00.15.15
CAESAR’S PALACE __ When the Colonel
(Woody Harrelson) mounts a raid on the
waterfall-veiled ape base, tragedy strikes Caesar’s
(Andy Serkis) family. “It’s Caesar’s hidden fortress!”
cries Reeves. “It was literally taken from The
Hidden Fortress by Kurosawa, in which they hid the
princess behind a waterfall. It made sense that,
given the apes knew this area like the backs of
their hands, they would retreat into the woods.”
00.34.44
THE BEACH IS BACK __ After picking up
a mute girl (Amiah Miller), our ape heroes ride their
horses along a beach in a mirror-image tribute to the
original 1968 Planet Of The Apes. It was meant to
look gloomier, Reeves having chosen the Vancouver
Island location during storm season. “But the day
we arrived, Vancouver Island was incredibly sunny,”
he laughs. “We were distraught for a moment, but
then we realised how beautiful it was.”00.37.36
FALL OF WINTER __ Already on a dark
path, Caesar hits a moral low point when he kills
traitor-gorilla Winter (Aleks Paunovic). “The story
Mark [Bomback, co-writer] and I wanted to tell was
one that pushed Caesar into deeper extremes,
and to root that in a war story,” says Reeves. “This
question of empathy in war, how you can objectify
your enemies. We wanted to wound him so deeply
that he would lose his ability to see clearly.”00.46.43
ENTER BAD APE __ Reeves describes Steve
Zahn’s loveably dazed, gilet-wearing chimp as
embodying “a huge revelation” — that there are
other intelligent apes beyond Caesar’s tribe. “I’ve
always thought Steve was incredibly funny, but also
very real and grounded,” says Reeves. “We were
Skyping, and when he read the scene where Caesar
and Bad Ape talk about their children, he made
me cry. Over Skype. I was like, ‘Oh, this has to be.’”
00.51.46
THE NOVA REVEAL __ When Bad Ape gives
a Chevy Nova badge to the girl — later named
Nova by orangutan Maurice (Karin Konoval) —
Apes fans will instantly get the reference to Linda
Harrison’s character, Nova, in the original series.
“The idea was to never literally make Nova Nova,
because that wouldn’t work, timeline-wise,” Reeves
points out. “But she is an answer to those who
wonder, ‘Why were those humans in the original?’”01.48.06
THE SHIT HITS THE MAN __ “It was
something everyone jokes should be in a Planet
Of The Apes movie,” says Reeves. “So we thought
we’d do it!” Yes, at long last we get to see a chimp
throwing poo, in this case at a nasty human guard.
It occurs during what Reeves calls ‘The Great Ape-
scape’ section. “It’s one of my favourite parts of
the movie. After all this incredible intensity, it’s a
moment where you get a sense of hope, of relief.”01.55.57
HELLO, DOLLY __ Another of War’s Easter
eggs is Nova’s doll. In the ’68 fi lm, a doll provides
proof humans could once talk. Here, a doll transmits
the mutated virus that robs the Colonel of speech.
“Mark and I re-watched all the Apes movies and
if there were little details that resonated, we wrote
them down on cards,” says Reeves. “The doll was
certainly one. We thought it would be fun to have
this doll represent the end of human articulation.”
02.05.13
SNOWED UNDER __ As the climactic battle
concludes, an avalanche wipes out the victorious
Northern army, leaving only the tree-climbing
apes to survive. “For me the movie is a Darwinian
Biblical epic,” Reeves explains. “The avalanche is
our parting of the Red Sea, and a Darwinian test.”
Some viewers, though, were expecting the army
to be... more apes. “It’s so funny. I can see where
that comes from, but it would have made no sense!”02.12.03
TIME TO DIE __ Having guided his people to
their ‘Holy Land’, Caesar fi nally succumbs to his
mortal wound. “The whole point was to take us
through the arc of a character that began as a
nobody and became a mythic fi gure,” says Reeves.
“[After that], there isn’t another place to go.”WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES IS OUT NOW ON
DVD, BLU-RAY AND DOWNLOAD