9 Most Undeserved Movie Plot Twists

When Tim Burton forgettably rehashed the original Planet of the Apes in 2001, he decided not to rehash the classic 'it was Earth all along' ending and went in another direction. The movie closes with Mark Wahlberg's Leo Davidson returning to Earth via the same electrical storm that deposited him on the simian planet, only to find that the evil General Thade beat him to it and conquered the world many decades ago.

No matter how many ways you examine this twist, it simply doesn't make sense. There's no explanation for how Thade found his way to Earth, or the fact he appears to have invented time travel based on the fact the Lincoln Memorial has been rendered in his image.

This twist doesn't hold water because Burton prioritised visual impact over narrative cohesion. The final scene feels tacked on, as though it was brainstormed at the last minute but nobody sat down to figure out how to execute it in a plothole-free way.

Presumably the plans was to use this scenario as a launchpad for a sequel that never happened, but an entire cinematic universe's worth of inter-connected follow-ups couldn't have made sense of this mess.