Yuku free message boards

It's easiest to pretend that the last three films do not fit into "our" own timeline, but rather how our own 1973-2001 events will recur and change due to the arrival on Earth of Zira and Cornelius "the next time around", as I like to call it.
ESCAPE CONQUEST and BATTLE do not go into the events of PLANET and BENEATH.

Having been a major fan since the 1970s, I've often thought about all the discrepancies and continuity errors in the films as well as the TV series, and so forth... and over the decades, because I'm so anal about my love for the Apes Series, I've arrived at the following historical theory for a chronology. There's no "right" or "wrong" way to consider it, and other fans of the series like myself have often tried sorting things out. But anyway, here's how it works for me:


OUR TIMELINE:

2006 (This is us right here today, reading the CHFB).

2300 (The Plague arrives and kills most dogs and cats, and Man begins to train Apes as household pets and servants).

2503 (The year the picture of NYC in the book from the first episode of the TV Series is taken).


2800 (An Ape named Aldo says "NO!" and the apes overtake the humans).

3085 (THE YEAR OF THE 'PLANET OF THE APES "TV SERIES")

3955 (THE YEAR OF ''PLANET OF THE APES'' and ''BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES'') -- We may presume that Virdon and Burke must have eventually been caught and killed, and that 'Zaius' (note: the Zaius in the TV show is not the same Dr. Zaius from the first films) took it upon himself to save his race by hiding all evidence relating to the astronauts, and the fact that Humans ever had any civilization. Perhaps the apes began to wipe the minds from mankind as a precaution after the arrival of Virdon and Burke. Even though there are two different years given in both PLANET and BENEATH, I like to assume the date of 3978 in Taylor's ship is a few years incorrect, because 3955 seems to be the year that is more focused upon in later sequels.

At the conclusion of BENEATH,
--- THE WORLD IS BLOWN UP ---

and so then:

NEW, ALTERNATE TIMELINE:

1973 (THE YEAR OF ''ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES'') -- ZIra and Cornelius travel back to the past, but their arrival will completely alter all previous Ape History as they originally knew it! Furthermore, after their arrival, the years after 1973 will not progress for us the way we knew them, either (there will be no cell phones or home computers like we have now, for example; Ape Management Centers spring up everywhere by 1990, etc....) We can assume that Zira and Cornelius brought the plague back with them, and this is why the plague hits Earth in 1983 next time, and why it's as quickly as 1991 when their son Caesar leading the apes in a revolt (Not "Aldo", as originally happened)!

1983 (The plague has been brought accidentally from Zira and Cornelius, so the death of dogs and cats and the acceleration of the apes Takeover moves along much faster).

1991 (Due to Caesar's birth, the entire history of the Ape Uprising accelerates much faster, and much differently than Cornelius relayed to us back in ESCAPE. The events of "CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES" happen here. This 1991 is, obviously, not the same one we experienced in "our" lifetimes, in case you hadn't noticed!).

2018 (Events of "BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES"). -- It's difficult to pinpoint precisely when BATTLE occurs, since Mandemus says the armory was his home "for 27 years", but a mutant says it's been "12 years of peace".

2670 - Where everything ends so far, at the "epilogue" of BATTLE. The Lawgiver tries to teach ape and human children to live togehter in peace and harmony, but Caesar's statue cries a tear as we'll never know how things will turn out...... the ending is deliberately ambiguous and not certain. Will the events of the TV Show occur again? Will the future that Taylor and Brent encountered come to be again? We do not know.

*(I prefer to consider the Cartoon Series as its own entity and unrelated to the others).

I hated those comics from the '80s, and I don't even consider them. However, it was better than nothing at the time, which was all we got. That is, until Tim Burton completely smashed any and all ability to successfully jumpstart the franchise with his idiotic "re-imagining". A filmmaker/writer who is a true fan ought to have tried to take up the saga from the prologue of BATTLE, and at the same time make it a stand alone film that would have worked even for newcomers.

I did enjoy the '70s Marvel Magazine comic, though, which was a continuing saga called TERROR ON THE PLANET OF THE APES, and which transpired right after the events from the BATTLE prologue. The series details the struggles between ape and man, the different types of mutant civilzations that have grown, and the tensions that may jeopardize the peace and ultimately lead to Taylor's world of PLANET and BENEATH.

re: The apes speaking English and Taylor "not knowing he was on Earth" -- we've been here and done that a million times on this board, but I'll just repeat that I don't think it's far fetched at all; in the first movie there are apes TALKING, SHOOTING RIFLES, and RUNNING A CIVILIZATION, with human beings as brute and mindless animals.... and the last time I checked, life isn't like this here on our planet. So Earth would never be a consideration to me, especially when there is dialogue in the film early on where the astronauts see that weather patterns and so forth do not correspond to Earth. Things have changed in a few thousand years. If all else fails you, just presume that Taylor probably thought this may be Earth every now and then, when he was alone in his cell and was shot in the throat and couldn't vocalize. Figure he contemplated the idea at moments where he was off camera to us, if you will.