Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes May Be Hiding A Massive Twist In Plain Sight

"Planet of the Apes" has consistently been a science-fiction franchise (and one of the best we have), but the movies come in different sci-fi flavors. The original was a time travel story (even if Charlton Heston's lead George Taylor took the long way around via cryogenesis), culminating in the shocking ending right out of "The Twilight Zone" where Taylor discovers the shattered Statue of Liberty and realizes this ape-ruled world was Earth all along.

The third movie, "Escape from the Planet of the Apes," saw the talking apes travel back to the 1970s when humans reigned. Subsequent films filled in the timeline, depicting the uprising that led to the planet of the apes. The new films (the so-called Caesar trilogy) have done the reverse, starting at the beginning and taking the route of contemporary speculative fiction. Things have only come full circle with the fourth film, "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes," set 300 years into ape dominance. It's a simian's world now, with apes hunting mute humans and working to hide their origins (down to a "Forbidden Zone" like the original).

The film's trailers show our ape hero Noa (Owen Teague) befriending a human girl (Freya Allan) described as smarter than her feral peers. The latest teaser dropped a bombshell: she can speak, introducing herself as Mae to Noa and the orangutan Raka (Peter Macon), whose jaws drop.

This is the latest kindling for a theory that's been burning in my mind for some time: I think "Kingdom" will be returning the "Apes" franchise to its time travel roots, and Mae is that time traveler.

I've had this theory since the "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" Super Bowl trailer. Mae's intelligence and evident ability to speak are glaring hints. Humans lost their ability to speak and think during "War for the Planet of the Apes" thanks to a new strain of the Simian Flu, so maybe she's from a time before that disease decimated mankind. But why does this mean time travel, you say? Maybe she's just an unusually smart human who's learned to speak English by observing the apes do so — human see, human do.

What convinced me was a more subtle detail: Mae's outfit. She's not wearing the cave-man rags that the other humans are, but a (dirty and wet) tank top and a pair of jeans. Somehow, I don't think any Abercrombie & Fitch stores survived the ape-pocalypse; what if Mae is wearing modern clothes because she's from our present, and the apes' past?

This would make her the reboot series equivalent to George Taylor; the "Kingdom" trailers also suggest she meets Noa while fleeing a hunt, the same way Taylor first encountered the apes in the original 1968 film. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" had a background shot of a TV reporting about astronauts leaving the Earth; this was just an Easter egg, but many fans have speculated this was telegraphing an eventual remake of the original.

"Kingdom" could be flipping the first film's twist; the presence of time-traveling humans is the shocker, not the initial premise. Since we've spent a trilogy of films learning how the world became this way, we don't need a fish out of water entry point into it like the original "Planet of the Apes" did. There could be some solid dramatic irony, where we know the planet is Earth but Mae doesn't.

Now, I won't say that Mae being a woman out of time (whether via time travel, space travel, or cryogenesis) is the only option. "Planet of the Apes" is no stranger to human mutants (the second movie, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," revealed the Forbidden Zone was inhabited by speaking humans mutated into hideous telepaths by radioactive fallout). Perhaps Mae belongs to a tribe of speaking humans who maintain their ancestors' technology.

That would give ape ruler Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand) a good reason to hunt her; the trailers and press information have revealed he wants to harness human technology to expand his domain. He's less like the fanatical Dr. Zaius and more like King Louie, the human-admiring orangutan from "The Jungle Book" ("I Wan'na Be Like You!"). Even if he admires human achievement, I doubt he wants any talking humans (whether time travelers or mutants) mucking up his plans for dominance.

"Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" releases in theaters on May 10, 2024.