The advent of technology in filmmaking has been a blessing for audiences and filmmakers. In the last two decades, new innovations have helped genres like sci-fi and fantasy shine brighter. Long-running franchises like Star Wars have come a long way from using practical effects in 1977 to pioneering CGI, and the Volume tech for its shows, giving us a seamless glimpse of galaxy far far away, or think of superhero movies from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man using practical effects to Tom Holland’s ultra refined suits, or the groundbreaking visual of black hole in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar which was later validated by scientific community.
With good tech, movies have taken us to planets and shown us creatures we can only dream of once, like the sandworm in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune franchise. Among the films that have made the best use of technology is the Planet of the Apes franchise. First started in 1968 heavily dependent on practical effects, and did innovative makeup work. Then came Tim Burton’s take in 2001’s Planet of the Apes, which used more advanced prosthetics but also put a full stop on full-scale practical ape suits in the franchise.
Then came the performance capture revolution, the Andy Serkis era, with The Batman director Matt Reeves on board to shoot performance capture in the real environment. The reboot trilogy shifted the paradigm, and the latest release, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, pushed the envelope further by adding photorealism. Fans who’d love to revisit the reboot movies are in luck, as the first two movies are streaming free.
Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz Which Lord of the Rings Race Do You Belong To? Hobbit · Elf · Dwarf · Man · Orc
Middle-earth is home to many peoples — the courageous, the ancient, the stubborn, the ambitious, and the wretched. Ten questions will determine which race truly claims your soul. The answer may surprise you. Or it may confirm what you already suspected.
🌿Hobbit
🌟Elf
⚒️Dwarf
⚔️Man
💀Orc
01
What does your ideal day look like? How we rest reveals as much as how we fight.
02
How do you feel about the passing of time? Our relationship with mortality shapes everything we value.
03
Danger is approaching. Your first instinct is to: Fight, flight, or something in between — it’s more revealing than you’d think.
04
You stumble upon a great treasure. What do you feel? What we desire — and what we do about it — is the true test.
05
How important is community and belonging to you? No race of Middle-earth is truly alone — but some prefer it that way.
06
How ambitious are you, honestly? Ambition is neither virtue nor vice — it depends entirely on what you want.
07
Where do you feel most at home in the natural world? Middle-earth is vast — and every race has its place within it.
08
What kind of strength do you most respect? Every race defines strength differently — and they’re all at least a little right.
09
What do you want to leave behind when you’re gone? Legacy is the story we tell ourselves about why any of this matters.
10
Be honest — what do you actually want most out of life? The truest question always comes last.
Middle-earth Has Spoken You Belong To…
The race that claimed the most of your answers is your true kin. If two tied, both are shown — you walk between worlds.
◆ A TIE — YOU WALK BETWEEN TWO RACES ◆
🌿
Your Race
The Hobbits
You are, at your core, a creature of comfort, community, and quiet joy — and there is nothing small about that. Hobbits are proof that heroism does not require ambition, that the bravest heart can beat inside the most unassuming chest. You value good food, warm hearths, close friends, and a world that stays largely untroubled by dark lords and quests. When adventure does find you — and it will — you rise to it not because you sought it, but because the people you love needed you to. That is not ordinary. That is the rarest kind of courage in all of Middle-earth.
🌟
Your Race
The Elves
Ancient, graceful, and carrying a weight of memory most mortals cannot fathom, you are one of the Elves. You see the world in its fullness — its beauty, its impermanence, the unbearable ache of watching everything you love eventually fade. You pursue perfection not from pride, but because excellence is how you honour the time you have been given. Others may see you as remote or melancholy. They are not wrong, exactly. But they mistake depth for distance. You feel everything — which is precisely why you have learned to carry it so quietly.
⚒️
Your Race
The Dwarves
Stubborn, proud, fiercely loyal, and possessed of a work ethic that would exhaust most other races before breakfast — you are Dwarf-kind through and through. You do not ask for approval and you do not offer it cheaply. Your loyalty, once given, is given for life. Your grudges last longer. You love deeply and defend ferociously, and the things you build — with your hands, with your sweat, with generations of accumulated craft — are made to last. Not for glory. Because anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and you have never once done anything by half measures.
⚔️
Your Race
The Race of Men
Mortal, ambitious, flawed, and magnificent — you belong to the most complicated race in Middle-earth, and that complexity is your greatest strength. Men are capable of cowardice and extraordinary bravery, of cruelty and breathtaking sacrifice, sometimes within the same breath. You feel the urgency of your finite years, and it drives you. You want to matter. You want to leave something behind. You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you. Tolkien called mortality the Gift of Men — not a curse, but a fire that burns bright precisely because it does not burn forever. That fire is you.
💀
Your Race
The Orcs
Brutal, survivalist, and contemptuous of anything that can’t defend itself — you answered with the instincts of an Orc, and there is a certain savage honesty in that. You do not dress up your desires in polite language or pretend you want things you don’t. You want power, survival, and to never be at the bottom of any hierarchy ever again. Orcs are not evil by nature — they were made from something that was once good, and broken into this shape by forces they did not choose. What remains is fierce, territorial, and deeply aware that the world is not kind. You’ve made your peace with that. The question is what you do with it.
‘Planet of The Apes’ Reboot is Streaming Free
Tubi is streaming Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Dawn of the Planet of the Apesfor free. Directed by Rupert Wyatt, Rise marks the start of the reboot franchise and follows Caesar (Serkis), a genetically enhanced chimpanzee who is first raised by chemist Will Rodman (James Franco). The 82% Rotten Tomatoes-rated film was a big hit, grossing $481 million worldwide.
Then came Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, set 10 years after the events of Rise, following the reboot’s success. It follows a group of human survivors as they battle to stay alive in the wake of a deadly pandemic, while Caesar tries to maintain control over his expanding ape community. It not only brought visual aesthetics to the storytelling but also added significant emotional weight to the franchise, with Serkis’ performance hailed as its backbone. For fans who’d like to see the final movie, War for the Planet of the Apes, will have to switch services and check out HBO Max, where it’s streaming.
Meanwhile, Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes are streaming on Tubi.
