10 Sci-Fi Movies Ruined By Terrible Twists
6. Planet Of The Apes
When it came time for Tim Burton to remake sixties sci-fi
classic and Simpsons musical adaptation fodder The Planet of the Apes, everyone
knew the original flick’s iconic twist ending would need to be rebooted too.
But how could the Alice in Wonderland helmer hope to compete with the brutal
revelation that the titular simian-dominated hellscape was, in fact, our very
own earth all along?
Well, he couldn’t. But that didn’t stop the artist who brought us Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands from attempting to outdo the original twist, and proving he really should stick to candy-coloured gothic fairy tales set in suburban Americana in the process. This version’s shoddy last-minute twist at least makes the time travel aspect of the story clearer from the beginning, but make no mistake—this clarity didn’t make the ending any more comprehensible.
Seeing our human hero Marky Mark travel back to his time via an electromagnetic storm in order to restore normality, the ending reveals—sort of, if you fill in a lot of blanks—that Tim Roth’s villainous ape Thade travelled through the same time loophole, went further back in American history, and took over the country centuries earlier. How do we know?
Why, the hilarious reinvented Lincoln Memorial of course, which now consists of Thade dressed as Lincoln and frowning over Washington D.C!
All this, and no one utters the phrase “Ape-braham Lincoln”. Bananas.