Humanity Falls in Three 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' Short Films

The early reviews are starting to roll in for Matt Reeves' Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and the buzz is overwhelmingly positive. Nearly all of them praise it as a vast improvement on Rise of the Planet of the Apes which, as you may recall, was pretty darn good in its own right and built a solid foundation for a thrilling sci-fi franchise. The end of that film saw a virus, known as the "Simian Flu" released into the atmosphere where it began to infect the human population. In the ten years that have passed between 'Rise' and 'Dawn', that virus spread and the story of what that looked like is chronicled in three new short films.

The first short, SPREAD OF SIMIAN FLU: BEFORE THE DAWN OF THE APES (YEAR 1), is directed by Isaiah Seret and here's the synopsis:

Synopsis: Amidst a widespread viral outbreak known as the 'Simian Flu', a mother is quarantined after testing positive for the virus, leaving her husband and daughter to fend for themselves.



Daniel Thron was at the helm for the second short, STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE: BEFORE THE DAWN OF THE APES (YEAR 5):

 Synopsis: Five years after the Simian Flu all but wiped out humanity, an orphaned teenage girl survives by bartering things she has stolen from dead people's homes.


And finally "thirty two" directed STORY OF THE GUN: BEFORE THE DAWN OF THE APES (YEAR 10)

Synopsis: Follow the journey of a shotgun through the hands of several ill-fated owners as the 'Simian Flu' ravages the world around them.


These short films make up an entire fillm called Island of Apes, a collaboration between 20th Century Fox and Motherboard.  Here's the synopsis for that followed by a trailer, and we'll update this with the full movie when it releases tomorrow.  Dawn of the Planet of the Apes opens July 11th.

The documentary heads to an isolated area inhabited solely by former lab-tested chimpanzees who have survived both disease and two civil wars, and today instill fear in their neighboring communities.We head to the beaches of the island to capture the chimps in their unique habitat, and discover that human interaction is far from second nature.For the first time in history, we sit down with Betsy Brotman, one-half of the testing facility's founding couple, to learn of her shockingly dark and heroic past, and why her views on animal testing have dramatically changed.