The home media release of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes will include a “raw” version of the movie, allowing people to watch the original footage of the actors’ performances in their mo-cap suits.
Wes Ball, the director of the newest installment of the Planet of the Apes franchise, sat down with Ape Nation to discuss his sci-fi action sequel. He revealed that he is already working on the bonus features for the physical media release, and one of those will give audiences at home the option to watch the entire movie without VFX.
You can see how close they get, what they do, and how they stitch everything together.
“I’m doing a little thing for the DVD where you can watch the movie – the entire movie – with the raw dailies. I’m working on that, where you’ll be able to watch and see the final [cut] and the raw dailies,” Ball shared about his plans. “You can see how close they get, what they do, and how they stitch everything together. It’s amazing, and you can just sit there and enjoy it.”
Motion capture (mo-cap, for short) is a technique that records the movement of objects or people and then maps those movements to animate a 2D or 3D model. It has evolved rapidly, with entire simian armies animated this way in the Planet of the Apes franchise, but now Ball wants to share some insight into the process.
“I’ll do some commentary over it with Erik [Winquist], our VFX [supervisor]. I think it’s gonna be great. For geeks like us, it’s gonna be a first. They’ve never seen this kind of thing,” he added. “Some of the hardest stuff in VFX is how you get the CG characters to interact with others. So we have a human girl hugging a CG ape, and it’s like, ‘How do you do that?’ It’s amazing stuff.”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set several generations after the events of 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes, which ended the reign of Ceasar. Apes are now the dominant species living harmoniously, while humans have regressed to the shadows, but one young ape will undertake a journey that might define the future.
A recent trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes gave fans a glimpse at the new world divided, but we won’t find out how it all plays out until the movie lands in theaters on May 10 (or May 9 if you’re in the UK).
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on X/Twitter @AdeleAnkers.
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