Jupiter Ascending with Summer Farah

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hello, Jupiter Loftis, it's me Capricorn Dorante.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
Wait, don't you mean Cane Dorante o Caine?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, Cane Jupiter.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
Loftis and Cane Durrante. That didn't even really connect for me,
But in a way we're kind of meant to be.
I'll just keep being like, what's this, and then you'll
tell me, and then we'll go to another room and
I'll be like, what's this? And then you'll tell me.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
And then sometimes you'll be like can we make out
right now? And then I'll be like, no.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
I do feel weirdly. I mean, it's like it's obviously
a mess. But there are certain times in life where
you're presented with an existential problem and your response to
it is, hm, should we kiss? You're like focus, focus, dude.
You were just told you own the world and your

(01:03):
response was should I kiss my wolf? Boyfriend? And I
think that we have had emotional situations not us specifically,
but also us specifically, where you're like, you're presented with
an existential question and you're like, let's focus on something manageable,
like should we kiss? And already I've put more emotional
thought into the character of Jupiter Jones, who came out

(01:26):
I think the same year as Jessica Jones. I kept
Jupiter Jones Jessica Jones. I really liked that show when
it first came out.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, I forgot about that for some reason.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Wow, I didn't welcome to the Bextel cast. My name
is Jupiter.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
And I'm Cain Durante, and together we will ascend. We
will ascend to where I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
I don't know. Neither does something eugenics.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, oh gosh, this is our show where we demon
movies through an intersexual feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test
simply as a jumping off point. But Jamie Wood on
Earth is that Earth that is owned by by Jupiter Jones.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Jupiter Jones, not that she understands what that means or
has much interest in it, which is maybe praxis. I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:21):
So the Bechdel test is media metric created by friend
of the show, our dear pal, Alison Bechtel. It is
a media magic that's existed since the eighties, but it
has since been adapted into a mainstream metric. Our version
requires that two characters of a marginalized gender speak to
each other about something other than a man for more

(02:42):
than two lines of dialogue. And this is actually the
Bechtel test is going to be an amazing tool to
use today because how many times can a movie past
the Bechdel test and it just be Mila Kunis introducing
herself to another blonde woman. That is I would say
a good seventy five percent of the Bechdel test passes
in this movie. And sure, two characters reading is technically important,

(03:04):
but it is less than ideal. And that's the episode
we did it and bye. But yes, that's the Bechdel test.
And today we have been brought the challenge of a lifetime.
We have been brought to ascend, and we have an
incredible returning guest to us, to ascend us, to ascend
with us, to ascend.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Us all of the above. She is a Palestinian American
writer from California. She is the author of The Hungering
Years You remember her from our episode on Julie and Julia,
and she is calling on you to recommit yourself to
the liberation of the Palestinian people. Every day it's summer Farah,
Hello and welcome back.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Hi. Oh my goodness, I've been keeping my giggles silent.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
You don't have to do silence anymore. Don't silence yourself. Yay, Hi,
welcome back.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Welcome, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Wow, Julie, Julia, Jupiter. I'm sensing a pattern.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh my goodness, names that start with Jay you you, Yeah,
Julia and Julia and Jupiter.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I mean, that's that's how we can connect them.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
Well, but before we get into this, because we could
barely contain ourselves off, Mike, there's so much to talk about. First,
you just had a new poetry collection come out, The
Hungering Years. We want to hear all about it all.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah. I had a collection called The Hungering Years come
out with Host Publications. They are a small press based
in Austin, Texas, and it is poems about being obsessed
with things, poems about food, poems about hanging out with
your friends, and the kind of orienting philosophy of a

(04:48):
lot of it is like excess and too muchness, which
is why I thought Jupiter is Snding would be a
great thematic tie.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
I'm seeing the connection.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
I The last time I saw you, we discussed this
movie and I couldn't wrap my head around it, and
now having seen it, I can't wrap my head around it.
I'm so excited too, because this is I think I
was mixing this movie up with something else. First of all,

