Rise of the Planet of the Apes



The 2011 film Rise of the Planet of the Apes serves as a reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise. Word of God says the film, a loose remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, will mark the Origin Story for a new Planet of the Apes universe (and future films).

Will Rodman, a scientist attempting to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease (fueled by the desire to cure his father of the illness), finds incredible results with the experimental drug ALZ-112: "Bright Eyes", a female chimpanzee injected with the drug, becomes more intelligent soon after the drug takes effect. Will believes the time is right to fund human testing—but during his pitch to potential backers, Bright Eyes inexplicably goes berserk and gets gunned down in the middle of the meeting. Fortunate to still have his job afterwards, Will soon finds out that Bright Eyes had just given birth, and she became aggressive as an instinctive attempt to protect her child.

Will saves the young chimp from euthanasia, names him Caesar, and takes him home. The ape immediately displays intelligence beyond his years (and species), which proves he inherited his mother's enhanced intelligence. Through Caesar, Will hopes to keep his work alive—but as Caesar grows older, a chain of events leads him on the path to a revolution.

The film marks the first time in the franchise that filmmakers used Serkis Folk (with Andy Serkis himself playing Caesar) as apes.

This film was followed by a sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, released in 2014. Another sequel, War for the Planet of the Apes was released in 2017.

"Jacobs: You make history. I make money."
 * Abnormal Ammo: Who would've thought that manhole covers could be used as shuriken or the posts of wrought-iron fences as spears? The apes did, and with surprising accuracy.
 * Actor Allusion: Colonel Stryker is seen in the trailer saying, "They're not people, you know."
 * Draco Malfoy doesn't seem too friendly towards the non-humans either.
 * Draco Malfoy holding the, anyone?
 * Draco Malfoy saying "You think that's funny?" and "You're next!"
 * Apocalypse How: Planetary-level.
 * Art Major Biology: Apes cannot speak human languages because of the different structures of their vocal chords...but then we wouldn't have two of the most powerful moments in the film, would we?
 * Apes aren't so much incapable of language as they are incapable of speech. This is why primate researchers teach chimps and gorillas sign language.
 * Apes are incapable of throwing with the distance and accuracy shown in the film. The evolutionary reason that our shoulders are so different from those of apes is believed to be so we could throw spears and such.
 * Asshole Victim:
 * Although most people would be rather upset in those situations.
 * All over the place, really, that way you know who you're supposed to be sympathizing with.
 * Bash Brothers: Buck the gorilla and Maurice the oranguatan taking out cop cars.
 * Berserk Button: Causing harm to Caesar's human family.
 * Big Bad: Steven Jacobs
 * Big Guy Fatality Syndrome:
 * Big No: serves as the single most important event of the film.
 * Black Dude Dies First: Averted.
 * Blood From the Mouth (and the nose, and the ears): The scientist infected with ALZ-112 has this happen to him as he grows sicker.
 * Brains and Brawn: Caesar and Buck
 * Break the Cutie: Abuse at the hands of Dodge and the other chimps at the primate facility do this to Caesar.
 * Butt Human: Hunsiker again. Though if your reaction to everything is extreme violence and anger, this quickly becomes Laser-Guided Karma.
 * Especially notable in the scene where he confronts Franklin. Yes, he was trying the doors to the neighbor's house, but calling the cops and keeping an eye on the situation would probably be a better bet than getting directly in the suspicious person's face, especially when it's not your house.
 * "JUST LET ME LIVE MY LIFE!"
 * Call Back: When Caroline says it's appropriate to be afraid of chimpanzees, Caesar mocks the idea by jumping on top of Will and miming punches at him, all while everyone is laughing. Caesar later does nearly the exact same thing to Hunsiker, except he's actually beating the shit out of him.
 * Cassandra Truth: "I dunno... maybe the (Caesar's) clothes will upset the other chimps." Rocket reacted very angrily after taking a couple sniffs at Caesar before ripping what he was wearing and administering that No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
 * Actually, the response to that wasn't disbelief, it was "Good."
