Hrm. I'm not sure that would have been better. I'll admit that I've never watched the rebooted version--the Heston film was fine for me--but I actually thought that how the world came to be was better left undefined. I always inferred that after mankind had wiped itself out somehow, apes had evolved to the point that man had and that the men and women who remained had regressed. I'll also admit, though, that the entire premise is a bit silly but it's science fiction and the goal was to portray issues of the day--racial disparity, fears of nuclear annihilation, and the animal nature of man--in a setting that wouldn't turn audiences off.

@AlienFanatic said:

Hrm. I'm not sure that would have been better. I'll admit that I've never watched the rebooted version--the Heston film was fine for me--but I actually thought that how the world came to be was better left undefined. I always inferred that after mankind had wiped itself out somehow, apes had evolved to the point that man had and that the men and women who remained had regressed. I'll also admit, though, that the entire premise is a bit silly but it's science fiction and the goal was to portray issues of the day--racial disparity, fears of nuclear annihilation, and the animal nature of man--in a setting that wouldn't turn audiences off.

For one thing. I said a better explanation for the 2001 reboot than the one provided in the 2001 reboot. As for the original it indeed left out too much explanation. Wiping out the population of humankind would not mean something else would rise. Heck, the '67 film did not even show outright that a nuclear war had occurred. No explanation at all! It was a bad film that way.

@mechajutaro said:

A vastly superior explanation might be our protagonist realizing that human beings often aren't much more rational than apes to begin with, and deciding to let the social order he finds himself in be

Huh!?! Wahlberg's character finding that out would not explain how the ape planet came to be at all. In any sense!

There was actually less racial disparity in the 1960s than people believed. The US then only had 10 percent non-white population .

Nuclear bombs can wipe out meteors heading to Earth. Remember the film 'Meteor' starting Sean Connery and beautiful Natalie Wood.

In the original film Heston's character only guessed of an earlier devastation that was something like nuclear, he did not seem to have proof it. The Statue of Liberty did not have to be half wiped out by a nuclear bomb.

Some Twilight Zone episode stories were put down very heavily for not providing explanation. "And when the sky was opened" and "Mr. Garrity and the graves" lacked any explanation in one case and a sufficient explanation of a plot point in another ( how did con man Garritty make his accomplice seemingly vanish into thin air just as Garrity got money). Lack of explanation totally totally hurts. OTOH good writer need not explain everything. My explanation would have been very swell.

A Night Gallery ep with Arte Johnson as a DJ in an eerie radio station was bone chilling but also lacked any explanation which caused it unpopularity. It also lacked any good looking lady as it was all a one-man show ( fortunately when they lenghthened this show of Serling's for syndication they put in shots of a comely lady). They also added In creepy spook of a watching figure to slightly explain what was happening.