"Take your stinking hands off me, you damn dirty human!"
— Attar
Tim Burton's 2001 remake of the Planet of the Apes franchise.
An astronaut, Leo (Mark Wahlberg), works in a space station where genetically enhanced apes have been trained to pilot space pods, to search and study a strange electromagnetic storm phenomenon. When it's found a chimpanzee flies into it and after his signal's cut, Leo chases it in another pod against orders, to save the chimp. The storm makes him travel in time, after which he crashes on the planet below, encounters some humans and is captured by highly evolved apes. He is enslaved with the rest of the humans. He is tortured by the apes until one (Helena Bonham Carter) takes pity on him and helps the humans escape. He goes to the apes' Forbidden Zone Calima to discover the crashed space station, which apparently has been there for thousands of years.
There, the hero plays a recording made by the ship crew, which tells they decided to go after Leo, crashed, and the apes rebelled and killed most of them. An army of apes attacks and the astronaut responds by hitting them with the fuel from the station's tanks. When the ape army recovers, a large battle occurs until the original chimp returns in its space pod. It remembers Leo and shows affection towards him; the apes revere it as a God, thus they stop fighting and treat the humans fairly. Having achieved peace and become a hero, the astronaut decides to return home through the same electric spacestorm. He goes back to Earth... and discovers the civilization he used to know is now inhabited by talking apes.
Previews: Trailer
.
This movie contains example of:
- 24-Hour Armor: Thade and Attar pretty much wear their plate armor throughout the whole movie.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The ending is that bizarre that both novelizations and the Comic-Book Adaptation omit it and end prematurely with Leo going back into space.
- Adaptational Villainy: The entire ape society. In the original movies, they evolved from slave apes who Turned Against Their Masters. Here there is no sign that the apes were oppressed in any meaningful way but still rebel against humans due to a particular power-hungry ape among them (from whom General Thade descended). Their descendants enslave the humans and deny they have souls despite the humans being evidently sapient and capable of speech, unlike in the original. Finally, Thade's reasons for wanting to exterminate all humans are driven more by bigotry and lust for power compared to Dr. Zaius' genuine worry about the inherent destructiveness of humankind.
- All There in the Manual
- The Twist Ending was explained in the movie's now defunct website.
- The novelization reveals that Leo Davidson entered the electromagnetic storm a week after a message for him was recorded on February 7, 2029.
- When Leo reaches the Oberon, now the Temple of Calima, the date on the chronometer reads 5021.946.
- All There in the Script: Most humans of the planet end up not being named on-screen.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Averted Trope by General Thade. He claims that apes are morally superior to humans because humans are inherently savage compared to their "more cultured" kind, but he has no problem killing apes opposed to his plans to wipe out mankind... or just because they've seen too much.
- Apocalyptic Log: At the ruins of the Oberon, Leo finds still watchable video reports detailing how the apes rebelled and took over from the crashlanded humans.
- Artistic License – Biology: In order to make female apes more attractive, they were given eyebrows and human-sized breasts.
- The Bad Guy Wins: At the end of the desert climax, General Thade is locked in Leo's crashed spaceship and Leo uses Pericles's functional one to return to Earth. However, due to a Timey-Wimey Ball, Thade manages to have the spaceship fixed, travel to Earth and have apes take it over before Leo arrives.
- Big Bad: General Thade.
- Binary Suns: In the William Thomas Quick novelization, the planet has two suns. Probably to stop fans who've seen the original movies from thinking that it's Earth All Along.
- Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: As noted above, male apes look more like their Real Life counterparts than the female ones.
- Cargo Cult: Semos, the genetically modified ape who led the apes to rebel against humans, is worshipped as the creator of life by their descendants a few thousands of years later. When Leo's own trained chimp Pericles arrives from the sky he is immediately identified with Semos.
- Casting Gag: The human hero of the 1968 film, Charlton Heston, has a small part as the father of the human-hating ape villain in this one.
- Cliffhanger: The film ends with Leo arriving back on Earth, only to be arrested by apes using 20th century tech and fashion. Not even derived media touches on what happened here after this.
- Comic-Book Adaptation: A particularly lazy one from Dark Horse Comics where everything before Leo lands on the planet is explained in a Wall of Text. Though they did write more stories continuing what happened on the planet after Leo left.
- Conveniently Close Planet: Leo flies to Earth from wherever the space station was (either Jupiter or Saturn) in that tiny little spaceship. It can't have been very far in that ship with no toilet or way to get up and move around - or that craft could really book it.
- Crystal Dragon Jesus: The apes worship their own creator god, called Semos, and believe apes have souls and humans don't.
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to the original films and under Burton's direction, it automatically stands out as the most gothic out of all the entries in the franchise.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Leo spends the entire movie trying to escape, then stop General Thade before returning to his own planet, only to find that Thade has somehow beaten him and taken over it in his absence.
- Dull Surprise: Leo doesn't seem nearly as surprised to be on a planet of talking apes as you'd think he would, but does wonder how it happened. Estella Warren's Daena isn't much expressive either.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Thade spends a lot of time visiting his dying father, and also buys a human child as a pet for his niece.