(05:20):
I don't know who I thought directed this, but this
is a this is what Chowski's joined. Oh yeah, this
is like the big leagues.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Yeah, and yet incredibly respected directors, and it's like icons, Yeah,
you know why everyone said yes to doing this? Oh?
Absolutely right, Like you know, it's like, yeah, of course,
like I would. I would do literally anything they asked
me to.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
It's kind of interesting and heartbreaking is too strong a word.
In retrospect, watching interviews like cast interviews, particularly with Channing Tatum,
who I carry a torch for who He's like so
excited and he's like, I would have done anything that
the Witchowskis would ask I'm like the biggest Matrix fan
in the world. This was such a cool opportunity. I

(06:03):
was so excited and then like eight years later. I
think he was asked about it in an interview and
he was like, well, that shoot was really hard.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Wait can I quote it? Can I say what he said?
Because he uses a turn of phrase that is so funny.
He says, Jupiter sending was a nightmare from the jump.
It was a sideways movie. All of us were there
for seven months busting our hump?

Speaker 4 (06:29):
How old is he? Okay, people busting our hump.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
I'm never gonna stop laughing about that. I've never heard
that expression before, Like, what does that mean?

Speaker 4 (06:41):
I've only heard it from like senior citizens, genuinely wow,
busting our hump? Wow, chanting Tatum, he's old. I don't
even know how old he is. Maybe he's he's only
a few.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Years older than me, I think.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
And you've never busted your hump.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
That is not true. I have I bust my hump.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
Okay, hey, hey, hey, okay, sorry.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
I'm not so virgin. I bust my hope.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
That's well, that's not what he's saying. He's this. I
will say, this movie is many things, horny is not
one of them.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
That's really interesting because I don't I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
I feel like I think it is horny.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think it is horny, really, I don't. I don't know.
I think it wants to be.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah, I definitely think it aspires to be horny.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
It's like incestuously horny, and so you kind of like
don't want it to be. But I don't know.

Speaker 4 (07:33):
They want their mom, but yeah, they all do. When
I with their mom.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
There's like Oedipus stuff happening. There is bestiality kind of
if you consider chanted him to be a wolf man.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
I'm so unclear. I'm like, why is I okay? First
of all, what stood up to be about this movie
is that the Razzie winning performance to me is what
I'm holding closest to my heart, and that is the
Eddie redmain permance, which everyone hates. Yeah, but I kind
of love it the more I sit with it, Like
every word comes out unlike you've ever heard a word.

(08:09):
He's like, it won't be mine. He sounds like when
SpongeBob is out of the water and he's all dried up,
Like he sounds like SpongeBob dry. I like it, And
then he won a Razzie for it. This was also
around the time he won an Oscar for the Theory
of Everything, and Eddie Redmain's Oscar record we can talk

(08:33):
about because it is uh, it is sordid and bleak.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
It was the theory of everything Oscar, right, yes? Or
is it okay? Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (08:42):
Yeah. But The Danish Girl comes out this same year
in twenty fifteen, and I guess that Lana Wachowski and
Eddie Redmain were discussing that role, and she was advising
him on the set of Jupiter Ascending, which is both
sweet and I'm like, I can't deal with that today,
know what was happening? And on the set of where

(09:06):
Eddie Redman saying.

Speaker 5 (09:08):
I create life. Yeah, I will harvest the planet tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
He's my favorite.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Wait okay, so Summer, tell us about your relationship, your
history with this movie.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
Who did this get on your plate? What happened?

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah? So I remember the trailers for this movie really clearly,
and I remember the sort of like internet discourse around
it when it was in theaters and like coming out
and just sort of like in the conversation, very much
maligned right away, and I was like, oh, look, dumb,
I don't think I'm going to see that. But then

(09:51):
I read like I think it was like a tumbler
post that was like Jupiter Ascending is like if a
nine year old girl got all of her fantasies turned
into a film, and I was like, I gotta go
see that. It is kind of true because that's very
interesting to me. And so my friends and I worded

(10:11):
it and then we watched it in someone's house and
I loved it. I honestly don't remember if the people
I watched it with liked it. I think that they,
like to this day, will humor me when I talk
about it. But it just became like a movie that
I would show people, like anytime I was making a

