I wasn't going to see this movie - another dead franchise being milked by canny re-imangineers for a little more sucker money. Then, people I trusted started coming back with favorable reviews.

I saw it tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. The reason it succeeded was not because of the special effects - but because it had developed characters that I cared about. Mainly the apes.

But this is not a review of the movie. I had a couple of other thoughts I wanted to jot down.

The first one is that apes make us uncomfortable. It's a living uncanny valley - we catch glimpses of ourselves in them. Apes tell us that sentience isn't a demarcation line but a sliding gray scale. We're all human to a lesser or or greater degree - and by human, I mean self-aware, living creatures.

I've seen self-awareness in chickens and it makes me uncomfortable that I find them to be delicious. The difference with apes is that they look so much like us - it's much harder to live in denial of their humanity. Yes, I know they were CGI in the movie, but their creation by us, with little tweaks to the face that give them human expression is interesting in itself.

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My other thought is that there sure are an awful of lot of apocalyptic movies lately. I'm wondering if this a collective expression of self-loathing that humanity is putting out there. Do we have a death wish as a species? Are we aching for something to take care of our 7 billion strong infestation of the planet? Or maybe it's just a recognition that we're at the end of a certain cycle of growth, ready to change into a different kind of civilisation. I hope it's the latter but fear it's the former.