7. How The Heck Does Earth Become A Planet of the Apes? - Planet of the Apes (2001)
The Plot Twist: The original
Planet of the Apes movie from the '60s currently holds the title for "greatest movie twist of all time," because what's a plot twist unless it somehow involves primates riding horses and a decapitated Statue of Liberty? When he made his tribute to the original flick in 2001, Tim Burton optioned to take this twist and, like, stamp on its legacy by shoe-horning in a plot twist so downright inane that it can barely be explained. Anyway, in this version, it turns out that astronaut Leo Davidson isn't on a planet filled with apes that was "Earth all along," but manages to somehow go back through a time tunnel and to the Earth in the 21st century. Upon arrival, he realises that Earth has
been replaced with an ape-like equivalent, complete with a new ape-like Lincoln memorial and everything. Even trying to write this out as simply as possible is confusing me.
But, Uh... Well, how does it make sense at all? How could Earth have taken this direction, going on what had already been established at this point in the movie? It's ridiculous. I mean, if the apes from the future somehow manages to travel back into the past
further than Davidson in an attempt to change Earth's history (presumably so they could give the poor guy the ultimate "up yours" when he made it up), then, with that changed history established, the events leading up to the point in which the apes went back in time wouldn't have ever taken place to begin with. Now both you and I, writer and reader, are suffering from substantial "brain hurt," am I right? Well, thanks a lot, Tim Burton: it's on you.