Escape from the Planet of the Apes

[Gorn Captain]

This might have been answered before, but I have a question: at the beginning of the third movie, the apes arrive in a space ship on present day Earth.
Did anybody ever explain how they got the ship and the suits, and how they managed to fly it, after the future earth was blown up by The Bomb?

[megoapesnut]

It's been a while since I watched it but, from what I remember, Zira and Corny repaired the ship with the help of the Milo. Or Milo repaired it with their help. They do not explain how they were able to launch it but they do talk about seeing the earth destroyed while they were in space, presumably soon after they launched. So, they must have worked pretty quickly cause they had just helped Brent and Nova a few days before and didn't mention anything to him about the ship. Unless Milo was already repairing it and brought them into the project at the final stage.

[ironman1188]

Milo supposedly repaired and readied the ship and then launched it [how was never explained] with Cornelius and Zira in tow.

[Mikey]

I always thought that whole storyline was too farfetched and unbelievable even in a sci fi movie.

No way could those apes fix the ship and fly it.

They don't even have internal combustion engines or steam engines and they can fix the ship ?

[Gorn Captain]

I loved the movie, but that first part just doesn't make sense.
You basically need to accept it and move on.

[ctc]

>I always thought that whole storyline was too farfetched and unbelievable even in a sci fi movie.

It's quite a stretch, but I could give it to them, given the rest of the film.

>No way could those apes fix the ship and fly it.

Well.... probably not, but we don't know a lot about the technology of the time. It's possible they could have fixed it just enough to get it flying but without any kind of instrumentation or control.... none of which would have really mattered to them 'cos they wouldn't have understood the situation anyway. "Neat! We're flying! Say.... how do we get back down?"

>They don't even have internal combustion engines or steam engines and they can fix the ship ?

That's the crux of the problem; although in the apes' defense; we don't really know how long the first film was (it could have been a year) and we don't know how much "forbidden knowledge" whoever fixed it (presumably Milo) had access to. It's possible the revelation about flight inspired someone (possibly Milo) to look into things, explore the Forbidden Zone, secretly raid to council's library.... It's even possible someone ELSE saw it come down and rebuilt it.... maybe from a stockpile of old space parts they'd been hoarding. ("It FLIES? So THAT'S what it does!")

'Course, we get no indication of any of this during the film.... but it might have made for an interesting sequel.

Don C.

[ironman1188]

That's why its called science fiction.
ANYTHING is possible [albeit not always plausible]

[samurainoir]

There was a Planet of the Apes miniseries comic book in the nineties that revealed that the Apes in Europe were for more technologically advanced than their north american counterparts. If you really need to get nit picky about it and require an explanation, just assume that they got help from them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ADVENTURE-Comics-FULL-RUN-1-4-APE-CITY-4-Part-Series-VF-/230813460909?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item35bd8de9ad

http://www.ebay.com/itm/APE-CITY-1-2-3-4-Planet-Of-The-Apes-MC-Wyman-UNREAD-/300348225330?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item45ee263732

[ironman1188]

Ok, but how did they contact them? :D

[jwyblejr]

Another thing,we don't know how much damage was done to the ship. Could have been minor. Maybe was able to use parts from the second ship.

[Gorn Captain]

Even if they had some knowledge about rudimentary technology, they couldn't have understood the intricacies of space flight.
I'm no idiot, but put me at the helm of a space shuttle, and the farthest I'd get is probably crashing it in the NASA lobby gift shop. I'd probably not even get as far as getting the toilet to flush.

[ctc]

>they couldn't have understood the intricacies of space flight.

True; but we don't know how difficult that technology was to use. Think computers: back in the day to install a program I needed at least a cursory understanding of DOS; now I just gotta hit the "yes" button when it comes up. The ship could have been like that, making it easy to get it flying. Getting it where you wanted to go afterwards might have been a trick; but I don't remember any indication that the apes had a plan other than "make it fly!"

>If you really need to get nit picky about it and require an explanation, just assume that they got help from them.

....or there could have been other, more advanced apes in the area. We never get a clear indication of how big Ape City's territory is, or if all apes are a homogenous species. In the cartoon there's a tribe of Buddhist apes on a nearby mountain. (????)

I think this is why it doesn't bother me so much; it's a gaffe, but it's not one that's been demonstrated within the story to be entirely irreconcilable.... even though we weren't presented with any sort of explanation.

Don C.

[Gorn Captain]

It doesn't really bother me, or detract from me enjoying the film (it's great), I was just wondering if anyone had some sort of explanation.
Maybe the ship had just two buttons:
1. Start/stop
2. Back in time/forward in time.

And the manual just said "have you tried shutting it off and starting it up again?"
"This ship is so user friendly, three monkeys can fly it!"

[Mikey]

Here's how I would have done the movie to make it more paletable to the average geek (like me)

Movie starts right before the old movie ended (pre bomb explosion)

We see the events leading up to the bomb

Mix that with new scenes of Zira and Corney

Finally with clever filmwork make it known the bomb explosion made a timewarp and it sucked in Zira and Corney.

Milo is not needed

[ctc]

>make it known the bomb explosion made a timewarp and it sucked in Zira and Corney

That's an interesting idea. I'd always figured the time warp was a permanent near-Earthy fixture, since we saw (at least) 2 ships go through it and end up in the same place.

Don C.