From: (No Email available)

Date: 2001-09-07 05:36:06

Comment:

Hi folks,

after I?ve spent at least 2 hours reading this forum from the beginning to the end, it?s perhaps time to give my opinion about what happened at the end of PotA. I won?t say I have the one and only explanation (I think even Tim Burton himself can?t give the REAL explanation, because there is none ? unless there already exists a plan for a sequel). But remember Burton considered many different endings (including the Ape Statue of Liberty) and he chose that one we saw: Ape Lincoln (at last I recognized the pretty little pun, wow, that took me a long time!). He did it because of the achievements of the human Lincoln in real life: He freed the black slaves in America. That is of course too much a parallel to General Thade freeing the apes on earth to be just a coincidence. So I don?t think that the idea with a parallel universe works here, even if it was a nice one: General Thade took over the ?only? earth that existed.

Here is how I think the whole scenario happened:
First, there is to say that PotA is NOT earth. Burton said it himself, and I don?t see any reason why he should put two moons there if the planet was earth. (Well, maybe to confuse us, but this wasn?t necessary, since the end is confusing enough.)

In 2029, Pericles enters the wormhole, Davidson some moments later, and they both arrive in the future on PotA, Davidson some days earlier. The mothership searches for him for several days or even months, and flies into the wormhole last. It crashes on PotA in the future, but some hundred years before Davidson and Pericles arrive, and the crew sends a mayday-message which goes through the wormhole. The message arrives in the past (2029 to be exact) and the mothership receives its own message shortly before it crashes. To explain all this, I will adopt the theory of ?who enters the wormhole first will come out last?, which seems possible to me.

Sometime after the crash, the genetically manipulated chimps under the leadership of Semos revolt against the space station crew and take over PotA, which was uninhabited before. The apes create a community, build Ape City and so on until the day Davidson arrives.

Now there?s the film, which tells the story about the human revolt and the big war at the end, Pericles arrives, General Thade is trapped in the crashed space station and Davidson leaves through the wormhole, goes back in time again (let?s say he arrives at about 1980), only to discover that Apes are ruling the earth.

This is because General Thade went into the wormhole as well, and as he did it after Davidson, he comes out before him (at about 1800). Let?s say he used the Alpha-Pod which was left in the mothership; Pericles knew how to navigate it (remember that he only failed in the test at the beginning of the film because Davidson manipulated some data!) and so they came to earth and landed safely without being discovered. General Thade used his leadership to unite the apes against the humans, maybe he even got the help of black slaves and reenslaved  them after the white men were defeated, who knows?
The apes took over human civilization, and this is why e.g. Washington D.C. existed. (This doesn?t explain the fact the police cars looked exactly like they look today, but this isn?t really important.) They also erected the Ape Lincoln statue, and so the humans are enslaved by the apes when Davidson returns.

Well, that?s about it. I can?t explain why there are horses on PotA, since there was no use for them on a space station. I think someone who posted ?Horses are there because apes in black armour look cool on horses? is right. Same goes for the crashes of Davidson, by the way.

The one big question that is left: If the apes conquered earth, in the 19th century, how could the space station and all that be built? I can?t answer that one, and I guess you have to accept it as a paradox because of the time travelling. This is a blunder that wasn?t meant to be taken into account by the writers. No one knows how time travels work, and think about how silly this topic was dealt with in the Terminator films. Or try to figure out how the story of ?12 Monkeys? could work: The answer is, it couldn?t work, but it was a cool film just because of this paradoxes.

So after I made up my mind for two entire days, I think the end of PotA was a brilliant one (although it came a little bit too much out of nowhere), and I don?t hope for a sequel. You just can?t stand up from your seat after you saw the film and say: ?I don?t understand the end, it sucked.? ; if you do it, you?re stupid. Of course, you don?t have to like the end, but you have to think about it. There were some weak parts in the film, e.g. the role of Daena. The only thing she did during the whole film was looking attractive (she perfectly succeeded in doing that, I have to admit), she did nothing for the story and could as well have been left out. But as a whole, I really liked the film, the costumes were great and the apes looked fantastic. And it was good enough for a great discussion about the end.

Thanks to all who posted here, there were some great ideas and theories which helped me to see a little bit clearer.
Thanks for reading this (it became too long, I know), and feel free to respond by email (dkiefer@genie.de) or right here in the forum.

Danny