Planet of the Apes Sets the Stage to Unite All 4 Official Continuities into 1 Multiverse

Summary

• Beware the Planet of the Apes
  introduces new survivors of the original 1968 movie, setting them up as the franchise’s latest time travelers.
• A group of mutant humans have their own rocket and know disaster is coming, suggesting they survive the second movie’s apocalypse and can then change (or even fracture) the timeline.
• Uniting the different continuities only enhances the franchise’s core message – apes and humans being trapped in a violent cycle until they can evolve beyond the need for supremacy.

A major new twist in Planet of the Apes lore just set the stage to unite its four different cinematic continuities. The move is in its fledgling state, but a new story set just before the events of the 1968 Charlton Heston movie introduces a set of new time travelers who could be the genesis for the 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes reboot.

Marvel just concluded Beware the Planet of the Apes – a four-issue prequel series following Nova’s adventures before 1968’s Planet of the Apes. The series dropped a number of bombshells, introducing a new ape society called the Hominidae Empire, a splinter group of mutated humans, and the fact that Nova knew Cornelius and Zira before the movie (their memories are erased, while hers is not.) However, the comic saved its biggest twist for the end – the psychic humans who helped Nova have foreseen the end of the world and have prepared a rocket to escape.

Planet of the Apes‘ original movie timeline only extends across the first two movies, Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The latter movie ends with the detonation of the Alpha Omega bomb, destroying the entire planet along with all its native apes and humans – the culmination of their inability to grow beyond violence and supremacy. Now, it seems that a colony of psychic humans also survived, as their leader Ivana predicts the survival of her own group alongside Cornelius and Zirastating, “I foresee two rockets. One for us, and the other for them.”

Psychic mutants aren’t a new addition to ape lore – the second movie
Beneath the Planet of the Apes
reveals a cult of skinless humans who worship the Alpha Omega bomb and are capable of creating terrifying illusions with their minds. However, Ivana’s less extensively mutated group are a new faction in the franchise.

In a series that’s all about changing the timeline through time travel, it’s always been a little odd that the 2001 and 2011 reboots have no narrative connection to the original.

Planet of the Apes’ Psychic Humans Predicted Earth’s Destruction (& Likely Escaped)

Escape from the Planet of the Apes Tells Us What to Expect Next

Planet of the Apes‘ timeline can be a headache, but it’s not as complex as it seems – the third movie Escape from the Planet of the Apes begins with Cornelius and Zira surviving the destruction of Earth and being hurled back in time. There, they are eventually murdered, but not before Zira gives birth to new character Caesar. Caesar’s birth alters the timeline, leading to a new future (as depicted in Battle for the Planet of the Apes) where it’s suggested humans and apes may be capable of living together in harmony. Later iterations of the franchise are set in their own continuities.

While the
Planet of the Apes
franchise has had many cinematic entries, the original story was actually Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel
The Planet of the Apes
which follows similar narrative beats to the 1968 movie. There was also a TV show and animated series, both in the 1970s, and various comic series.

At least, it’s also seemed like Rupert Wyatt and Tim Burton’s Apes movies happen in their own continuities. In Escape from the Planet of the ApesCornelius and Zira survive because they managed to salvage George Taylor’s spaceship, with the destruction of Earth sending it through one of the franchise’s time warps (the same kind that brought Taylor to Earth’s future in the first place.) If the mutants in Marvel’s new comic have their own rocket, it’s highly likely they’ll experience the same fate, likewise being hurled through time.

The idea of humans and apes trying to overcome their worst attributes across countless timelines only enhances the franchise’s themes…

New Twist Can Unite Planet of the Apes’ Multiple Continuities

Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes Could Factor into a New Multiverse

In a series that’s all about changing the timeline through time travel, it’s always been a little odd that the 2001 and 2011 reboots have no narrative connection to the original. That’s especially true in 2024, where every franchise seems set on launching its own multiverse on the flimsiest pretense. However, it’s possible that the new human faction of Planet of the Apes could be responsible for the later movies. The events of Escape from the Planet of the Apes strongly establish that if the mutants survive on their own rocket, they should be hurled through time. If they make changes in the distant past, it would make perfect sense that they created divergent timelines, aka the 2001 and 2011 continuities.

Unlike many other franchises, the idea of a multiverse would perfectly suit Planet of the Apes. The franchise is about cycles, as ape society falls into the same traps that destroyed humanity. Even the Caesar timeline ends with the question of whether anything really changed – the film concludes with a statue of Caesar weeping, which can be read as either the dream of ape/human coexistence finally coming true, or a sign that this new ‘equal’ society is already showing the cracks that will tear the world apart. The idea of humans and apes trying to overcome their worst attributes across countless timelines only enhances this theme, asking if there’s any possible reality where humans and apes can find peace.

The comic series Beware the Planet of the Apes is published under Marvel’s 20th Century Fox imprint, offering hope that the publisher could be building to this franchise-changing reveal. The imprint has already published comics from the original and Rise continuities, showing that it isn’t locked into any one continuity. A crossover within the same franchise certainly doesn’t seem impossible, especially given series like Predator vs Wolverine and Aliens vs Avengers have already tackled far more ambitious inter-company projects. This could even be a way to bring back Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes and pay off that movie’s sequel tease.

Marvel just set up a fascinating way to tie all the
Planet of the Apes
movie franchises into a single multiverse, but it also did something far more important…

Beware the Planet of the Apes Gives the Franchise New Life

Marvel Rewrote the Original Timeline Without Changing the Iconic 1968 Movie

Marvel just set up a fascinating way to tie all the Planet of the Apes movie franchises into a single multiverse, but ultimately it doesn’t matter whether that comes to pass or not – the series was an important success either way. Beware the Planet of the Apes expands the original movie’s world with new groups and the promise of a vast planet full of mysteries to explore. It made Nova a more complex character, revealed key backstory for Cornelius and Zira, and even introduced a new ape species. In short, it showed that the original Planet of the Apes timeline is still worth exploring in 2024.

Hopefully, that exploration will come in the form of uniting the different movie series as separate cycles in the same struggle for moral and social evolution, but even if it doesn’t, it will be fascinating to see where the surviving mutants do end up, as well as to see new stories set in this sprawling world. The original Planet of the Apes timeline is a fascinating sci-fi world with ideas and imagery that have stood the test of over 50 years. Beware the Planet of the Apes just set up a game-changing twist for the whole franchise, but whether that pays off or not, it did something even more vital – it showed fans that the original timeline still has the capacity to tell game-changing stories, even if we already know it ends in tragedy.

Beware the Planet of the Apes is available now from Marvel Comics.

• 

  Planet of the Apes

  Created by:

  Pierre Boulle

  First Film:

  Planet of the Apes

  First TV Show:

  Planet of the Apes

  Cast:

  Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, Linda Harrison, Mark Wahlberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti, James Franco, Andy Serkis, John Lithgow, Freida Pinto, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jason Clarke, Toby Kebbell, Judy Greer, Woody Harrelson, Amiah Miller, Kevin Durand, Dichen Lachman, William H. Macy, Owen Teague, Freya Allan

  TV Show(s):

  Planet of the Apes, Return to the Planet of the Apes

  Movie(s):

  Planet of the Apes, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

  Video Game(s):

  Planet of the Apes, Revenge of the Apes, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier, Crisis on the Planet of the Apes