The Ape is the superfamily of all primate species featured in the Planet of the Apes franchise, including chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Scientifically, apes are tailless primates native to Africa and South-east Asia. There are two main branches: the gibbons, or lesser apes, which are smaller and are all native to Asia; and the hominids or great apes, including three species of orangutans, two species of gorillas and two species of Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos). Scientifically, humans also fall within the category of great apes, but in the Planet of the Apes franchise humans consider themselves distincts from the chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan society collectively referred as apes.
The reason the apes became as intelligent as humans is not satisfactorily explained in the pentalogy by APJAC Productions, other than they replaced dogs and cats as pets and were learning. Tim Burton's 2001 film has apes which were genetically manipulated and could develop their society on an alien planet for over two thousand years. The apes in the Chernin Entertainment reboot series got evolved in result of the Simian Flu.
In the English language, the term "monkey" refers to tailed primates, and the word is sometimes considered a term of offense by apes within the franchise. In the French language, however, the word 'singes' refers to primates, and so the original novel La Planète des Singes has been translated as both Monkey Planet and as Planet of the Apes.
Trivia[]
- Some iterations of the Planet of the Apes concept have added baboons and mandrills to the core ape society, both of which were once considered species of apes but are now acknowledged to each come from a separate genus of primates which became tailless independently.
