Planet of the Apes(Tim Burtons version)

[froggequene]

I may wind up sounding quite thick or confused, take your pick but could someone take pity on me and explain what happened or what they think happened at the end of the film. Is it a parallel universe or do the apes history evolve a similar society to ours and he accidentally winds up back there again?

[geofbob]

I've just looked at the screenplay on http://www.script-o-rama.com/ (a great website), and I'm still baffled. The screenplay certainly seems to indicate that Leo has landed back on Earth, in Washington, but of course it could be a parallel universe. On the other hand, perhaps he has travelled through time, landed thousands of years ahead, and the experiments on the apes have led to them taking over. In either case, the message of the movie seems confused - having tried to dispel stereotypical responses of fear and antagonism towards the apes, at the end it seems to want to revert to them.

[Cathy]

I thought he went back in time, and somehow the apes had evolved into the dominant species instead of humans, but this doesn't make much sense, either. There's supposed to be an explanation of the ending on the DVD, but unfortunately that involves buying the DVD, so I haven't bothered.

[desertrat]

When he went forward in time he found the apes fighting with the humans. After the great battle, apes and humans seemed to have resolved their differences. When he left in his spaceship I believe that he went forward in time again to a time when apes had completely dominated the planet as the statue shown at the end of the film was that of the ape general involved in much of the fighting.

[JohnPPotts]

Surely it has to be a parallel Universe. The apes won a war with humans and then decided to rebuild the Lincoln memorial and use exactly the same police cars? Surely not (although I guess a parallel Universe where that happened is equally improbable - it's just more of a Sci Fi staple - like Star Trek's Mirror Universe).

[couchy]

See this link for Tim Burtons commentshttp://www.empireonline.co.uk/news/news.asp?story=
3307 - doesn't help much mind.

[froggequene]

Thanks for the responses, they are much appreciated. Maybe as Marge in The Simpsons once said, "it's an ending, what more do you want?" and we shall have to leave it at that.

[Skellen]

its a crap film anyway full of mistakes

for instance, they say in the film that everything living on the planet came from the spaceship

so where did the horses come from?

and when he finds the spaceship, where do the tyre marks come from?