10 Awesome Sci-Fi Twists You Never Saw Coming
2. Planet Of The Apes - It Was Earth All Along
If there's one film out there that truly mastered the twist ending, it's the original Planet of the Apes from 1968. Yes, the remake in the early 2000s also provided a twist ending, but we'd like to forget all about that one, seeing as it doesn't compare to Charlton Heston's classic.
In the film, a small group of astronauts awaken to find that they were crashing onto a planet. As the ship is sinking into the water, Astronaut Taylor remains on board long enough to see that the current date was November 25, 3978. Due to traveling at the speed of light and the way Relativity works, time passed much slower for them, though that hardly mattered as they were trying to escape their sinking ship.
Eventually, they are captured by anthropomorphic apes, consisting of orangutan, chimpanzees, and gorillas. The humans on the planet are all mute, which makes Taylor an oddity.
Fortunately, some thoughtful apes who help him escape, and he rides off into the sunset with the prettiest mute girl he could find. As he rides along a beach, he stops when he sees something. He throws himself onto the sand screaming, as the camera pans to reveal the crumbling remains of the Statue of Liberty.
He was on Earth all along, and that revelation changed the meaning of the movie. The planet he landed on was Earth, and the year was 3978, but humans had long ago destroyed their world, leaving it to the apes who rose in their place.