 * California Doubling: New Zealand for San Francisco.
 * Co-Dragons: Maurice the orangutan and Buck the gorilla effectively serve as this to Caesar.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Caesar lures Rocket into the main room of the refuge center
 * Coming of Age Story: Caesar, naturally. He is taken as a baby by Will, grows in mind and body, and then, through a series of events, leaves his nest and becomes a freedom fighter.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jacobs, who's willing to go straight to human trials the minute they get good results on the apes, without making sure it's safe first.
 * Coming of Age Story: Caesar, naturally. He is taken as a baby by Will, grows in mind and body, and then, through a series of events, leaves his nest and becomes a freedom fighter.
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jacobs, who's willing to go straight to human trials the minute they get good results on the apes, without making sure it's safe first.

"Maurice: "Why cookie Rocket?" Caesar: "Apes alone: weak. Apes together: strong." Maurice: "Apes stupid.""
 * Creative Closing Credits: Goes hand-in-hand with the Downer Ending.
 * Deadly Disc: Maurice uses the classic manhole cover to take out a police car.
 * Decoy Protagonist: Will. The real protagonist is Caesar.
 * Defeat Equals Friendship: Caesar invokes this on Rocket after getting the latter to submit to him.
 * Died in Your Arms Tonight:
 * Disney Villain Death: Well, the finale takes place on the Golden Gate Bridge, so yeah, folks are gonna be falling.
 * The Dog Bites Back: Pretty much the entire plot of the movie.
 * Dolled-Up Installment: A weird one. Rick Jaffa wrote the first treatment as an original story inspired by reports of people raising primates as children in their homes and being attacked by them. It wasn't until he was finishing it that he realized that, given enough time, the situation created by the ending could very well lead to the world seen in the 1968 Planet of the Apes. So Jaffa contacted FOX, presented the story as a reboot for Planet of the Apes, and this is the result.
 * Doomed by Canon:
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: Very interesting interpretation in this review. Watching the film with this in mind, it is hard not to see the comparisons as intentional.
 * A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example, but the crude sketch of the window in the Rodman's Attic that Caesar  later shows up rather ominously on a highway marker overlooking the Bay Valley skyline when   as though it were graffiti left a gang marking their territory.
 * Downer Ending: It's a bit of a Foregone Conclusion though since this is a prequel.
 * Everythings Better With Apes
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: For Caesar and the few apes that made it past the Golden Gate Bridge.
 * Evil Brit: Dodge and John Landon. At the very least, they are portrayed by British actors with the former English and the latter Scottish respectively.
 * Flowers for Algernon Syndrome: After Will's father's body begins rejecting the treatment, his Alzheimer's starts to set back in. In fact, it gets worse, and his health declines, and he dies.
 * Fog of War: A very convenient one hides the apes on the bridge from the police.
 * One might even say there are Gorillas in The Mist
 * Fog on and around the Golden Gate bridge is pretty common.
 * Five Ape Band:
 * The Hero: Caesar
 * The Lancer: Rocket the bald chimpanzee
 * The Big Guy: Buck the gorilla
 * The Smart Guy: Maurice the orangutan
 * Token Evil Teammate/ Sixth Ranger: Possibly Koba the ALZ-113 test subject (in a deleted scene, he would even try to gas Jacobs while escaping the lab)
 * Foregone Conclusion: It's called RISE of the Planet of the Apes, so this was to be expected.
 * Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: In this continuity, apparently we didn't "blow it up," as Charlton Heston assumed.
 * Genius Bruiser: Maurice the orangutan is the only other ape who initially knows sign language, but being an orangutan, he's incredibly strong and at one point hurls a manhole cover straight through a police car windshield as if he were throwing a Frisbee.
 * Gone Horribly Right: Yes, ALZ-113 does improve mental functions!
 * Green Eyes: The ALZ-112 causes green pigmentation in an ape's eyes.
