Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011): Cast, Plot and Ending

The full story of Rise of the Planet of the Apes follows Caesar from a pampered home life to the leadership of an ape uprising, and it runs in three movements: the house, the shelter and the bridge.

As an adult, Caesar sees a neighbor attack the again ailing Charles and hurts the man. For that, he is sent to a rundown ape shelter run by John Landon and his son Dodge. Dodge and the other caretakers treat the apes cruelly, and Caesar makes friends there, such as the orangutan Maurice, while learning how to win the alpha role among the apes.

Meanwhile, Will develops a stronger gas version of the drug, ALZ-113. Charles dies after taking it, and a lab colleague, Robert Franklin, is infected during testing and dies. Will quits Gen-Sys.

Caesar steals canisters of the gas and uses them to raise the intelligence of the other shelter apes. He speaks aloud for the first time when he defends himself against Dodge. The apes break out, free more apes from the San Francisco Zoo, and push on toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

A police blockade fights them there, and the apes win, with the gorilla Buck giving his life to bring down a helicopter. Will finds Caesar and asks him to come home, but Caesar tells him the redwood forest is his home now, and Will lets him go. The apes escape into the woods north of the city, while the virus carried by an infected man starts to spread around the world.

The ending of Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a farewell between Caesar and Will, and, in my opinion, it is the most important choice in the film, because it turns a rescue story into the start of a species leaving its keepers.

After the fight on the Golden Gate Bridge, the apes cross to the forest and gain their freedom. Will finds Caesar and asks him to return home. Caesar answers that his home is now with the apes in the woods. Will accepts this and leaves him there.

Why does this land? It could be argued that Caesar was never a pet who rebelled, but a member of the family who learned that the family was not enough. The shelter showed him cruelty, so the redwood forest is the first place that belongs to him. The scene also fits the film's structure, since Will's research set the uprising in motion and Will is the one who watches it end.

There is a cost on the human side too. Charles dies after taking the stronger ALZ-113 and Franklin is infected during testing, so Will's research costs human lives as well as freeing the apes. The credits make the larger cost explicit, setting up the human decline and ape rise that follow in the series.

For what happens next, dawn of the planet of the apes opens ten years after a virus wiped out most of humanity, with a colony of intelligent apes led by Caesar living in the forest outside San Francisco. That is the direct answer to the ending, and it is why the chronological order of the planet of the apes timeline starts here.

One small observation: the name Dodge Landon combines the names of two astronauts in the 1968 film, Landon and Dodge, and perhaps the shelter owner is a quiet nod to it. That is a reading, not a confirmed intention.

Yes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has a scene during the credits, and it shows how the human world ends.

Will's neighbor, who was infected earlier, is shown as a pilot getting ready to fly from San Francisco to New York. A map then shows lines spreading across the world, starting with Europe and then Africa, to show the virus spreading.

It is a short sequence, but it changes what the bridge battle means. The apes have won their freedom, yet the larger event of the saga is already in motion, and the infected pilot is the link to the pandemic that Dawn picks up ten years later.