Yeah The Butterfly Effect was a real mind bender.
With Planet of the Apes, I think the idea was relativity with time, in that these people went into outer space and the planet aged at a rapid rate while they aged barely at all.
So everyone they knew, and generations after were long gone and the apes had taken over somehow... I can't remember the exact details there. Maybe it was mankind just kind of destroying themselves, in a Orwellian fashion? War? Not sure, maybe I should re-watch it. It's been a while.
The apes with the "wisdom" wanted to keep man's history a secret, because they knew that man was a more evolved creature than themselves. That's why they would round them up in the wild and search for the smart one's to lobotomize.
So they changed/tried to wipe history, and there's a scene where they find relics in a cave, proving that man had existed first, before the apes, and was more technologically advanced.
I think that's basic gist of it.
Speaking of the original anyway. I'm not too familiar with the newer ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Apes_(1968_film)
Yeah. That makes sense. I did see some of that 1968 film. But another reason I brought this up is due to the reboot films which started coming out in the 2000s and at leas tone of the new films was a prequel. They were showing the transition, the rise of the planet of the apes. So, I saw some of the new films but not all of it.
So, in my mind, I am trying to compare the old films with the new films and I am wondering if they're both on the same page. In the old films, it may not say how many years it took for the apes to take over. Perhaps it was mentioned in the movies. If it's based on any books, perhaps it's mentioned in the books. I probably should watch the films again or research the story.
But my first impression of the new films was that the apes were taking over before 2030 A.D. Perhaps, in the old movies, it is much farther in the future. But then again, I forget the details. So, it is likely that the new and old movies are vaguely on the same page.
The idea of erasing history is what happens in that one book, 1984, it happens in real life, the left does it, Hitler did it, China did it, many empires did it, history is said to be written by the winners often times, the Roman Empire and the Catholic church would go around the world for centuries stealing who knows how many books and other things. So, there is a lot of artifacts underneath the Vatican. Perhaps thousands to millions of books. Perhaps they were even burning books, etc. So, the Planet of the Apes is an excellent parallel or analogy.