I watched the Memorial Day marathon of all the old "Planet of the Apes" movies. (For anyone not knowing they are: "Planet of the Apes", "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", "Escape from Planet of the Apes", and "Conquest of Planet of the Apes".) After watching these, especially the first one it made me want to watch the 2001 new edition of "Planet of the Apes" and luckily it came on the same day. What I don't understand about these movies is the ending of both of the movies but I have an assumption on why the first movie ended the way it did. I think the moral of the story was not to have nuclear war. I think that was what the desimated Statue of Liberty and the statements made by Taylor (Charlton Heston) meant to say. Am I correct? I have not clue why the 2001 version ended the way it did, anyone else?
As a kid I loved the old Plant movies. The new one was almost unwatchable. And the ending... I did some research online to try to figure it all out and ended up even more confused.
Yeah, the 2001 ending was based on the silly premise that the general, using the satchel that Marky-mark left behind, was able to reverse engineer a fleet of spacecraft and master time travel in order to go back and conquer the earth, or something like that. But that movie featured all sorts of strange time travel paradoxes that wouldn't work out, so who knows. EDIT: Here's an article on the ending: Plot Holes: Planet of the Apes Why Tim Burton's ending makes sense. By Josh Daniel Updated Friday, October 19, 2001, at 4:57 PM PT Warning: Plot Holes is a column about narrative lapses in the movies. Today's entry gives away the twist at the end of Planet of the Apes. Photo2 While Plot Holes usually delights in ridiculing movies that don't make sense, today it feels obliged to defend Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake. The movie's surprise ending has left some critics scratching their heads: The New York Times' Elvis Mitchell called the finale a "puzzler"; Slate's David Edelstein said it doesn't "make a lick of sense" and asked, "Has Burton lost his wits?" He hasn't—or at least, his Apes ending doesn't prove that he has. Yes, the shocker is wildly implausible, but it does hang together with a loopy sort of logic. Here's the bit that's causing confusion (seriously, if you don't want to know the ending, please stop reading now). After a climactic battle on the apes' planet, astronaut Leo Davidson takes off in a spaceship and flies into an electromagnetic storm, with hopes of returning to Earth in the 21st century. While he's in the storm we see his chronometer spinning backward, and he does eventually crash-land on Earth—in Washington, D.C.'s Reflecting Pool, as a matter of fact. Only now, the Earth is ruled by apes too! In place of the Lincoln Memorial, there's a monument dedicated to Davidson's ape nemesis, Gen. Thade, for "saving the Earth for all apekind" or some such. But Davidson has just traveled across the universe and time-warped centuries into the past. … So, how can Thade have already conquered Earth for the apes when he hasn't even been born on the ape planet yet? Answer: Before Davidson leaves the ape planet, there's a quick shot of Limbo, the orangutan slave trader, rummaging through his spaceship and slyly pocketing something. Evidently whatever he pockets contains the secret to space travel. (Maybe it's a manual: "Space Travel So Easy, a Chimp Could Do It.") Thade, who's pointedly left alive at the end of the climactic battle, must have built a ship, flown into the time-warping electromagnetic storm, and landed on Earth at some point before Davidson returned. Then he led Earth's apes in a rebellion against humans, took over the Earth, and had the monument built for him. Of course, back on their home planet, the apes don't even have simple motors yet. So, whatever Limbo takes from the spaceship allows them to, in Thade's lifetime, master physics, build computers, design spacesuits, test spacecraft, and send the general into space while he's still young enough to conquer the Earth. Remember, we didn't say it was plausible
To leave an opening for a 2nd and 3rd one(for what ever reason movies come in trilogies nowadays). ALA
I don't know if that's the moral to the "story" but it certainly is the point of the ending. It was made during the Cold War when tensions about nuclear war were much higher than today. I love those old Planet movies.
Umm...Thade didn't need to build a new spacecraft. All he needed to do was salvage the spacecraft from the swamp and get it working. It's possible there was an extra spacesuit in the capsule for redundancy purposes. As implausible as it seems, this is a more likely approach than apes building an entirely new spaceship. Who knows what Limbo took from the spacecraft(I thought it was a medical kit with aspirin)? It wasn't a tool or parts replicator for building a new spaceship. It may have been schematics or data, though. Well, I guess the apes could have used tools from the crashed mother ship to fix the existing spacecraft or build a new spacecraft. I think there is going to be a sequel to the newer Planet of the Apes. That may explain it although it may not sync with how Tim Burton meant the ending to be and mean.
i love the old "planet of the Apes" is so cool. when i was younger i watched the 1st one and had to watch the rest after that.
Yes. There were five Planet of the Apes movies in the original series of movies. Battle for the Planet of the Apes was the last (and, by far, the worst). You're not missing anything by not seeing it, though. It didn't really advance the overall story like the other four (and it actually creates some continuity questions).
what?? i thought the spaceship full of people that went into the storm to save marky mark ended up on earth in a time before mankind existed. and they stayed there (stranded? ship crashed?) until the apes in their spaceship rebelled and took over everything for a few generations, with both apes and man forgetting their true origin. then marky mark's pod comes in. after he leaves, i thought the gorilla (michael clarke duncan) let his boss go and ape beats man and continues ruling earth. until present time, where marky mark comes hurtling. is this not it? too straight forward?
THEN, by a LONG shot. I was around 25 when I first saw Planet of the Apes, and I was and still am just enthralled with this chick. She's just smokin' hot. What was her name again??
I think it was a different planet than earth that marky mark and the spaceship crash landed on. I think your scenario would create a wacked out time travel paradox in which the spaceship that crash landed and started the new ape dominated earth would have never existed becasue the human earth couldn't have been around in the future to build it.
It wasn't earth. It truly was another planet, I believe. The only difference was, like you said, that ship that went in to save Wahlberg's character ended up many many years before Mark Walberg's character...and they ended up spawning the intelligent ape culture. I don't think it was ever mentioned or proven that they were actually on earth.
i guess i never saw it that way. does this mean if it was my case, then marky mark when he was at the foot of the statue of the monkey, would start disintegrating ala michael j fox in back to the future 1 (the prom dance scene)? can't they (mark and the astronouts) just BE there? like separate timelines that branched out when the time travel happened? this is all too confusing for my little brain.
