Apes. Massive spoilers below.
We start with some soldiers hunting for the apes. they are being helped by a gorilla. A battle happens, and the soldiers are defeated. Caesar (Andy Serkis) sends some of the survivors back. One of the apes who helped the humans later escapes.
- Some of the soldiers have the Greek letters alpha and omega stenciled on their helmets. This is in reference to the Alpha-Omega bomb in Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
- The apes collaborating with these soldiers are called donkeys. Some of them had been Koba's followers from the previous film.
- Blue Eyes (Caesar's son) and other apes return from scouting. They located a suitable homeland for the tribe at the other end of the desert.
Spoiler
- Here is where the main conflict begins. Some soldiers from Alpha Omega attack the tribe at their home, killing several apes, including Blue Eyes and Cornelia (Caesar's wife)
- Caesar wants revenge, so he wants to go out and personally take down the Colonel who led the attack. But he wants to go alone, having sent the rest of the tribe- including his sole surviving son, Cornelius, to their new homeland across the desert. Having led his tribe for twelve years, he knew he had to think of the tribe's well-being first, and as such chose to go alone instead of bringing them all with him. Of course, his loyalest apes- Maurice, Rocket, and Luca- accompany him, to make sure that he can come back so he can join his people in his new homeland.
Spoiler
- In the Alpha-Omega Base, Caesar and company encounter Winter, a white-furred gorilla who had defected from Caesar's tribe to join the Alpha-Omega unit. Confronting the defector, they learn the Colonel and his main force are heading to a location called the border. Caesar puts his hand over Winter's mouth to keep the guards in the base from hearing them, but this causes Winter to die of asphyxiation.
Caesar starts to worry that he is becoming like Koba, the renegade bonobo from the previous film.
Caesar starts to worry that he is becoming like Koba, the renegade bonobo from the previous film.
-Later on, they investigate an apparently abandoned settlement. they encounter a man carrying firewood. The man aims a firearm at the apes, and Caesar reacts by shooting him. They look further, and Maurice finds a human girl who happens to be mute. Caesar says that they should go on without her, but Maurice says he can not leave the girl behind.
Spoiler
- Caesar and company chase someone who stole one of their horses, who is revealed to be a chimpanzee. His name is Bad Ape, and he once lived at the Sierra Safari Zoo in Reno, Nevada. While Bad Ape plays further role in the film, his introduction is important as it reveals a significant fact about the setting. Bad Ape was never exposed directly to the ALZ-113 nor a descendant of those were were.
Instead, as he explains, human get sick, ape get smart. Maurice and Caesar then wonder if there are other evolved apes all over the world.
Instead, as he explains, human get sick, ape get smart. Maurice and Caesar then wonder if there are other evolved apes all over the world.
Presumably, in the early days of the Simian Flu outbreak, humans were killing apes because apes were carriers of the disease.
Bad Ape took to the habit of wearing a winter coat to survive the harsh winters of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Koba (Toby Kebbel) appears in a dream sequence. Caesar is still haunted by his killing of Winter and the father of the mute girl.
Caesar and company discover the buried bodies of some Alpha-Omega soldiers in winter gear. They have all been shot. One of them is srtill alive, but is unable to speak.
The apes tied to crosses are a reference to the scene in Planet of the Apes (1968) when the astronauts discover the scarecrows.
Caesar and company arrives at the place that Bad Ape called the "human zoo" Caesar sees that his tribe had been captured. Caesar himself is soon captured afterward. The other apes and the mute girl hide in the tunnels underneath the base
Caesar meets with Colonel McCullough (Woody Harrelson) in his office overlooking the facility. McCullough reveals that the soldiers he killed were suffering a mutated version of the Simian flu, which makes them mute and destroys their cognitive abilities. He also reveals that he had to kill his own son. He also reverals that he is using the apes to build a wall to protect him from his superiors, who had relieved him of command.
