> WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD. I'M NOT KIDDING. I GIVE AWAY THE LAST TWENTY MINUTES OF THE MOVIE, PLUS GIVE MY INTERPRETATION OF IT. IF YOU HAVE ANY DESIRE TO SEE THIS MOVIE (Which I do recommend, even though the end is confusing and lame) DO NOT READ THIS POST.
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> > I saw the remake for Planet of the Apes tonight.
>
> I saw it this afternoon, myself.
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> I'll skip over all the discussion because I agreed with everything you said.
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> > - THE ENDING! Like, gag me with a spoon! Ok, for those who haven't seen it, it's nothing like the original movie. The movie was decent until the last ten minutes. See it, and you'll be as disgusted as I am. Unless you understand it... if so, please explain here so I can maybe get a grip on that heinous ending.
> >
> > I've read/viewed plenty of sci-fi, plus I have always studied science for enjoyment, so I can usually grasp the typical sci-fi premise. But I was truly befuddled by this movie. Too many loose ends and things that make you go "Huh?"
>
> My best friend and I walked away from that ending, and all we could describe it as was a "write-your own ending" type movie. Having some sci-fi background myself, I put together a fairly plausible scenario for what happened. It does, however, make a lot of assumptions, but really, to make any sense out of that ending, you need to make some pretty hefty assumptions.
>
> #1: Time Travel
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> I chose to accept the modern relativistic model of time travel, since it seems to work in the framework of the movie. (If you disagree, see later points.) Basically, this means that "time travel" can be achieved by accelerating to nearly the speed of light, where time slows down for the accelerated body, thereby moving it into the future without it seeing the effects of the time travel. Presumably, the electromagnetic storm accelerated both the alpha and delta pods to this velocity, but the Oberon could not be accelerated to that speed when it followed (too much mass?) so did not travel forward in time. The distant planet on which all these events occurred was reached through the acceleration process as well--when you go that fast, you have to go SOMEWHERE. Presumably, the Oberon was accelerated enough to get to this planet, but not enough for time to slow, so it arrived thousands of years earlier.
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> (Reviewing this section, I realize that Mark should have arrived first, and the Oberon later, but with Mark not being aged by the journey, and the Oberon having aged. Ah, well, I'll keep working on it. For now, I'll just say "mumble mumble time travel forward only blah blah accept it".)
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> #2: The Ending
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> When Mark (I can't even remember the character's name--he's just Marky Mark) launched again in Alpha pod (I noticed that something inside said Delta pod, though this was incorrect--Pericles had launched in Alpha pod--sorry, I'm a pedant at heart) he headed back into the electromagnetic storm. Despite the appearance of going back in time (as shown by his fancy date clock running in reverse), our model of time travel only allows forward travel. Too bad our Air Force guy wasn't up on his relativistic theory. As a result, he gets accelerated again, back towards Earth, but skips ahead another few thousand years.
>
> When we last saw General Thade, he was still locked inside the control room of the Oberon, apparently defeated. However, we have no way of knowing what happened next. Based on what we see on Earth, it seems to me that he eventually managed to get out of there, subdue all the humans and apes who had been present for the events (probably with his fancy ray gun), and gone back to his people, a conquering hero. Now aware of the human technology to be found in the desert, he continued to appropriate human technology, and eventually found his way off the planet. His apes went to Earth armed with human technology, and probably waged a bitter war, which the apes eventually won. When they did, they would have appropriated the human technology which already existed, lacking the human ingenuity for creating new devices. Thus, their technology would not have advanced significantly in the thousands of years it took Mark to return. Of course, they obliterated any signs of the former human culture, and in some cases (like the Thade memorial) created their own versions of some cultural elements.
>

I think he really did go back in time at the end. Thade survives being locked up in the Oberon, regathers his forces and figures out how to repair the ship or make a new one, and somehow travels back in time farther than Mark did. Mark just happens to go back to the same "timeline" that Thade did.

I think it's the same scenario that you see in the Back to the Future 2. Biff steals the book (in the future -- 2015, I think) detailing the results of sporting events, goes back in time to the past and gives the book to himself in 1955. When Marty goes back from 2015 to 1985, he finds himself 30 years along the same timeline that Biff warped in 1955.

The question is how far back Thade had to go to make it easy for the advanced ape race to take control. Not too far, because you see familiar human-made landmarks at the end of the movie. Or, perhaps they're having us believe that the apes went back further in time, but managed to recreate appearances to an astounding degree.

> Well, that's my take on it. Seeing as it is almost 4:30 am, I may have left some holes in my explanation--if you see anything, I'd be glad to try to explain it.
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> > Also, look for Charlton Heston's cameo. It is screamingly hilarious, what his character does. NRA is UNIVERSAL, babee! Guns don't kill apes, apes kill apes.
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> I always love Heston, and I was not disappointed here. :-)
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> > --Jez"damn, dirty dishes!"zika
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> Don "Was thinking about posting earlier on this exact subject, never got around to it, and then felt compelled to reply to this post when it came up" Monkey