When Caesar, the main ape, fights back against his abusive animal control handler, the handler responds by shouting "Take your stinkin' paw off me, you damn dirty ape!" What most people don't catch is in both films, the line is uttered in roughly equivalent scenes with a captive Civilized Animal (Charlton Heston's Taylor in the original, and Caesar in the prequel) attacking the captors that had abused him, and in both cases the line triggers the "Holy shit, it can talk!" moment for the captors, Charlton Heston uttering the actual line, and Caesar responding to the line with a startlingly assertive "NO!".
The handler previously also says of the facility, "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!", a line Taylor speaks as the apes use a pressurized water hose on him.
The abuse Caesar suffered in captivity also mirrors that suffered by Heston.
In the original Heston escapes and attacks an ape, and is confiscated by the ape Ministry of Science, to the protest of Heston's owner, Dr. Zira who knows Heston is intelligent. In the prequel Caesar escapes and attacks a human, and is confiscated by Animal Control, to the protest of Caesar's owner Dr. Rodman who knows Caesar is intelligent.
In the original, Heston is attacked by one of the mute animal humans which results in a fight, and subsequently Heston is locked to an individual cell. In the prequel, Caesar is attacked by one of the regular apes which results in a fight, and subsequently Caesar is locked to an individual cell.
In the original, the Ministry of Science handler attacks Heston with a firehose jammed through the bars of his cell when he becomes belligerent. In the prequel, the Animal Control handler attacks Caesar with a fire hose jammed through the bars of his cell when he becomes belligerent.
In both the original and this film, the caged main character lures a member of the dominant species (Zira and one of Dodge's friends) to get closer so he can steal an object that he can use to escape (a piece of paper and a pocket knife).
Caesar's mother, the first ape given the intelligence-boosting drug is given the name Bright Eyes. This is the same name that Dr. Zira gives to Heston's character before he writes her a note explaining that his name is really "Taylor".
Though Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes place in San Francisco, towards the end, Dr. Rodman's Jerkass neighbor Hunsiker is revealed to be an airline pilot and starts showing symptoms of being infected with the ALZ-virus while at the airport. The scene ends with a closeup on a flight call for New York City, then segues into a credits scene revealing that Hunsiker's flight is headed for France, the country of the original novel.
A news broadcast tells of a lost manned space mission called the Icarus 1, lead by a Colonel Taylor...
The manned space mission to another world, clearly meant to evoke the lost astronauts from the classic film. Probably a Sequel Hook to this movie to have this series follow the original.
Caesar is seen working on a 3-D puzzle of the Statue of Liberty.
Caesar is designed to resemble Roddy McDowall's Cornelius and Caesar makeup from the original series.
Films starring Charlton Heston appear on the televisions at the ape prison.
The start of the movie with the poachers hunting the wild chimp troop is similar to the human-hunting scene from the original movie (albeit done in a way that also echoes how poachers hunt chimps in Real Life).
The main guard in charge of the animal pound sounding like Paul Giamatti is a reference to his role in Tim Burton's 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes, in which he played a orangutan that dealt in human trafficking.
Part of Caesar's plan for getting through the police blockade involves him riding a horse.
Dodge Landon's laugh while mocking the apes is similar to Charlton Heston's laughing at Dodge trying to mark their territory with an American flag.