(10:31):
new friend, I would show them Jupiter Ascending because I
just I was so fascinated by it. Like I like
things that are bad. I like bad movies, I like
bad TV shows like I my taste in visual media
is like I think something that is like bad and
has weird contradictions and confusing, it's like more interesting.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
To me than yeah, good all we all have those.
And it's like you, you, I don't know, you talk
about media that people overlook better than almost anyone in
the entire world, like truly.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
So even though the first twenty minutes of Jupiter Ascending,
I'm like, what has she done? Yeah, I don't know.
It's a text. It's a text.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
It's a text. And yeah, and so it just, yeah,
it just became a movie that I would show to people.
It became like something that I really like telling people
about without them seeing it. Like after rewatching it for this,
I like sent a buddy a voice note about it,
and they were like, Jesus Christ, I thought it was
about something else, you know, like and I love that reaction.

(11:37):
It's so much fun. And yeah, for a long time,
I would say Jupiter Ascending is my favorite movie if
you asked me what my favorite movie was. But I
kind of had a real I don't know, reorienting on
my relationship with it because of the of my Lacunis.
Like I was a big that Seminy show head. But

(12:00):
she loves to raise money for the Israeli Army.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
He really does.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
She really died.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
I did not know. I do know that she's good
friends with Natalie Portman, so this actually.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Tracks well, who almost got the role of Jupiter. So
it really was like xiety. Yes, it was almost Zionist
v Zionist for for Jupiter.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, but she would have been so good at it.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
She certainly would have been better.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, but I also loved, I loved I was a
big chanting Tatum person, and I still hold fondness for
him and Eddie Redmain really impressed me. But yeah, and like,
I mean, I really liked the movie. Like this came
out when I was my senior year of high school,
and so like I kind of impact.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
Yes, I kind of just.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Learned what a movie was, and so yeah, it has
shaped a lot of me and my life. Yeah, I
just I'm very happy to share it with the two
of you and see if we can figure it out.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
I'm I'm so excited we're going to We're going to
get to the bottom of this because we got this.
I really love that, you know, to quote Wikipedia. Despite
praise for the visual effects, the narrative was criticized as
confusing and I and it's not untrue. But I also

(13:20):
did enjoy looking into because the Witch House kis. Even
though they are not like one hundred percent hit, you
can never accuse their work of being underthought. Yes, and
there it was interesting learning about like where they were
pulling from and the reference points, some of which I
was familiar. With some of which I weren't like. They're brilliant,

(13:41):
it just doesn't always translate to a successful movie.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Sometimes there's the Matrix one, and then sometimes there's the
Matrix three, and they made both, and.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
Somewhere in between is Jupiter Ascending. It is fascinating, it
is fast. I still haven't seen speed Racer.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Nor have I, but I think I would like it.
I've heard great things about it. It's very underrated, but
the people who ride for it ride for it hard,
So it's my It's on my watch list.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
I think I would really like it.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Yeah, Jamie, what is your relationship with Jupiter Ascending?

Speaker 4 (14:20):
I had never seen this? Of course I had never
seen this, but I and I also i'd only heard
of it via Summer. I don't this movie completely missed me.
It's it is because I've never been a big sci
fi person, so it's not something that would have come
across my desk upon release. I will figure out the

(14:43):
second we finished recording what I was confusing this movie from.
I was confusing it with a different mid twenty tens
sci fi box office flop, and I cannot remember what
it was.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Okay, I was confusing this with Valerian in the City
of one Thousand Planets.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
Oh, I was I know what that is?

Speaker 3 (15:01):
A sex criminal? Luke Bison.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Is that the one Rihanna is in.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
I just remember Rihanna being a battleship Oh okay, oh
and Ocean's eight. I was thinking about how she was
the hacker and Oceans eight recently there she was Smurfett,
not that anyone saw it. Do you remember when La
was covered in billboards that said Rihanna is Smurfett and
it was just like, what an awesome is that poetry? Summer?

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (15:29):
Yeah, I think so Rihanna is Smurfett. It felt like
it to be.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
I don't remember that, but I do remember the Zendaea
is is Michi Michi?

