The movie was okay, but I expected more. Kind of a disappointing end for Caesar. I would have liked to see more progression towards the setting of the original Planet of the apes.
The amount of progression between Rise and Dawn was huge. Most of humanity died off and the apes went from mute to using sign language and eventually full speech. The amount of progression between Dawn and War was comparatively minuscule. All we saw was [BLACKOUT]the apes migrating into the desert and a couple humans going mute.[/BLACKOUT] Harrelson's character gives us some exposition about [BLACKOUT]people going mute and how he tried to kill them off,[/BLACKOUT] but all of this happened off screen and wasn't a large part of the story.
There's still plenty more that has to happen between War and the original POTA.
*Entire populations of mute humans appear.
*Human cities are destroyed by atomic bombs.
*Intelligent human populations move under ground, and at least some of them become mutants.
*Entire populations of talking apes appear and they start wearing clothes.
*Apes use mute humans as pets and slaves.
*The Ape religion of the 'Law Giver' appears.
*Some apes begin to cover up the past (similar to Dr Zaius), and hide the evidence of human civilization by creating forbidden zones.
*Apes forget that humans used to speak and that humans created civilization.
*Apes begin a scientific revolution, start experimenting on humans and create archaeology, with some of them -like Cornelius- discovering the truth about the past, and possibly being killed as heretics.
I was hoping that War would show the earth devastated by nuclear weapons. Too bad.
The story of the Law Giver could definitely make an interesting movie, or even a new trilogy. We could see different ape factions going to war. One of them decides to hide the history of humanity, along with remnants of human technology, eventually creating a religion that teaches apes were always the dominant species.