Jupiter Ascending

[Aya]

I watched this yesterday, too. I wasn't impressed overall with the characters and storyline. There were good moments but I felt like the movie was jumble and confusing because there was no STO element in it. Thus, there were no wisdom, moral or great message for people to learn and overcome the controls of the world of evil. In the story, the character development was poorly done so often enough I had to question; "Who are these characters? What are they trying to do?" Ok, the world of evil exists and people with conscience have to struggle to fight against it...then what? Was Jupiter really able to save her family and the earth at the end?? I felt like the message I received from the movie was this; "STS world exists and we want to you to know it as the world of consumption is inevitable. Therefore, we want you to feel all confused and keep the ideas in the dark.

Maybe too much has happened in the world, too many plans have come to fruition along with vital others, to allow the deep message that the directors would bring & get people thinking... at least talking sensibly about this stuff. "Cloud Atlas" may be the last best thing they'll ever be allowed to present to the masses. Either they'll go away quietly (possible cuz what kind of movie could they make that could really drive them?) or return to... "Speed Racer." Which isn't even funny. :(

They seem to be heading for television, perhaps due to having more control over the finished product:

The whole story didn't make any sense so I suspect that there were some kind of control and manipulation involved.

 

[Tristan]

Yes I agree with the most part you have stated, a bit disappointed in general so I watched it yesterday too. There's something that took my attention and I was curious about when they were talking of bees being special creatures and so on; but maybe it's just because my surname means bee in some tongues spoken in my country...

 

[Rhythmik]

I saw it on opening day and went in knowing nothing about it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, mostly because of all the esoteric references and story lines.

Natalie Portman was their first choice for the lead role, she would've made it better imo.

 

[DonnieG]

I've been wanting to see this one. I will as soon as I get a chance, Looks Interesting.

 

[Axxel]

According to some ideas, in the movie it can be wrapped, among others, idea that "the flesh and blood CAN inherit the Kingdom of God". And, perhaps, to some inhabitants of our reality, on the basis of "a flesh and blood", the genetic line, will be made, or already made, offers of some future. As well as many other products of mass media, the movie can't be considered unambiguously useless or useful if it can reflect some "transcendental" facts. It is one more occasion to study interaction of factors which can influence our reality.

 

[genero81]

Well I have to see it anyway. I will watch it in 3D so I can at least enjoy it visually. I have no doubt something went askew from original intentions. Too bad. Excited to here about the TV series though. :D

 

[aaronfransen]

Was it perfect? No, but it was a very enjoyable movie. They were able to wrap ideas about mankind being just (literal) fodder for the rich and powerful aliens in a "common man" palatable package it seems to me.

I liked it. The bits with the bureaucracy were actually kind of funny too.

 

[osher]

Wow, the forum is pretty busy. The movie had premiere week ago...

(...)without a shadow of a doubt whoever wrote this knows about the universe that Ra and the Cs have been talking about. (...)it almost seemed as if they tried to make it for the mass audience and so didn't spend time building substance. Instead, they just dropped all the important bits in, mish mash mosh, 2 A-listers as the leads, lots of actions, then out into the mass market.(...)

Not much to add. And no doubt they had to fight for every bit of screenplay, to the point the movie is not at all what it could be - no suspense at all, too long boring fighting scenes etc. But important thing is they managed to plant a seed in many. Thank you, Wachowskis!

 

[luke wilson]

Wow, the forum is pretty busy. The movie had premiere week ago...

(...)without a shadow of a doubt whoever wrote this knows about the universe that Ra and the Cs have been talking about. (...)it almost seemed as if they tried to make it for the mass audience and so didn't spend time building substance. Instead, they just dropped all the important bits in, mish mash mosh, 2 A-listers as the leads, lots of actions, then out into the mass market.(...)

Not much to add. And no doubt they had to fight for every bit of screenplay, to the point the movie is not at all what it could be - no suspense at all, too long boring fighting scenes etc. But important thing is they managed to plant a seed in many. Thank you, Wachowskis!

Given todays trend of dragging out movies for profit e.g. The hobbit being made into 3 movies, I don't understand why they squeezed it all into one. They had enough material to work with, to build a truly mythological world. Plus with an A lister cast, especially if they got Natalie Portman, this movie could have been a cash cow for the studio and all involved. Instead now, its no where and not really making what it could. It could have been a Blockbuster.

