Dodge Landon

**Dodge Landon** was the son of John Landon, owner of the San Bruno Primate Shelter where Caesar was sent following his attack on Douglas Hunsiker. He worked there as a guard under his father, but administered horrible treatment and cruelty to the primates there, bordering on torture for no apparent reason. This eventually became the death of him.

## Biography

### Rise of the Planet of Apes

Dodge is first seen when he shows Caesar to his cell, feigning being polite before showing his true colors after the ape entered his cell. Later on, he abuses Caesar and tells his co-worker Rodney that he's looking forward to the pain Caesar receives in first time in the yard with the other apes. He would tranquilize Caesar and Rocket, the alpha of the shelter. Dodge is nearly attacked by a visiting Will Rodman who found a wound on Caesar but it is broken up by his father. He brought some friends to the Primate Shelter to show off his power over the apes, but one carelessly got too close to Caesar's cage and was grabbed and relieved of his pocket knife, unknown to any of the humans present.

Caesar later escaped the facility using the knife, after which he stole the ALZ-113 virus from Will Rodman's house and proceeded to infect the other apes at the facility. After Dodge caught Caesar out of his cage, he attempted to attack him with his stun baton but was quickly subdued by an angry Caesar who surprised Dodge by shouting "No!" before knocking him out and placing him in a cage.

After Caesar freed the other Apes from their cages, Dodge woke up and once again attempted to attack. Caesar defended himself by spraying Dodge with a fire hose (the same hose Dodge himself had used to torture Caesar earlier) the water from which made contact with Dodge's stun baton just as he was going to strike, electrocuting Dodge and killing him instantly.

## Personality

Dodge was arrogant, rude, and a bully towards both the apes at the San Bruno Primate Shelter and towards Rodney. His behavior gave him a sense of power and thus he felt no guilt or remorse for his actions. Despite his egocentricity, he feared his father, John Landon, as he was both Dodge's boss and the owner of shelter, knowing that if his father ever found out that he had mistreated the apes, John would not hesitate to fire his own son.

Dodge's continuous mistreatment of Caesar and the other apes was ultimately one of the reasons that caused Caesar to begin the Ape Rebellion. These actions were also what lead to his deserved/justified death at the hands of Caesar, albeit by accident.

## Notes

* **Dodge** was the secondary antagonist of *Rise of the Planet of the Apes*.

## Trivia

* The extremely famous line from the 1968 film *"Take your stinkin' paws off me you damn dirty ape!"* is said by Dodge Landon whilst he is fighting Caesar. In the 1968 film it is spoken by Taylor, the film's hero/protagonist, while Dodge is the secondary villain of the 2011 film.
* Coincidentally, and *very ironically*, Tom Felton was attacked by a baboon while reading over the script of the movie. This is interestingly quite ironic, considering that the character he played, Dodge, had a strong aversion to primates (mainly great apes).
* If you listen carefully during the scene when Dodge accuses Rodney of stealing his cookies, Rodney does say Dodge's name.
* Before the scene where John finds the apes gathered to listen to Caesar's speech, a TV with the volume extremely low says that the spaceship *Icarus* proves that Mars once had life. However, Dodge and Rodney aren't paying attention to the TV; instead Dodge is blaming Rodney for stealing the chocolate chip cookies which Caesar had taken.
* In an earlier version of the script, Dodge is merely put in a cage by Caesar at the facility, rather than killed. He later assists the police at the Golden Gate Bridge (a role largely taken by Steven Jacobs in the movie) and tries to shoot Caesar, but is thrown off the bridge to his death by Buck.
* The name of Tom Felton's character 'Dodge Landon' is a reference to the characters Dodge and Landon, Taylor's fellow astronaut crew-members in the original *Planet of the Apes*, played by Jeff Burton and Robert Gunner respectively; in directly quoting Taylor's dialogue such as *"It's a madhouse! A MADHOUSE!!"* and *"Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape"*, Dodge Landon is an amalgam of all three astronaut characters.
* Brandon Routh, Kellan Lutz and Steven R. McQueen auditioned for the role of Dodge.
* Dodge is the first human to be killed by Caesar; albeit by accident.