Kingdom of the Planet the Apes: SPOILER’s Death Was Almost Different

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was released in theaters last week, and the new installment to the long-running franchise is up on Rotten Tomatoes with an 81% critics score and 79% audience score. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with members of the Wētā FX team who were behind the film’s VFX, including Visual Effects Supervisor, Erik Winquist; VFX Producer Danielle Immerman; and Animation Supervisor, Paul Story. They addressed the movie’s big deaths and spoke about some of the shots in the film they were most proud of. Turns out, one big moment in the film was almost a little different. Warning: Spoilers Ahead! 

“There was a shot they delivered very late in the game because we had to rip it out of their hands, was Raka’s – well spoiler territory – but Raka’s last words when he is in the river,” Winquist explained to ComicBook. “Just because of this relentless pursuit of excellence, the whole team didn’t want to let that shot go. There was this, ‘No, no, we can make the water better.’ I’m like, ‘Guys, [director Wes Ball] was happy with it three days ago.’ ‘No, no, no.’ They just did version after version after version. I’m like, ‘All right, all right, all right, stop. You put one more brushstroke on this, it’ll ruin the paintings. It’s beautiful, it’s amazing. Just let’s let it be over now.’ There was that.”

During the Wētā team’s audience Q&A that same day, they also revealed Raka’s final words kept being rewritten, which also contributed to the shot’s delay. 

“But to the point of Raka and the river … there were a number of things in the script that were like, ‘Whoa, red flag. We’re going to have to need to figure this out,’” Winquist shared with the crowd. “The character in the river, we had to basically sort out the notion of thin film water sheeting off of digital characters for [Avatar: The Way of the Water].”

“But the requirements of that story were very different than ours,” he continued. “The water work in this movie was all about the chaos and the scariness of it. The dark, the dirty, all of the sediment in the river, all of the debris flooding in at the end, and there was a lot of additional work that our R&D team, who worked directly with our effects artists on this to make sure that this is a heavy moment, like Raka’s last lines, ‘Together strong,’ seeing all the water sheet off of his face. That was a big push, and that went out the door the last week of the -“

“Well, they did rewrite his line,”  Immerman added.

“Three times,” Winquist confirmed. 

“So that shot was done a number of times. Beautifully,” Immerman continued.

“Not to completion,” Winquist clarified. “But yeah, it was a big concern.” 

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now playing in theaters. You can learn more about Wētā FX here.