Speaker 4 (15:40):
Yes, that was big.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
That was huge, culturally enormous.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
Sometimes you're like this person is this and you're like, wow,
no one cares, but it is interesting that it's everywhere. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
I had not seen this movie either. I'm very much
a like sci fi action movie person for sure, but
I think I missed it in theaters because I knew
about the generally negative reviews, so I kind of passed
on it. But I had aside from having a very

(16:15):
difficult time following it the first time I watched it. Truly,
my like draft of the recap after my first watch
was and then they go somewhere, and why they go there,
I mean are clear to me, but they go there.
And then on the second watch I started to be
able to fill in the gaps. But yeah, it's definitely

(16:39):
you know, it has some exposition problems. I would say
that information is not delivered particularly clearly. There's also some
weird editing choices between scenes.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Well.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
I also think that sometimes, like tonally, it's like we're
especially at the very beginning, Well we'll get into it,
but like it feels like we are oscillating between a
raw that came out in two thousand and two and
the movie Jupiter Ascending is so wild watching me Lacunas
cleaning a toilet being like I hate my life. I'm like,

(17:11):
is this a Garfield comic? Like what what is this?
But it's awesome. Yeah, I do think ultimately this is awesome. Yeah,
I think I agree.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
That's what's important. I think that it feels like a
movie where it's like maybe they thought they would never
make a movie ever.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
Again, I'm like, I've looked for I haven't been able
to find a lot of I mean, it's only ten
years old, so I would be curious whenever the Wachowski's
released their retrospective, you know, like cumulative interviews, what was
going on, because most of what I've found is like, oh,
our budget got cut, which I believe, but also their

(17:49):
budget was two hundred million dollars, and I'm like, surely
surely four hundred million dollars wouldn't have fixed, isn't The
difference between Meila Kunis just being like, what is this?
Where am I and not? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I don't know, we don't know. Let's take a quick
break and we'll come back for the recap. We're back.
We're as sending into the recap of Jupiter Ascending. We

(18:30):
start with backstory of the character Jupiter Jones played by
Mila Kunis. Backstory about how her parents met in Russia
and fell in love, how her astronomy professor father was
obsessed with the planet Jupiter, hence wanting to name their daughter.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
That I will say, okay already, but like I was
waiting for the whole movie. This is the first scene
and the witch house kis I mean I was thinking
of the Matrix one, not to put them in a box,
but that's the big one. Sure, And I was thinking about, like,
what a strong introduction to the world that is. Oh yeah,

(19:12):
And so I went in thinking, Oh, this first scene
is going to be coming back in a big way.
Throughout the movie, The Father, I will say, never comes
back except for an eBay telescope. Yeah that is. I
kept waiting to find out that Eddie Redmain was secretly
like there was that someone was secretly her father. It
seems like the kind of movie where that would happen.

(19:33):
But spoiler alert, he was just a weird guy with
a telescope. He died rubbing vasilin on his wife's pregnant stomach.
And that's all that ever you're ever gonna need to
know about this guy. I kept waiting for him to
come back. He No, he's dead.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
He's gone.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
That's it. That's it for him.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
Jupiter is barely relevant, you know, so awesome.

Speaker 4 (19:59):
Yeah, movie that really realized on her being like, I
need to get back to my family. Boy, does she
seem indifferent to them? She does not seem to like
them very much.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, and I'm space and yeah, anyways, right.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
But yeah, don't get attached to the father. Don't look
for him. He's not coming back. He's dead.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Planet name doesn't mean anything, Telescope doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
Oh, I didn't even occur to you that Jupiter doesn't
really mean very much except like an astrology joke kind of.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Well, before I saw the movie, I thought that it
would take place on or near the planet Jupiter. But
it's truly just that that's her name, yeah, in it this.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
R and speaking of I, it's so interesting somewhere that
you saw like the post saying that this is a
nine year old girl's dreams coming true. Because the first
like long extended stories I wrote were probably around the
time I was nine, and the name of my main
character was Neptune Star exactly. So this was happening. Yeah,

(21:03):
this was happening.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah. I was obsessed with Saturn. I was writing little
personified like anthropomorphization stories about Saturn when I was nine,
Like this is this is true?

