If you shake Mittaines' family tree of misanthropes, jerks and depressive inspirations, you will find most characters ever played by Louis de Funès, Gregory House, Cartman from South Park, Monty Burns from the Simpsons and also Dr. Zaius from the 1968 Planet of the Apes.
Planet of the Apes is one of the best sci-fi movies, way up there with 2001 Space Odyssey. Science fiction like you could only get during the Cold War and before CGI! It puts Charlton Heston, the incarnation of american 1960's cinema, mr "from my cold dead hands" himself in an "upside down" civilization where humans are treated just like we treat animals. He is hunted, experimented on, caged, sees the stuffed corpse of his friend in a museum... Many scenes from that movie are bold statements on the treatment of animals, MacCartysm, Evolution vs. Creation and the Cold war with its nuclear dangers. In part two, we visit a post-apocalyptic version of New-York where mutants worship a nuclear bomb.
Where Mittaines is just like Dr. Zaius is that he is right, there is evil in humans. During the last 20 minutes or so of the movie, he is more and more intriguing until he gets proven right by the famous ending, with the Statue of Liberty. Those stupid humans wiped out themselves!
But even though he is right, Zaius does not see that he is doing exactly the same thing he blames humans for. He is himself a parody of the worst people out there. Same with Mittaines. Who sees everyone else's stupidity but not his own.
That's the trap of depression. It can turn you into the very same people you hate.