Pure speculation but obviously things changed from the original plan. My best guess as to why was that a big time constraint was introduced. 3 movies would take 3 years. Also the release date is off... This seems like a movie that should have been released early spring or summer.

I can't really compare to cloud atlas because that to me was not produced for the mass market.

 

[A Jay]

Given todays trend of dragging out movies for profit e.g. The hobbit being made into 3 movies, I don't understand why they squeezed it all into one. They had enough material to work with, to build a truly mythological world. Plus with an A lister cast, especially if they got Natalie Portman, this movie could have been a cash cow for the studio and all involved. Instead now, its no where and not really making what it could. It could have been a Blockbuster.

Pure speculation but obviously things changed from the original plan. My best guess as to why was that a big time constraint was introduced. 3 movies would take 3 years. Also the release date is off... This seems like a movie that should have been released early spring or summer.

I can't see the time to make the movies being the issue as it seems that the goal of most film makers is to create a brand or franchise that can be milked as long as possible, which takes an incredible amount of time. Bond, Terminator, Mission Impossible, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, the Divergent series, etc. The film studios are still releasing dates and movie ideas that go into the next several years, so it's not like they're closing up shop to prepare for the coming economic collapse.

We don't really have much to go on in terms of speculation, and as much as I don't want to admit it there's still the possibility that the Wachowskis dropped the ball on this one all on their own. Doesn't seem likely given their previous films, but it's still there.

 

[seek10]

Was it perfect? No, but it was a very enjoyable movie. They were able to wrap ideas about mankind being just (literal) fodder for the rich and powerful aliens in a "common man" palatable package it seems to me.

I liked it. The bits with the bureaucracy were actually kind of funny too.

I watched the movie recently in IMAX 3D. I too felt, they should have spent another 10 minutes (to 127 minutes movie- not terribly long) to explain the characters. But, What they are trying to explicitly convey is very bold and I didn't conceive it coming from high-profile directors for public consumption - Orion hierarchy( Orion humanoid STS, lizards,Grays), Human serum, harvesting, Human farm, we are only one in infinite planets, experiment is going on for 100,000 years, we are not in control of our lifes etc. Yes, some of the concepts are available in matrix series, but not this explicit in a short format.

Movie is well made leaving aside the story was not clear in one pass(well, so many movies are like that including matrix in one-pass). There is no STO component, it is STS factions fighting over each other. This reminded me what C's said- 4D battle is a standoff . STO failed to accept, STS failed to control, both sides drained of energy. But they said 4D STS will fail due to their wishful thinking. I liked the answer to Jupiter's question 'What will happen to earth now?' - 'Future will be different than what was planned'. Again Future is Open.

Googling for reviews, we find bad reviews page after page. Biggest complaint is story was not clear., though every body praises every thing else. One even titled the review 'It is so bad that he started liking it'. I watched it in a theater with 4 other people in 500+ seat theater during the first week of release. Interestingly, There is a dialog in the movie. When Jupiter asked How will population react when they know they are raised here for harvesting(or some thing like that), the answer is most people will not believe it. Reviews seems to reflect exactly that.

Even tranfromer4 reviews were bad when it was released, but it still grossed billion mainly due to non-US sales. Jupiter ascending first speculated as 'flop', but seems to made up some money due to non-US sales.

As a whole, I enjoyed it.

 

[Redrock12]

It's playing at the local theater, so after reading the forum reviews, and the reviews on the Odeon Cineplex website, where it got an overall rating of 6 out of 10, I'm going to have to see it.
Hope it's better than Lucy.

 

[Minas Tirith]

I was very disappointed about this movie and wished I had read this thread before I went. As many of you have already stated, it was boring and completely predictable. The actors were bad and stereotypes abounded. Any Star Trek - Next Generation episode had more complexity than this movie.