Speaker 4 (21:16):
So maybe this is just like the Witch housekis they
were young gals once. Maybe they were like Jupiter Jones,
right you guys, and everyone's like yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, okay, so her father he's a guy.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
But don't get used to him because no, he's dead.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
He's about to die because one night some like thugs
come into their home steal money and her father's prized telescope,
and then kill her father. So her mother flees to
the US and gives birth to Jupiter along the way
on a ship crossing the Atlantic, probably pretty much the

(21:56):
same journey that Titanic took, I'm guessing. Jupiter's aunt, Nino,
says that she's destined for great things, but Jupiter doesn't
believe her, because we cut to her as an adult.
She her mother and her aunt.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
Works like the beginning of Maid in Manhattan. Yes, it's
so bizarre.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Yeah, because they work as house cleaners for rich people,
I think. And Jupiter hates her life, which she repeats,
she said several.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
Times, almost to camera, like she almost goes to camera
and says, but she says it more than us. I
hate my life. And you're like, oh, right, Millicuna is
not very good at acting, but that's you know, live
laugh love. Oh that's so wild that. Yeah, she that
her co star in Black Swan was almost cast in this.

(22:50):
That didn't even occur to me until just now. Miliicunas
and Natalie Portman. We're in Black Swan together. Yeah, well
they both suck, but Natalie Portman can an act.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Ye.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Well, I wonder if I mean, I think she didn't
do the movie because of like scheduling conflicts. But I'm like,
she was already a space queen queen Amidala.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Oh yeah, she had her shot.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah, give another woman at we all get to be
space queen.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, let some other people try.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
I guess it's still happening. Does I don't know what
Dune is. Does being a dune count as being a
space queen? Or is that is dune on Earth?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
What is definitely is definitely space?

Speaker 4 (23:35):
So zindea space queen.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
You know, I don't think she's a queen. Oh okay,
she's space working class.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Oh yeah, someday I'm going to get the flu and
figure out what's going on with Dune.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Well, good luck with that, because it's really hard to follow.
I would say, maybe just as hard to follow as
they drink. They drink their pea, right, yes, I forget.
I mean that definitely happens in water World. I don't
remember if this movie has been compared to Oh Interesting
and One of the at the time reviews of Jupiter Ascending,

(24:11):
which I think was pretty unfair to Jupiter Ascending.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
But they said every generation gets its own water World.
I'm like, I've never seen water World, so I'm not
sure what that means.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Oh, that's probably referencing how water World was a huge
budget movie that critics hated and was a box office flop.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Is water World the one at Universal Studios?

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Have you seen the show? The show is awesome, awesome.
I don't know what happens in water World, but that
show is. I followed all the stunt actors on Instagram.
I'm like, these people are geniuses.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
They're so cool. Updated with Jupiter Ascending.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
That would be great. And they're like, let's invest a
ton of money into a different movie that flopped and
then people will maybe it will give a well needed
shot to the arm with Jupiter. I think it's a
Universal movie too, Warner Bros.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Okay, yeah, but there's I mean there's a Warner Brothers
property at Universal aka Harry Potter.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
So oh yeah, well we ever know peace. So her
dad's dead and she she I hate my life me too, Wow,
my dad said, and I hate my life. That's why
she's relatable.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, okay. So then we cut to a far away
planet in another solar system. There we meet the Abras
six siblings. This is Titus played by Douglas Booth, Khalik
played by Tuppence Middleton, and Balam Balem I forget how

(25:54):
to say his name played by Eddie Redmain.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
We're like, I love these siblings because even though they're
obviously all together, they're all acting like they're in separate rooms,
and I love that they have sub zero chemistry. It
is like awesome.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, they've never they've been siblings for tens of thousands
of years, but they somehow also never met before.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
No is Yeah, they're just like, hey, so how are you. Oh,
our sister is ugly? Yes, anyways, goodbye. That's kind of
the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
So, these three siblings are members of a powerful intergalactic
empire that owns and controls a bunch of planets, including Earth,
which their late mother has left to Baalum in her will,
so keep that in mind. Then we meet Caine Wise

