12 Sci-Fi Movie Endings That Were Almost Completely Different

This one may come as a shock since the ending of this 1968 sci-fi thriller is probably the movie’s most famous moment (well, maybe Charlton Heston’s aggrieved delivery of “Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape!”).

But the original French novel from which Planet of the Apes derived its story doesn’t feature this now-iconic reveal, and the film’s first draft wasn’t intended to shock the audience with the dramatic twist.

The original satirical sci-fi does feature a relatively similar shock as the protagonist returns to earth and finds it’s also overrun with apes, but there’s no instantly memorable Statue of Liberty stranded in sand, no big reveal, and ironically the story’s satirical underpinnings are actually a little less effective without the discovery that it’s our own green marble where all this action is occurring.