List of Planet of the Apes characters
| Planet of the Apes character | |
|---|---|
| Taylor | |
| Species | Human |
| First appearance | Planet of the Apes (1968) |
| Last appearanace | Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) |
| Created by |
Michael Wilson Rod Serling |
| Portrayed by | Charlton Heston |
| Caesar | |
|---|---|
| Planet of the Apes character | |
| First appearance | Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) |
| Created by | Paul Dehn |
| Portrayed by |
Roddy McDowall (Conquest and Battle) Andy Serkis (Rise, Dawn, and War) |
| Voiced by | Walker Edmiston (voice in Escape) |
| Information | |
| Species | Chimpanzee |
| Occupation |
|
| Family |
Zira (mother in Original film) Cornelius (father) Armando (foster father in Original film) Bright Eyes (mother in Reboot film) Will Rodman (foster father in Rise) |
| Spouse(s) |
Lisa (Conquest and Battle) Cornelia (Dawn) |
| Children | Cornelius II Blue eyes (Dawn) |
| Origin | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Planet of the Apes character | |
|---|---|
| Zira | |
| Species | Chimpanzee |
| First appearance | Planet of the Apes |
| Created by | Pierre Boulle |
| Portrayed by | Kim Hunter |
| Planet of the Apes character | |
|---|---|
| Cornelius | |
| Species | Chimpanzee |
| First appearance | Planet of the Apes |
| Created by | Pierre Boulle |
| Portrayed by |
Roddy McDowall David Watson |
| Planet of the Apes character | |
|---|---|
| Dr. Zaius | |
| Species | Orangutan |
| First appearance | Planet of the Apes |
| Created by | Pierre Boulle |
| Portrayed by |
Maurice Evans Booth Colman Richard Blackburn (voice) |
| Planet of the Apes character | |
|---|---|
| Will Rodman | |
| Species | Human |
| First appearance | Rise of the Planet of the Apes |
| Last appearance | Dawn of the Planet of the Apes |
| Created by | Rick Jaffa Amanda Silver |
| Portrayed by | James Franco |
The Planet of the Apes franchise features many characters that appear in one or more works.
George Taylor, more commonly known as Taylor, is the main protagonist of the original Planet of the Apes film and supporting protagonist of Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Taylor is an American astronaut and the leader of a space expedition. He is played by Charlton Heston. Taylor's first name is never spoken in dialog; the sources for it are the closing credits of the film and the 1998 documentary Behind the Planet of the Apes. While the character is never given a first name during the film, the end credits of Planet of the Apes identify him as George Taylor. Although no rank other than 'Skipper' is given to the character in the two films in which he appears, the character is referred to as Colonel Taylor in Escape from the Planet of the Apes the third film in the series.
In the opening minutes of the movie, Taylor is watching his crewmates enter a state of hibernation aboard their ship (known noncanonically as the Icarus or the Liberty 1), which is accelerating to nearly the speed of light, as he records his final report before joining them. Taylor muses about the fact that hundreds of years have already passed on Earth, in the six months the ship's clock has recorded, and hopes that whoever is receiving his report on Earth belongs to a better breed than they left behind, when their ship launched in 1972. He then climbs into his bunk, passing into hibernation, as the ship continues on auto-pilot to a faraway star.
When Taylor and two of his crewmates awake (discovering that a fourth, a woman named Stewart, died from an air leak while they were hibernating), the ship has crash-landed in a lake, on what they take to be an Earth-like, but largely barren, planet orbiting a Sun-like star in the constellation Orion. The ship begins to take on water, then sinks rapidly, barely leaving the three astronauts time to break out survival kits and a life raft, and take an Earth-time reading: The year is 3978, leaving them just over two thousand years away from their starting point.
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Wikipedia