| “ | Caesar gone... Apes follow Koba now! | „ |
| ~ Koba after killing the defiant Ash for expressing remaining loyalty to the "dead" Caesar. |
| “ | Sleep. You cannot save them. Apes all die here. | „ |
| ~ Koba taunting and urging Caesar to die as a hallucination/Ghost. |
| “ | We’ll destroy them while they’re weak. | „ |
| ~ Koba on his proposal to kill all humans. |
Koba is the main antagonist of 20th Century Studios's Planet of the Apes reboot franchise.
He was a cruel, vengeful and aggressive evolved bonobo ape who grew extreme hatred and hostility against humanity from their relentless abuse towards him. He's the former friend and brother figure-turned-arch-enemy of Caesar, who later opposed his ideas by showing compassion to and respecting humankind while he himself is belligerent to every human despite their ill involvement against the apes. Even though he would respect his apes, including Caesar, he would eventually injure or kill anyone in his way (even his species) because they opposed him.
In the third installment, War for the Planet of the Apes, he reappeared as Caesar's hallucination who berates the latter of his protection to the rest of the apes, during his torture from accidentally killing Winter.
In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he was portrayed by Christopher Gordon in motion-capture. Further into the trilogy, he is later portrayed by Toby Kebbell also in motion-capture.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- Having a deep-seated hatred of humanity. He desires to hurt and kill any of them he sees. When it turns some humans survived the Simian Flu, Koba insists that the ape colony should not trust them and should start a war with them.
- While Koba’s hatred and distrust of humans is very understandable and partially justified considering his numerous horrific experiences with humans (as listed in his preventions), this does not justify trying to wipe them all out, as there are good humans, and desiring and attempting to commit genocide is extremely evil in any case.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes[]
- He tries to attack and kill Will when he followed the apes to the woods trying to speak to Caesar. While Will did experiment on Koba, he was still nice to him and even offered him cookies, showing just how blinded Koba is to the kindness of some humans.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes prequel comic[]
- When Caesar sent Koba, Cloud, and Rain on a scouting mission, Koba, against Caesar's command, killed a human with a broken ankle who begged him.
- When Cloud was about to report Koba's action to Caesar, Koba called Cloud a "bad ape" and bludgeoned him to death with a rock.
- When Koba and Rain returned to Caesar and informed him about Cloud's death, Koba blamed the humans and forced Rain to play along, while also hypocritically claiming that apes shouldn't kill other apes.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes[]
- He tries to attack Malcolm and his son Alexander, just because the latter talked back at Koba for pushing him down just for accidentally getting in his way.
- He deceives a couple of human guards, Terry and McVeigh, by feigning friendliness and playing dumb before stealing a gun from them and gleefully murdering them with it while showing no remorse.
- While they did pose a threat to him, considered killing him earlier, and also insulted him with insults like that of his past abusers, they eventually spared him and the fact that Koba chose to toy with Terry and McVeigh a second time, took a moment to savor their shock at his deception, and smirked after killing them while being ungrateful that they spared him, is a prime example of his sadism.
- He brutally kills Carver just to get his lighter. While Carver isn't exactly a sympathetic character due to his excessive hatred against apes, shooting Ash, and threatening to kill Cornelius (a newborn ape) and Blue Eyes when his gun was discovered, Koba did not kill him for those reasons.
- He shoots and critically injures Caesar, while burning the ape colony and blaming it all on the humans to further manipulate the apes into waging war against them, even though this had nothing to do with the humans shooting Caesar because it was Koba himself who shot him.
- While he may have initially regretted killing Caesar, even hesitating to shoot him, this is subverted when he brushed it off as something he needed to do, called him weak when he met him again, and tried to kill him twice.
- What makes his betrayal of Caesar even worse is that Caesar is the one who saved him from the Gen-Sys lab where he was experimented on, and gave him a caring and providing life for 10 years.
- During the battle, he displays a great amount of wrath and bloodlust, roaring primally and laughing manically while shooting at the humans. He and the apes killed very many humans, also indirectly as well as many of them being killed in the Battle of San Francisco.
- Takes control of San Francisco in his own power and freedom along with the help of the ape colony, making him the tyrant of both apes and humans.
- He then orders the apes to imprison the remaining humans in cage and was planning to kill them after he had learned from them how to better work human weapons and machines, as he wanted to rule the city.
- Koba murders Ash for refusing to obey his command to murder an unarmed man because it wasn't what Caesar would want.
- This is arguably Koba's most vile act since his reason for killing Ash was rather petty, and because Ash was a young ape (only eight years old). It is mentioned that Koba's need to reinforce his new position as the apes' leader was understandable, but killing Ash for simple defiance was going too far and violated the Ape not kill Ape law. There's also the fact that Ash was his honorary surrogate nephew.
- He imprisons any apes who don't follow his rule, even fellow advisors and Caesar's friends Maurice and Rocket.
- When confronted by Caesar over his betrayal and how he'd trusted Koba like a brother, Koba merely replies that Caesar was only a brother to humans. He also claims that he fights for apes and freed them, despite his actions proving otherwise.
- When some debris falls on his lieutenant Grey, he lifts up the debris, but takes his gun and drops it back on him, leaving him to die.
- When fighting Caesar, he takes a gun and begins wildly shooting at Caesar, murdering Furaha and wounding Maurice in the process, demonstrating how Koba no longer cared about his fellow apes and would do anything to exact revenge and keep power.