(26:58):
played by Channing Tatum. He's an alien who is on
Earth looking for someone named Catherine Dunlevy, although we don't
yet know why. And it takes a while to figure
it out.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's Vanessa Kirbye.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Oh my god, that is who that is. I was like,
she's familiar, but I don't know who she is, and
then I forgot to look it up. But you're so true.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
One of the many blonde women you meet that it's like,
don't get attached to her, she'll be onnesome. But that's her.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, huh okay, So Kin is looking for her. Balam
is also looking for her, and in this case we
do know why because he wants her found and killed.
Then we reveal that Catherine Dunlevy is a friend of Jupiter's.

(27:49):
They are together when a group of like spindly little
evil aliens come in and attack them.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
And aliens that literally look like alien dot jpeg. Like
I do appreciate that, Like I don't know. As the movie,
as we get deeper into the movie, Eddie Redmain is
mainly like scolding dinosaurs yea at his house and you
don't really understand why. But it's like the I don't

(28:21):
know again, You're like not to over expect things from
the wachousekis, but you're like, oh, that dinosaur looks like
dinosaur dot jpeg. That alien looks like alien dot jpeg.
You don't really understand what they want or what they're
up to.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
The dinosaurs are wearing leather jackets, so.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
The dinosaurs are really cool and they are capable of
experiencing shame yea, and so I'm interested, but like, yeah,
what's their whole deal? And we and we won't find out,
but it is fun to just every time Eddie Redmains
sounding like dry SpongeBob scolding a dinosaur, and you're like,
how could you hate this performance? This is awesome.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Because each of those siblings, and it took me forever
to figure out like which minions worked for which siblings,
but they each have a group or at least one
servant or minion. Eddie Redmain's character has a whole army
of people. He's got the like giant lizard dinosaur army.
He also has someone named mister Knight who is wearing

(29:21):
like a George Washington wig.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
I don't know what's going on there, but I was like, yeah,
mister Knight, let's not do a second pass at that name.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
No.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
Uh, then there's and I left most of these people
out of the recap because I'm like they don't matter,
but not to erase the woman who works for Titus
who has like enormous mouths ears.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
I yeah, she's my favorite.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
She's pretty cool. I can't just like another, like we
couldn't do a second pass at that, and maybe that's
for the best. But they're like, Okay, what if this
person were complete, completely normal looking otherwise, but just had
gigantic mouth ears. Yeah, it's awesome, it's cool. I love her.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Okay. So Jupiter and her friend Katherine are attacked by
these aliens. They disappear, and then Catherine and Jupiter I
think they like passed out because they kind of like
come to and they don't seem to have any memory
of what happened. Then we learn that Jupiter is planning

(30:32):
to sell her eggs. It seems like at the behest
of a cousin of hers cousin Vlattie.

Speaker 4 (30:37):
Oh I mistook for a boyfriend at first, I was
not clear that he was her cousin.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
It's unclear.

Speaker 4 (30:43):
And also because I just don't I can't imagine, I mean,
and maybe this is on me. I can't imagine being
persuaded to sell my eggs in a like seventy five
twenty five deal with my cousin.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Your loser cousin.

Speaker 4 (30:58):
Yeah, I'm like, I would need to be like being
pretty severely gaslight for that to happen, And that's not
really a cousin's game. But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
It's confusing.

Speaker 4 (31:07):
Maybe my cousins aren't persuasive enough.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Maybe, but she is willing to go through with it
because she wants money to buy a telescope, just like
the one her father used to have.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
What is she going to do with it? Don't worry
about it. We don't know, because the ultimate thing is
we don't know what Jupiter Jones wants out of her life.
She has no goal, which is compelling and a protagonist.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Look, let aimless women be protagonists too. No, okay, you're right, right,
you're right, Okay. So she goes to this clinic for
the egg extraction using the name of her friend Catherine Dunlevy,
and we get to reveal that the doctors are actually

