San Francisco was the financial and cultural center of northern California and a prominent financial capital of the United States. The San Francisco Bay Area also encompasses closely intertwined suburbs and cities which includes San Jose/Silicon Valley, Berkeley and Oakland. The city of San Francisco exclusively encompasses a land area of about 46.9 square miles on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula.
In 1776, Spanish colonists established a fort at the Golden Gate and a mission named for Saint Francis of Assisi. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico but began to attract American migrants. Mexico officially ceded California to the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1846. The California Gold Rush of 1849 transformed it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco is renowned for its summer fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of Victorian and modern architecture, cable cars, and famous landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge. Across the Golden Gate Bridge is the Muir Woods, home to a forest of ancient redwood trees.
Planet of the Apes (TV Series)[]
Around 3085, time-lost astronauts Alan Virdon and Pete Burke and their chimp ally Galen ventured into the ruins of San Francisco, largely destroyed by frequent earthquakes. They were prompted by human children from the nearby the village of Numai, who had found electrical components amongst the rubble. Pursued by gorilla soldiers, Burke and chief gorilla Urko fell through a chasm into a disused underground BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, where they quickly became trapped. Only through the humans and apes working as a team were they rescued, with the fugitives then escaping the ancient city before Urko could arrest them. (TV: "The Trap") They would later also search the ruins of nearby Oakland. (TV: "The Legacy")
Planet of the Apes Magazine: Evolution's Nightmare[]
In a terrible battle thirty or forty miles north of San Francisco, gorilla and human armies slaughtered one another until only one human and one ape were alive. But Solomon the gorilla and Jovan the human, were seriously wounded: the human could not move his legs, the ape could not use his arms. In order to survive, they formed an uneasy truce and had to work together. They crossed the desert, battling bizarre mutated creatures, harsh weather and other obstacles. An ape/human hybrid named Mordecai, who lived as a hermit, provided shelter, food and healing. They resumed fighting once they were able, and Mordecai sadly cast them out, telling them to visit the city and see what hatred brings. Stunned at the devastation, they put aside their hatred and vowed to end the war, but they were soon caught in the crossfire between rival bands of Mutant Men and Mutant Apes squaring off to protect their ridges of rubble, and both were killed. (Marvel: Evolution's Nightmare)
Chernin Entertainment Franchise[]
Rise of the Planet of the Apes[]
Wild chimp Bright Eyes was taken from the jungles of West Africa to Gen-Sys Laboratories, a biotech company headquartered in San Francisco, where she was experimented on by Dr. Will Rodman and his team with ALZ-112, a experimental retrovirus that could potentially cure Alzheimer's Disease. However, she was killed after a misguided attempt to protect her recently newborn son. After her death, her son, Caesar, was raised by the Rodman Family in their home for the next eight years. However, Ceasar was later sent to the San Bruno Primate Shelter after a misguided attempt to defend Charles Rodman from Douglas Hunsiker.
After leading a mass breakout of genetically altered apes from the shelter, Gen-Sys, and the San Francisco Zoo across the city, Caesar tried to bring the apes to freedom in the Muir Woods across the Golden Gate Bridge. Seeing only rampaging wild apes, the San Francisco authorities tried to corral the apes on the bridge and massacre them, but after a battle and several casualties on both sides, most of the apes survived and reached Muir Woods.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes[]
Ten years after the Ape Rebellion and years of the catastrophic Simian Flu Pandemic, San Francisco's desolate ruins was home to a small community of humans who genetically survived the Simian Flu and outbreak of infighting violence, led by ex-police officer Dreyfus. The lack of maintenance and natural deterioration caused buildings to become covered in vegetation, leaving the once concrete jungle to be reclaimed by nature. Even though the Simian Flu was created in a science lab by humans, graffiti was left behind on certain buildings out of derogatory mockery towards the virus named after the apes. Local police and military forces left behind an impressive collection of weaponry, including various machine guns, rocket launchers and at least one tank, all of which were gathered and kept guarded and tested constantly by sentries.
Despite reaching a fragile peace by restoring power to the city, the vengeful bonobo Koba framed the humans for the apparent death of Ceasar and the destruction of the Ape Village, leading the apes into a violent attack against the humans. The humans were unprepared for the oncoming attack, worsened by their armory being looted by the apes. Starting at California Street, the gates of the colony were breached after multiple casualties, allowing the apes to storm the city and massacre the humans, rallying up any human survivors to be locked inside the unused Simian Flu medical paddocks in order to teach them about knowing: "life in cage".
The battle between Dreyfus' militia and Koba's revolution was resolved within one crumbling, incomplete skyscraper, which all but collapsed when Dreyfus blew C-4 charges under the foundations to try and kill all the apes as revenge. Because of Koba's violent reign and Dreyfus' people making contact with another human militia, any chance for peace between humans and apes was completely severed, leaving Caesar to prepare his people for the unavoidable oncoming war. It is likely that the surviving humans abandoned their colony and the city after the battle ended.
War for the Planet of the Apes[]
Although San Francisco was not seen, the surrounding Redwoods were still home to Caesar and his people in the two years after Koba's uprising. Despite being on the run and attacked by Alpha-Omega, the apes have managed to survive and made plans to relocate to an oasis. After Caesar and the apes left the Redwoods, the abandoned desolate city headed further into ruin as nature reclaims it.
Notes[]
- A 1975 timeline published in Marvel Comics' Planet of the Apes Magazine #11 identified San Francisco as the 'Modern City'/'Forbidden City' where the events of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes take place, but other sources identify it as Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, or an entirely newly-built city.
- The 2005 fan-produced comic strip Going Home had Virdon, Burke and Galen return to the ruins of San Francisco and become separated permanently.
Trivia[]
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