Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes Director Responds To Theory Connecting Caesar & New Main Character

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes director Wes Ball clarifies how the new protagonist, Noa, is connected to Caesar. The upcoming film takes place 300 years after Caesar’s death in War for the Planet of the Apes, yet Caesar’s legacy continues to endure and impact the ongoing evolution of apes and humans.

In an interview with Screen Rant, Ball explains how this legacy affects Noa, the wise orangutan Raka, and the new villain, Proximus Caesar. Read Ball’s comments below:

Raka, I think, even if he’s not quite right all the time, he really understands what Caesar stood for. What ape should aspire to become. Proximus has wielded Caesar’s legacy as a weapon to steer other apes in a particular direction. I think it’s an interesting thing for Noa as this kind of blank slate who doesn’t know who Caesar is, to interpret both these ideas of Caesar, who he was, and how he carries Caesar’s torch forward into the future. It’ll be fun to play with. There’s even this little thing where, spiritually, there’s a lot of connections to Caesar through Noa. He’s a chimpanzee, destiny gave him the same scar right here [on his chest]. As you see in the movie, that same birthmark that Caesar had which some people caught in the trailer. “He’s Caesar!” He’s not. There’s destiny at foot here. There’s something mythic about it all. So even the very first frame of the movie and the last frame of the movie is very similar. So we tried to play with that kind of stuff.

More to come…