(31:55):
the same evil little aliens in disguise, and they're about
to kill Jupiter because it turns out that it is
her who they actually want. They just thought they were
looking for Catherine Dunlevy because Jupiter was using her name,
which is a detail that might have been in the
first draft of the script, but they should have.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
They should have just changed it.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
To make way more clear. Yeah exactly, yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
But but good for you know, Vanessa Kirby got a
check and all she had to do is be basically
naked for all of her screen time.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yes, yes, okay. So then so she's about to be
killed by these aliens, but then Cain comes in to
save her. We learned that he was hired by Titus
to find Jupiter and bring her to him for reasons
that will eventually maybe become clear. And then Cain explains

(32:54):
that he is an alien from another planet, but he's
also this hybrid of like half human half wolf.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
And now this is like starting to be like, oh,
this is like kind of like porn, you know, like
this is kind of like a vertical series. This is
kind of like you know, wait, I know I brought
this up before, Caitlin. I read some like wolf porn
book once. And also if this is if this is

(33:23):
your shit, like truly, all power to you. It was
recommended to me. It was called like the Alpha's rejected
mate or something.

Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yes, you have brought this up I have brought up The.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
Alpha's Rejected Mate. It's something that is Oh no, it's
the Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate. That was my first and
only wolf porn novel I've read. But I will say
it did make me feel things, but they were not
things I wanted to feel, and so I had to stop.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
But when Caine was introduced, I was like, oh, this
is a gateway for future readers of The Tyrant Alpha's
Rejected Mate. Yeah, because they even go through this, Like
I do you feel like the witch Howskis have a
knack for this, where famously The Matrix, an incredible movie,
was like, really you know the red pill ideology that

(34:11):
comes from the Matrix, Right, there are people who willfully
misunderstand the work of the witch Howski's to the point
where the witch Howskis have had to openly state this,
which has to be very frustrating. But I do feel
like they have a knack for like identifying these really
potent ideas. And there is something about Cain that feels
very like Sigma Male, like before Sigma males were a thing,

(34:35):
whereas like I'm a lone wolf and it's not that
I couldn't have anyone I want. It's that I just
don't need that I'm so awesome that I'm just I'm
behaving like an insult. But it's not that. It's a
secret third thing, and that's kind of what sigmas are,
and that's kind of what Caine is. I just the
wach Howskis really have a way with tap tap in

(34:57):
that vein.

Speaker 3 (34:58):
I hadn't considered that fully.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
But well, yeah, it's been a long day sitting with
this movie my friends, and I've reached a lot of
irrational conclusions.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
No, I love it. Keep them caring.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
You know, I was thinking about like Omega verse, like
Wolf totally stuff, which I don't I don't really know
why I didn't think about it any of the other
times I've watched this movie since, Like, you know, those
things have been on my mind in the entire ten
years since this movie has come out. But of course
it's it's interesting because you know, he's like, I'm a dog,

(35:33):
but does he display any dog traits? I don't know.
I mean it's I.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
Was like, well, summer, he has pointy ears and he wears.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Island like like some dogs. Do you know? I just
also like it's not even a universal dog thing as
a as a proud mother to a cocker spaniel. That
is not our story. Yeah, I think if Channing Tatum
had had those fly if you're a dog, be a dog,
give me those floppy cars. Her spaniel ears.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Well, you know, there was like the goat woman ears
like yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
There was a guy with a whole elephant face.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, as far as we're going, if it's like monster
fucking adjacent bestiality, it's like it's kind of weak, like
there's not much happening here that feels taboo. Yeah, he's
kind of just a guy.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
It's just a guy.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
I do feel like ultimately, the closest I've gotten to
my personal Omega verse is mister Tumnus.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:30):
That is wow. That's that's like where I'm like, Okay, no,
I see the vision. I see the vision, and I
would make it work if given the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Well, you know, I was, I mean, this is this
is the last shot of the movie, but it does connect.
But like you know, when she's like Jupiter's like up
in like she's like observing her city, you know, like
from from high up. I was thinking about the the
Jessica Alba series Dark Angel, which almost every episode of
that show ends with her like on the because it

