You stop dreaming about the movies that never were. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune? Gone. Guillermo del Toro’s At the Mountains of Madness? Buried. Davids Lynch or Cronenberg directing Return of the Jedi? Let it rest. It is too painful to think about the ghosts of cinema.
I had given up on this particular ghost too.
It is the most underrated science fiction saga of the 21st Century. Four films. Critical love. Box office respect. And yet… zero Oscars. Pop culture barely blinks. We moved on. We forgot. Then, earlier this month.
News dropped.
A fifth film. It is happening.
We are talking about the Planet of the Apes reboot cycle.
Everyone knows the 1968 original. Charlton Heston wakes up on a strange rock ruled by chattering primates. Based on Pierre Boulle’s novel, sure. But the twist—Earth itself, stripped of human glory—still lands hard. It remains timeless. The original sequels were messy. The ill-advised 2001 remake? Forget that. So why do we keep coming back to apes?
Because the first new film got the starting point right.
Rise of the Planet of the Aps isn’t about war. It is about awakening. Caesar. Andy Serkis playing him through motion capture so real you forget the makeup exists. He was born smarter. Exposed to an experimental Alzheimer’s cure in utero, his mind opened while others were shut down. He watched humans treat animals like trash. He was forced out.
He did what any reasonable leader would do.
He radicalized them.
Ignore the shaky science for a moment. Rise delivered spectacle without sacrificing substance. A rare combo in Hollywood. The animation? Still holds up. Decades from now, people will still watch that face.
Then came the fallout.
Dawn of the Planet of the Ape jumps a decade forward. 2026. Humanity is broken. A simian flu—spin-off from Caesar’s birthright treatment—decimated the species. The apes built a society in Muir Woods, California.
But peace is boring.
The sequel complicates things. We get humans we actually like. And an ape villain. Koba. A bonobo with trauma deeper than the ocean. Toby Kebbell plays him as a Shakespearean traitor. Cold war politics mixed with Greek tragedy. He plots. He lies. He pushes Caesar toward ruin.
It is beautiful. And it is terrifying.
The trilogy capped out with War.
Call it a revenge thriller. I will say nothing else, but the word ‘ferocious’ is required. If you need more evidence of its quality, look at the eyes of the characters. You can read them.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes arrived in 2024. Three hundred years have passed. Caesar is legend. Now we follow Noa. A new chimp. Owen Teague brings him to life. Noa meets the scraps of humanity left behind. He finds their tech. He questions the myth.
So where do we go from here?
Rumors say the untitled fifth film jumps the timeline forward again. Maybe all the way to 3978. Back to where Heston landed. Back to the future past.
Have you seen these four yet?
Don’t just trust my word. Go watch them. You owe it to the chimpanzee who taught us humility.
Side Note
If the movies are not enough, try this oddity.
Dana Gould. Stand-up comic. He plays Dr. Zaius. The orangutan from the films. But here, Zaius hosts a talk show.
YouTube makes this work somehow. Prosthetics. Showbiz anecdotes. Blue humor. It should not make sense. It does not make sense. And yet.
Why does it feel right?
Don’t ask. Just watch. 🍊
