Despite its unsavory title, War for the Planet of the Apes actually has less meaningless violence than the two films in the series prior to it. The violence which occurs makes sense in this movie and is less exploitative. The relationships are also better established and are therefore more emotionally touching, in my opinion.
War for the Planet of the Apes returns to the overt political messaging of the original film, in this case the deranged, sadistic Colonel is clearly a certain madman who was recently in charge in real life with his wall and "people zoo" at The Border. Not only that, but Nova and Cornelius from the 1968 Planet of the Apes are present in this film respectively as a mute human child taken in by a small band of apes, and a toddler ape who is the youngest son of Caesar.
While this latter detail renders the whole reboot confusing to me (I thought this trilogy was its own thing "inspired by" but separate from the OG series) it was still good to have those characters provided a backstory in the context of this version. Which officially makes it a prequel, I guess? Even though there's no nuclear war but a mutated version of the virus which removes the human capacity for speech and abstract thought, while leaving the apes unscathed.
War for the Planet of the Apes returns to the overt political messaging of the original film, in this case the deranged, sadistic Colonel is clearly a certain madman who was recently in charge in real life with his wall and "people zoo" at The Border. Not only that, but Nova and Cornelius from the 1968 Planet of the Apes are present in this film respectively as a mute human child taken in by a small band of apes, and a toddler ape who is the youngest son of Caesar.
While this latter detail renders the whole reboot confusing to me (I thought this trilogy was its own thing "inspired by" but separate from the OG series) it was still good to have those characters provided a backstory in the context of this version. Which officially makes it a prequel, I guess? Even though there's no nuclear war but a mutated version of the virus which removes the human capacity for speech and abstract thought, while leaving the apes unscathed.