'War For The Planet Of The Apes' Features A Character From The Original Film

There haven't been too many overt nods to the original Planet of the Apes franchise in the new films. Caesar himself and the brief mention of the Icarus disappearing in Rise of the Planet of the Apes are the most obvious connections to the past, but Matt Reeves' upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes features one of the most prominent ties yet to the original series.

Below, find out which character is appearing in the sequel after the jump.

Linda Harrison played a character named Nova in the first two Apes films. Taylor (Charlton Heston) met the mute girl in the original movie, and they went on to enter the forbidden zone together in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. According to Entertainment Weekly, the character is now played by Amiah Miller, who's shown at the start of the War for the Planet of the Apes trailer.

Here's a piece of concept art featuring Nova in War for the Planet of the Apes, standing next to the gorilla Luca:

Bringing Nova back is a cool, unexpected way of providing another bridge between this rebooted series and the events of the original franchise. During our set visit for War for the Planet of the Apes, producer Dylan Clark mentioned there are "certain (familiar) characters" and easter eggs to expect from the film:

In the first film, we did some easter eggs. We shot the Icarus up. It wasn't my taste, but we even used some dialogue from the original. There were some fights about that one. Look there are certain characters and things you will see in this movie too. Again — we pay some homage. Some of it's just cool for the mythology. But we're never sitting in our story meetings, going how do we link up to what they did in Beneath or God they did that in Conquest — can we do a version of it better? Never!

We love most of those movies — some of them are not so good. We revere them. They were a great five-run but they're over here... And I think that's what the audience wants. A contemporary audience doesn't want to relive the old mythologies. Those movies were made at a certain time for a particular audience about different things. These are different characters, and we have the ability to realize them in authentic ways. We want to create our own films and further the mythology.

It doesn't sound like Nova is pure fan service in the movie, either; she serves a prominent role in the story. While Caesar is on his mission to assassinate the humans' leader, played by Woody Harrelson, he crosses paths with Nova — a character who may help restore some of Caesar's humanity. "The battle is not just between the humans and the apes, but in Caesar's soul," Reeves told EW. "The girl is his pull back to his empathy and — for lack of a better word — his human side."

War for the Planet of the Apes opens in theaters July 14th, 2017.