Planet of The Apes Ending (*** Spoiler***)

[DanBlather]

MY son and I caught the midnight showing of POTA this morning. Not too bad, but what the heck was the ending about?

Here is what I got out of the movie:

1) The planet Marky Mark crashed on was not earth,
2) The intelligent apes on the planet were descendents of the genetically engineered apes on the mother ship (good irony)

So, questions:

1) Where did the horses come from?
2) Where did MM return to in the end: future earth, past earth, alternate earth, earth changed because of some time paradox, ...?

Last thought, was that Ape-raham Lincoln?

[Heath Doolin]

Horses are a universal paradox...they exist in all times (Mind you, the reason is rather sticky...something to do with a large wager in a poker match, a photograph, Abe Vigoda, several gallons of coconut pudding and a cricket bat but I have said too much already)

Hopefully Mark ended up in the same time paradox as Homer did with his toaster. I imagine he should be hitting the place where it rains doughnuts shortly

What I don't get is why he wants to hit it with the dumb blonde chick when Helena/Ari is makin goo goo eyes at him. I don't care what you say, I am ready for hot wet monkey love with with a chimp that looks like that.

[Ned]

I couldn't make much sense of the ending either and I have no explanation for the horses.

While the clock seemed to suggest that time went backwards it appeared to be a future version of the planet. Aperaham was General Thade.

[Cervaise]

To hear director Tim Burton describe it, it isn't supposed to make any sense at all. It's just a whammy for the sake of a whammy. (I read this in an interview recently. Let me know if you want me to dig up a cite.)

Whether they'll attempt to explore it in the obligatory sequel is a matter for discussion.

[dave316]

the apes are horses dressed up in apes costumes. Talking horses ALWAYS disguise themselves, because every time a human hears a talking horse they yell "Hey it's Mr.ED

[vivalostwages]

Haven't seen the new POTA yet, but I used to teach the novel years ago to college students, and the critic in the LA Times seems to think the ending comes from the novel.
My memory may be off (and please point out if it is and you've read the book), but at the end of the novel, Ulysse Merou (yes, that was the original astronaut's name) manages to get back to Earth, only to find out that it has also "gone ape," just like the planet he had crashed on. So he has to take off again. It makes sense the way it was set up in the book. *Also, the entire story is in the form of Ulysse's log/manuscript which has been recovered by two space-traveling chimps named Jinn and Phyllis, who decide at the end that it's all fiction.
Now that I've Spoiled it for myself.......Did any of the above happen at the end of the movie?

[ExTank]

Forget all of the other BS: here's the original plot hole big enough to...to...well, drive a tank battalion through.

In the original, Taylor & Co. are travelling to a new world to "start over" (kind of a small group to try to re-populate a whole new world, hmmm?).

MarkyMark zaps through a temporal disturbance and gets launched some time into the future, to a different world?

In both of these different worlds, all the apes speak English.

HEL-LO! That's a pretty giant indicator that the underlying truth of this reality is somehow based upon your own.

IN this POTA: Burton severely disappoints. He should have spent more money on script than special effects.

The 3 or 4 star general commanding that space station decided to go after MarkyMark into some kind of energetic disturbance of unknown properties?

An animal research facility around Saturn? Is real estate getting that pricey in near-Earth orbit?

MarkyMark's big plan was to flash fry the first wave and duke it out with the rest? While the Air Force Academy may concentrate more on Engineering and Sciences than ground warfare theory and application, I sure as hell hope that our Air Force types aren't that stupid. If they are, I want my tax money back; all of it, thank you very much!

Hell, I'm just a beat-up ex E-6 with a bad back and fucked knees, and I got better sense than that.

Head for the hills and begin learning how to make long bows and catapults. Set up Sun-Tzu's War Academy. Something.

Sheesh. I want my $8.50 back.

[Kaitlyn]

This probably belongs in IMHO, but, what the heck.

Here's my take on it. First, everyone speaking English is explained by the fact that the apes and humans are all descended from the survivors of the mother ship, all of whom spoke English.

The ending is more problematical. What we know is that Leo goes through the time storm and arrives on the POTA. We assume that he goes forward in time because we glimpse his time indicator going forward. The Oberon follows him, goes throught the time storm, and arrives on the same planet, but thousands of years before Leo gets there. We hear a snippet of a log that refers to the planet as "uncharted and uninhabited", at least by intelligent life. One of the apes, Seamus, leads a revolt against the humans and thousands of years later, we have a society dominated by apes due to their superior strength.

Leo arrives in this time, organizes the human revolt, and leaves when General Thade is locked up (but still alive, and very angry) and it seems that humans and apes are prepared to develop a society where they respect each other. Then we have the ending, where he arrives back home in his own time, on a planet gone ape, and on which General Thade is a celebrated historical hero who finally helped the apes gain dominance over humans.

