Red will undergo a Heel–Face Turn and rejoin Caesar's side
Towards the end of the film Red will end up regretting siding with humans in exchange for his own safety and fight alongside the Apes during the climax of the film. He may even get a Redemption Equals Death moment.- Confirmed. He dies saving Caesar's life.
Koba will return
This B-Roll footage
has Serkis (in character as Caesar) yelling what sounds like "KOBA!"- Confirmed. He appears in Caesar's hallucinations, but by all appearances he's truly dead.
The Colonel's son died on the Golden Gate Bridge
Giving him a personal hatred of Caesar and his apes.- Jossed. The Colonel killed him himself.
- Confirmed. Caesar dies from his wounds after leading his tribe to a new haven.
Nova will be the progenitor of a new species of non-speaking humans.
Word of God confirms that Nova is mute. If her incapability of speech is genetic, it could mean she passes it on to her children, who then become the non-speaking human species seen in the original films.- Partly Jossed. Nova's speechlessness is a new affliction caused by the Simian virus re-emerging and further mutated, and is revealed to be spreading among the surviving humans again.
- A sequel concept could be with that sign language gone extinct among humans as society disintegrated, Nova might become the only human left who has learned to sign (albeit in the apes' method), leading to her becoming a "Moses" figure (deliberate combined Shout-out and Mythology-gag there) to the surviving mute humans.
Caesar's son Cornelius is a mix of Cornelius from Battle for the Planet of the Apes and the Cornelius from the first Planet of the Apes film.
He, along with Nova, will be grown up once Taylor arrives back on Earth, and fulfill roles similar to those of their counterparts from the first film.- They'd both be long dead by the time Taylor arrives back on Earth, as he returns about 2000 years after he left. I think their names are just allusions to the previous characters, in the same way the Colonel's army were called 'Alpha Omega'.
- But the filmmakers could decide to set Taylor's return sooner rather than later.
There will be a NEW main protagonist to replace Caesar for the fourth Planet of the Apes film
Despite War for the Planet of the Apes being the conclusion of the reboot trilogy, Fox did announce a fourth film despite Caesar's death. The likely candidates to take Caesar's place as the new main protagonist are:- Cornelius - I feel he could be Michael Corleone to Caesar's Vito Corleone as he will have to live up to his father's legacy and being a great leader. He was named after Cornelius from the original Planet of the Apes movie, but he is too young by this point.
- Bad Ape - Matt Reeves said that Bad Ape was meant to set up future sequels. He may not be fit to be a leader due to his personality, but he would play a role of helping the Ape Colony in some way.
- A new Ape character - He would be a Contrasting Sequel Main Character to Caesar, who started out being rebellious towards the Ape Colony and wants to help humans despite their harsh treatment toward the apes.
- I think the new protagonist is going to be one of the astronauts that got lost in space in Rise. Through some miracle, they manage to make it back to Earth, twenty years after Rise. For once, a movie plays Einstein's Twin Paradox straight, so they've hardly aged since they've left. The main astronaut will be one of those lucky few that manage to somehow resist the virus and keep his voice.
- Confirmed: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set "generations after Caesar" and stars a new chimp named Noa.
There's a shocking hidden reason why Nova seems to forgive Caesar quite quickly for slaying her caretaker.
In this continuity, at least some of the mute humans have the psionic powers the Mutants had in the original series. In Nova's case, these powers are still largely latent, but she had enough to allow her to discern the true motives of the Apes who found her.
- I think the implication is the other army are going to become the mutants, the Colonel mentions they found a way to stave off the virus and we never see what they look like, we never hear them speak, and they got buried in an avalanche where the only way to go is down to a military base with underground tunnels and a probable nuke.
The disease which causes muteness isn't even the same pathogen as the simian flu.
It doesn't seem to operate by the destruction of the language processing centers of the brain, as a variant of the simian flu would operate. (Nova learns to sign, despite being infected.) It progresses extremely rapidly, unlike the simian flu. (McCullough goes from speaking to silent over the course of days (AT MAX), not weeks.) It apparently doesn't affect apes AT ALL, at odds with it being derived from the simian flu. (Caesar, Luca, Rocket, Maurice, and Bad Ape all have extended (and reasonably close) contact with Nova, and none contract muteness. Caesar and Maurice even pick up her doll, an act which seems to have doomed McCullough.)- The apes never got sick from the simian flu, like Bad Ape said "apes get smart, humans get sick." And McCullough succumbed to the virus the same night that he picked up her doll.
