Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ posters and trailers all contain a huge spoiler

polygon.com:

Spoiler warnings have become a polite way to signal to the internet that you’re about to discuss some aspect of a movie they might prefer not to know before seeing the film. People online have argued endlessly about what constitutes a spoiler and what needs a warning. But the question gets more complicated when a studio’s marketing for a movie is handing out the spoilers.

It happens surprisingly often. Trailers are designed as sizzle reels, and trailers for action- or effects-oriented movies in particular frequently include footage from the finale, to sell a film around its biggest, splashiest moments. Marketers often think of a movie’s big twist as a similarly splashy draw: Recently, all the trailers and even the poster for the horror movie Abigailgave away a reveal the movie had clearly designed as a major narrative twist. Looking further back, marketers for James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day were so eager to showcase Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role that they built an entire marketing campaign around what Cameron clearly intended as a huge mid-movie surprise.

The marketing for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t feel as overtly spoilery as those examples, until you actually watch the movie. But in pursuit of a poster-worthy image, the movie’s marketing team hugely undermined what director Wes Ball and his writers were trying to do with the film’s story.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ahead — or at least, context that’ll make it clearer how you’ve probably already been exposed to the spoiler.]

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes opens with the funeral of Caesar, the chimpanzee at the center of the ape revolution that started in 2011’s Apes series reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Then the action jumps forward “many generations” (300 years, according to 20th Century Studios), to an era when humanity is scattered and sparse, former human cities have become lush jungles, and clans of apes live in distinct communities. The