War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
After the apes suffer severe losses, Caesar is driven by grief and revenge and leads his people into a brutal conflict with a human army. He travels with a small group of allies while searching for safety and justice for his tribe. The confrontation with the ruthless Colonel determines the fate of both apes and humans.
Narrative Score
Full Plot & Ending Explained
Intro
In 2028, two years after the Battle of San Francisco, Caesar leads a hidden ape colony that is being hunted by the human military faction Alpha-Omega, commanded by the Colonel, while Caesar’s allies Maurice, Rocket, Luca, and Winter try to keep the tribe alive. When an attack on an ape outpost leaves only a few human captives and the traitorous gorilla Red alive, Caesar briefly releases the prisoners in a gesture of peace, but the war between apes and humans has already become personal.
Turning Point 1
After Red escapes and Caesar’s son Blue Eyes returns from scouting with news of an oasis, the Colonel raids the colony at night and kills Cornelia and Blue Eyes, believing he has killed Caesar. Caesar is left shattered by the loss of his family, and he decides to send most of the tribe toward the oasis while he, Rocket, Maurice, and Luca stay behind as decoys to mislead the humans.
Turning Point 2
Caesar’s small group journeys through abandoned human territory and reaches a ruined village, where Caesar kills a human in self-defense and discovers a mute human girl, whom Maurice takes under his protection. They then encounter Winter, who has betrayed the apes and is now working with Alpha-Omega after helping expose the colony’s location, and Caesar learns the Colonel is moving north to join the rest of the military.
Turning Point 3
As Caesar pursues the Colonel, he discovers the cruelty of Alpha-Omega has turned against its own soldiers, since some have executed deserters and others have been killed by the virus spreading among them. The group also meets Bad Ape, a solitary intelligent ape who has survived in isolation, and from him Caesar learns more about the Colonel’s northern destination and the scale of the human army’s collapse.
Turning Point 4
Caesar finally reaches the Colonel’s fortress, but he is captured, tortured, and publicly humiliated in a camp used to imprison apes and slaves called “donkeys.” The Colonel explains that a devastating Simian flu mutation is destroying humans’ ability to speak, and he justifies his extermination campaign by claiming he is trying to save what remains of humanity, while Caesar is forced to watch apes labor and suffer under the Colonel’s rule.
Turning Point 5
At the same time, the trapped apes riot after the mute girl helps them and after Caesar’s allies infiltrate the camp, leading to a chaotic battle between the imprisoned apes and Alpha-Omega soldiers. During the fighting, Rocket and Maurice help Caesar’s people escape, Luca is killed, and Caesar barely survives long enough to confront the Colonel directly as the camp falls apart around them.
Ending
Caesar finds the Colonel infected and dying from the virus, and the Colonel admits that the human survivors are doomed no matter what he does. As a final act, Caesar prevents him from killing the apes with a grenade, but the structure collapses in the battle and Caesar is badly wounded; he later dies in the arms of his people after ensuring the tribe reaches the promised oasis, where the survivors begin building a new home as Maurice raises Caesar’s son Cornelius and honors Caesar’s legacy.
Cross-checked against Wikipedia and other public film references. View on Letterboxd ↗ The Narrative Score above is an experimental 5-axis rating, not a critic score.