Nobody saw the success of Jurassic World coming. Studio analysts are probably scratching their heads right now trying to explain how it achieved the most successful opening in movie history as they glance nervously over their own superhero-stacked production slates. Yes, dinosaurs are endlessly fascinating, and Chris Pratt is a leader among leading men, but weren’t monster movies supposed to be passe?

What Jurassic World’s colossal success really tells us is that the monster movie has taken a giant evolutionary leap. What used to be the biggest and dumbest of genres has somehow become a vehicle for asking radical questions about what it means to be human. And nobody saw that coming.

Like the smartest monster movies, Jurassic World turns the equation on its head: the real monsters are the owners of the island dino-resort. They describe their reptilian attractions as “assets” and laugh in the face of dinosaur welfare (at their peril, of course). Innumerable humans are devoured over the course of Jurassic World, but the most poignant death is that of an innocent apatosaurus. Pratt and his co-star Bryce Dallas Howard cradle the animatronic head of this wounded herbivore, whispering soothing words to calm its traumatised, walnut-sized brain. Perhaps Pratt does the same thing with the animals he admits to shooting in real life – you can just picture him cuddling a dying squirrel – but, for the purposes of this movie, his character is firmly on the side of the beasts. He talks of forging a relationship with his posse of raptors, rather than trying to control them. He’s a veritable dino-whisperer. And, of course, the resort’s new genetically modified super-dino is going to flip out, Pratt predicts, since it was raised in captivity and deprived of company, stimulation and dino-whispering.

‘The whole Jurassic franchise could be read as Steven Spielberg’s 40-year atonement for the damage wrought by Jaws.’ Photograph: Snap Stills/Rex Shutterstock

Director Colin Trevorrow has admitted that “there’s a bit of a Blackfish vibe to the story”, referencing the hard-hitting 2013 documentary that argued a similar case for captive killer whales at SeaWorld’s aquariums. There’s even a SeaWorld-like setup in Jurassic World, where crowds gleefully watch a giant marine dinosaur being fed a dead shark – just to hammer home how far we’ve come since Jaws.

The whole Jurassic franchise could be read as Steven Spielberg’s 40-year atonement for the damage wrought by Jaws. Fine movie though it is, it’s held partly responsible for an adversarial man versus nature relationship that has resulted in the depletion of great white sharks and many other species in real life, not to mention spawning a plague of movie copycats (or rather copysharks, snakes, alligators, rats, spiders, flying piranhas or whatever else the special-effects team could rustle up). It used to be a simple case of “they kill us, we kill them, end of story” – until the next sequel, at least.

But the more we have learned about animal intelligence and behaviour, the weaker our appetite for seeing them massacred on screen has become. Movie monsters have been steadily slinking back to the B-list depths from whence they came, hence the popularity of CGI splatter such as Sharknado, where we can be sure no real animals were harmed, because it’s clear none were used.

Guardian critics Xan Brooks, Peter Bradshaw and Catherine Shoard weigh up Jurassic World. Guardian

It’s telling that barely any humans kill dinosaurs in Jurassic World. Instead – spoiler alert – it’s left to nature to establish the pecking order. It was the same in Gareth Edwards’ rebooted Godzilla last year: rather than trying to kill the rampaging monsters, they decided to “let them fight” (although humanity did kick the kaijus’ asses in Pacific Rim). Edwards’ previous movie, Monsters, also hinged on a misunderstanding of alien behaviour, just as Avatar imagined a more symbiotic relationship with alien creatures. And it’s no surprise to learn that King Kong – the Martin Luther King of the monster rights movement – is currently preparing for a big-screen comeback.

This is different to mere anthropomorphism – ascribing human characteristics to animals. It also goes further than mere “animal rights”. The argument is now at the stage where we’re contemplating human rights for animals.

A key film in this development is the rebooted Rise of the Planet of the Apes series, which charts the passage of a genetically enhanced chimpanzee from animalhood to personhood – or from company property to revolutionary freedom fighter, if you prefer. Again, it’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you treat an animal like a monster, or even simply like an animal. It’s no coincidence Rise of the Planet of the Apes was written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who wrote Jurassic World and are writing the Avatar sequels.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes series charts the passage of a genetically enhanced chimpanzee from animalhood to personhood.

