Andy serkiscaesar side by side

Ever wonder how exactly you go from a man in a unitard to a walking and talking ape? Well, you're in luck! 20th Century Fox has released a behind-the-scenes featurette for the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, showing how exactly actor Andy Serkis turns into the ape leader Caeser in the movie. You may not recognize Serkis' face, but you've definitely seen him before. He played Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. And he's also been cast in Star Wars Episode VII. We don't know what he's playing yet, but we're guessing something involving CGI.

(Minor spoilers to follow)

I don’t see the tiny dots glued to Andy Serkis’s face. Nor the tiny camera perched onto his head to capture any facial movements during the shot. To be honest – I barely see Serkis anymore. The actor is transformed, now just Caesar – the heroic if headstrong leader of the genetically evolved apes.

Caesar cries out in pain, his arms strung up onto a misshapen cross, his legs spread and tied beneath. He stares out angrily atop the ‘cross’, grunting at his surrounding human captors. The implication of the image doesn’t hit me until much later on in the day: I just watched Caesar be ‘crucified’.

So War for the Planet of the Apes probably isn’t going to be the feel good movie of the summer – which, to be fair, has always been a hallmark of the Planet of the Apes franchise, a blending of serious socio-political ideas with action movie moxie. Just look at the last film in the Apes franchise: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – a one-hundred-million-dollar-plus action film about the futility of peace and the sad inevitability of war. There simply isn’t any other franchise so willing to explore as many deep and troubling issues as the Apes saga… And War for

•