My interpretation was that Leo and the Oberon actually arrive on Earth thousands of years in the past, before humans were the dominant creatures, or perhaps just before the advent of human civilization 6000 years ago. This explains the presense of the horses. The Thade memorial shows us that, with the absense of their savior from the stars, the peace was short lived, General Thade was released alive, and managed to lead the greatly outnumbered apes (who are outnumbered by humans 4-1) to a military and technological revolution. Thus, by leaving, Leo ensured the dominance of the apes, which may not have happened otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this explains all of the holes. How likely is it that the Thade memorial would be exactly like the Lincoln memorial, and similarly located at the end of a reflecting pool? The black and white police cars, the Washington memorial look-a-like, etc., don't make logical sense, they are obviously meant to fool the viewer into thinking this is our Washington, D. C.

There are other plot holes: why are there so many species of apes? I counted baboons, chimps, and gorillas. They should all have been chimps, having been descended from the survivors of the Oberon. Why are there only three species on this planet (humans, apes, horses)?

But given that this is Tim Burton, the story actually makes more logical sense than usual.

I kinda liked it, but I won't be back for a second viewing in the theater or on video.

[DanBlather]

Thanks NumberSix, your interpretation makes sense.

[Ned]

I thought about Numbersix's interpretation as well and it is compelling except for one problem. The planet he left at the end wasn't earth, didn't look a bit like it. The planet he landed on did look like earth.

[vandal]

Okay, I just got back from watching this, and I'll throw in my two cents.

I'm with Number Six, in that, I think General Thade was released shortly after Leo left. I also have this whole theory behind his release, but I won't get into it now. Let's just say I don't think the mindset of an entire planet of human-like apes could be changed overnight.

So Thade is released, and of course, he rallies his troops and they retake the planet. I'm sure Thade spread the standard propaganda about humans being the root of all evil and things of that sort. The apes, of course, buy into it, because that's what they've been brought up to believe their entire lives.

That brings us to our final scene of a modern day earth being inhabited by apes.

My take on that is that the Apes' intelligence has evolved after thousands of years (the apes from the primitive jungle planet). See, now that they know the technology exists to build such space faring craft, it would only make sense that some of them would want to copy it.

So I'm sure a couple of the apes started working on some similar craft. All of their work being based upon Leo's crashed ship, of course. Whatever was left of the humans after Thade's uprising, the apes used to their advantage - they used the humans for their intelligence.

Now, obviously, this undertaking wouldn't have been completed by the apes we were shown. This would take hundreds of years. So once this ship is built, a few of the apes (the scientists, the mechanics, etc.) leave the planet and think they're going to go exploring.

But, of course, they unexpectedly fly into one of the worm holes and get shot out into another time. The time they're shot out into is a primitive earth where apes are the dominant mammals (humans aren't around yet). Our "intelligent" apes breed with the native apes, and thousands of years later, we have our earth with apes in police cars and a monument of General Thade.

[Kaitlyn]

I considered the possibility that the apes eventually developed space travel and settled Earth. This would explain why the planet looks different from Earth. But it then brings up the problem of the horses. I don't think this can be resolved. In order for there to be horses on the planet, it would have to be Earth, but the planet and its system don't look like Earth's.

[ExTank]

My comment about "English-speaking Apes" was resolved through the movie, yes.

However, upon his introduction to the Apes (when he's captured) he hears them speaking English.

Little alarm bells would be going off in my mind, were I in his place.

My mind would be going: "Hmmmm. I leave a human space station in orbit around Saturn, fly through some stellar phenonmenon, arrive at a planet that looks nothing like Earth, with intelligent, bi-pedal, English speaking simians riding horses, of all things. Since I was chasing a genetically enhanced chimp in an out-of-control space pod (open the pod bay doors, HAL!):

Theory #1: Alternate Realities

Theory #2: Time Travel

The scientist in him wasn't in the least bit intrigued?

Yet he just stumbles through the movie in the single-minded pursuit of "going home". While understandable as a basic motivation (who wants to be a slave?), he doesn't even once seem to look around and try to puzzle out his surroundings. At all.

Maybe I just read too much science fiction, and saw old plot devices a mile away. But I just couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters, with the possible exception of Ari.

To my eye: the bad guys were one dimensional, the good guys two dimensional, the dialogue was trite and forced, the plot a disjointed jumble of convenient circumstances, the special effects were good.

Another Hollywood special-effects extravaganza that substituted eye-candy for story and character development.

[DPWhite]

My take is this: the horses are just a big plot hole. We only saw chimps, but they must have had other genetically altered apes (orangs, etc) who became much smarter when their altered dna combined with others. The movie did not take place on earth. Leo traveled only in time on the first trip. By going back in the storm, he altered the whole timeline again. The earth ending was a pure salute to Rod Serling who wrote the 1969 script, and was Twilight Zone punishment for Leo not staying with the girl (or ape) at the end. He clearly travelled in time and space the second time out, and it was earth, but this time, the Oberon got there before him.