Some things got me thinking, however. So, for example, it is not absolutely clear if it is set in a multidimensional universe. Different dimensions or densities are never mentioned and there is a lot of space travel going on - even though it doesn't seem to be far from the Abraxas home planet to Earth. So in the beginning I thought the Abraxas clan were 3D dudes living on some 3D planet and thanks to their superiority in technology able to enslave dumb earthern "cattle" for their genetic resources. Also it was mentioned that the "greatest commodity in the universe" is not real estate, oil or minerals, but "time". But there were Lizzies and Grays (in the correct hierarchical order, as someone mentioned here before), as we know 4D creatures, and maybe the Abraxas were 4D STS as well, having to die at some point, but prolonging their longer lifespan even more. Made sense, wasn't mentioned, though.

Many inconsistencies as well, it never became clear for example why a harvest is necessary, obviously the genetic material is also obtainable by killing people (which is in itself inconsistent, you don't have to kill someone in order to get their DNA). Why harvesting the whole planet - which means you have to start from scratch if it's not absolutely necessary?

The continual: "Earth is not so important as you think" line got on my nerves, too, if it isn't, why engage in all these battles for it?

People left while the movie played, others laughed - not at the jokes, but at the utter ridiculousness and predictability of the story-line, so if it's supposed to wake people up, it didn't do a great job.

Too bad ... :/

 

[RedFox]

I quite enjoyed it, having gone to see it with low expectations.
Maybe actually trying to add in 4D would have turned people off completely? Perhaps I'm being too generous.
I am curious to know what people who aren't familiar with these concepts until seeing the film may have though. From that perspective, how would anyone introduce the very basic concepts of 4D to an average person who has no frame of reference?

Many inconsistencies as well, it never became clear for example why a harvest is necessary, obviously the genetic material is also obtainable by killing people (which is in itself inconsistent, you don't have to kill someone in order to get their DNA). Why harvesting the whole planet - which means you have to start from scratch if it's not absolutely necessary?

fwiw there was a section of dialog about why the harvest was necessary. Time was the most valuable commodity in the universe, and that the product that reversed peoples ages (gave them more time) - just one tube of it was derived from 'harvesting' 100 humans. The bath's that the elite bathed in probably consisted of several million harvested humans.
So it was about profit, power, control and humans just being a commodity for 'advanced beings' to use for there own ends. Basically we're not at the top of the food chain osit.

People left while the movie played, others laughed - not at the jokes, but at the utter ridiculousness and predictability of the story-line, so if it's supposed to wake people up, it didn't do a great job.

I didn't see anyone leave, but some people (including myself) did laugh at the ridiculousness of it. I don't think any people really got it (how could they with no frame of reference?), but maybe it's about planting seeds? Or maybe it was just a random film for profit based on something that seemed 'cool'?

I'll stop over analyzing it now! Fun sci-fi film with some rarely seen concepts, or OMG SPACESHIPS!

 

[trendsetter37]

Re: Jupiter Ascending [Spoilers]

Yea I agree with what you are saying RedFox.

I didn't see anyone leave, but some people (including myself) did laugh at the ridiculousness of it. I don't think any people really got it (how could they with no frame of reference?), but maybe it's about planting seeds? Or maybe it was just a random film for profit based on something that seemed 'cool'?

I imagine that if I found the forum after having watched 'Jupiter Ascending' it would serve as a seed for me to dig deeper. Almost like an oh wait so people are actually taking these concepts seriously? Hmm. That's just me though.

As for portraying 4D accurately I do think that would have been a tall order especially after shattering the general population's notion that we (humanity on earth) are the pinnacle of evolution and physical prowess. Baby steps, I suppose. I did have an 'OMG SPACESHIPS' moment, but more so with the gravity boots. Another thing ( and again I did enjoy the movie for the most part ) was the scene where the greys mistakenly knap the wrong person seemingly because of a clerical error...Really? They can extend their 'physical' lives indefinitely but still manage to mis-identify their target because the real person used a fake name? Really? Pretty sure you are not allowed to make those kinds of mistakes when you have spaceships and are harvesting genetic and/or other tissue commodities for vitality.

It's playing at the local theater, so after reading the forum reviews, and the reviews on the Odeon Cineplex website, where it got an overall rating of 6 out of 10, I'm going to have to see it.
Hope it's better than Lucy.

I will go out on a limb and say that it is better than 'Lucy' or at least it has to be, because 'Lucy' was just.....well... 'Lucy'