News Planet of the Apes (spoilers)

[Tosk]

There's no one-explanation-fits-all to make sense of the end of that movie. How did Thade get the pod? How did he fix it? How did he work it? How did he go back in time? How did he take over Earth...or at least America?

For my money, the closest to believable is just that it's an alternate universe. Like an ep of Sliders. I doubt Burton gave two shits about the logic of it all, he just wanted a "Whaaaaat?!" ending.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Well, humans do really fucking suck big time, so I'm all for more. Maybe if it enough people get shown their suckage, they'll finally take a good look at their behavior and make some changes.

Ah, yes. Change. Change can be good.

A particular change I'd like to see is, not using shame as a weapon to beat people over the head with. Especially for things that they had nothing to do with.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

In the book, way back in 1963, the Apes had tech similar to Earth in the 1960s including jet planes.

This was Rod Serling's approach in his original draft, that the ape civilization was a mirror of our own with comparable 20th century tech. The producers had nowhere near that kind of budget so the scale was pulled back considerably. I actually prefer what we saw onscreen as opposed to what could have been.

 

[Christopher]

This was Rod Serling's approach in his original draft, that the ape civilization was a mirror of our own with comparable 20th century tech.

Or rather, that was the approach in Pierre Boulle's original novel that Serling adapted. There, the planet was in orbit of Betelgeuse, yet it still paralleled Earth's evolution. Indeed, the novel ended with the hero returning to Earth after centuries in hibernation to find that Earth's apes had replaced humans in his absence, so it was essentially indistinguishable from the planet he'd just left. Serling just streamlined Boulle's premise by making it Earth all along.

The interesting thing is that much of the second half of the novel is essentially the inverse of Escape from the Planet of the Apes, in which the human astronaut is accepted into ape society and treated as an intriguing novelty, until he eventually has to go on the run. So in a way, both the first and third films are adaptations of the original novel.

The producers had nowhere near that kind of budget so the scale was pulled back considerably.

The mid-1970s animated series did portray a 20th-century version of ape society like the one from the novel. Although it wasn't an exact parallel, since they were decades behind us in the development of powered flight.

 

[JD]

This was Rod Serling's approach in his original draft, that the ape civilization was a mirror of our own with comparable 20th century tech. The producers had nowhere near that kind of budget so the scale was pulled back considerably. I actually prefer what we saw onscreen as opposed to what could have been.

Boom! Studios did a comic book adaptation of Rod Serling's script called Planet of The Apes: Visionaries.

 

[Guy Gardener]

This was Rod Serling's approach in his original draft, that the ape civilization was a mirror of our own with comparable 20th century tech. The producers had nowhere near that kind of budget so the scale was pulled back considerably. I actually prefer what we saw onscreen as opposed to what could have been.

It barely makes sense that can mass produce rifles, but still move around on horse drawn carts...

Oh.

That's the Napoleonic Wars through to cowboys as far as human civilizations go.

I'm reading the comic suggested here earlier about the General and the other astronauts.

In a d-plot, they are claiming that Human infestations/mass migration from parts unknown, are wrecking the ape farms, and there's a looming famine.

This is only a local problem for City from the movie, they also say that trade is non existent with the other Ape cities because they have no surplus goods.

Good lord?

Are they vegetarians?

Eat the wild humans you dumb bastards.

 

[Tosk]

Come to think about it, I still marvel how Stella Kowalski, Plato the puppy shooter and the LASSIE COME HOME kid managed to salvage AND operate Ben-Hur's spacecraft AND frigging launch it off Earth.

And they did it very quickly, and they did it somehow without the entire back section of the Icarus. Maybe they used a trebuchet to throw the cockpit into space?

 

[Christopher]

And they did it very quickly, and they did it somehow without the entire back section of the Icarus. Maybe they used a trebuchet to throw the cockpit into space?

I still feel that IDW's Star Trek/PotA crossover comic, which took place mostly before and partly just after Beneath, missed an opportunity to establish that the Enterprise crew helped Cornelius and Zira get the capsule into orbit.

 

[thribs]

So this is going to be another trilogy set before Mark Wahlberg comes and gets rid of those damn dirty apes.

 

[Tosk]

Thankfully, Murky Mark's movie was another reality altogether and we'll never see it again.

 

[Samurai8472]

There's no one-explanation-fits-all to make sense of the end of that movie. How did Thade get the pod? How did he fix it? How did he work it? How did he go back in time? How did he take over Earth...or at least America?

For my money, the closest to believable is just that it's an alternate universe. Like an ep of Sliders. I doubt Burton gave two shits about the logic of it all, he just wanted a "Whaaaaat?!" ending.

Maybe after Mark Wahlberg left a secret group of Thade loyalists regained control and ordered the good guys to show him how the ship worked.

 

[Tosk]

Maybe after Mark Wahlberg left a secret group of Thade loyalists regained control and ordered the good guys to show him how the ship worked.

None of them had any experience with the pod. If memory serves, they never even saw it.

Maybe they forced Pericles to show them. After all, he managed to land his pod, unlike Leo who crashed two.
But Pericles wouldn't be able to show them how to fix the ruined pod.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

I've always wondered how intact pockets of New York ended up underground in Beneath. Did a giant sinkhole open up and swallow chunks of the city? If so, how did those pockets become roofed over instead of buried under rock and debris? A collapse into preexisting subway tunnels or caverns or vast fallout shelters would still leave them open to the air above.

 

[Saul]

When are they going to send the monkeys to space.

I can't wait for when the monkeys go back in time and start the whole thing over again.

 

[Christopher]

I've always wondered how intact pockets of New York ended up underground in Beneath. Did a giant sinkhole open up and swallow chunks of the city? If so, how did those pockets become roofed over instead of buried under rock and debris? A collapse into preexisting subway tunnels or caverns or vast fallout shelters would still leave them open to the air above.

Well, how far in the future was the cataclysm supposed to be (as of that movie, regardless of later retcons)? If it was centuries, the New York we know might've been paved over with a new city built on top of it, like the old city beneath Seattle.

 

[Dark Gilligan]

Well, how far in the future was the cataclysm supposed to be... the New York we know might've been paved over with a new city built on top of it.

I hadn't considered that, thinking only in terms of the 20th century. Rising oceans would have forced coastal cities to build seawalls and raise street levels, with the new "ground floor" being many stories above the old. Hence, a half-buried Statue of Liberty.

 

[Tuskin38]

Well, how far in the future was the cataclysm supposed to be (as of that movie, regardless of later retcons)? If it was centuries, the New York we know might've been paved over with a new city built on top of it, like the old city beneath Seattle.

Now I’m just thinking of Futurama

 

[Tosk]

I was always impressed at how New York was razed more than once but somehow the cryogenics building Fry was in remained safe.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was always impressed at how New York was razed more than once but somehow the cryogenics building Fry was in remained safe.

He had to travel to the future by suspended animation at least twice.

I think the second time, the pod/tube was stolen and went on an adventure.

 

[Christopher]

I was always impressed at how New York was razed more than once but somehow the cryogenics building Fry was in remained safe.

I would guess that Nibbler had something to do with that...