Caesar is a fictional character in the 20th Century Fox's Planet of the Apes franchise. He is the leader of the apes in both the original and reboot series. Caesar is portrayed by Roddy McDowall in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973); his likeness is reprised in the comic series Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes (2016). Andy Serkis portrayed the character in the reboot series, consisting of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017).
Caesar is an evolved chimpanzee who is the leader of the ape army, the king of the ape colony, and the patriarch of the royal ape family. In the original series, Caesar is the biological son of Cornelius and Zira, the foster son of Armando, the husband of Lisa, and the father of Cornelius II. In the comic series, Caesar was raised by Cornelius and Zira, along with a human adoptive brother, Tarzan.
In the rebooted series, Caesar is instead the son of Alpha and Bright Eyes, two normal apes, the latter of which was experimented on in an effort to cure Alzheimer's, with the intelligence gained passed on to Caesar. Caesar is raised by Will Rodman, the scientist in charge of the experiment, and his girlfriend Caroline Aranha after the death of his mother, but is forced to live in captivity at the San Bruno Primate Shelter after attacking a neighbor.
Caesar later leads his fellow apes in a rebellion against abusive handlers and the police by unleashing the deadly ALZ-113 virus, which is dangerous to the human population but not the apes. Caesar maintains dominance over his community of intelligent apes while also having to deal with the threat of war against human survivors, who had been pushed to near-extinction due to a pandemic known as the Simian Flu, originating from the ALZ-113 virus.
Serkis' performance as Caesar in the rebooted series garnered praise from critics.
Contents
Background
Original series
Born as "Milo", named after his parents' friend Dr. Milo, Caesar first appeared in Escape from the Planet of the Apes as the son of talking chimpanzees Cornelius and Zira after they travelled back in time to the Earth of Taylor's era. As the infant was feared to be the cause of the future where his parents originated, Milo was raised by circus owner Armando after Zira switched him with a young chimpanzee recently born to Armando's primitive chimpanzee, Heloise, prior to his parents' death by the action of the human Dr. Otto Hasslein. As Hasslein killed the infant with Zira disposing of the body, Milo was assumed dead and was raised by Armando as a mute acrobat who was renamed "Caesar".
In Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, two decades after the events in Escape, a now-adult Caesar and Armando maintain a charade by having Armando keep him on a chain as a pet, while Armando secretly educates Caesar on the events that led to the apes' state of slavery. Caesar is taken to a city for the first time and sees groups of apes being dispersed, chimps and orangutans being scolded or punished for honest mistakes or for exhibiting apelike behavior. Upon seeing the barbaric treatments of his fellow apes, he impulsively cries out, "Lousy human bastards!" Armando attempts to convince the police that he was the one who spoke, but Caesar panics and runs away in the commotion with Armando deciding to have him join an arrival shipment of apes while he attempts to bluff his way out of trouble.
Passing his conditioning with flying colors, Caesar is held at an auction and is sold to Governor Breck and supervised by his assistant Mr. MacDonald. When Breck brings out a reference book as a means to formally name him, Caesar chooses his adopted name under the guise of a random picking and is assigned to the city's "ape management" command post and its lockup for disobedient apes. He is also selected to mate with Lisa at that time. When Caesar learns that Armando died while in custody, he plots an ape revolt and convinces the other apes to join him. But Caesar is belatedly traced, where he soon gets captured and then gets interrogated and tortured by Breck, who forces him to expose his identity as the offspring of Cornelius and Zira. When Breck is about to execute Caesar, MacDonald excuses himself from the scene and turns off the breaker settings for the electroshock table, where Caesar pretends to be dead before he kills the handler and begins the revolt. Within hours, the city is in flames, the police and military have been beaten down, and the apes are now in control. Caesar predicts that word will spread of his revolution and the same thing will soon happen around the world. Despite MacDonald's pleas to prevent further violence, Caesar declares that humanity will destroy itself and the apes will become the masters of the world, only to cease when Lisa musters the ability to speak, convincing Caesar not to condemn all of humanity.
Comic series
In Tarzan on the Planet of the Apes, following an alternate take on Escape from the Planet of the Apes, where Cornelius, Zira and Dr. Milo traveled to late-1800s Africa instead of the 1970s, the apes become the leaders of the Mangani, and Caesar and the human Tarzan are raised as brothers. However, as Tarzan grows up and humans arrive in the jungle, the brothers are separated by slave traders, reuniting only when the war between man and ape takes them from the jungles of Africa to the inner earth realm of Pellucidar.
