Caesar (Planet of the Apes Reboot)

**Caesar** is the main protagonist of the *Planet of The Apes* reboot trilogy. He is an evolved chimpanzee adopted by the late Will Rodman, now leading and ruling a colony of fellow apes to protect them from the worst of mankind.

He was portrayed by Andy Serkis.

## What Makes Him Magnificent?

* Andy Serkis' performance is astonishingly good, whether he's doing sign language or talking with his voice. This combined with the CGI could genuinely fool audiences into thinking most of the main cast consisted of ***real*** apes.
* His entire life story can easily be summed up as one great tragedy. In *Rise*, his birth mother got killed by humans when he was just an infant, he got imprisoned and abused by humans himself as an adult, and then finally he had to abandon his own adoptive father Will in order to be there for his own kind. In *Dawn*, any and all chances of establishing peace between humans and apes gets horribly destroyed by Koba's actions. In the first act of *War*, his wife Cornelia and firstborn son Blue Eyes are murdered by Colonel McCullough thanks to being ratted out by two fellow apes.
* Although xenophobia is the main theme of these movies, Caesar personally doesn't display any of it and is totally friendly with humans so long as they don't pose a threat to his kingdom. For example, he mercy-kills a dying man who succumbed to the Simian flu and then got shot by Colonel McCullough.
	+ Even if the humans he faces are hostile, he's willing to give second chances most of the time. He initially spares Dodge and only kills him in self-defense when he leaves his cell with a cattle prod, spares Rodney because he was nice to the apes, stops Buck from killing a defenseless cop, lets Malcolm's group fix a hydroelectric dam fueling their power grid back home despite Carver's previous string of screwups, spares Preacher's group of men despite them attacking his village, and even shows a modicum of pity for Colonel McCullough in his final moments even though he literally killed his wife and firstborn son just a few days ago.
* As for thinking on his feet, he stages a successful breakout in order to liberate all of his fellow apes in both *Rise* and *War*, and even manages to do so from within prison walls both times. He also plays Xanatos Speed Chess when the cops try to ambush the apes on the bridge at the end of *Rise*.
* He has two scenarios of punishing definitive Asshole Victims:
	1. Giving Koba permission to kill Steven Jacobs at the end of *Rise*.
	2. Retaking his place as leader of the apes by killing Koba in a fight at the end of *Dawn* and ignoring his hypocritical logic of "Ape not kill ape" with him even calling out Koba during their fight for the fact that he has no excuse for anything he did by saying "Koba Belong in Cage".
* He has a pretty badass death. After getting shot with an arrow, he still has enough strength to grenade Colonel McCullough's camp wall and even manages to survive the ensuing explosion and avalanche. After that, when he finally leads the apes to their new home, he calmly closes his eyes after telling Maurice that their kind will be fine without him.

## What Makes Him a Baddie?

* He bites Hunsiker's finger (almost off) for calling the cops on his mentally ill grandfather Charles. Although Hunsiker was definitely a grade-A jerkass (and Caesar even shows remorse afterwards), biting a body part was still going too far.
* He becomes a clear anti-hero in *War*. He smothers fellow ape Winter to death, points a gun at the child Nova and even considers leaving her behind after killing her father in self-defense, and doesn't even express much remorse when the avalanche he caused kills an entire wave of humans attacking Colonel McCullough's base. He even admits that he's becoming like Koba.