- Fantastic Racism: Apes generically look down on humans and use them as slave labor. Thade thinks they should be straight-up exterminated for the good of apekind.
- Fantasy Landmark Equivalent: Played for Drama at the ending of the movie, where Leo encounters ape police at the foot of what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial, but is in fact a memorial to Thade.
- Gainax Ending: Leo seems to have made it to Earth, only to find it managed by talking apes with 20th century technology. The film ends with no explanation beyond a vague implication that Thade beat Leo and conquered Earth before he arrived.
- General Ripper: General Thade, an ape commander who is obsessed with destroying humans once and for all.
- Have You Told Anyone Else?: Two ape soldiers find Leo's pod and show it to Thade, who promptly kills them to keep it secret.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: At the end, Limbo retains his greedy qualities, even seeing the peace as a "new era of trade with the humans."
- Humanoid Female Animal: The female apes were designed to look more like humans than their male counterparts, including larger breasts and eyebrows, neither of which non-human female apes possess. Presumably to make the main character's attraction to one of them somewhat less disturbing.
- I Choose to Stay: Inverted Trope with Pericles, as Leo believes he belongs with the apes. Ari promises Leo she'll take care of him.
- Ignore The Fan Service: In contrast to Heston and Nova, Leo never pays attention to her even more gorgeous counterpart, Daena.
- Interspecies Romance: Leo and the female ape Ari are clearly attracted to each other, and he kisses her.
- In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: Thade's father Zaius gives him a human energy weapon, which he says is a relic to their former masters' destructive nature. This is a subversion, since humans were not actually responsible for the current state of the world. Thade and his father are just driven by Fantastic Racism.
- Irony: Limbo disregards Leo's description of zoos with "Apes in cages, right..." Later on, he hides himself in one of the Oberon's cages to avoid the fighting.
- It Only Works Once: During the final battle, Leo exhausts the remaining fuel in the Oberon to fire a massive burst from its engines, knocking down the first wave of attacking apes so that the humans can gain an advantage in the fight.
- Kick the Dog: General Thade knocks the human-friendly (and unevolved) chimp Pericles against a wall, breaking the chimp's leg; thus cowed, Pericles crawls pathetically back into the safety of his cage. This makes the evolved apes lose any remaining sympathy they had for Thade and imprison him.
- Killer Gorilla: Actually averted. While gorillas still serve as soldiers, the lust for violence they had in the original series is transferred to the chimpanzees (Thade in particular), as a deliberate attempt to keep with research in Primatology.
- Last Request: General Thade visits the deathbed of his father Zaius, who asks him to wipe out all humans before providing him with a human relic: a Ray Gun.
- Leave No Witnesses: When Thade inspects Leo's crashed space ship, he murders the two ape soldiers who found it and reported it to him.
- Love Triangle: A small, not quite developed one is established between Leo and Ari, who are interested in each other despite being different species, and Daena, who is a human attracted to Leo and jealous of Ari as a result.
- Mind Screw: Leo returns to Earth, only to find it run by apes using 20th century tech, and an implication that Thade beat him there possibly by centuries as only explanation before the film cuts off.
- Mythology Gag:
- The first line that an ape says to Leo is the page's quote, which is an inversion of the first line said by a human to an ape in the 1968 film ("Take your stinkin' paws off me, you damn dirty APE!").
- Senator Nado's wife is named Nova, and Thade's father is named Zaius.
- Thade's father, played by Charlton Heston, damns humanity to Hell again in his deathbed.
- The shot of the group arriving at the Calima ruins is done the same way as when Taylor and Nova arrive at the Statue of Liberty in the original film.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: General Thade, especially in how he talks about "the human problem." Tim Roth even described him as a Nazi in interviews.
- Negative Space Wedgie: The space electromagnetic storm that causes spacetime interference to whoever enters it.
- Never Trust a Trailer: In the trailers, Attar shouts, "BOW YOUR HEAD!", which, given the series' theme, would imply that he's telling a human to be subservient. In the actual film, Attar wants apes to pray before their meal, and he is among the least anti-human apes in the cast.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Even though the entire point of having a chimp astronaut is because they're expendable if something goes wrong, Leo goes after him when something goes wrong. This causes the death and enslavement of his workmates, the creation of the ape society, and dooms the human race.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Thade attacks and wounds Pericles, who was seen as the second coming of the ape god Semos. This makes Attar feel betrayed and refuse to come to Thade's help when he needs it.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Exaggerated Trope, as Leo invokes this to help a supposedly expendable trained chimp.
- Novelization: There are two, an adult novelization by William Thomas Quick and John Whitman wrote a junior novel.
- Nubile Savage: Daena, played by Estella Warren, fills in for the original's Nova.
- Obviously Evil: Just look at Thade or listen to his voice. Even his Romanesque armor depicts two chimps about to tear each other apart.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: One is found while inspecting the Oberon.
- Predecessor Casting Gag: Subverted Trope. Zaius, father of the villainous ape General Thade, named after the ape villain of the 1968 film, is portrayed by Charlton Heston, the human protagonist of the 1968 film.