Added bonus: Thade is an anagram of death. (I am usually blind to anagrams.)

[red_dragon60]

Just want to add my tasteless pun of him encountering Ape Lincoln at the end.

[cuauhtemoc]

Originally posted by Cervaise
To hear director Tim Burton describe it, it isn't supposed to make any sense at all. It's just a whammy for the sake of a whammy. (I read this in an interview recently. Let me know if you want me to dig up a cite.)

I, for one, would like to know where you saw this. If this is true, I think it's the slightest bit careless, artistically, but then this is from the man responsible for Mars Attacks!!!

[Tyrrell McAllister]

Originally posted by DPWhite
My take is this: the horses are just a big plot hole.

Perhaps the station had horse embryos, and machines which could bring them to term. Once the colonists landed, they would want to use these embryos because of the labor the horses could provide.

[Lyllyan]

I was extremely dissapointed. Here I was expecting something along the lines of the original, character development,twists and turns etc, and all I get is action for actions' sake. And the ending was such a paradox! I hate paradox endings! I can understand one rebel ape taking over and mating with the natives, thus creating the civilization as Leo finds it, but where did all the humans come from? There would have to have been several hundred humans aboard the Oberon to explain the presence of the 4-1 ration of humans. (Anyone care to explain that to me?) Also, when Leo makes the trip through the storm, his clock only moved forward a few hundred years, didn't it? Yet doesn't Ari say at one point that the ruins ahd been there for several thousand years? And if General Thade was released after Leo left, who released him? Wasn't the chamber activated by Leo's hand? or could it be activated by anyone's hand? However, I did like Charlton Heston's ape character's little speech..."Damn them, damn them all to hell" - straight out of the original.

[Patty O'Furniture]

Does anybody else think that was really Jim Carrey in the slave trader ape costume? This was a movie that should have had no comic relief.

[vandal]

Well, Leo's pod had suffered some electrical damage, which effected the pod's equipment (at one point, it was completely disabled). So we don't even know if the gauge was measuring time accurately. But that brings me to another question...

How is the pod able to measure time anyway? I don't think it was intended for time travel, so why would there be a time gauge on board in the first place?

[DPWhite]

Originally posted by Attrayant
Does anybody else think that was really Jim Carrey in the slave trader ape costume? This was a movie that should have had no comic relief.

I was wondering who that was. It reminded me of Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy), who is long dead. I thought whoever it was, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter should certainly get Oscar nominations. They were wonderful, even with all that make-up, especially Helena.

Humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans, all apes. Think about it.

[RickJay]

The logic behind the plot, such as it was, seemed very obvious to me. I'm not sure what I'm missing, but:

1. The planet Mark Wahlberg lands on is some other planet. The Oberon crashed there thousands of years earlier, leading to the ape/human colonization of the planet;

2. What's the problem with horses, anyway? Maybe the planet already had horse-like animals. They domesticated them the same way they did on Earth.

3. After Wahlberg leaves Apeworld, Thade breaks loose and, being a clever little monkey, figures out how to fly one or more of the pods aboard the Oberon - there were more than two - into a magnetic storm.

4. Thade, and perhaps a few followers, end up on Earth BEFORE our time, maybe centuries or even millennia, and leads the apes to global domination. I guess this would require him to mate with some animalesqe apes to get working vocal chords spread around a little more. Woo hoo! Hot hot monkey sex.

5. The New Ape Earth looks a lot like our Earth just because it looks cool and makes a good ending.

Lyllyan:

There would have to have been several hundred humans aboard the Oberon to explain the presence of the 4-1 ration of humans.

No, that doesn't make any sense at all. Over the course of a few millennia, a small difference in birth rate will give you a 4:1 ratio. The initial population doesn't really mean anything.

[DPWhite]

Originally posted by DPWhite

I was wondering who that was. It reminded me of Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy), who is long dead. I thought whoever it was, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter should certainly get Oscar nominations. They were wonderful, even with all that make-up, especially Helena.

Humans, chimps, gorillas, orangutans, all apes. Think about it.

I looked it up, it was:

"PAUL GIAMATTI (Limbo) delighted audiences with his performance in the hit comedy “Private Parts,” as the young eager NBC executive derisively nicknamed Pig Vomit by Howard Stern. Since then, he has appeared in Milos Forman’s “Man On The Moon,” Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show,” Woody Allen’s “Deconstructing Harry,” P.J. Hogan’s “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” F. Gary Gray’s “The Negotiator,” Mike Newell’s “Donnie Brasco” and Tim Robbins’ “The Cradle Will Rock.”

