As Apes afficionados know, Caesar is the name of the first super-smart ape to lead the slave apes to revolution in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (followed by my favorite flick in the series, Battle for the Planet of the Apes). In Conquest, however, Caesar is the son of time-traveling apes Cornelius and Zira - he's far more evolved than his enslaved brethren on near-future Earth. So he's able to lead the revolution partly because he's from a far-future version of the intelligent apes.

But in Frank's movie, set in 2009, Caesar will be the result of the first genetic experiments with uplifting ape intelligence. He'll be mute, able to communicate only through sign language. Frank's said he wants to be as true as possible to contemporary science and just tweak it a little bit. So far, so good: We already have apes who can communicate via sign language.

Apparently one of the big concerns Frank has right now, as he goes into a rewrite on the script, is how to represent Caesar. He's totally opposed to ape suits, which were the preferred mode in other movies (including Tim Burton's execrable remake). So he's trying to figure out how to make the ape a photorealistic CGI creation with a face that's expressive enough to make him sympathetic despite the fact that he doesn't talk.

One thing we know for sure: Caesar will be leading a revolution. Or at least that's what Production Weekly said. Here's their synopsis:

The origins of how the Apes took over Earth. A hyper-intelligent chimp raised by humans incites a worldwide ape revolution and causes the downfall of mankind.

Scott Frank Tells CHUD He's Not Remaking Conquest of the Planet of the Apes [via CHUD]

Planet of the Apes Gets a Director [via CinemaBlend]

Olson and his colleague Russell Doescher have made a name for themselves pioneering a field they call 'astroforensics.' Poring over historical texts (in this case Caesar's Commentary on the Gallic War), the two piece together bits of astronomical information that were recorded around the time of the event in question — phase of the Moon is a common one, as are the locations of Venus and the Sun, often recorded in paintings. In Shakespeare's "Hamlet" a 'bright star' is mentioned, and that was enough to get Olson thinking that it wasn't a star at all, but a Supernova that lit up the skies in 1572.

Knowing the phase of the Moon, Olson could calculate exact dates when, say, the tides would've been right in 55 BC for Caesar to make his landing near Dover. As it turns out, those same lunar and tidal conditions only present themselves once every few hundred years or so, and August 2007 was one of those dates. So Olson and company went to Dover, chartered a boat, and floated through the English channel, just as Caesar had done. Riding the same currents as the Romans, Olson showed that the evening of Caesar's arrival must have been August 22-23 in the year 55 AD rather than August 26-27, as generations of scholars before him had thought.

Caesar's landing was under duress — thousands of Celtic tribesmen greeted him with arrows and spears. But the Romans prevailed, and began an invasion that would lead to the formation of England.

Not all of Olson's work has as much historical import — he also likes following in the footsteps of Ansel Adams, and predicting when the waterfalls in Yosemite National Park will be moonlit as just the right angle so that their spray produces a rainbow — and he's calculated every time that will happen for the next two years. But CSI's got nothing on this guy, who needs nothing but the night sky to solve his cases.

Source: Sky & Telescope