- Profane Last Words: As General Thade's father is dying Thade promises him he'll capture the human rebel. Thade's father's last words: "Damn them...damn them all to hell." Doubles as a Mythology Gag since Thade's father is played by Charlton Heston.
- A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Inverted Trope. Attar was a pupil of former military leader Krull, until Krull was disgraced by Thade for questioning his family, descendants of Semos, of whom Attar is a devoted follower.
- Rage Against the Mentor: There's tension between Krull and Attar, which only escalated when Krull and Ari helped the humans.
- Remake Cameo: Charlton Heston, the protagonist of the 1968 film, plays Thade's father. Linda Harrison, who played Nova, appears again as a human caged by the apes.
- Rock Beats Laser: The spacefaring humans of the Oberon, armed with laser guns, lost to rebellious genetically modified, but presumably uncivilized apes. Then their Roman-like ape descendants are beaten by prehistoric-like humans, though the fact that they are helped by an astronaut using space fuel to repel the initial charge and the battle is cancelled with the timely arrival of Pericles at least makes ambiguous if the apes would actually lose. Then the Roman-like apes somehow master space travel and invade Earth at some unspecified time, but at least the 19th century given that Washington, D.C.'s layout and the Lincoln Memorial are recognizable.
- Rushmore Refacement: When Leo gets back to Earth he realises that things aren't right when he sees that the Lincoln Memorial is now a statue of a chimpanzee.
- Science Is Bad: Genetically enhancing apes to make them more suitable for work makes them rebellious and dooms the human race.
- Sequel Hook: Leo is captured by civilized apes upon his arrival on Earth, possibly setting up a sequel even closer to Boulle's novel.
- Shout-Out: At one point it is suggested a solution to the human problem is to sterilize them all, similar to the fate of the Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels.
- Shown Their Work: The evolved apes look and move more like real apes than in the original, specially the orangutans. They are also hydrophobic, referencing how apes can't swim, and chimpanzees are deliberately made more violence-prone than gorillas.
- Significant Anagram: Thade rearranged spells 'hated' or 'death'.
- Super Drowning Skills: The evolved apes are hydrophobic because they have no ability to swim (like actual apes).Ari: We can't go in the water! We'll drown!Daena: That is why, every day, we pray for rain.
- Sympathetic Slave Owner: Limbo, the orangutan slave trader dealing in humans, goes from Affably Evil to being on the side of good over the course of the movie.
- Tie-In Novel: The authors of both novelizations each wrote two prequels:
- William Thomas Quick wrote Planet Of The Apes: The Fall and Planet Of The Apes: Colony about the survivors of the crashed Oberon starting a colony and competing against local aliens.
- John Whitman wrote Planet Of The Apes: Force and Planet Of The Apes: Resistance focusing on the inhabitants of the planet in the years before Leo landed.
- J.E. Bright was supposed to continue Whitman's novels with Planet Of The Apes: Extinction but it was cancelled due to poor sales of the previous books.
- Time Travel: Although how long it varies - the space station arrives either at the past or right away, Leo thousands of years after that (long enough for the apes there to become humanized) and his ape Pericles a few days after him.
- A Truce While We Gawk: Everyone stops fighting the moment Pericles' ship lands.
- Truer to the Text: Like in the novel, and unlike the 1968 film, the titular Planet of the Apes is not Earth, and the main character manages to return to Earth, only to see gorillas in uniform and realize that Earth has been also taken over by apes in his absence. The apes in the final scene also have 20th century technology like in the book; thus had a sequel been made it might have done the plot of the book again but even closer.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Semos, son of Pericles and ancestor of Thade, lead an ape revolt against the stranded human astronauts.
- Villain Has a Point: Limbo (a slave trader dealing in humans) points out that while other apes look down on his distasteful work, he's doing a job that no one else wants to do and other apes benefit from his services. Thade also falls into this category, as the ape politicians send him to do the dirty work. It also established that humans have attacked and stolen from apes on numerous occasions and his job is to protect other apes.
- Villainous Breakdown: Thade degenerates into a screeching beast when he is trapped and beaten.
- Villainous Crush: Thade toward Ari. She believes that he's only interested in her because of her father's influence as a senator, but the leaked script suggests that he genuinely has feelings for her. Doesn't make him any less of a Jerkass.
- Villainous Friendship: Thade and Attar are this, until the truth as well as Thade's treachery is revealed, at which point Attar refuses to help him anymore.
- Villain World: Thade somehow managed to escape, made it back to Earth before Leo did, and conquered the planet in his absence. Leo is horrified upon seeing a statue of Thade celebrating him as the beloved founder of the American Ape Republic.
- Visual Pun: When Leo walks up to the Lincoln memorial and realizes it's an ape... it can be inferred that it's a memorial of Aperaham Lincoln.
- Weird Moon: The William Thomas Quick novelization says that the planet has two suns and two moons.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: General Thade visits his father's death bed, and promises to enact his wishes to wipe out all humans once and for all.
