This movie has one of the most terrifying endings in science fiction history

Spoilers – Warning, the article below contains potential spoilers. If you do not want to understand the content, please do not read the following…

Loosely adapted from Pierre Boulle’s novel (which had a slightly different conclusion), Planet of the Apes is still considered a mainstay of science fiction cinema today.

Directed in 1968 by Franklin J. By Schaffner, this one-of-a-kind epic, with a consistently strange and feverish atmosphere (largely inspired by Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting score), follows the adventures of three lost astronauts on an unknown planet. After traveling in hibernation for a whole year (about two thousand years on Earth), they actually landed in a world inhabited by civilized apes and where humans are in the condition of cattle.

Although Planet of the Apes has since been revisited – in Tim Burton’s unforgettable 2001 adaptation, then in the wonderful Andy Serkis-led 2011 trilogy – this first version is still very special and influential, even 55 years after its release, thanks to its unforgettable closing sequence.

If you haven’t discovered Franklin J. Schaffner’s film, we advise you not to continue reading this article and return only after watching the film.

In the final moments of the feature film, while some particularly disturbing details convince him that the ape society is hiding a terrible secret from him, Taylor (an astronaut played by Charlton Heston) manages to escape and continues his search. to understand the truth.

While he is carelessly walking along the ocean shore, he stops suddenly, looks scared and after a few moments of bewilderment, starts shouting angrily:

“Criminals! They set off bombs!”he exclaims as the audience reverses to discover the source of his predicament.

In front of him are indeed the remains of the Statue of Liberty, grim evidence that his journey has not taken him to the end of the world, but rather to the starting point, two millennia into the future.

Thus, Planet of the Apes is simply… Earth.

This memorable final revelation, which is still one of the most famous movies today, is not exactly the same as in Pierre Bouleh’s novel.

At the end of the original work, the main character (named Ulysses) actually managed to leave the “Planet of the Apes”, which was therefore not Earth, and return to his home planet. Arriving in Paris 700 years after his departure, he was surprised to be greeted by a gorilla, indicating that apes also ruled the earth.

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