I’m kinda disappointed at how much flak Jupiter Ascending gets. It really doesn’t deserve it.
…aaaaaaaand I would purport that a film presenting a young, female, Jewish illegal immigrant as the owner of the entire planet earth is a film VERY MUCH worth having in today’s world, and I wish more people would look at it that way I guess
I love this. It’s such a great, heroic moment for Jupiter.
#I never understand why people think Jupiter isn’t a hero #her heroism just doesn’t come from physical strength #sure she has to be rescued #but y’know she’s also willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good #anyway this is her I’ll Never Turn To The Dark Side moment and I dig it
This interrogation is so damn bizarre, and I love that this scene literally gets Stinger’s redemption out of the way in 30 seconds (out of necessity, of course – there’s literally no time for anything else). It also perpetuates Jupiter Ascending’s dogged obsession with financial/material obligations.
It’s also one of the best examples of the way the film subverts the traditional male narrative! The betrayal of a close and trusted friend is usually fodder for a ridiculous amount of manpain, due to the limitations of a hypermasculine environment where men aren’t allowed to work through their feelings in any way other than anger and violence.
Caine approaches Stinger with compassion and empathy, asks him to engage emotionally and explain himself, expresses understanding about why he did what he did, and then forgives him without turning it into a big, melodramatic deal. There’s no redemption arc for Stinger because one isn’t needed; he and Caine handle their feelings, both for each other and about the situation, in a mature, responsible way.
The utter lack of drama, the lack of any contrived “you betrayed me and now I can’t trust you until you make some grand dramatic gesture like sacrificing your life to save me” bullshit actively subverts the traditional masculine narrative. In thirty seconds, the film turns everything you’ve always been taught to expect from these two men on its head.
What a great way of looking at it! I totally concur – this is some brilliant meta.
Audiences were thoroughly unprepared for just how weird The Wachowskis really are this year, when Jupiter Ascending baffled just about everybody and was accused of being downright awful. But “weird” is not the same as “awful” and this elaborate and eccentric sci-fi epic, about a woman from the lowest class in the galaxy who discovers she’s suddenly inherited the planet Earth, spoke to many relevant social issues, viciously subverted the old-fashioned “princess fantasy” genre, and boasted the most wonderfully over the top villain performance in years, courtesy of recent Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne. It’s a fun, challenging film that flies in the face of the mainstream, for better or worse, and it deserves more recognition for that.
Space cinderella falls in love with space werewolf while her space step-children try to steal away her space kingdom. There are space bees and space dinosaurs involved.
Poor immigrant who wants to be rich and watch the stars has her dreams come true, but it turns out that space capitalism is just as bad as Earth capitalism.
While the Bolotnikov family could never afford pets, the young Jupiter Jones found herself popular with animals – particularly ones that happen to be from strongly matriarchal species. When she was eight and taken to Lincoln Park Zoo by her mother, Jupiter found the inhabitants of the Lion House particularly attentive. When her mother’s back was turned, one of the lion’s bowed to her. As much as Jupiter insisted that the lion had bowed to her, Aleksa dismissed it as a projection – “Lions do not bow, Especially not to little girls.” A rather sad Jupiter resigned herself to the fact that she’d merely imagining it, and the universe felt a little greyer.
This is one of mine, and I’m particularly proud of it (despite the sloppy wording and erroneous punctuation). Poor ‘lll Jupe.
[Jupiter’s] lack of extraordinary qualities outside of her genetic sequencing does ultimately become part of the movie’s point. There’s nothing that sets her apart, aside from the luck of her birth, and she doesn’t manage to cause a revolution or right the wrongs of the universe or do anything else heroic, in her past or present incarnation. The bravest act she manages, her big moment of agency, is choosing to trade her own life and those of her loved ones for the larger survival of Earth, which may not be a sweeping gesture but is a desperately resonant one. Jupiter chooses not to participate in a system in which her specialness depends on the ruin of others. Dramatic rescues and flying boots and space police and dragon aliens aside, her pivotal choice is to not be the princess.
(Advance warning that a semi-rant concerning Twitter hate follows. It’s petty as hell and completely immaterial in the greater scheme of things, but I just had to get this out of my system – apologies in advance.)
While I’ve gotten better at not engaging with Jupiter Ascending hate, I do make occasional exceptions. I’ve got a clear rule: while I won’t engage with people just saying that they dislike the film – that’s their prerogative and I’m past caring – I will occasionally engage with people who extrapolate their personal dislike of the film to invalidate or deny others’ enjoyment of it. I am always polite and civil, and simply attempt to clear up misconceptions when I engage with such people.
I really should just stop because there’s no point to it, since the people who post tweets such as this have zero interest in discussion or opinions that differ from their own. This little exchange ended, of course, with my being blocked for presenting an alternative standpoint:
My main objection to Mr Wheeler’s initial tweet is that it’s almost laughably paternalistic. Prior to women coming to be treated as independent, functional adults, it was common for men in positions of authority to determine what sort of entertainment was appropriate for the consumption of women, who were widely considered to be inferior in intelligence, discernment and morality. Gothic novels, for example, with their lurid morbidity, supernatural silliness and simmering sexuality, were considered to be positively hazardous. Now, it would seem, excess glitter, epic histrionics and non-stop sensory overload are considered equally unhealthy.
While I have no doubt that Mr Wheeler had good intentions in attempting to decry the terrible standards of entertainment women are being fed, it is simply not his place to pass judgement on what’s worthy entertainment for women. The tweet is also founded on a fallacy – while there are plenty of articles out there focusing on JA’s female fanbase, I have yet to see anyone beside Mr Wheeler suggest that women are more inclined to like it because they are somehow content with or deserving of poor-quality entertainment.
In short, while I have no problem with Mr Wheeler’s personal dislike of the film I do have a problem with him assuming that the film is somehow objectively bad and that women are being condescended by being expected to enjoy it (which is, as I establish above, a fallacy). To present and stick to such a claim is, as far as I’m concerned, the worst kind of close-mindedness and something to protest.
:steps off soap box:
It’s weird how you never get the opposite of criticism like that. “I hate the implication that Transformers, a very bad movie, is ‘good enough’ for boys” is…not something I’ve ever heard a female film critic (or anyone) say.