Reboot series
Caesar is the main protagonist of the reboot series, sharing the previous version's compassionate nature while forbidding his followers from killing innocent humans and those who don't seek to harm them. However unlike his original incarnation, he doesn't seek for global conquest and to enslave humanity for he sees both man and apes as unlikely equals, indicating that his bloodline will watch over the humans that survived the Simian Flu, who are now devolved of intelligence and reverted to animal instincts.
First appearing in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar is the son of a female chimpanzee Bright Eyes who was taken from the African wild to the pharmaceutical company Gen-Sys in the San Francisco Bay Area to be subjected to an experimental viral-based cure of Alzheimer's known as ALZ-112. Developed by Will Rodman, ALZ-112 genetically increases Bright Eyes' intelligence that gets passed onto Caesar as he was still in his mother's womb. When born, Caesar ends up orphaned after his mother is killed trying to protect him, an action mistaken by lab security after she runs amok, which labels the experiment a failure. Caesar is saved by sympathetic ape handler Franklin, after which Will smuggles the little ape out of the lab and takes him back home. Will's father Charles, who has Alzheimer's disease, names him after Julius Caesar. Discovering that Caesar has inherited his mother's intelligence through being exposed to ALZ-112, Will decides to raise him. Following an incident where he attacks their aggressive neighbor who threatens Charles, Caesar is forced to stay at the San Bruno Primate Shelter, an ape sanctuary where he is tormented by one of the caretakers while gradually taking command of the apes, while also developing a close friendship with a Bornean orangutan named Maurice. Caesar eventually proves smart enough when he breaks free from his cage, steals the ALZ-113, a stronger version of the intelligence-enhancing formula and releases it among the other captive apes. After saying his first word "No!" in a confrontation with one of the caretakers, Caesar leads the apes out of the sanctuary as they recruit other captive apes from the zoo and from Gen-Sys, rallying them to escape San Francisco and make their way to the Muir Woods while clashing with the police. Once in the Muir Woods, Caesar shares an emotional farewell with Rodman as he decides to live free among his own kind.
In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, set ten years after the ALZ-113 virus decimated most of the human population, Caesar is now middle-aged and mated to Cornelia. They have two sons, Blue Eyes and a newborn, Cornelius. While assuming the humans to have died out, Caesar discovers that humans are still alive when he sees a group from the remnants of San Francisco entering their territory and personally warns them to stay out. When the group's leader Malcolm explains they are trying to repair a dam to return power to the city, Caesar allows them to do their work. Despite the successful repairing of the dam and the growing friendship between apes and humans, Koba, a bonobo, becomes disillusioned with Caesar after seeing his leader's compassion and respect for the humans. He shoots Caesar, framing the humans, and leads the apes into attacking the humans and their colony. Caesar survives the gunshot and is nursed back to health by Malcolm's wife, Ellie. Blue Eyes helps Caesar free his loyal allies before Caesar confronts Koba and ultimately kills him. As the military arrives, having been called during Koba's takeover, Caesar realizes that the damage has already been done. He convinces Malcolm to flee with his family as he and his clan prepare to fight the military.
Reception
Andy Serkis's performance as Caesar in the rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy garnered massive critical acclaim. Andrew Howley from National Geographic has compared Caesar's evolution to that of natural human evolution. Fans have embraced Caesar as one of the best film characters of the 2010s, as well as one of the most impressive displays of visual effects in cinema. Many fans were upset due to the lack of Academy Award nominations Serkis received for his performance. In particular, fans were upset that Serkis was not nominated for Best Actor for his performance in War for the Planet of the Apes.
Accolades
Serkis's performance as Caesar gained many nominations for several awards. Serkis won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, as well as nominations Empire Award for Best Actor, Broadcast Film Critics Association award for Best Supporting Actor, and the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture.
For his performance in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Serkis was nominated for the AACTA International Award for Best Supporting Actor, won the Empire Award for Best Actor, as well as being nominated again for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor.
For his performance in War For the Planet of the Apes, Serkis was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actor, and won many awards from the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association, San Francisco Film Critics Circle, Utah Film Critics Association, Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society, and the Houston Film Critics Society award for Best Actor.