 * Grey and Gray Morality: One can't fault the apes for rebelling, humans being bastards (Of course you soon find out that Apes are bastards too if you know anything about the movies, guess it just comes with intelligence) and all (some more so than others), but the tests being conducted on them was for a good cause.
 * Guile Hero: Caesar.
 * Gunboat Diplomacy: Caesar pulls this on Rocket to get him to step down as the leader of the apes. Rocket was a lot more compliant when Caesar's 450-pound gorilla friend was around to help with the convincing.
 * Heroic BSOD: Poor Caesar goes under two of these- the first one after experiencing his Curb Stomp Battle of a beatdown by then-alpha male Rocket, the second after learning once again that he could not go home with Will and Caroline after the hell he has experienced.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Hero of Another Story: Throughout the film, various background references are made to a manned spaceflight that gets "lost in space", no doubt into some kind of wormhole that will spit them out thousands of years into the future right near a watery planet, the third from the sun in its solar system.
 * Hoist by His Own Petard:
 * An unintentional one when the gorilla attacks a police car with a parking meter.
 * Hope Spot:
 * Serves as a bit of Shown Their Work, since this is generally the final outcome of most Alzheimer's treatments in real life (the ones that work at all, anyway).
 * Hot Scientist: One could say both Will and Caroline fall into this category.
 * Hulk Speak: Sign language between apes are subtitled in rather poor grammar, including Ceasar's. However, this isn't because the ape are unintelligent, it's because it's an alien way for them to communicate with one another. Different species have different methods and the signing is a common language they can learn.
 * apes start fighting*

"Dodge: Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" Dodge: "It's a madhouse!""
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: The movie is more even-handed with its overall characterization of humanity than you might expect, but the plot still hinges on people being dicks to the apes for really no reason. Sadly, much of it is Truth in Television in regards to animal testing and the way the legal system handles animal rights (but not the part about the experimental drug that can make apes smarter than humans).
 * Human Trial Is Human Error: Will, without any authorization, tested the ALZ-112 on his father, who had advanced, and rapidly deteriorating Alzheimer's. At first, everything seemed to be going well (he regained every single piece of his memory and his physical condition improved drastically). But then, the Alzheimer's rebounded with a vengance. This is after Will informed his superior that he had performed the tests with significant success, and that they already started to work on the ALZ-113. Little do they know that this batch has an even nastier side effect:  And only a select scientists, Will being one of them, know that both the ALZ-112 and -113 is what gave the apes their superintelligence and hatred towards their former masters.
 * Idiot Ball: Will. When your father has advanced Alzheimer's, it's generally not a good idea to leave him alone in the house while you're at work. Double for Hunsiker, who apparently leaves the door of his sports car unlocked and open, with keys in the ignition, on a regular basis.
 * Gen*Sys not immediately quarantining Franklin after he inhales the untested ALZ-113.
 * If Will would have told his boss everything during the five years of his father miraculous recovery, ALZ-112 would have been Jacobs's blockbuster drug, millions of Alzheimer patients would have gotten their lives back and Caesar might have been invited to talk shows.
 * Improvised Weapon: The apes are absolute masters of finding innovative uses for random stuff - wrought-iron fence poles become spears, a manhole cover becomes a thrown anti-vehicle weapon, and
 * Ironic Echo: From how Landon uses the phrase "It's a madhouse!" in the original to how Dodge uses it.
 * Also, within the movie, "Stupid monkey!"
 * Jerkass: Dodge is actually even worse than Hunsiker. Tom Felton has said that Dodge "makes Draco look soft" and, let's face it, he would know.
 * Karmic Death: Let's just say that being mean to Caesar is not a good way to make it to the end credits.
 * There's also, who's killed not by Caesar, but by Koba, who has a more personal reason for killing him.
 * Kick the Dog: Dodge does this a lot, starting with spraying Caesar with a high-powered hose after the latter flings slop into his face.
 * Killer Gorilla: Buck, and most of the rest.
