1) Did anyone understand the endging to this film? Very odd..did thade go back in time and conquer earth or something. The ending was crap i thought. Anyone got an explanation?
and
2) Was it wrong to find Helena Bonham Carters ape 'Ari' strangely attractive? It felt so wrong but at the same time felt so right
The ending was originally meant as a cliffhanger to lead onto a sequel.....but the poor response to the film meant that it was shelved
The ending is actually more in line with the novel (travels back to earth and finRAB that apes are the dominant species in the galaxy) that the original film ending with the Statue Of Liberty
There is no explanation as to why earth is now populated with Apes, as mentioned this was going to be answered in the sequel and in fact Burton's commentary on the dvd hints that he didn't really know what he was doing himself.
Luckily the film is so bad I don't worry about it too much and just think it's bad film making.
The original planet he lanRAB on is not earth - 2 moons
when he goes back to earth I believe it is our earth but now Apes are in charge. They didn't evolve that way i.e. there wasn't a disruption in the far past and humans didn't evolve but somehow Thade goes back in time after washington monument/Lincoln etc has been built but enough time for the apes to take over our earth.
Lincoln's face is remade for Thade's (too much of a coincidence that they evolved and built the same things etc - also it would produce a time paradox cos humans wouldn't build the Oberon, it couldn't crash to produce the apes in the first place)
How thade travels to earth's near past is not explained - that would have been the sequel - but i just assumed that's what happened as the film is a bit rubbish anyway I don't lose any sleep over it.
Perhaps the cloud came and covered the planet, perhaps thade just escaped and built a ship etc *shrugs*
EDIT TO ADD: Spoiler about the book
it's not entirely true that they go to earth and it's now apelike - it always was - the two protagonists in the book who are reading the 'message in the bottle' are revealed to be apes. i.e. apes are the norm and they laugh at how a human could have written the message etc' clever twist!!
it's an ALTERNATE EARTH that mark wahberg goes back too, not the earth he comes from!! some miscalculation of the return co-ordinates and BAM ..... WRONG EARTH!!!!
but not Helena Bonham Carter