a more nuanced way by having her actually try and help with a peaceful coexistence between humans and apes, but I get the feeling that won't be the case.

Edit: And to further address this: All those times it's claimed she manipulated and lied to Noa, and blowing up the seawall before any of the apes could escape, it ain't like she's not without some very good reasons to do any of that, and she very clearly intended to let Noa escape with the rest of the Eagle Clan before blowing the seawall up before the plan got all got mucked up.

• The emotional beats don't all quite hit like they clearly meant to. Especially Raka's death.

Edited by Angelspawndragon on May 11th 2024 at 11:28:12 AM

Saw it today, and wow, I was worried Wes Ball had big shoes to fill replacing Matt Reeves, but goddamn did he pull it off. At the very least, it's just as great as Dawn and War, in some respects I'd argue it even improves on them (though not all). Notes of my own.

• The ending hinting at the Liberty 1/Icarus being on it's way back to Earth, paying off the Mythology Gag in Rise, was so cool. Did a really good job giving this almost cosmic horror-esque sense of dread when Noa notices something weird in the sky and is visibly discomfited by it, even if he can't tell why.
• The acting was great across the board. Peter Macon, Freya Allen, and Kevin Durand all stole the show imo.
• I read that apparently this was conceived as a reboot but reworked into fitting the Rise/Dawn/War trilogy's continuity and I gotta say, that was clearly the right move. A lot about this movie wouldn't pack as much punch if it didn't have that history and lore to it, like Proximus appropriating Caesar's words to justify his rule or the usage of electric prods similar to the ones the first intelligent apes were tormented with in Rise.
• Compared to the more gritty, down-to-earth post-apocalyptic vibe of the Caesar trilogy, this almost feels like a Low Fantasy story in the vein of Conan the Barbarian or such that just happens to star monkeys. It's a really interesting way of differentiating it from the previous films while also adding to how the apes are progressing into a proper civilization; they're not Caesar's colony hiding in the woods with scavenged tools anymore, they're tribes and hordes and fiefdoms feuding over territory and power with their own technology.
• Trevathan was a really intriguing character for how little he was actually in the movie and one of my few complaints is that more wasn't done with him. William H. Macy made him feel very nuanced and oddly likable in a very short amount of time, and the way he and Proximus actually seemed to kinda be friends adds some more depth to the latter, who's already pretty decently developed. He's a mysterious yet important figure in the plot that leaves you wondering about just what his deal even is.
• In general, the film has a really interesting vibe of mystery to it at times; it doesn't handhold in it's exposition and prefers to more hint or show than say, and by the end it's purposefully left you with a number of unanswered questions to chew on. In a way, that almost felt significant to the story's themes to me, like Noa is just this normal guy catching a glimpse of some huge world-shaking fantasy epic that doesn't really involve him or his family directly, so at the end he just goes back to some semblance of a normal life but with the knowledge that some terrible war is going on out there somewhere. I like that.
• The big criticism I have is that it's not longer. Ball mentioned having a fairly big amount of deleted scenes and hoping to make an extended cut, and I hope that comes to fruition because for as good as the movie is, it could definitely benefit from some more content added to it to fill in some blanks here or there.
• The window of the Rodmans' house becoming a symbol akin to the cross or Star of David in the ape religion was a very nice touch, as is the whole thing with eagles fulfilling a role similar to dogs.
• It's truly insane how the special effects just get better and better with each movie. Every time you think they hit their peak, the next film blows the previous one out of the water.
• Likewise, the action scenes were as good or even better at times than the already very good ones in the Caesar trilogy. They really take advantage of the apes' superior mobility compared to humans and differing body shapes to make the fights more creative, as well as more brutal at points.
• Some people have noted that while Proximus is supposed to be a bonobo, he looks more chimp-like. I think that might be intentional and meant to imply that the various kinds of apes have started interbreeding and possibly merging into one species, similar to how the various ancient human subspecies either died out or assimilated into homo sapiens. Note that in real life, chimps and bonobos are close enough genetically to interbreed.
• The Bunker that turns out to be at the center of the plot... that's totally the headquarters of the Colonel's superiors from War, isn't it? It would explain the armaments, Mae's remark about it being used by the remnants of the US government, and the conspicuous lack of corpses (since the Colonel's superiors had their forces leave said bunker to go deal with the Colonel and his loyalists and were subsequently killed in the avalanche that destroyed his base).

Edited by immortaleditor on May 12th 2024 at 9:40:34 AM

I saw the film and while, I got some complaints about how the story is being told (I feel that it goes really slow) it takes the feelings from the Ceasar´s trilogy and I am good with that. Probably the battles were not as good as in those films, and I feel that there some influences from Pixar´s A Bug´s Life in the final battle, isn´t it?