Koba killing Carver. As the man is alone in the truck, Koba's demonic face just comes right out of the darkness. Carver barely has time to comprehend before Koba rips him out of the truck and beats him to death.. . just barely out of frame.
Carver was barely out of frame and at night, but Ash? We got to see it in full, and during daylight. Not only the scene starts with Koba ordering Ash to bludgeon an innocent civilian to death simply because he was there, but when he refuses saying that Caesar wouldn't have wanted it, he seems almost understanding... before suddenly grabbing Ash, dragging him high up while he screams in protest and then throwing him down below, just to reinforce his rule. Shooting Caesar in cold blood was bad already, but this is much more brutal, and confirms that it wasn't an accident, Koba just doesn't care for his own kind at all.
His nightmarish Slasher Smile upon killing two innocent guards...and after he shoots the first one, he leaves the other alive just long enough to realize that the supposedly stupid ape had been tricking them all along (and showing off his physical strength by holding and aiming the machine gun with one hand, something a human couldn't really do), then shoots him. It's with that you know he's gone off the deep end. He didn't just kill them, he enjoyed it.
Koba shooting Caesar. His cold facial expression during the whole scene definitely sets the mood. He merely considers his former friend and leader a mere obstacle to eliminate.
Koba's violent rampage during the attack on San Francisco when he's firing two machine guns while on horseback, laughing and roaring like a maniac. Even the other apes are terrified of the sight.
The page image shows Koba on horseback running through the flames in slow motion. The horrifying smile on his face is outright demonic.
Koba’s backstory in the “Firestorm” prequel novel, doubles as a Tear Jerker. He lives with his mom and a few humans in a primate research facility, but his mom dies from abuse and the project funding is cut. Koba is then sent to a Jerkass TV producer named Tommy, who regularly beats and electrocutes him and another chimp, Milo. Tommy is responsible for Koba’s facial scar, which he inflicts with a knife, and when that fails to blind Koba’s eye, Tommy finishes the job by sticking a lit cigarette into it. Koba also sees Milo bite an unruly child and then get his jaw wired shut. Tommy commits suicide with a pistol (perhaps out of despair, shame or both), and the two apes attempt to escape, but Koba is recaptured and sent to several laboratories, where he is subjected to all kinds of painful experiments; countless vivisections, multiple injections, including one which instantly causes him to vomit while he is muzzled, having long needles stuck into his stomach without anesthetic, and having his eyes sprayed with a substance that hurts worse than tear gas. Is it any wonder he hates humans so much?
Speaking of the “Firestorm” novel, the collapse of human civilization, something what we saw only briefly in the prologue, is given more attention in that novel. Highlights include:
Many various civil wars breaking out across the whole planet (Serbians vs Croatians and North vs South Kivu for example).
Indonesia placing a hard quarantine after getting fewer cases than other countries.
China violently suppressing the riots of ethnical minorities.
Muslims being beaten to death in Tennessee and Christians being burned alive in Egypt.
A nuclear power plant undergoes a meltdown in Belarus due to lack of staff.
The Ganges river is set ablaze due to a chemical spill and many people, seeing this as a sign, immolate themselves in its waters.
Blaming the apes for the Simian Flu, people across the planet start breaking into zoos and brutally killing not just apes, but other simian animals like tarsiers and sloths.
But the worst of all is the rise of many anarchist groups across the world. Alpha-Omega in particular attacks a lot of public buildings, including a hospital in San-Francisco and a quarantine zone in Alameda Point. Their reason for commiting such atrocities? They believe themselves to be immune to the disease and thus happily help to wipe out those deemed unworthy to rule the world. Except when Dreyfus explains to the apprehended Alpha-Omega leader that no one comes inside the military zone without screening and there is a reason the guy is put behind a glass screen, the man undergoes a Villainous Breakdown. And the main antagonist human faction in the next subsequent movieis called Alpha-Omega, too.
In the Devolution comic, there is the Exercitus Viri, "the army of man", a large, xenophobic terrorist army of people who merrily try and execute both the apes and their human supporters alike. They are even able to wreak havoc not just in the US, but across the entire world. Exercitus Viri remain at large for at least seven years after the start of the pandemic, and they are responsible for plunging at least one country (Switzerland) in the dark. And just like with the Alpha-Omega case above, all it took to form such a powerful army was a false spreaded word about governments refusing to help their people and putting more priorities on apes. The faction leader riled others up like this out of bitterness for losing his family to the Simian Flu, showing what would Dreyfus be like if he went an extra mile.
Dreyfus pulling a Taking You with Me. What makes this moment particularly chilling is that he didn't do it out of malice, but out of his misplaced belief that he's protecting humanity. There are humans with him that do not want to be blown up, but he genuinely does not even seem to notice them or remember they are even there.
Angry apes with guns, Koba in particular.
What with their fur, scars and white paint, it's hard not to see the ape army as Uruk-hai.
In the eyes of Caesar and Blue Eyes, seeing a human with an extreme dislike towards their kind attacking Cornelius (Caesar's second son and Blue Eyes's brother), a loved one being attacked by said person.
The scene where Malcolm is trying to get the surgical kit, only to be trapped in the house as it quickly turns into a scene from war-torn Iraq or the Gestapo raiding the ghettoes in 1940s Germany.
Though well deserved, Koba's death. His scream as he falls and plummets is just nerve-wracking, as is the fact that he doesn't just fall but crashes into several things that cause bodily damage along the way.
The battle between the apes and humans is horrifying. Brave and strong apes are cut down by the hundred, because the one who leads them has no place directing war. They only win because they have more bodies to throw at the enemy. Koba deserves the comparison with his namesake.
You can see blood stains on the windows of the bus that the apes that disagree with Koba's views are left prisoner in.
On a philosophical level, there is the deeply disturbing concept that sentience and sapience may be more of a curse than a blessing, that the creatures achieving it are universally doomed to commit the same mistakes, and that violence is inevitably the endgame.
Defusing this somewhat is that chimps are notorious for being among the most aggressive apes in existence. If bonobos, who are notorious for a far different reason, were the ones to be uplifted, that issue may not exist.
Actually, Koba has been said to be a bonobo. Definitely makes it worse.
