Planet of the Apes Ending

[Phantom 187]

Can't believe the ending. Was just wondering what every one thinks of it, where everyone thinks it fits on the time line and how director Tim Burton expects to pull off the fact that General Thaid's face is on the Lincoln Memorial. I would imagine that the Apes took over but how in the heck does that explain the mergence of our world with theirs.
Will they make a sequal?

Phantom 187
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[systemcr4sh]

I hated the ending. it was so BAD.

-Dan

[Lee]

This ending BLOWS!!! It makes no sence at all!!!In the original(and waaay superior), the ending blew your mind but it made sence! Here I don't know what the HELL is going on! Let's say that something went goofy and he went back to the same planet, ok, but he was going back in time so how the hell did everything get modernized?! Damn stupid movie!

[J.R.]

I liked the movie overall but the ending...it felt like they were trying to top the original, and went for the surprise rather than the resolution.  Actually, I got a sense of what they were going for, but didn't flesh out all the way: We find out Thaid was one of the lab chimps on the ship, and that the reason he hates humans is because of the way they treated other animals. Sort of an animal rights thing. Then when Leo goes back to Earth Thaid (or some other ape) has gone to Earth, and exacted revenge on humanity, turning the tables by enslaving us and making society their own. Anyone else get that? Maybe I'm just weird.

[Neville]

I didn't really liked the movie. OK, it is better than the usual summer blockbuster, but it kills all the food for thought the original provided. I expected much, much more from Tim Burton, and the ending was just a try to surprise the audience at all cost while trying to link the movie to the original. What a pity they forgot to add some grounds before.

[Steven Millan]

     You can thank the chosen scriptwriters(won't list them out for respect for Tim Burton,who must have badly needed the money to undertake this megabudgeted dreck[on his resume])for coming up with the year's worst ending,which clearly killed the chances of opening up the opportunity for a newly resurrected franchise line of sequel(with the first having "Beneath the Planet of the Apes"' badly scarred mutants beating up the writers,producers,and film crew who comjured up this mess).Don't even ask my Sacramento-based cousins about this one:they rank it right up there with "Plan Nine From Outer Space" and "Showgirls".

[John Morgan]

BAD VERY BAD.  Leave the Classics alone Tim Burton.

[Nathan]

Don't blame the writers.  Burton asked for that ending.

I watched this one on DVD, and I backed up to listen to the director's commentary to hear if Burton could justify his godawful ending.  He couldn't; he just blathered on on the defensive, saying something like, "To me, having an ending which doesn't follow from what has proceeded it is somehow logical."  Sounds like he needs to go back to gradeschool to learn what some of those words mean before he tries to use them in a sentence.

Nathan

[AndyC]

It seems to me that the ending was just a bit of nonsense tacked on the end to spark debate. I have to admit that I thought pretty hard about it on the way out of the theatre, and when I discussed the movie with anyone, the ending was sure to come up. Really, it was the most memorable thing in the movie, and, viewed on its own, looked pretty cool.

As far as the ending ripping off the first movie, it is actually closer to what happened in the book, which I found at the local library many years ago (I assume any book out today is a novelization of the screenplay). The characters return from the planet of the apes to find that apes have conquered Earth (they meet a cop who turns around and reveals himself to be a gorilla). That made sense, however, because it did not imply any sort of impossible connection. It also did not involve time travel, but rather the time dilation effect of light-speed travel. Centuries whizzed by, while time on the ship passed slowly. This was used in the original movie, but screwed up in the sequels to allow a new hero to be introduced.

The book, however, has a double-surprise ending that couldn't really be duplicated on film. The whole story is in a sort of spacegoing message in a bottle, found by a couple of space travellers we assume to be human. At the conclusion of the story, they turn out to be chimpanzees.

[Jay O'Connor]

> "To me, having an ending which doesn't follow from what has proceeded it is
> somehow logical." Sounds like he needs to go back to gradeschool to learn
> what some of those words mean before he tries to use them in a sentence.

As I sometimes say "I know what all those words mean, just not when they are put in that order'

[Offthewall]

POTA's was my least favorite Tim Burton film in general and the ending really made me almost mad at him. He needs to make another Edward Sissorhands, Ed Wood or BeetleJuice soon to boost my respect back up.

[john]

I didn't like the ending either simply for the fact that everything was almost identical to Earth. If he'd landed in a modern future that RESEMBLED Earth, but run by apes, I think I could have accepted it. Of course the part that's really hard to believe is that any straight guy would walk away from Estella Warren.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Please note. I won't try to explain the ending, but if one goes to www.movie-mistakes.com and looks under "Planet of the Apes" (2001) there is a explanation of the ending. It makes as much sense to me as anything else I've seen and heard.
And, oh by the way, there is some talk of doing a sequel to "Beetlejuice." Enjoy!