Religious Legacy in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

tl;dr: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has a few great things to say about religious legacy and kingdom-building.

One of my favourite movies of 2024 was Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, despite it getting mostly just ok reviews. I watched it again recently after picking up the 4K Blu-ray. I love how it handles legacy and the conflict between maintaining a message of peace and those who want to use that brand while furthering the opposite of peace, violent empire building.

Encountering a Compassionate Caesar

For some background, in the previous 3 movies, Caesar was the leader of the apes. He wasn't perfect, but mostly he managed to unite apes to work together and to not start any fights with humans. Over the course of that trilogy, the power dynamic flipped from humans being dominant and apes just trying to survive to a more equal war and eventually to humans fighting for their survival, but Caesar remained true to his convictions of trying to find a peaceful coexistence.

Kingdom jumps ahead several generations. Our new main character Noa hasn't even heard of Caesar at first, coming of age happily in his peaceful ape community living harmoniously in nature. But then his community is attacked and taken away and he must set out to save them. During the attack is the first and second time we hear "For Caesar" as a clear battle cry of the attacking apes. They clearly see what they are doing as part of the legacy of Caesar.

He then meets Raka, who is very much styled after a priest, with a stole and a pendant with a religious-like symbol on it. Raka explains that his work has been to protect the real legacy of Caesar. He declares that the attackers are shameful to misuse Caesar's name and how it is sad that so few remember the true Caesar, with him as the last member of the Order of Caesar. He repeats "Apes together strong" and "ape shall not kill ape," a couple of Caesar's main recurring phrases. He explains that humans are slow witted but there was a time when humans and apes lived side by side, during the time of Caesar, and they were important to Caesar, so he will do his best to be compassionate to them as well.

They see a human (played by Freya Allen) near Noa's horse and Noa tries to scare her away, but Raka says that she is not a threat. Raka then decides to join Noa on his journey because the human is following Noa, which intrigues Raka. Raka is kind to the human, sharing food and warmth while encouraging mercy. He names her Nova, the name for all humans, although he doesn't know why, just that it has been that way since Caesar's time (that happened in the previous movie, War). He explains how Caesar cared so much for humans, leading with decency, morality, compassion. Noa is skeptical but plays along, then starts to realize that she is smart and develops some compassion for her because she reacts to looking through a telescope the same way he does. They decide to share a horse so she can come with them.

They encounter a "herd" of other humans, who don't have the intelligence of Nova, but they are then attacked by the same mysterious group who attacked Noa's community earlier. Noa saves Nova, but in the process Nova reveals that she can speak.

A few scenes of bonding later, Raka sacrifices himself to save Nova whose real name we have now learned is Mae, and as he is about to die he says "together strong." Not "ape together strong," just "together strong." He is modifying Caesars words but to maintain Caesars teaching about compassion for humans. That is a fascinating insight into healthy religion: cling to the love message that matters and be a little loose with specific phrases. Some branches of religious traditions get that backwards.

Proximus and Empire

Noa and Mae are captured by the violent group of apes and we start to see how their interpretation of Caesar is extremely different. They are assembling an Empire. Proximus, their leader, gets a lot of his inspiration learning about Ancient Roman history. They interpret "apes together strong" in a much more fascist way: that they must force all apes to work together over and against humans. It's not about strength in diverse unity. It's about strength through dominant uniformity with one clear ape in charge.

This part also has some major Tower of Babel vibes. Apes from all kinds of diverse communities are forced to work together against their will to further the power of their new Caesar, Proximus, just as the slaves building Babel were forced to work for that empire.

The way this oppressive oppressive kingdom is ultimately broken down is also like the Babel story: they embrace their diverse roots; they do not accept that they are only ape slaves to Proximus.

Proximus talks about the need for evolution, to become even stronger, more dominant over others. He refers to "my kingdom" which is the kind of sense of ownership over other apes that Caesar never showed. The contrast couldn't get much stronger.

The Christian Allegory

This all seemed like a pretty obvious allegory of Christianity, or for that matter, pretty much any religion or tradition that has ever had the opportunity to hold power over others. There will be some who declare that their religion requires them to dominate others, to enforce uniformity, to put themselves in charge for the good of everyone. Even if all of that explicitly goes against the teachings of their founder.

But there are also those like Raka, those who are determined to maintain the peaceful vision of their founder, who encourage compassion toward those who are different and celebrates diversity.

We have a choice which mode of maintaining our tradition we advance.