Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is out this weekend and that story picks up a full ten years after James Franco accidentally started the end of the world by trying to cure Alzheimer’s. Reportedly there isn’t much more than a pre-credits “the world ended” rundown in the movie but just in case you wanted some more info 20th Century Fox have teamed with Vice and Motherboard to bring you three short films set in the first, fifth, and tenth years of that decade.

These aren’t required viewing for the film but they are required viewing if you like film, I think.

> **Quarantine (Year One)** 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.

This don’t have a whole lot of plot but it really sets the tone for what it must be like to be on the brink of the end of the world.

> **All Fall Down (Year Five)** 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.

I really like this one because it really depicts what it must be like to live in a world that refuses to believe it’s ending, and because that seems pretty much entirely plausible to me. That there are some people who are starting to think there might be something out there lurking the dark just makes it all the more foreboding.

> **The Gun (Year Ten)** Follow the journey of a shotgun through the hands of several ill-fated owners as the ‘Simian Flu’ ravages the world around them.

The Story of the Gun is my favourite of the three because it’s the most ambitious of the three and because I like the premise of following an object through a period of time rather than a person. I also like that it covers the whole decade and you get to see just how bad things get to be as people go from helping other to robbing others.

What do you guys think of these shorts?

_Dawn of the Planet of the Apes_ is out this friday.