Final War For The Planet Of The Apes Trailer Doubles Down On The Action

As we reported yesterday, Matt Reeves' War for the Planet of the Apes -- due in theaters this July -- will conclude a trilogy of films that began when Caesar (Andy Serkis) was born into civilization and evolved into an intelligent species. On every step of Caesar's complicated journey, he and his fellow apes have met with human adversity, as many on our side of the conflict struggled to understand and accept an ape who can do the things that people can do. In the final trailer for War for the Planet of the Apes, we are seeing that journey come to an explosive conclusion, and we see now why the tagline for this sequel is "Witness The End."

War for the Planet of the Apes follows up the equally explosive Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, where the society of intelligent creatures tried to exist outside the realms of humanity, only to have a potential conflict escalate when an ape took the life of a human being. This put Caesar (Andy Serkis) in the path of the terrified and belligerent Dreyfus (Gary Oldman), though Caesar also faced opposition in his own ape family, as Koba (Toby Kebbell) doubted the animal's ability to lead.

However, Caesar hasn't yet faced an adversary like The Colonel, portrayed with a vicious intensity by Woody Harrelson. We get our first real look at Harrelson's ape enemy in this movie, though as you might imagine from the previous Planet of the Apes films, the conflict will not be 100% cut and dried, with heroes and villains occupying clear-cut dark and light camps. Apes are seen fighting on the same side as humans, against their fellow animals. And Harrelson, in a verbal confrontation, questions why Caesar is taking this war so emotionally. I mean, they are trying to kill one another, right?

A few other things to note. When we interviewed Planet of the Apes producer Peter Chernin, he told us that War takes place shortly after Dawn, explaining:

I would say that the time jump is a little bit shorter than it was between one and two. But the situational jump is pretty significant.

To that end, we see in this final trailer that the Apes have drastically evolved in their ability to speak, to reason, to expertly control weapons, and to reason. We meet new characters in this trailer, including Nova (Amiah Miller), a young girl protected by Caesar who is the first human character we know from the original series. And we get a good glimpse of Steve Zahn's mysterious character, known only as "Bad Ape."

War for the Planet of the Apes will be in theaters on July 14. What did you think of the trailer? Vote in our poll below.