- When he's about to fall to his death and Caesar has the chance to save him, Koba asks for his life to be spared by reminding him of how Caesar said "ape not kill ape" just moments after Koba himself had killed other apes, further proving his hypocrisy.
- Even if his demise was undeniably brutal, it was completely necessary for peace given what Koba had done throught the trilogy.
War for the Planet of the Apes/Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes[]
- Even after Caesar put an end to his reign, Koba's overall actions would provoke the war against humanity, thus forever ruining any chance of peace between the two species, indirectly causing deaths of Caesar, many other apes and the rest of human survivors.
- It is acknowledged by Caesar that Koba was right that war between humans and apes was inevitable, because even without Koba, there would always be apes that would never forgive the atrocities humanity committed against the apes and there would always be humans that would never tolerate the existence of a civilization of sapient apes. However, this does not change or excuse the fact that Koba initiated the war in the first place.
- Generations later, almost all apes would forget about Caesar's teachings and many of them (including Proximus Caesar) would indirectly follow Koba's teachings, making him indirectly responsible for the events of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- Despite everything that he has committed, he has an incredibly tragic past as he was originally an innocent, kind and friendly ape before suffering numerous traumas which shaped his current mentality, affecting his mental health and making him very pitiable. In fact, it is specifically mentioned by Maurice that Koba has suffered more than the other characters in the Planet of the Apes franchise, making him far too sympathetic and tragic to even be Near Pure Evil. All the horrible experiences that he had to put up with in the past are listed below:
- As a young ape, he was wrongfully conditioned by his human caregiver, Mary, to believe he was human.
- He lost his mother at a very young age when she died defending him from an abusive alcoholic named Roger.
- He was sold to an abusive TV producer named Tommy, who forced Koba to do silly tricks and would electrocute or beat him whenever he showed even the slightest signs of disobedience or incompetence. Although Koba had a friend in a young chimp named Milo during this time, which was of some comfort, they were never as close as Koba was to his late mother.
- When Koba finally tried to defend himself from Tommy’s abuse, Tommy punished Koba by scarring and blinding his left eye by slashing it with a knife and then burning it with a lit cigarette.
- After Tommy committed suicide out of depression over his show being cancelled, Koba and Milo were separated by the animal control.
- He spent many years as a lab ape, during which he was experimented on countless times in horrific and painful ways by countless different scientists, and otherwise kept locked up in cages which had no enrichment. These torturous years had a massive impact on Koba’s psyche and even caused him to self-harm.
- He was sadistically taunted by Steven Jacobs, who called Koba the “ugliest ape in the world” and told him he was nothing but an animal. This was Koba’s breaking point with humanity, sealing his hatred of them forever.
- These awful experiences make Koba’s hatred and fear of humans very understandable and justifiable.
- Koba's tragedy is brought up quite a lot and played for sympathy in most instances, with Caesar and Maurice still sympathizing with him to an extent, even after his betrayal and death.
- He is shown to be severely affected by his past, as he suffers from flashbacks and nightmares about it.
- He is mentioned to feel genuinely hurt, confused and angry by Caesar's decision to help the humans.
- Koba's beating, humiliation and near death by Caesar in front of the ape colony and Malcolm's family, while acknowledged to be his own fault because he accused Caesar of loving humans more than apes (though its also made clear that Koba did not intend to provoke Caesar into a fight), is still played for sympathy and serves as the final tipping point for Koba's descent into madness and villainy, for several reasons:
- It reminded him of the abuse he received from humans.
- He was deeply humiliated by the fact that it happened in front of both apes and humans.
- It is implied he felt betrayed by the fact that none of the other apes tried to help him, as he was visibly hurt when they looked away from him, and later when he is thinking about his plan to overthrow Caesar, he reflects on the fact that the other apes won't help him, since they didn't help him at the dam.
- It is specifically mentioned by Maurice that Caesar's domination and shaming of Koba at the dam broke him, and, maybe that if the humans hadn't returned-if Caesar hadn't worked with them, he would never have decided to betray Caesar, and would've instead eventually have died of old age as a loved and respected member of the ape colony.
- In the third movie, it is acknowledged that Caesar is becoming like Koba, showing that the latter's actions are meant to be completely understandable.
- There are times where he is painted in a sympathetic light due to his unwarranted abuse even if it doesn’t make him a scapegoat.
- The scene where he is tortured and experimented on under the orders of Steve Jacobs is treated as a bad thing as he seen in clear distress and even starts to violently shake due to the experiment.
- The aforementioned scene where Caesar beats him to the point of bleeding is depicted as Caesar going too far and Koba is shown to be sad whilst looking at Caesar.
- Even his death, while necessary for peace, is still treated with a slight extent of sympathy by the narrative, as the apes mourn his death rather than celebrate it despite his betrayal and tyranny. In the beginning of War for the Planet of the Apes, Caesar also appears to feel some level of remorse for killing him, and for not being able to understand his vendetta against mankind.
- He genuinely loves his mother, whose death severely hurt him emotionally and although this is never mentioned in-universe, there's nothing indicating that he subverted any love for his mother.
- Although this is subverted in the second movie, he felt anger when Pope, a former friend, went behind Caesar's back and plotted an army to take control of Caesar's troop, all while imprisoning and killing primal apes from a zoo that did not show the advanced level of intelligence that the other apes exhibited. Koba would kill Pope and order his followers to never return while allowing the caged and primal apes to return with him to Caesar.
External Links[]
- Koba on the Villains Wiki
- Koba on the Planet of the Apes Wiki