This isn’t just wishful Hollywood thinking, though. These debates are very much in step with the real world. In the state of New York, three legal cases are in progress in which it’s being argued that chimpanzees deserve to be ascribed legal personhood; in other words, that the chimpanzees in question are autonomous and self-determining, and are therefore being imprisoned unlawfully and should be entitled to the legal recourse of habeas corpus.

The cases were filed in 2013 by the Nonhuman Rights Project, an organisation devoted not so much to animal rights as to animals’ legal rights. In the eyes of the law, animals are “things”, rather than “persons”, explains founder Steven Wise, but personhood and human status are not the same thing. In the past, ships, religious items and even rivers have been afforded “person” status for the purposes of the law – while human slaves were once denied it. “If any entity in the world can be proven to be autonomous and self-determining, he or she should be entitled to be a person,” says Wise, who has accrued decades of scientific evidence to argue that chimpanzees, other great apes, cetaceans – including whales, dolphins and porpoises – and elephants all fall into this category.

None of the cases have reached their conclusion, but Wise notes that the courts have countered with different arguments in each of them, none of which are as compelling, he says, as those of the Nonhuman Rights Project. “This is a worldwide chess game,” he says. “We feel we’ve already won three-quarters of the battle.”

Steven Wise of the Nonhuman Rights Project says any entity that is ‘autonomous and self-determining’ should be entitled to be a person. Photograph: Mike Groll/AP

Wise says he has been campaigning on this issue since 1985. “At that time, I believed it would take about 30 years before I would be filing a case that had some reasonable chance of success, both in terms of legal preparation, but also for the world to begin to get used to the idea of animal welfare and rights. It turned it out took only 28 years.”

The courts’ decisions on these matters ultimately come down to public opinion, which is where movies can truly make a difference. In a recent Gallup poll, 32% of Americans believed animals should have the same rights as humans, up from 25% in 2008. Presumably, this means they believe otters should be allowed to drive and beetles given the vote. “Even I wouldn’t go that far,” says Wise. One need only watch Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to see where giving chimps the right to bear arms can get you.

It’s no surprise to learn that Wise himself is set to become a movie star. Veteran documentarian DA Pennebaker and his partner Chris Hegedus have been shadowing Wise and his activities for the past four years and are due to complete a documentary on him next year, entitled Unlocking The Cage. Wise has also been talking to a Hollywood screenwriter who wants to make a fictional story based on him, he says.

The official trailer for the soon-to-be-released Ted 2.

In the meantime, the nonhuman-rights cause has been taken up by Hollywood in a way nobody could have anticipated, via Seth McFarlane’s potty-mouthed talking teddy bear, Ted. In the first Ted movie, said bear was a terminal party animal, whose grossout misadventures put a strain on his lifelong buddyship with Mark Wahlberg. In the forthcoming sequel, Ted now wants to adopt children with his human partner, Tami-Lynn. Cue sperm-related mirth by the beakerful, until Ted is prohibited from becoming a father by the state of Massachusetts on the grounds that he is not legally a “person”. With the help of Amanda Seyfried’s bong-hitting lawyer, Ted takes his battle for personhood all the way to the supreme court, possibly getting there before Wise. There’s even a spoof change.org petition to “Legalize Ted”. “So, somebody’s been reading my stuff,” Wise laughs. “I haven’t looked at the credits to see if they give me a nod, but I suspect they didn’t. It’s fine with me. Anything they can use to burrow more into the public consciousness I’m all for.”

We’ve become accustomed to thinking of humanity as the exclusive preserve of homo sapiens, but perhaps we need to make some room at the top of the evolutionary tree for others. It would be a sign of our advancement as a species. As well as animals, the movies have been stepping up the fight for artificial intelligence. Following in the footsteps of Blade Runner, Terminator and co, the human/AI boundary may have been trampled on for good by recent sci-fi movies such as Ex Machina, Her and Chappie. As a distinguished legal mind once put it: “In every civil-rights conflict, we’re only able to recognise the just point of view years after the fact.” Who was that? Oh yes, Seyfried in Ted 2.

• Jurassic World is out now. Ted 2 is released in the US on 26 June and the UK on 10 July

• This article was amended on 22 June 2015 to include Chris Hegedus as a co-director of Unlocking the Cage.