By Dale Nauertz

There seems to be a lot of confusion over the ending of the new film “Planet of the Apes”. Mostly, I believe, because people hate to think. They want everything wrapped neatly up with a little bow. Poor dears. Personally, I like a movie that challenges my mind, if only to fuck with it a little. How else can I explain the number of times that I’ve seen “Total Recall” just to figure out if it’s a dream or not. (I never figured that out, but I think that’s the whole point. And I think that’s cool.) The net is swarming with theories about the ending. Every day, it seems a new one pops up. Again, I think that’s great. It’s like a sort of puzzle! Burton respects your intelligence enough to give you something to puzzle about afterward, something to mull over around the water cooler.

So I decided to offer my own, somewhat less convoluted than most, explanation of the ending of “Planet of the Apes”. If you haven’t seen the film, then don’t read this, like a dumb ass, and then bitch at me for giving things away. I mean, Duh! They’re your eyes, you choose what you look at with them. I’m not going to take responsibility for that. You screwed your own pooch. Though I don’t think it’s a major worry. If you haven’t seen the film, you probably won’t know what I’m talking about anyway.

Okay, I saw it again the other night and here it goes. My friend Adam and I saw it and, on the way home in a massive rain storm, we think we may have figured out the end of the movie.

Get a load of this:

When the Oberon crashed, wouldn’t Earth send a rescue mission? Wouldn’t they send a ship to find the Oberon and find out what happened? And, if so, wouldn’t they use that same tracker device that Wahlberg had to find the Oberon wreckage. Once they did, they would find our old buddy Thade!

Thinking “WOW, look at that monkey!” they would let him go. And when they did, he would kill them all off….except for one man who could guide him back to Earth. I mean, he would want to settle his hash with Wahlberg, would he not? And it’s not unreasonable to believe that there would be a faction of apes that would still be loyal to Thade and follow him on his quest (hey, there are still neo-Nazis). So, with their captive human, they would arrive on Earth and, taking the planet by surprise, kill off a lot of humans and take over. Sure, the humans have guns, but look how much good that did Wahlberg at the end of the film. I think if an army of pissed off apes wanted to take over the planet, they could do a pretty damn good job of it.

Therefore, when Wahlberg arrives a hundred years after the start of the movie, the apes would have had a hundred years to take over and kick a lot of ass. They could have wiped out a pretty good segment of the human population by then.

At least, that was the theory that Adam and I hammered out and it’s the best theory I have figured out so far. The apes may have even got to Earth before the events of the film began, giving them more time to start some ape carnage. And they wouldn’t have gotten time to change the town of Washington D.C. over yet because they just settled into the culture that was already started by their cousins on the primate food chain: the humans. Why not? Worked for us, didn’t it? But they would have had plenty of time to kill all the humans, making them pretty flabbergasted when Wahlberg shows up.

So there you go. What do you think? It’s just a theory, mind you. And, if you find logic problems, just remember the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ theme song: “Repeat to yourself, it’s just a show, I should really just relax.”

And, if you still are whining about the ending’s lack of sense, let me quote Russell Crowe in last year’s overrated “Gladiator”:

“Were you not entertained?”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2001 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Dale Nauertz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.