"Most recently, Giamatti was seen in the Twentieth Century Fox/New Regency comedy hit “Big Momma’s House” and “Duets.” His upcoming films are “Pay Or Play” and “The Untitled Todd Solondz Project.” An accomplished stage actor, Giamatti appeared on Broadway as Jimmy Tomorrow in “The Iceman Cometh,” for which he received a Drama Desk nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Other Broadway credits include “The Three Sisters,” directed by Scott Elliot, and “Arcadia,” directed by Trevor Nunn. Television credits include HBO’s “Winchell,” opposite Stanley Tucci; and Jane Anderson’s “If These Walls Could Talk 2.” He has also appeared in guest roles on “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “NYPD Blue.” "

[Menocchio]

Y'know, this isn't Citizen Kane it isn't even A.I.. It's a cheesy piece of science-fantasy/action with a dash of satire thrown in for good measure. It wasn't great, but it was fun. Looked at in these terms, it worked, pretty much. Not a perfect movie, and far from Tim Burton's best work, but still worth a Saturday afternoon.

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

The Apes in their various form were all Republicans, with a dash of only-slightly-less-evil Nazism thrown in for good measure. That was obvious from the dinner. General Thade just had a much simpler plan for the Endlösung.

The ending had less to do with the end of previous part of the movie, and more to do with completing the Republican analogy, showing (what we saw as) the thuggish, brutal General Thade revered as the great saviour, where we (the viewers) saw the reference to Abraham Lincoln--the founder (so to speak) of the Republican party.

[Karellen]

Woke up this morning, determined to creat a POTA thread on SD because I was so confused. I was beaten to the punch of course--I love this forum!

I see it this way: It was always Earth. Wait, hear me out.

2039: Leo and Co. are on the Oberon. Pericles and Leo leave in pods and encounter the Cosmic Storm, which has been shown to warp time but not space (I know, they're the same in particle physics. You know what I mean.)

Oberon follows.

Oberon arrives on Earth in year 2139. Earth has been destoyed by nuclear war, as suggested in 1968 POTA movie ("You blew it up!") Humans are scattered, tribe-like, carry guns, speak English. There are horses. Plant life is different because of global warming. Planet is "uninhabited" because Oberon crashes in desert. Oberon apes including Simos kill scientists, escape, get smarter, breed, take over planet, create mythology and Forbidden Zone. Old ape (Thade's Dad, played by Charles H)finds old gun and hides it in vase. He knows.

2639: Apes in charge. Leo crashes, coming out of Cosmic Storm. He fights, escapes, yadda yadda yadda, finds 500-year-old Oberon ruins, starts revolution, kicks ape ass.

Pericles lands, fulfilling prophecy. Leo leaves, leaving apes and humans in peace. Thade is not dead, and now he knows how to use a gun. Thade becomes hero-god of new ape order.

2939: Apes, under the tech revolution of Thade, have developed advanced society, largely based on archive database recovered from Oberon computer banks. Thus it all looks like DC. Leo arrives, thinking he's gone back in time even though Einstein sez we can only go forward not back. Leo sees statue of Ape Lincoln.

So that's my theory. It involves a nuclear war that's never discussed or even implied, but I can't work it out any other way.

[Kaitlyn]

I've been musing on exactly what was going on. I went to the Rotton Tomatoes forum, and saw some interesting theories there stuck in among the "it was great" "was not" comments. I also visited the official web site and dug around in the "Library" section, which is like a series of encyclopedia entries viewing the time shown in the movie from a historical distance, i.e, from far in the future of the events in the movie.

Some interesting info we get from the library:

• Genreal Thade was a dominant force in Ape politics for some time following the events in the movie, and is viewed as a kind of overzealous whacko by the main populous of apes. It is believed that his hatred of humans was one of the causes of the uprising.
• Ari led a group of scientists who dredged the water hole with pod A to recover and study it.
• The battle in the movie is referred to as "The First Civil War" implying that there was a second one.
• Apes are still dominant, and humans revere Leo Davidson as a kind of religious figure.

