Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Noa actor Owen Teague is happy to talk about Raka the orangutan’s fate in the movie.
Teague is not alone in his thoughts about the beloved character, played by Peter Macon. Anyone who has seen the blockbuster fourth installment of the Planet of the Apes reboot series—which opened with a stellar box office take of $58.5 million in its opening weekend earlier this month—knows the question of what happened to Raka can only be answered in another Apes sequel.
Until then, Teague is willing to share his thoughts about it since he’s as much in the dark about future stories in the franchise as anybody.
Directed by Wes Ball, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes stars Teague in the lead role of Noa, a chimpanzee who is living a seemingly peaceful life among his fellow ape clan members—that is until his village is decimated by a vicious ape soldiers who kidnap nearly all Noa’s friends and family members.
Embarking on a mission to rescue his clan, Noa encounters Raka (Peter Macon of The Orville)—an orangutan knowledgeable in the history of the rapid evolution of the apes beginning with Caesar (Andy Serkis from the first three Apes films)—and a human, Mae (Freya Allan of The Witcher). It turns out that Noa’s clan members in addition to members of many other clans are being held by the menacing vicious bonobo Proximus Caesar (Abigail star Kevin Durand).
Proximus Caesar, who is the self-proclaimed ape king of his compound, is using his captives to try to breach a massive vault that is said to contain advanced human weaponry. Once the ape king gets his hands on the weapons, Proximus Caesar’s kingdom will be virtually unstoppable.
Note: Movie spoilers are discussed in the following sections.
Will We See Raka again?
In a Zoom conversation on Thursday, Owen Teague gave me his thoughts about whether Raka actually perishes in the film.
A pivotal scene in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes certainly suggests so, as Raka is swept underwater in fast-rushing rapids as he is trying to save Noa and Mae from Proximus Caesar’s soldiers. Since he’s not seen in the film again, Raka is presumed to be dead.
However, it’s completely within reason to think Raka may still be alive since a grunting noise that sounds a lot like the orangutan is heard after the film’s end credits. As such, could the sage character in Kingdom be back for the next Apes film, provided there is another sequel?
“The truth is, I don’t know because there’s been talk of bringing dead characters back,” Teague said. “I think Raka is probably gone but I don’t know. I really don’t know because he could have survived. We’ve definitely talked about it, Wes [Ball and I]. It’s been a thought. So maybe, maybe not, I don’t know. I think the sound at the end is a ‘leaving their options open’ kind of thing.”
Speaking from a realistic point of view, the idea of Raka dying while swept away from the rapids does make sense, noted Teague, whose credits include the two IT chapters.
“It makes more sense that he died because orangutans really cannot swim at all,” Teague explained. “So, on a purely scientific level, he’s dead but then again, this is a movie about talking apes so you don’t have to stick to science.”
From a personal viewpoint, Teague said he wants Raka to be alive.
“I would love for him to survive,” Teague enthused. “In a perfect world—which they can’t possibly do—Peter [Macon] and Kevin [Durand] both get to come back for the next one. That’s not going to happen but I just want to work with them both again. So, I’m like, ‘I hope they do.’”
In the movie world, both Raka and Proximus Caesar could, of course, come back in a potential sequel in flashback scenes. After all, it happened with a character in Kingdom’s immediate predecessor, 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes.
“Koba did it,” Teague said of Toby Kebbell’s villainous chimp in 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. “Koba did it in War.”
Teague Says He Formed An Instant Bond With Macon
Perhaps the reason Raka’s death in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is so tough for fans to process is because of the way Owen Teague and Peter Macon made Noa and Raka feel so real from the get-go.
“It’s funny, we shot a lot with Peter in a lot of road scenes that didn’t make the movie because of the length of the movie and we didn’t need those scenes,” Teague revealed. “But altogether Peter wasn’t on set a lot. He was mainly filmed in the middle chunk of the movie which is how the order of the movie ended up. I spent a lot of time with Peter but not to the same degree as the rest of the cast.”
No matter the amount of time he and Macon shot their scenes together, Teague said like Noa and Raka, the unbreakable bond the two actors formed was instantaneous.
“The amazing thing is, my connection to Peter—even without spending as long a time with him as I did some of the others—it was so instant and so deep without even knowing him that well,” Teague said. “That is also true of Noa and Raka. There’s an instant ‘You just love him’ feeling.’”
As such, Teague the actor was just as heartbroken over the loss of Raka—or the seeming loss of Raka—as Noa when the river scene unfolds on screen.
“When Raka dies I remember feeling so much pain and it really was like, ‘It really doesn’t make sense that Noa is so broken by this event because you think [the loss of] his dad would be the more traumatizing one’ and it is in its own way,” Teague recalls. “But I think having Raka as Noa’s guide and for me having Peter as a guide—it was really deep in an unexpected way.”
Ultimately, Teague said that he’s glad that the dynamic between him and Macon came through, but also wanted to point out that Noa and Raka’s bond is only part of Macon’s stunning performance.
“Everything that Peter as Raka did is onscreen,” Teague said with a smile. “When I watch the movie I can see the bits of humor in the little things he does like the head turns and eye movements. It’s so Peter.”
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is playing in theaters nationwide.
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