Steven Jacobs

"I run a business, not a petting zoo!"

- Steven Jacobs

Steven Jacobs is the main antagonist of the 2011 live action film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

He is portrayed by David Oyelowo who also played Agent Kallus.

He is a charismatic, but greedy and cowardly individual, who was not only responsible for mankind's downfall, but he was also the reason why Koba had genocidal hatred for mankind in the first place.

Role
He was the greedy CEO that ran the Gen-Sys laboratories, where Dr. Will Rodman was researching a cure to Alzheimer's Disease. Before being a CEO, Jacobs had a long history of running projects aimed at studying cognitive ability. He teamed up with neuroscientist Amol, who sought to create a machine capable of producing images directly from the brain. Jacobs was skeptical of the project's practicality, and took an instant dislike of Koba, the ape selected for the trial. Amol's experiments proved to be a financial disaster for Jacobs, who proceeded to fire the neuroscientist just as the neuroscientist and Koba had a good relationship, and then confronted Koba himself, telling him that were the choice his, he would put him down himself. Jacob also furiously derided Koba as nothing more than an animal, as well as gained a penchant for torturing apes used for experiment (as he callously experimented on apes in order to bypass human trials), once again, including Koba. Some time later, Jacobs' fortunes changed, and he became head of the Gen-Sys Laboratories. Despite this, he already caused one step to both himself and mankind's downfall.

After two years in charge of the lab, one of Rodman's chimps went berserk and Jacobs shut down research on the 'ALZ-112' drug for a further eight years. It was only when Rodman revealed he had used the drug on his own father, with limited results, that Jacobs approved development of a refined version.

The refined drug, now called 'ALZ-113' however is fatal to humans while it greatly and alarmingly increases intelligence in apes. Once Rodman realized the potential dangers of the new drug presented, he warned Jacobs to stop the testing of the 'ALZ-113'. Jacobs however ordered further testing of the refined virus despite Rodman's warnings, caring only for the profits to be made at it's success. Soon after all the tests of the new drug, a hyper-intelligent ape by the name of Caesar, stages a rebellion against his captors and later rescues his fellow intelligent apes from the Gen-Sys labs that were being experimented on by the cruel and greedy Jacobs. After Caesar frees all the apes from the laboratories Jacobs flags down a police helicopter where he commandeers it and the crew, directing them to crush the ape rebellion in an effort to avoid bad publicity for the company he works for as well as himself.

Caesar and his apes then go on to battle a large force of police stationed on the Golden Gate Bridge. During the battle on the bridge Jacobs arrives on the police chopper which then begins gunning down apes, much to the delight of Jacobs. After killing several apes, Jacobs spots Caesar on the bridge and attempts to have the chopper gunner kill him with a hail of gunfire, until a silverback gorilla named Buck, throws Caesar out of the way of the incoming gunfire and sacrifices his life by jumping on the police chopper and attacking its occupants, which causes it to crash on the very edge of the bridge, killing the entire crew and severely wounding Jacobs. After watching his friend Buck succumb to his wounds sustained from gunshots and the crash, Caesar hears Jacobs pleading for help as the helicopter is about to tip over the edge. However, in retribution for the death of his friend Buck and the cruelty Jacobs has shown the apes, Caesar turns his back on him and instead allows Koba to walk up to the remains of the helicopter and ruthlessly kick it over the edge, sending a terrified and screaming Jacobs plummeting to his death in the bay below.

Personality
Jacobs was a ruthless, cruel, narcissistic, ambitious, arrogant, greedy and selfish man, callously experimenting on apes in order to bypass human trials. He did nothing for anybody but himself, and senselessly experimented on Koba in order to realize his plans for turning a profit. He threatened to fire Will if he did not do as he asked. Will, utterly frustrated with the way Steven was treating him, quit his job while Steven told him even if he did leave, they would still continue with ALZ-113 trials, showing that all he cared about was money.

He was a nefariously corrupt, bigoted and Machiavellian individual who did not care about who he offended in his quest for money. But, despite his cold nature, his true colors are shown during the Battle on the Golden Gate Bridge when his helicopter is brought down by the then deceased Buck and he, the only survivor, pathetically begs for Caesar to help him. Caesar coldly withdraws and signals Koba to do the job. His cowardice flares up in his final moments prior to getting his well-deserved comeuppance.

Trivia

 * Steven Jacobs is the Greater Scope Villain of the reboot trilogy because if it weren't for his twisted experiments, Koba would not have turned evil and waged war against mankind.
 * Ironically, in the sequel, Koba seemingly dies in the same fashion that Jacobs died.
 * Jacobs is quite similar to Dr. Charles Decker; they are both mad scientists who are selfishly determined to pursue their goals and cruelly experimented on apes, which caused said apes to finally turn on them and kill them. Unlike Decker, however, Jacobs is not a Complete Monster.