I've revised my theory as to the end of the movie thus:
[list=1][*]The time storm throws Pericles, Leo, and the Oberon forward in time and elsewhere in space.[*]The Oberon, damaged by the storm, crashes on the pota (which is not Earth, hence the three moons).[*]Semus leads a revolt, the apes and humans separate into different societies, with the apes dominating due to their vastly superior strength.[*]The horses must have come from the Oberon. Remember, Leo says something about "all of the trees being chopped down"; a hint that I took to mean that the purpose of the Oberon was to search for habitable planets to settle. The Oberon may have been some kind of nature preserve, or included horse embryos, as horses would be extremely helpful in settling a new planet.[*]Thousands of years later, Leo arrives, and the events in the movie play out. Pericles arrives, provinding Leo with a working pod, which he uses to return to roughly his time and space.[*]Thade is released, and continues to be the General of the ape army. The first pod is recovered. The ape-human conflict continues, at some point leading to a second civil war, with some apes on the side of the humans (this comes from the web site info).[*]Leo arrives on Earth, in Washington D.C. only to find that the Lincoln Memorial is now the Thade Memorial, and Thade is a hero who lead the apes to domination over the humans.[/list=1]

All of the above comes directly from the moveie and web site, which leads to the big question that the ending prompts. How did Earth "go ape"? The only clue we're given is that General Thade was the leader. This does tell us, however, that Thade somehow managed to come from the POTA to Earth (perhaps in the recovered pod, or one of the pods left on the Oberon; only A and D were used, so presumably there were still pods B and C) and that he arrived long before Leo. How this happened is left for the sequel. (Actually, this sets up at least two or three different sequels; more on this in a moment).

We assume that this is a historical monument, but must that necessarily be true? Thade has an enormous ego; it is concievable that he would, like many Earth dictators, have erected monuments to himself. He may still be the "head ape in charge", here, which again would be potential sequel fodder.

Since this is obviously Washington D. C., the simplest explanation is that the apes took over the existing city and replace the Lincoln memorial with one of their own.

Did Thade come back by himself, or with a group of apes? I think by himself in one of the pods. There wasn't enough time to develop technology the humans had in a single lifetime, so he had to use existing technology, i.e. that left behind by the humans. The Oberon had no fuel, so it had to be a pod, probably the one Leo crashed in.

What happened when Thade arrived on Earth? There must have been some intelligent, gene-spliced apes there for him to organize into a rebellion. How did he do this? No clue--again, sequel time. The key is that it is Leo's departure from the POTA that makes this possible.

I can see the sequels progressing in this order:
[list=1][*]Picks up on the POTA immediately following Leo's departure, and deals with the changes in ape and human society caused by Leo's presense, possibly culminating in the events that lead to Thade leaving the planet and travelling back in time to Earth.[*]Follows Thade as he organizes the Earth apes and the details that lead up to the ape rebellion and the rebellion itself. Ends with the arrival of Leo in the ape Washington. This could also work as two movies one leading up to the beginning of the ape rebellion, and one following the rebellion itself and the establishment of ape civilization.[*]Occurs immediately after the end of the first movie, and follows a human rebellion led by Leo once again, perhaps against Thade or (one of his descendants) as leader of the apes.[/list=1]
I think we will definitely get a sequel, given the success of the current movie. Although I think the above sequence would be quite an interesting path to take for the inevitable sequals, I'd be willing to bet that the first sequel will pick up with the ending of POTA (sequel #3 in my sequence), because the producers will want to include Mark Wahlberg in the sequel. The information that would be in my sequel #2 would have to fit in as back story. I doubt we'll see much of the POTA in the sequel.

[Obvious Guy]

My theory may have been covered already, and in fact has been surmised by previous posts.

In the begining of the movie, we see Leo going after the chimp pilot only to get caught in a comsic storm. This cosmic storm throws him on a planet other than earth. We know this because the ape planet had more than one moon.

Now we fast forward to the end of the movie. We never see Thade die, so we know that he lives. So we can asume that any peace is short lived, and Thade someone regains power.

Under Thade's rule, the apes gather the orginal wreckage of Leo's space craft (remember it was left under water). Eventually they discover how to build there own space craft (probally not in Thade's or any of the other characters life time). Now once this first ape, or group of apes, travel into space they run into the same cosmic storm. They are then taken to Earth, probablly into Earth's recent past. Now once they get to earth it follows the line of one of the orginal ape movies. The apes are eventally made to be servents of man, but eventally overun and rule the world.
So when Leo leaves arrives back on Earth, it is populated by apes with everything else the same (well almost everthing).

And as far as the horses, I agress with a previous post about the Oberon having horse and maybe other animal embryo on board.

[kingpengvin]

I have seen a few posts wondering if the Planet of the Apes is Earth in the past or if the ending is the Planet of the Apes in the Future. Neither can be right.

The dead give away is the fact that in the night sky of the POTA has more than one Moon! It is shown several times.
As for the time frame we can clearly see Leo's Chronometer counting both up and down. And the Planet he lands on is Definitely Earth.

The only explanation is as far fetched as the beginning premise of Escape from Planet of the Apes.
Thade somehow retrieves Leo's ship and travels into the Time warp to Earth's past where he finds a way to conquer our world.

Still I don't think it works too well.

[Spoke]

Originally posted by dave316
the apes are horses dressed up in apes costumes. Talking horses ALWAYS disguise themselves, because every time a human hears a talking horse they yell "Hey it's Mr.ED

A Mr. Ed planet! Now THAT would have been a great ending.

