How did New York become a desert?

Except the film takes place 2,000 years in the future after a nuclear war has destroyed most of the planet. Or did you miss that part?

Yes, I know that film takes place two millenniums into the future. Planet of the Apes never explicitly states that a nuclear war took place, although one can certainly and reasonably make that inference. But a nuclear war would have destroyed the human race, not necessarily "most of the planet" itself. And even if nuclear bombs had turned the landscapes around New York into a desolate wasteland, that wasteland would not have reasonably resembled the majestic American Southwest, with its its beautiful, haunting, and idiosyncratic rock formations that developed over thousands and thousands and thousands of years. Instead, we would be talking a blackened, radioactive dystopia (or its aftermath), not an iconic landscape that looks like it came out of a John Ford Western. (Yes, I know that the filmmakers did not shoot Planet of the Apes in Ford's favorite locale, Monument Valley, but the rock formations are relatively similar and the basic region is the same.)

Obviously, Planet of the Apes 'fudges' the difference, and given that it is a science-fiction film about walking and talking apes, that 'fudging' is acceptable. In this context, iconic and iconographic values trump realism. But since realism was the subject of the thread, the idea that this landscape—which is icongraphically idiosyncratic and indelibly identifiable with the American Southwest—would be near New York is unrealistic, even preposterous. A nuclear holocaust may well have turned New York into a desert of sorts, but not this kind of desert—the kind, as I said, that is reminiscent of a classic Western.

Realistically, the astronauts in this scenario might have also wondered if they were not back on planet Earth very quickly. They would have recognized—especially given that they are Americans—that the landscapes, however eerie and almost moon-like in places, were reminiscent of their own country's Southwest. Taylor would have also thought that he might be back on planet Earth when he found the 'evolved' apes not just speaking, but speaking English, of all languages. What are the chances that in some faraway galaxy the inhabitants are speaking English? The fact that the atmosphere is full of oxygen and they could all breathe the air with no difficulty whatsoever would also have been a giveaway.

But all these dramatic licenses are acceptable because the genre is "science fiction," not "science" itself. The goal is just to use science extremely loosely and casually to create an entertaining commentary on human society. If one were to miss that motivation and aesthetic context and scrutinize Planet of the Apes more severely on a scientific basis, the film would fall apart constantly.

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