Stars of the latest Planet of the Apes installment have come out as "team ape" citing humans as a destructive force to planet Earth.
Owen Teague and Freya Allan, who play the main protagonists in 2024's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, discussed the film's conflict between humans and apes in an interview with The Associated Press.
"I'm fully team ape," said Teague, who voices the film's main ape Noa.
Allan, who plays the film's central human character Mae/Nova, chimed in, "Listen, obviously when I'm playing Mae, I'm team human, but I'm team ape."
"Freya is team ape," she added.
When asked why the actors chose team ape, Allan said, "I mean look at the planet."
"Look at what the humans have done to the Earth," Teague added.
Allan went on to say she disliked humans "a lot."
"There are times where you see humans come together and you go, 'Oh, isn't this lovely?'" Allan continued. "And then there's times you go, 'I absolutely hate us.'"
Users across social media panned the actors' remarks.
"We have noticed that people who don't like human development and are 'team ape' sure want other people to pay for their careers, homes, and cars, and that they never go live in the jungle among them," wrote one user.
Another user jokingly referred to the film's stars as "Effing baboons."
"Perhaps they should start with themselves and demonstrate for us their true level of devotion to their anti-human Marxist message?" wrote BlazeTV's Steve Deace.
Podcaster Jesse Kelly similarly noted the actors appeared to express anti-human sentiment.
"In the end, people are the real problem," he wrote. "Which is why communism has killed so many. And that's why 'climate change' activism is communism's final form."
The franchise is based on French author Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel "La Planète des singes," which translates to "Monkey Planet," or "Planet of the Apes."
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the fourth installment in the series' reboot franchise, and the tenth film since the franchise's inception in 1968.
“As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike," reads the film's description.