[cmburns]

My guess is in line with some of those already posted, basically Thane gets loose and follows Marky Mark home, arriving far enough in the past to set up Earth the way he wants it. At the end of the movie, the space station is powered up, complete with working computer and assumedly data banks on earth history, technology, warfare, etc. IIRC, the two pods mentioned were A and D, implying that at least two more pods might be aboard. Throw in the maybe fixable pod at the bottom of the pond and a handy phenomenon that moves you around in space and time, and a scenario getting Thade to Earth and taking over becomes plausible.

The horses made no sense whatsoever. Why would the space station have horses or even horse embryos aboard? Were they going to try horses in the pilot seat if the chimps didn't work out?

This movie was a big disappointment to me. The actors plus Rick Baker did an excellent job in portraying a non-human intelligence, but the plot was very sketchy, and all of Wahlberg's one-liners made me think I was at an Schwarzenegger film.

[ElvisL1ves]

Here's yet another lame attempt at inventing a patch for the torn fabric of the space-time continuum. Not a new concept, of course - eventually the actors on the Star Trek series could barely keep straight faces every time the writers bald-facedly pushed that ol' time-warp / alternate universe button.

More likely, this was a simple homage to Rod Serling and his penchant for twisted, continuity-flouting endings on "Twilight Zone".

Don't look for this to get explained in POTA 2, though - it'll (they'll?) resemble "Escape from ...", "Return to ..." etc. set on the ape-ruled Earth.

[Sunshine]

I thought this movie was just ok. Or maybe slightly less than ok. Much as I love Marky Mark (oops, sorry...I mean Mark Wahlberg.) there just wasn't enough story development to make it work well. He crashes! He's captured! He escapes! They fight! He leaves! The End.

I do have to agree with whoever said that maybe the POTA just happened to have remarkably horse-like animals. For me, the horses were a non-issue, like the fact that the Apes all speak English. They're not going to make us read subtitles the whole movie. I don't think it's important.

My thoughts: POTA is NOT Earth. The planet he lands on at the end IS Earth. I agree that Thade somehow traveled to Earth and warped history.

Oh, and I definitely did see orangutangs on the Oberon, so I'm assuming there were also gorillas, as well as the chimps for the POTA inhabitants to evolve from.

[Karellen]

Okay, I admit I missed the three moons thing. So POTA is not Earth. Damn.

They could have made things more digestible by letting us know the Oberon was like huge and full of animal species and thousands of people.

[Kaitlyn]

Originally posted by ElvisL1ves

More likely, this was a simple homage to Rod Serling and his penchant for twisted, continuity-flouting endings on "Twilight Zone".

Or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which did end each episode with a twist. On The Twilight Zone, the twist ending was hardly universal, and the twist endings usually fit in with the continuity of the story.

The POTA ending did seem stuck on, but it's fun trying to reconcile the ending anyway. In the 70's and 80's, Marvel comics would send a "no-prize" to readers who could explain continuity or logical errors that always end up in comics. The idea was to take a genuine continuity or logical error, and explain why it wasn't really an error.

[Cervaise]

Okay, I found a cite describing how the ending isn't supposed to make logical sense, that it's simply a big twist for the sake of the mindfuck.

Bruce Snyder, head of distribution for 20th Century Fox: "If the truth be known, it wasn't really supposed to make sense." (full story)

I know I saw something similar from the actual creators (Burton and company). I'll keep scrounging, and be back soon.

[Sofa King]

I think we all need to take a deep breath and realize that the film ends with Markie Mark hopping into his teeny little space pod, blasting off at a slooow 1.x G in the middle of a crowd of people, zipping up to well beyond escape velocity and leaving the obviously alien planet with no oceans, several moons, and an orbiting sphincter. (I guess fusion power really is only thirty years away. Except the mothership's rockets run on fuel cells. Go figure.) Roll credits, power down the belief suspension field. Fwip!

Then, an executive threw the script down, kicked his secretary out from under the desk, got on the phone and said, "Tim, goddammit! Do you know who my father was? In his day f*&^# sci-fi movies had suprise endings, or at least something the kids could enjoy on drugs. Where's the F#$%^& suprise goddamned ending? I want one under--on my desk by the end of the week! Hey, that tickles!"

So Tim hangs up, goes to the freezer where he's got his last four hundred mikes of Owlsley Crystal stashed, snorts it, makes a martini, and drops Pink Floyd's Ummagumma on the Bang & Olufsen.

And there it is.

Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon there on the run, Titania
Neptune, Titan, stars can frighten

Ahh ahh ahhh ahhh ahh ahh ahhh ahhh

Winding signs flap
flicker flicker flicker flam pow pow
stairways scared and death rules there

Ahh ahh ahhh ahhh ahh ahh ahhh

"AaaIhhh've got an ending! Gotta get this down, man. Pencil, pencil, PENCIL! This eye liner will do. What were those lyrics again? Screw it, I'm tripping anyway, there's no chance I heard em' right. Hell, Syd Barret ain't gonna tell, anyway. Jupiter... Saturn... pow!... stairway... yeah! This is gonna work!"

The next day, the producer is evaluating his new secretary. He reaches onto his desk, grabs a handful of paper, fans his face, then casually tosses it into the outbox.

Months later, said producer discovers that not only did he approve the drug-addled ending to the film, but he also released Arnold Schwarzenegger from the film to do voice-over work for Dr. Doolittle 2. True Lies 2 and Terminator 3 are immediately green-lighted. Fwip!

Please check circuit on belief suspension field.

[darian00]

*wanders in, looking slightly dazed*
*blinks a few times*

Okay, you people have got waaaaaaaay too much time on your hands.


*ducks and runs for cover*

[Arken]

Another strange little thing in the movie...

The pilot giving a mayday to the Oberon wasn't Mark Wahlberg.

A) We saw that mark wasn't sending one.

B) The pilot who WAS sending one had a moustache and was older.


So MY take on the ending was that the storm didn't throw him around to different times, but to different parallel universes. Parallel universe A is the one with the Oberon time-loop. Parallel universe B has a planet WHERE APES EVOLVED FROM MEN?!? (sorry... Chuck Heston Moment...) anyway... in universe B, there just happened to be another General Thade that looked like the General Thade in universe A.

Have a hard time accepting that? Fine. Explain how, in the 25-or-so years from now where the film begins, we have a gigantic space station orbiting saturn.

Explain how everyone survived the NUCLEAR EXPLOSION that Leo triggered on the Oberon to defeat the apes INCLUDING the apes right in front of the explosion!

Explain how the apes in the couple of thousand years since Pericles' time got so much taller.

Well...the original series explained that last one very well. Watch all the Apes films after Beneath... Apes, according to that movie series, were always people-sized and walked upright with a hunch. Of course, the original series also said that after all the dogs and cats die from a strange disease, apes become common house pets...

But hey, any excuse to watch Ricardo Montolban in a bad toupee...

[Lego]

Originally posted by ExTank
An animal research facility around Saturn? Is real estate getting that pricey in near-Earth orbit?

As I understood it, they probably wanted to be farther away from earth because part of their research was illegal.

[Miller]

"Explain how everyone survived the NUCLEAR EXPLOSION that Leo triggered on the Oberon to defeat the apes INCLUDING the apes right in front of the explosion!

Explain how the apes in the couple of thousand years since Pericles' time got so much taller."

What makes you think the explosion was nuclear? Although I agree that the movie suddenly got lame when the apes who had just been blasted 100 yards into the air are merely "groggy" after they crash back down to the ground.

As for the other question, the log Mark Wahlberg finds indicates that the scientists on the Oberon used the apes to keep themselves alive for some time before the revolt. Evidently, in order to survive, they began much more aggressive genetic engineering, arriving at the apes we see in the film. This manipulation might have had other side effects, such as a drastically supressed birthrate, explaining why the humans were able to out-breed the apes.

As for all the other plot holes, all bets are off if a story involves time travel. Maybe in the year 10,500 a ship transporting horses to the Intergalactic Zoo hits the same storm and lands on POTA before anyone else gets there. Maybe Thade travels back in time and helps the South win the Civil War by giving them AK-47s. Maybe Thade is actually Wahlberg's and Helena Bonham Carters descendent from the time they got it on .00005 seconds after the Big Bang.

[Zebra]

that I totally hated this movie.

Where to begin.

I'm going to forgive the horse plot hole. For that I'll suspend my disbelief.

But...

Thade had one emotion. So did every other character with the folowing exceptions.

The slave trader was great but when the best thing in a movie is the comic relief it is a bad sign.

Marky Mark and the human chick had no emotions. If you going to cast someone like her because she is a hot chick than at least give her some skipier clothes.

Marky Mark is also the worst pilot in history. His chimp can land better than he ever does. Plus those little pods sure get great gas mileage. My god it lifts off the PotA after the chimp has been sailing around then after going throught the time-storm it flys from Saturn to the Earth in less time than it takes for him to use up the oxygen in that little thing.

Why on PotA when you are trying to sneak out of Apeville would you run through people's houses?

The space ships power and computer and hand print doors all still work? There is no sand in the door tracks? The fuel in the third tank hasn't broken down over the thousands of years?

Why don't the human decendants have any knowledge of their past?

If you lived on PotA and there were a bunch of Apes after you and you knew they all were afraid of the water how hard would it be to find an island to live on?

