Heston comes upon the half-buried statue. Was the whole harbor supposedly filled in, like forgotten ancient cities? If so, where did that cliff next to it come from? If the statue came apart and was washed up on shore, what explains it being upright and intact?
The image makes no geological or archaeological sense. Like many things in movies, it is explained by being a cool image.
It’s pretty obvious from the solid rocks next to it that it couldn’t be in its original position in New York harbor any more. It appears that it has somehow washed up from somewhere else, but it’s very unlikely for a heavy metal statue to have come to rest in that position. Even today, the arm with the torch is so weak that people aren’t allowed to go up in it anymore. It surely would have collapsed under any stress.
Also, the statue isn’t free-standing. It consists of sheets of copper attached to an iron interior scaffolding. If exposed to seawater, the scaffolding would corrode and the statue would fall into pieces.
The actual location was at Malibu Beach, Los Angeles, certainly chosen for convenience rather than any resemblance to New York harbor.
It doesn’t really pay to think too hard about movies like Planet of the Apes.
Can’t add much to that, except… rule of cool.
Either that, or the massive debris from the … um… apocalyptic thingamabob… filled in New York Harbor and raised the surrounding ground level to the point where the statue was just… um… semi buried… and a little cockeyed.
I note also that in Cloverfield, in the scene where it pitches the Statue of Liberty’s head into downtown Manhattan, the original test footage seemed wrong, so they increased the Statue’s head size to the point where it LOOKS more impressive… albeit totally wrong, and anyone who’s ever visited the Statue itself knows it. It’s just not that big.
Rule of Cool.
As others have said, it was just a cool image that fit the story.
But if you want to fanwank it, you can imagine that the apes, after overthrowing human rule, set out to destroy all signs of past human civilization. A giant statue on display of a human wouldn’t do. So the offending statue was torn down from its original pedestal and towed to this remote beach where it was dumped out of sight.
Except that it would be very easy to destroy it in place by dismantling the scaffolding, while it would be virtually impossible to move it intact. And all that copper would be valuable enough to melt it down and re-use.
I had a theory based on that desert that they crash land in at the beginning. I figured that the ocean went down, or the sea floor rose, for reasons unknown. So, the statue was washed out to sea and now at rest at the new shoreline. I don’t have anything to back that up.
Anyhow, if ape city was near Virginia Beach this would have confused both man and ape.
Whose to say it’s the original statue. There are many replicas, like the one in Las Vegas.
Colibri, while it’s true the statue’s arm was weakened by water leaking around the glass panes in the torch, that’s not why people aren’t allowed to climb into it. It was renovated in 1984 and is structurally sound today.
According to Cecil, the torch can only be accessed by climbing a 54 rung ladder and only 12 people can stand on the outside platform at one time. In addition, the ladder is so narrow that people can not climb and descend at the same time. Cecil says that access to the torch ended in 1917 because of overcrowding, and the 1984 restoration fixed the structural problems, however, the authorities haven’t been tempted to reopen the arm because of the potential for the previous overcrowding situation to repeat itself.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/612/could-visitors-once-go-into-the-statue-of-libertys-arm
You may appreciate this 1946 Norman Rockwell illustration, the original of which was donated by Steven Spielberg to a certain famous house:
Monkeys moved it. The used the copper from the bottom half to make Monkey Buddha, aka The Lawgiver
Maybe the apes were all members of the Pail & Shovel Party.
It’s not the Statue of Liberty – Heston’s character got it wrong – It’s the head an d arm of Mega Maid from Spaceballs
A giant monkey tore the top half off and carried it to shore.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think it couldn’t be the real Liberty, which would have corroded to metallic green confetti in the time it took for human civilization to fall and for the apes to have built all those Flintstones houses.
Plainly, it’s just an amazing simulation. How and why remain as an exercise for the reader.
Well, considering that the area the Statue was in was called The Forbidden Zone, and it was called The Forbidden Zone due to some form of atomic bomb destruction years in the past, then sure, it could be the original Statue. Who’s to say what could happen to the area after untold years of destruction and land shifting, after an atomic bomb (or bombs) attack.
Or if the studio accountants tell you you have to film the scene in Malibu.
Didn’t Gru steal that one?