- But the apes do still get affected by the Simian Flu. Yet there are no positive or negative effects of the mutated virus on the apes. It stands to reason that it's a new virus.
- The apes never got sick from the simian flu, like Bad Ape said "apes get smart, humans get sick." And McCullough succumbed to the virus the same night that he picked up her doll.
The US Armed Forces are actually in better shape than is stated in the movie, and were actually trying to eliminate as many of their own infected soldiers as possible through Zerg rush tactics
It seems rather odd the US Army would send literally all of their available personnel to fight the Colonel (assuming he is telling the truth), and then proceed to use such obviously bad tactics like repeated strafing runs using scarce gunships on a base with anti-aircraft missiles and having the entire infantry charge up to the heavily fortified and naturally protected base... unless the objective of the US military was to dispose of their own personnel. Perhaps the strike force consisted entirely of infected, mute humans, and the military was planning on sacrificing these people to the battle. Even with such bad tactics, the military would still win, but with a high number of casualties.
And, of course, the military would only be willing to do this if it was resource-rich to begin with.
The apes' treatment at the hands of The Colonel and Alpha-Omega will create more Kobas in the ape colony in a sequel.
After everything the apes experienced in the film at the hands of the Alpha-Omega, it's not unthinkable that more apes may adopt Koba's mindset with regards to humans. And there may even be Dr. Zaius-esque apes on the rise who believe it's in the best interests of the apes to either shun humans or enslave them. And even if they tolerate Nova for helping them, that tolerance may not necessarily extend to any other potential human characters in the future.- Things will probably be more or less stable as long as Maurice and Rocket - who will probably share responsibilities as leaders - don't get too old, and a grown-up Nova may act as a bridge with surviving humans. Afterwards, with Cornelius still too young or inexperienced to take his father's mantle, things will get worse and may even lead to a split, with Nova also leaving the apes.
Maurice becomes the new leader of the apes following Caesar's death.
He ends up becoming the Lawgiver, and is the ancestor of Dr. Zaius. Surviving gorilla traitors are the ancestors of the classic warmongering gorillas (like in the original franchise).
Caesar's surviving son will be the ancestor of the classic Cornelius.
And somewhere along the family bloodline, one of their relatives will be named Galen. Andy Serkis will return in the sequels to portray other ape characters other than Caesar.
Now that Caesar is dead, Serkis may find himself playing other characters, possibly a grownup Cornelius. Kind of similar to how Roddy McDowall returned to portray other ape characters in the original series. Malcolm was the one who tried to report the Colonel to his superiors.
Think about what we know about Malcolm. Not only would he be strongly opposed to what The Colonel was doing, but if Alexander and possibly Ellie succumbed to the mutated virus, there was no way he would sit quietly and let them be executed. Not only would he refuse to follow orders, he would report it to someone who could remove the Colonel from power. The ending scene of the sky is a foreshadowing lead-in to the next movie...
Which will be a straight-up remake/reboot of the original Planet of the Apes film. Because a fourth film is planned and Caesar will obviously not be the protagonist of that one, this leaves the original astronaut characters as likely contenders of that spot. After all, Rise of the Planet of the Apes confirmed the reboot timeline has its own version of the Icarus (the spaceship that crashed in the original film), and its fate during the Simian Flu crisis had never been resolved; it was last said to be lost in space. Of course, the ending scene could easily be a metaphor for something else, but it could definitely foreshadow the arrival of the Icarus and its crew. Sooner or later in the future, there will be wars between ape populations from various continents
The mere existence of Bad Ape proved that Caesar's people were not the only ones who became intelligent due to the Simian Flu. After the virus spread worldwide, possibly every single monkey in zoos or in the wild has become intelligent; ape colonies may be on the rise all over the world, becoming the new dominant species while the remnants of humanity keep declining. It's going to take from decades to centuries, but these isolated pockets of ape civilization will eventually grow, become countries and, also by studying the remains of humanity, finally develop navigation and/or flight on their own, becoming capable of reaching distant lands. However, as already happened during the history of humanity, and given the evolved apes' tendency to be not so different, the contacts with other apes will be less than amicable (when some migrations won't be made with the intention of conquest). Intelligent Humans will continue to exist.
Being mute isn’t that debilitating, especially if writing and sign language still exist. In fact, plains sign talk was developed specifically because it was more practical than speaking.