Why did the chimp's pod have a gun in it? Would you give a gun to a monkey?

Why didn't the Apes follow them down that tunnel as they were leaving the city? He clearly saw them go in there but after killing off Kris K they just stand around and do nothing.

What happend after those two apes show Thade the broken branches in the Jungle? Thade dosen't find the first pod because it is submerged in the water and all apes are afraid of the water and any way he can't swim.

I don't think that was a Nuclear Explosion just a bunch of rocket fuel but how did some apes get blasted back 100s of yards but some a lying right in front of the where the blast came from. So why are they alive? And why wait till they stir to give the order to run down and kill them. Kill them while they are stunned!

Why do all the humans want to follow Marky Mark? He gives the least motivational pre-battle speech in movie history.

Bleah I say Bleah!

bleh

[ladyfoxfyre]

Originally posted by Tyrrell McAllister

Perhaps the station had horse embryos, and machines which could bring them to term. Once the colonists landed, they would want to use these embryos because of the labor the horses could provide.

The crew of the Oberon weren't colonists. They weren't looking for a place to land and make a new start, they were a space station not meant for landing.
I didn't like the movie very much. I agree that it had too many plot holes to be acceptable as part of the unexplained, and the only good part of it was the makeup.
The humans escape, all of them, so they hide in the space station overnight before they start planning a defense/attack???
Humans outnumber apes 4-1 and they still only win because Marky Mark's chimp comes back?
A blast from a presumably large nuclear reactor just sort of blows back the first row of apes, without burning them to cinders or injuring most of them in the least?
The human chick had no distinguishable benefit to the movie at all. She always had a stupid look on her face, a cross between "I am a defiant human" and "Why is he hitting on her and not me? Why why why?!?!". She wasn't even very pretty. Her oversized lips bothered me. No doubt she will be cast in several stupid movies to come.
I wasted $7.50 to see this and the only good thing about it was the costumes. And the popcorn.


_{Alright I had Buncha Crunch too....they were really good....}

[Arken]

Well I assumed it was a nuclear explosion since Marky Mark said the station was nuclear-powered and what he exploded was what powered the station.

[KneadToKnow]

Originally posted by Number Six
One of the apes, Seamus

I swear it sounded to me like they were all saying CMOS. I was half expecting the twist ending to be that their Adam Ape was a computer.

Arken, the mayday was from the Oberon itself, an image from their future somehow reflected back through the electromagnetic storm. This is revealed by the fact that the first thing Leo sees when he fires up their log is the same face giving the same mayday.

Also, am I the only one who noticed that the "mark of the humans" was the Oberon's insignia sans wings?

[Arken]

Isn't 'Seamus' supposed to be pronounced 'Shay-muss' anyway?

I didn't think it was a computer, but I did think it was an acronym. I *didn't* think CALIMA was an acronym, but then I thought it was spelled Kalima until I they showed it, so go figure.

[Tripler]

Originally posted by Zebra


What happend after those two apes show Thade the broken branches in the Jungle? Thade dosen't find the first pod because it is submerged in the water and all apes are afraid of the water and any way he can't swim.

In the movie, doesn't Thade kill those two apes? IIRC, he pulled a pair of funky lookin' blade-thingies from behind his back, and thumps them. Then, he tosses the two bodies into that pond, knowing that no other ape will find them down there, because no ape would enter the water. You see the two bodies when Marky Mark jumps in and swims down to his sunken pod.

This movie was just plain wierd. I'd like to ask the question that if these apes were so damned advanced, how come they didn't have relatively sophisticated projectile weapons? For a society with gold inlaid body armor, I didn't see a single bow, arrow, atlatl, or even a sling. . .

Tripler
It's all monkey business to me. . .

[KneadToKnow]

Oh, man, the Calima thing.

I was going to bring that up but I couldn't find a way to kindly say, "A space probe whose name gets covered up by some some gunk and everybody calls it by it's "new" name without ever thinking to clean it off? How V'ger."

I was trying to be nice, but now I'm at work and don't care as much.

[Arken]

Just out of curiosity, are real apes afraid of water? I thought at least chimpanzees enjoyed the occasional dip...

[Jeannie]

I was wondering the same thing about apes. I thought they could swim. Then again, I only ever see them at the zoo, and they're usually just sitting there or playing in the trees. Even if they don't normally swim, aren't their bodies similar to ours? If we can swim, why can't they?

Also, can horses swim that well? I looked it up online, and apparently they can swim, but some vets feel that it is against their nature (found at this site). Granted, this is hardly thorough research. I just looked it up out of curiosity. Anyway, in the movie, Marky Mark says that horses are "great swimmers" and can carry people (or apes) across the water. Can horses really swim while carrying a person?

(Okay, I guess that was pretty off-topic, but it does relate to the movie, and I'm curious.)