Alpha-Omega being a splinter group explains why they did not launch a nuke with the Alpha-Omega symbol at the apes' home after McCullough killed Blue Eyes and the other apes- they were not equipped with nukes, and being a rogue faction,
would not be listened to by their superiors
would not be listened to by their superiors
The infected humans were unable to write or to type, given the fact that McCullough concluded they lost their cognitive and reasoning skills, not just their voice.
Here is the scene that shows how much of a badass Caesar is. He intervenes after one of the donkeys whips an ape for screwing up on the construction job. Facing Colonel McCullough, Caesar is whipped repeatedly. The colonel then aims a pistol point blank at Caesar's forehead, and Caesar still insists that the apes be given food and water; he will not give the order to work. The other aopes decide to work to spare Caesar's life.
In the underground tunnels, the mute girl reveals her ability to utilize sign language. She asks if she is an ape. Maurice verbally says, "You are Nova". Nova was the name of the lead female human in the original novel. [/spoilers]
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
this was a fitting end to the trilogy, which is a better film series than the original film series. (If this movie was done in the style of the original series, Caesar would have pressed a button that would fire an orbital superlaser directly towards the Earth) The series as a whole was about Caesar's character development, from becoming a leader and learning what leadership is all about.
The biggest implication for the setting is that
Spoiler
What future civilizations could arise in this planet of the apes. Remember, Caesar was raised among humans for eight years in an evolved state, where he learned literacy and mathematics, and taught it to the other apes. Indeed, his tribe is capable of building walls and towers. However, his tribe did not grow crops, and their home is not good cropland in any event.
Spoiler
Spoiler
Nova still must have retained her cognitive and reasoning abilities to be able to utilize sign language, but the infected soldiers could not even manage that.
It is possible that Nova was infected in utero, and the only ill effectwasd tyhat she was born without the ability to speak, while the soldiers were infected as adaults and regressed to primitive animals
It is possible that Nova was infected in utero, and the only ill effectwasd tyhat she was born without the ability to speak, while the soldiers were infected as adaults and regressed to primitive animals
Another Koba dream sequence.
After Nova sneaks into the camp to give Caesar food and water, and Rocket letting himself get captured so Nova can escape, Caesar and Rocket develop a plan to escape. It starts with Rocket literally throwing ape shit at one of the guards (a soprt of thing he has not done since the end of Rise. The guard goes to the cage to confront Rocket, and then he is pulled down into a hole by Bad Ape. A key is retrieved and the apes manage to be free of their cages.
But there is a spanner in the works- the U.S. militarfy, coming to relieve Colonel McCullough of his command. The Alpha Omega forces fight the attackers as Caesar goes to confront the colonel.
Caesar finally confronts Colonel McCullough to finish the job. But the colonel is lying down on his bed, with empty bottles of whiskey surrounding him. Caesar aims a pistol at him, and the colonel tries to speak, but no words come out. McCullough was infected! His intellect fading, he grabs the barrel of the pistol, begging Caesar to kill him. But hauntedby what he had done the past few days, as well as memories of Koba, Caesar puts down the pistol. As he walks away, he hearsa gunshot.
The battle ends first by Caesar throwing a grenade that detonates a fuel tank whose explosion destroys much of the base. Then the U.S. military arrives to mop up, and then an avalanche crashes down and buries them in snow, with the apes escaping by climbing up the trees.
The apes trek from the Pacific Northwest, across the desert, and into the basin of an alpine lake located somewhere around northwestern Nevada and southwestern Oregon. But it turns out that Caesar had been mortally wounded in the battle with Alpha Omega. He lies down and asks Maurice to tell Cornelius about what he did.
The biggest implication for the setting is that
Spoiler
other evolved apes might be out there, all across the world. they may have formed tribes, and some of those tribes might be led by apes with attitudes similar to that of Koba.
Spoiler
Very few , if any, ape tribes would have leaders or even close advisors to leaders who had learned to read, write, or do arithmetic from humans. But some of them may have grown up on a farm or ranch, and have very rudimentary ideas of how to grow crops or raise livestock.