 * Kindly Vet: Caroline.
 * Language Equals Thought: The line "Why cookie Rocket?" in the dialogue between Caesar and Maurice could symbolise the solidarity of the apes in fighting for their cause. Their use of language is similar to others which don't pinpoint blame for actions.
 * Large Ham: Dodge. And HOW!!
 * Mama Bear: Why Bright Eyes goes berserk.
 * Mass "Oh Crap": When Caesar Even his fellow apes were shocked by that.
 * A real life version for anyone who saw this movie in theaters.
 * May also qualify for possibly the shortest Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner ever.
 * Meaningful Name: Obviously Caesar, as the military and political genius, but also Koba, the first successful test subject for ALZ-113. "Koba" was also the code name of.
 * All of the apes, i.e. Maurice, had names that were based on names of apes of the original film series or crew members that worked on the original film series.
 * Multi-species Team: Caesar's a chimpanzee and his eventual allies include gorillas, orangutans, and bonobos.
 * Moses in the Bulrushes: Franklin makes Caesar this to Will.
 * Mood Whiplash: When Dodge
 * Monumental Battle: The final showdown between apes and humans takes place on the Golden Gate Bridge.
 * My God, What Have I Done?: Caesar's reaction as soon as Will's father snaps him out of his unstoppable rage towards his neighbor.
 * Also, whilst he gets over it quickly enough,.
 * That might be more of a
 * Mythology Gag: See also Shout-Out below.


 * The way Caesar is treated at the ape prison is nearly identical to the way Taylor was treated in the original film.
 * The manned space mission to another world, clearly meant to evoke the lost astronauts from the classic film. Probably a Sequel Hook to this movie to have this series follow the original.
 * Caesar is seen working on a 3-D puzzle of the Statue of Liberty.
 * Caesar is designed to resemble Roddy Mc Dowall's Cornelius and Caesar makeup from the original series.
 * Films starring Charlton Heston appear on the televisions at the ape prison.
 * The start of the movie with the poachers hunting the wild chimp troop is similar to the human-hunting scene from the original movie (albeit done in a way that also echoes how poachers hunt chimps in Real Life).
 * "Bright Eyes" was the name Zira gave Taylor in the original Planet of the Apes before learning his real name.
 * The main guard in charge of the animal pound sounding like Paul Giamatti is a reference to his role in Tim Burton's 2001 Remake of Planet of the Apes, in which he played a orangutan that dealt in human trafficking.
 * Part of Caesar's plan for getting through the police blockade involves him.
 * One of the characters is named Dodge Landon, Dodge and Landon were Taylor's male companions in the first movie.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer suggest that the ape hoard Caesar leads are trying to violently conquer the whole planet, when in the actual film they're just trying to escape from captivity, generally only responding violently as a reaction to humans trying to hurt them.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Will's Cure version 2.0 allows Caesar to smarten the other apes and cause an uprising which kills at least four people. Worse, it seems that his creation will doom the human race, although probably not in the way one would expect.
 * No CDC Compliance: Gen*Sys has some serious issues about keeping experimental drugs from being constantly stolen from their labs. An employee is maskless in the same room as an untested, genetically modified, airborne virus - yet he is not detained for observation, and he calls off sick for two days before anyone puts two and two together.
 * Obviously Evil: Koba wears a permanent angry snarl and some pretty epic Evil Scars. It seems even Jacobs himself noticed this, as
 * It is implied that Koba was used in other kind of tests before, for the same company; now that he is intelligent; he realizes Jacobs is somehow responsible for the PAST tests; so he's not evil in any way, he's getting revenge on one of the guys responsible for the scars he has. When they first set him up to take the drug; the lab guys comment on how easy it is to work with him since he's used to it.
 * So murdering somebody out of revenge (Who is begging for mercy.) isn't evil in any way? news to this troper, Koba is very obviously evil from the first time you see him.
