“He’s Rediscovered Electricity”: Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes’ New Adversary Detailed By Director

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes director Wes Ball teases the movie’s new adversary, a chimpanzee who has rediscovered electricity. The original smash hit sci-fi classic released in 1968, with many sequels to follow, as well as a Tim Burton-directed reboot in 2001. The latest incarnation of the Apes franchise kicked off with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and now over a decade later, will continue with the fourth movie, set years after the events of 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes.

With the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes release date still months away, director Ball just teased some new information about the film’s intriguing new “adversary,” a character he calls not technically a villain, who has rediscovered some old technology generations after the collapse of human civilization and the rise of the apes. Check out his remarks about Kevin Durand’s chimpanzee scientist below (via EW):

“The interesting thing about Proximus is that, with some help, he’s rediscovered electricity. To apes that forgot about all these things, that’s like a magic power. So they’re experimenting with it. I don’t even think you can call him a villain. I would call him an adversary. You understand him, you can relate to him in a way. It’s an interesting character who isn’t just a mustache-twirling cutout.”

Planet of the Apes is Finally Getting Back to What Made the Original Movies Interesting

Recent revelations about Kingdom’s place in the Planet of the Apes timeline – it’s set 300 years after Caesar led his ape brethren to the promised land – tease a film that is much closer in spirit to the original films in the long-running series. As the very first Apes movie revealed, in one of film history’s most memorable twist endings, the action takes place on a far-future Earth where human civilization has been destroyed by nuclear cataclysm, and evolved apes have taken over as the dominant organisms on the planet. The timeline placement of Kingdom is not being saved for a last-second twist as in the original, but the film will nevertheless present a world much like that of the first movie, where the ruins of human civilization can be found, and where regressed humans have become the slaves of apes.

The existence of ape scientists in the new film also throws back to the spirit of the first movies, which featured Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter as learned chimpanzees sensitive to the plight of humans, and Maurice Evans as the orangutan scientist Dr. Zaius, who possesses forbidden knowledge about the history of the world before ape civilization arose. With Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes embracing many key elements of the original movies, the newest iteration of the Apes franchise is getting closer than ever to the spirit of the earliest films, which is great news for anyone who loves the speculative sci-fi origins of OG Planet of the Apes.