You watch this movie, with its depiction of humans (with a single exception) as either mindless order-following automata or mustache-twirling stock villains, and you have to ask yourself: Is this what the filmmakers think people are like? Well, no, of course not. This is what the filmmakers think *other* people are like.<br /><br />And that, far more than decreasing budgets or continuity errors, explains the inferiority of the APES sequels to the original.<br /><br />Great satire--indeed, great art--is always an examination of *us*, of what *we* are like. This is what the original film did so well and why it is still remembered so fondly. By this point in the series, however, the filmmakers were simply sneering at "them," defined as all those people who didn't attend film school or vote for McGovern. It's a nasty, bigoted little piece of hackwork which tries to pass itself off as clever satire.