 * Possibly one for YMMV. I agree with the previous troper. Somewhat oddly - since the rest of the apes in the lab are obviously fit, healthy and well cared for, despite the experiments - Koba has obviously endured years of sustained abuse at the hands of the scientists. If he is evil then all the apes are, since Buck and the others are shown more than once to be perfectly happy to beat a human to death as revenge for the abuse they suffered at the primate facility. Only Caesar prevents them. And, starkly in contrast to that compassion, Caesar refuses to save Jacob's life and then cooly gives Koba permission with a nod to kill him. And I find myself somewhat disturbed by the implication that Koba is 'evil the first time you see him'. Evil is too often equated to how someone looks, rather than how they act and Koba's scarred face is no indication of his personality at all.
 * The Obi-Wan: Sort of. Will does teach him the developmental skills he needs to survive during the first eight years of his life, and Maurice helps reintroduce him into ape society and acts as a surrogate parent, but Caesar, due to the ALZ, is his own Obi-Wan, having managed to teach and improve upon all the skills taught to him within those eight years.
 * Caesar himself will presumably become The Obi-Wan for his fellow apes, as they build their own society.
 * Oh Crap: Rodney, Dodge, and even Buck reacts like this when Will's, Caroline's, Will's father's, and even Caesar's reactions to when Caesar viciously bit—nearly severed—the Jerkass neighbor's finger when trying to defend Will's father. Jacobs when seeing the facility's balcony filled with apes. And Rocket's when
 * Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Dodge, occasionally, especially during his more Draco Malfoy-esque lines.
 * Papa Wolf: Inversion. Caesar, upon seeing Charles Rodman being picked on by his neighbor, immediately rushes off to defend Rodman from him, going berserk at his neighbor.
 * The Plague
 * Poor Communication Kills: Will drops the ball many times. He doesn't fess up about taking the cure home and its effect on his father until his father is starting to relapse. He doesn't fess up and point out that one of the test monkeys intelligence is off the charts. Despite knowing the intelligence level of Caesar, and knowing full well there are children out in the street Will doesn't have "the talk" with him.
 * Perhaps if Caesar had used his sign language to let Will know the reality of the primate facility - and that he wasn't being kept in that prettily painted, toy-filled cage, Will might have gotten him out sooner. And perhaps if Will had taken time to explain WHY he couldn't take Caesar home - that the courts were forcing him not to but that he was working all out to get past that - perhaps Caesar would have felt less betrayed and abandoned by his human friend.
 * Raised by Humans: Caesar.
 * La Résistance: By the end of the movie, Caesar's ape tribe has become this.
 * Rock Beats Laser: And Caesar beats Rocket.
 * Seldom-Seen Species: Koba the bonobo.
 * Sequel Hook
 * Serkis Folk: Starring Serkis himself. Interestingly, two apes shared an actress, Green Eyes and Koba.
 * Shout-Out: Several of them.
 * At one point, Caesar is constructing a model of the Statue of Liberty, which was featured in the Twist Ending of the first film.
 * Will Rodman was named after Roddy McDowall, who played Caesar in Conquest.
 * Caesar appears on horseback late in the film.
 * The orangutan is named Maurice, after Maurice Evans, who played the orangutan Dr. Zaius in the 1968 film.
 * The Landons (the father and son who worked at the San Bruno Primate Shelter) were named after one of the astronauts in the 1968 film. Dodge's first name was also after the other astronaut.
 * Dodge firehoses Caesar, as Taylor was firehosed in the 1968 film.
 * Dodge has two lines originally spoken by Charlton Heston (See Mythology Gag.)
 * Caesar's mother was nicknamed "Bright Eyes," the nickname Zira gave to Taylor in the original.
 * A female chimp is named "Cornelia."
 * One of the chimps is named Koba, like the protagonist of Alexander Kazbegi's "The Patricide." Also, it was Josef Stalin's favorite pseudonym.
 * The movie that Rodney is mouthing along to stars Charlton Heston.
 * The cops chase after the monkeys on horseback with night sticks, similar to the apes on horseback chasing after Taylor in the first movie.
