Summary
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apesstar Owen Teague provided a tease of Noa’s arc atSan Diego Comic Con, and now that he’s floated the idea, I really want to see the franchise move in that direction. Set hundreds of years after the events of therebootedPlanet of the Apestrilogy of the 2010s,Kingdom of the Planet of the Apesdeals with the complex legacy left behind by Caesar (Andy Serkis), and how different factions of apes interpret his teachings. Owen Teague’s young ape Noa acted as the spiritual heir to Caesar’s mission inKingdom.
However, Noa’s perspective on the relationship between apekind and humanity is far from settled. In an interview withScreen Rantat San Diego Comic Con 2024,Teague provided a previously unconsidered arc for Noato travel along over the course of the planned trilogy of movies that began withKingdom. Teague notes that he’d like to see Noa decide that humans shouldn’t know more, as smart humans are inevitably dangerous. This essentially inverts Caesar’s arc in the previous trilogy, and as Teague puts it, provides “a really interesting opportunity for Noa’s ideas to be warped throughout the next films.”
SDCC 2024: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Cast Speculate On The Direction Of The Franchise
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes stars share their hopes for the franchise’s future and debate if Proximus Caesar and Raka are still alive at SDCC.
Noa Becoming The Anti-Caesar Would Be The Perfect Arc For Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes’ Sequels
Inverting the first trilogy’s arc provides a breath of fresh air
Caesar’s entire philosophy about the relationship between apes and humans was based on coexistence. As Caesar saw it, apes and humans both had a place in the world, and should be viewed as equals.As Teague noted toScreen Rantat San Diego Comic Con 2024, inverting that arc would be profoundly interesting, and could be the perfect way to craft a unique identity for the character of Noa and for the in-progress trilogy of movies.
300 years passed between Caesar’s death and the events ofKingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
InKingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Noa received a crash course in the brutality that both apes and humans are capable of. While the movie ended in an uneasy truce between him and the human girl Mae (Freya Allen), their final confrontation occurred while Mae hid a loaded pistol behind her back.It was the perfect metaphor for the danger that humanity posesshould they be allowed to regain the ability to communicate and rebuild their society. As Teague described:
…Noa, depending on how things go with the humans, maybe comes to believe that they actually need to know less and starts leading us towards the Dr. Zaius areas of the original film.
Noa’s arc could see him begin to believe that humanity should not be allowed to regain the knowledgeand technology they once possessed as an entire species. If they were to do so, they would undoubtedly attempt to reassert their dominance over the planet, which would lead to conflict for the apes. Noa could carry on Caesar’s teaching that “apes together strong”, but instead of seeing them unite with humans, he could work to unite all apes against humans for the survival of their species.
The Next Planet Of The Apes Movies Cannot Repeat Caesar’s Arc With Noa
That territory has already been explored
ThePlanet of the Apesfranchise is more or less forced to pursue a new direction for its main protagonist, because they can’t reasonably repeat Caesar’s arc. The trilogy of the 2010s has become revered for the quality of its emotionally-powerful story-telling, motion-capture acting and top-flight action. While the standards set in acting quality and action can (and should) be maintained,repeating Caesar’s arc can only lead to disappointment once compared to the original version. Noa would never be viewed as more than a Caesar retread, and a lesser version at that.
In addition to being stale, that arc wouldn’t really fit in at this point in thePlanet of the Apestimelineanyway. The development of apekind and humanity being on the brink of resurgence creates an entirely new world in which conflict seems inevitable. Having the series' lead character trying to once again act as a peacemaker is not only downright dull, it doesn’t make sense for the world in which he lives;he has no reason to have that perspective outside of Raka’s teachings.
Raka was the self-proclaimed last member of the Order of Caesar, a group of ape scholars who still follow his original teachings; as an orangutan, it’s implied (although unconfirmed) that Raka could be a descendant of Caesar’s closest friend, Maurice.
What Would An Anti-Caesar Actually Mean For Planet Of The Apes?
All of humanity would be the enemy
The new arc laid out by Teague would have massive implications for the franchise as a whole. First and foremost,the audience would lose its human surrogate in the narrative. In each of Caesar’s movies, there was a “nice” human with which a human audience could identify; in Rise of the Planet of the Apes it was James Franco’s Dr. Will Rodman, inDawn of the Planet of the Apesit was Jason Clarke’s Malcolm, and inWar for the Planet of the Apesit was Amiah Miller’s Nova.
If the hero of the franchise is actively working to keep humanity from revitalizing its society, then there really can be no human character for the audience to identify with.The audience would align entirely with apekind, which is what the franchise has slowly been transitioning to ever since the original movies of the 1960s and 1970s. That would be a seismic shift in how the trajectory of the franchise moves, and the groundwork has already been laid inKingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Cast
Set several years after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the next installment in the Apes saga. Ape clans have taken up residence in the oasis that Caesar sought to colonize, but humans have reverted to their animalistic nature in their absence. Now battling between enslavement and freedom, outliers in the Ape clans will take sides in a newly burgeoning society.
