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The sequel to ''Film/EscapeFromThePlanetOfTheApes'' and the fourth installment of the ''Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes'' franchise, released in 1972. Almost twenty years have passed since Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo arrived on Earth. During those years, cats and dogs died of a mysterious disease, and apes became both household pets and servants for mankind. The United States became oppressive and fascist in culture, of uniformed classes and castes, based upon ape slave labour. Cornelius and Zira's son Milo, now known as Caesar, is a horseback rider in Armando's circus.

In 2011, 20th Century Fox rebooted the ''Planet of the Apes'' film series starting with ''Film/RiseOfThePlanetOfTheApes''. It had a similar plot to ''Conquest'', in which the protagonist is also a chimpanzee named Caesar who leads an ape rebellion against the humans.

A final sequel to this movie, ''Film/BattleForThePlanetOfTheApes'', was released in 1973.

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!!This movie contains examples of:

* AntagonisticGovernor: Governor Breck, the main antagonist of the film. By the then future year of 1991 (the film was released in 1972), the United States is a [[OppressiveStatesOfAmerica police state]], and it's shown that the Governor's word is law in this new America.
* AnthropomorphicShift: The apes have become more human-like in form as a side effect of the mysterious disease that killed the cats and dogs. However, they do seem to maintain some of their primitive behavior back in the wild since Zelda, a hair grooming chimp, is seen looking for bugs in her client's hair.
* AsYouKnow: Early in the movie, Armando goes into detail about Caesar's origins... to Caesar, for the benefit of anyone who didn't remember or see the last movie.
* BigBad: Governor Breck.
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: The apes wear different jumpsuits depending on their species: chimps wear green, gorillas wear red and orangutans wear yellow. This had also been shown in the original film and ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'', but here it's revealed that this tradition was started by their human masters, and not by the apes themselves.
* CoveringForTheNoise: Armando tries stating that he was the one who shouted "LOUSY HUMAN BASTARDS!" as while Caesar did so. The police instruct Armando to scream it again, but they can tell Armando sounded nothing like Caesar.
* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to the prior movies. They had serious subject matter, but action and some humor. This movie is much bleaker and darker.
* DefiantToTheEnd: Breck just stares at the apes as they are about to kill him. He even goes as far as to rationalize what he's done to the apes, saying that enslaving and anthropomorphizing them helped them evolve out of their primitive, barbaric state. Caesar angrily gives him the retort that apes never asked to be civilized.
* DidntThinkThisThrough:
** A hair salon and its clients let a chimp do hair grooming. She hunts for bugs to eat in a woman's hair and in the process ruins her hair. What did they expect?
** By freeing Caesar, [=MacDonald=] led to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.
-->'''[=MacDonald=]:''' Caesar! Caesar, this is not how it was to be!\\
'''Caesar:''' In your view or mine?
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The movie was filmed after TheSixties had ended, but with the streets still filled with violent riots over Vietnam and Civil Rights.
* DownerEnding: Apes rise up over mankind, who in fairness have it coming (''especially'' Breck), but the implication is that Caeser's reign will lead to a society no better than man's.
* DrivenToSuicide: Armando.
* ExtinctInTheFuture: Cats and dogs went extinct thanks to a mysterious disease, leaving apes to become the pets and servants of mankind.
* ElectricTorture: Caesar is tortured to make him admit he can talk. [=MacDonald=], after watching it for a moment, leaves, apparently sickened. [[BigBad Governor Breck]] then shows he has an order for Caesar's execution, so he decides to just turn it on again up to eleven and electrocute him. But [=MacDonald=], after leaving, goes to the utility room and turns off the power. Caesar is smart enough to fake his own death by torture, then later escapes.
* EvilIsHammy: Governor Breck. Especially when the apes start rising up.
* FailedFutureForecast: The movie was released in 1972, the same year Taylor and his crew from the original were supposed to set out for an interstellar mission in their futuristic spaceship.
* FiveRoundsRapid: Played very straight with how the humans fight the apes, no matter how bad things get for the humans, they never go to anything more dangerous than riot police with rifles and shotguns.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: "Caesar. A king."
* GoneHorriblyRight: The humans wanting the apes to be smart enough to perform various tasks blew up in their faces.
* HistoryRepeats: [=MacDonald=], who is a descendant of African slaves, sees the apes enslaved and exploited for labor work as the United States going back to the 1860s and before.