 * The cure, ALZ-112. 112 was the original runtime of the first Planet of the Apes film.
 * Smart People Play Chess: An early sign that Caesar is progressing way beyond ordinary chimp capacity. Also that he is able to think strategically, plan ahead, and utilize numerous subordinates with differing skills and abilities. Just in case that will come in useful later.
 * Soft Glass: The Apes charge through tons of glass with no ill-effects.
 * The Sons and the Spears: Caesar does this with Maurice to explain why he's trying to get the apes to band together.
 * Starring Special Effects: Literally. The trailers said "From Weta Digital: the Visual Effects Company for Avatar"
 * Suddenly Voiced: It's quite an important, and awesome, scene.
 * Third Person Person:
 * Thirteen Is Unlucky: ALZ 113 is the designation of the drug that causes the whole mess.
 * Thou Shalt Not Kill: Caesar. While he seems fine with certain people dying, he is clearly not kill-happy..
 * Time Skip: Three major ones occur within the 105-minute timespan of the film. The first occurs during the Distant Prologue, or at least the distant prologue presented in in Bright Eyes' flashback, creating an undetermined amount of time between when she was captured and brought to the Gen Sys laboratories. Two more timeskips occur after that, whittling down 8 years of Caesar's life into 40–70 minutes.
 * Too Dumb to Live:
 * All three ape-housing facilities that we see have the worst animal-handling policies imaginable.
 * Towers of Hanoi: named in the film the "Lucas Tower", after its inventor, even though no one calls it that.
 * Trailers Always Spoil:
 * Averted with
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: Assuming that the beginning takes place in modern-day 2011, that would point the film's events taking place between 2014 and 2019.
 * Unstoppable Rage: Caesar, when he sees Charles Rodman being bullied by his neighbor, goes berserk and attacks the neighbor, eventually biting off one of his fingers until Will Rodman manages to call out to him and snaps him out of his enraged state.
 * Undying Loyalty: Caesar apparently earned this from Buck the gorilla when he let him out of his cage for the first time.
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Will's neighbors don't notice a large primate looking out his windows and ask about it. No one notices the primate in the back of his station wagon as he drives around. Primates on leashes must be a common sight in California state parks.
 * Weirdness Censor: The Sanctuary manager clearly notices that something is off when he sees the apes 'political rally', but he ignores it because it's just a bunch of silly apes.
 * We Need a Distraction: Caesar and his apes battle the California Highway Patrol on the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a distraction so that most of the apes could escape by crossing the bridge from underneath undetected. Also, Will needs to get past the police to reach Caesar, so Caroline climbs onto the railing to get their attention.
 * Wham! Line:
 * What Happened to the Mouse?:
 * We never see what becomes of Caroline after the battle on the Golden Gate Bridge. Did she actually get arrested? Do she and Will get back together? Then again, considering that it's shown already that the human race is doomed, maybe we're better off not finding out.
 * John Landon also vanishes from the film rather abruptly; he is last seen discovering the police watching security cam footage of his son's death at the hands of Caesar.
 * You Shall Not Pass: Done with an orangutan wielding a manhole cover and a gorilla wielding a parking meter he ripped from the pavement. Exactly as awesome as it sounds.
 * You Will Be Spared: Will Rodman, Caroline, and the person in charge of the San Bruno Animal Pound were spared without a single scratch. Rodney, the guard who worked alongside Dodge is an interesting case: Though he was at the mercy at a furious No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, he was still spared since, compared to Dodge, he treated the apes with more compassion and actually tried to stop Dodge's ruthless tactics on more than one occasion.
 * You Will Be Spared: Will Rodman, Caroline, and the person in charge of the San Bruno Animal Pound were spared without a single scratch. Rodney, the guard who worked alongside Dodge is an interesting case: Though he was at the mercy at a furious No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, he was still spared since, compared to Dodge, he treated the apes with more compassion and actually tried to stop Dodge's ruthless tactics on more than one occasion.