* HumansAreBastards: Just about everywhere in this movie, though it's Armando being DrivenToSuicide that truly cinches it for Caesar.
-->'''Caesar:''' LOUSY HUMAN BASTARDS!
* IdenticalGrandson: Roddy [=McDowall=] plays Caesar here, and in all the follow-ups.
* IronicEcho: When Caesar orders the apes to kill Breck, Lisa declares "[[LittleNo N... no]]".
* IWasNamedMyName: Caesar [a talking ape] is pretending to be unable to speak; his owner lets him "choose his own name" by opening a reference book and pointing to a random word. Caesar points to the word Caesar.
-->'''Governor Breck:''' Caesar. [[{{Foreshadowing}} A king.]]
* JobStealingRobot: The job employers makes apes do all the blue-collar and labor work so that they don't have to pay salaries to humans to do so, resulting in Luddite-esque strikes happening. Though it can be inferred the reason why the out-of-work humans aren't trying to help the apes escape from slavery in any shape or form is because the fruits of the apes' labor flows to ''them'' and so they benefit from it.
* MeaningfulName: Caesar. Which also helps explain why later apes bear Romanesque names.
-->'''Breck:''' Caesar. A king.
* MisplacedWildlife: Caesar hid himself in a cage full of orangutans. But one of Governor Breck's subordinates learns of this since "there are no chimpanzees in Borneo".
* MoralityChain:
** Armando was the only human Caesar ever cared for. His death motivates him to rebel.
** Lisa develops into this, talking Caesar out of killing The Governor and purposing peace among the apes and the humans.
* OnlySaneMan: Armando and [=MacDonald=].
* OpposeWhatYouSuffered: African-American Bruce [=MacDonald=] is willing to protect Caesar, likely because he knows all about dehumanisation, oppression and exploitation from his own racial background. He asks Caesar not to act like the humans who enslaved his kind, invoking his slave ancestry while doing so.
* PayEvilUntoEvil:
-->'''[=MacDonald=]:''' Violence prolongs hate, hate prolongs violence. By what right are you spilling blood?\\
'''Caesar:''' By the slave's right to punish his persecutors.
* ProperlyParanoid: After the last movie, Armando was questioned about Cornelius and Zira's child. While he talked his way out of immediate trouble, there was always lingering doubt among authorities that he was harboring their son.
* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: The film was originally supposed to end with Caesar finally JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope; he allows the gorillas to bludgeon Breck to death with their rifles, then gets a genuine KickTheDog moment by killing [=MacDonald=]. See FocusGroupEnding above.
* RevengeBeforeReason: As [=MacDonald=] points out, Caesar's gone mad with power and is too driven by anger and desire of vengeance against the humans to realize that war is the last thing the apes need.
* SharedFamilyQuirks: Caesar appears to have picked up the habit of shouting/talking in the presence of humans who fear and hunt down talking apes back from his mother Zira.
* StableTimeLoop: Averted: in the timeline Caesar's parents are from, apes became responsive to human speech "in less than two centuries" and turned the tables after "three more centuries" and were led by an ape named Aldo[[note]]Presumably an aversion of OneSteveLimit as a character called Aldo also appears in the films in the present[[/note]]. Here this all happens within about 10 years and they're led by Caesar. The revised ending [[spoiler: indicates that Caesar might move ape society towards a more peaceful attitude towards humans than Aldo would have.]] This is expanded upon a bit in ''Film/BattleForThePlanetOfTheApes'', the next film in the series.
* SuddenlyShouting: Caesar is about to kill Breck for his MotiveRant, instead he orders the apes to drag him outside.
-->"Go. ''GO!!!!!''"
* TimeSkip: As noted earlier, almost 20 years have passed since the last movie.
* TitleDrop: Almost.
-->'''Caesar:''' Tonight, we have seen... the birth... of the Planet of the Apes!
-->'''Breck:''' This will be the end of civilization! And the world will belong to a Planet of Apes!
* TokenGoodTeammate: [=MacDonald=] works for Breck and is quite disgusted with how apes are treated. He ends up saving Caesar's life.
* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: The ape takeover happens in this movie. Which Governor Breck fears.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Set in 1991, filmed in 1972.
* VillainousBreakdown: Breck, when the apes are cutting down the steel gate sealing in him and his associates. This makes him realize that apes are beginning to successfully subjugate humans as the dominant species on the planet as they are now both physically and ''intellectually'' superior.
-->'''Breck:''' [[BigNo NO]]! But how? HOW?!! THEY DON'T HAVE THE INTELLIGENCE TO USE SUCH TOOLS! IF WE LOSE THIS BATTLE, THAT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT! WE WILL HAVE PROVED OURSELVES INFERIOR, WEAK! AND ALL THOSE GROVELING COWARDS WHO ARE ALIVE WHEN THE BATTLE IS OVER WILL BE THE WEAKEST OF ALL! THIS WILL BE THE END OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION, AND THE WORLD WILL BELONG TO A PLANET OF APES!
* WhamLine: Lisa's "No!" due to her talking for the first time.
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