(37:00):
takes place in like a dystopia seattle, like her on
top of the space needle observing and like you know,
talking about when Dale'll find my family or whatever. And
in that show, she's like a genetically modified human and
she's like spliced with K nine DNA, which makes her
go into heat and so she just like really needs

(37:21):
to fuck and that's like.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Say, she needs to bust her hump.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
And then that's where like Omega Verse like is inspired
by because Jensen Ackles was in that show, and then
you know, you take it and then you make anyway,
we don't need to about those things.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
I know we have to talk about Gensen Ackles. You're
you're here somewhere, you're here, we have to talk about them.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
But yeah, I was like, wow, Like he doesn't even
go into heat.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Like it feels like a really half hearted commitment to
the bit. It feels, yeah, humanoid, but give us full dog. Yeah,
give us those give us those big stinky floppy ears.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Yeah. Okay, so Cain has more or less abducted her,
but she's like pretty fine with it, and they're about
to leave to head to where Titus is I think,
but it's not really specified.

Speaker 4 (38:14):
I never know really where they're going.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
I never know where they're headed to.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
But luckily Jupiter is constantly asking where they are, so
you do get the answer. But you're like, well, where
the hell is that? Like sometimes sometimes you look like
you're in another planet, and then Cain is like, no,
we're still in Chicago, and you're like, really, okay.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Oh yeah, yes, that does happen, and that's right here
in the story. They're about to leave Chicago, but then
the little bad long legged aliens start chasing them. Jupiter
and Caan eventually get away with the help of Cain's
gravity boots that allow him to roller blade around the sky.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Channing Tatum writing his journal every night. It sounds silly.
I feel silly doing it, but I trust the butch
house Keys vision. I know it will end up looking cool.
Love Channing busting my hump over.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
I'm sorry somewhere, I know you dearly love this movie.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
No, it's great. No, I just I feel bad for
Channing Tatum. It's okay, he rallied, Yeah, he did like
Hail Caesar. The next year that it's true. I love
his little tap dance and that what a performance.

Speaker 4 (39:39):
This is also the same year as Magic Mike XXL
kind of a wild room.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Yeah he's fine, he's a shut up about busting his humps.
Oh come up, Yeah, okay, So they get away. Meanwhile,
Balum gets word from his giant and winged dinosaur lizard
Minion that Caine intervened in the killing of Jupiter and

(40:08):
he saved her. And Balam is acting like he knows
Jupiter personally. He seems to think they go way back,
and we're like, hmm, what's that all about? Back on Earth,
Caine drives Jupiter to his friend's house, Stinger played by
Sean Bean, because they need his help.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
I love Sean Bean.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
He he's great and he plays exactly the character that
he always plays in this movie. But they need his
help to do something unclear unclear. Maybe it's to get
to whatever planet Titus is on, but we're not sure. Anyway,
they hang out of his house for a while where

(40:52):
there are a bunch of bees which do not sting Jupiter,
and it almost love this.

Speaker 4 (40:58):
This is this is like when this sequence happens, you're like, oh,
this is camp. This is amazing, and this is also
a nine year old's dream. Bees will not sting me
because I am royalty, and like that is I mean,
that is the fantasy, right. It's like that there is
something amazing about you that doesn't require that you know

(41:21):
or do anything differently, and that there's just something inherently
special about you that is so undeniable that even bees
will not sting you.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
This is what happens to Jupiter, and they kind of
start to figure out, like, wait a minute, is she royalty?

Speaker 4 (41:37):
I also love that there is We do meet a character,
an other blonde woman in this scene. Oh I forget.
We do meet her by.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Name disappears immediately.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
It seems like she might be Caine's ex girlfriend.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
No, no, no, no, no, it's Stinger's daughter.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, what is daughter?

Speaker 4 (41:56):
Oh my god? This is inscrutable. Okay.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
She literally says like one thing while Kane and Singer
are fighting, and then I don't I don't know where
she goes.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
She says, I'm gonna go out to get groceries, and
then she never to make dinner because women be making dinner.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
But then I think that they fuck off before she comes.
She comes back with no one to make dinner for
She's like, where's my dad? Literally, where's her dad? I
didn't realize that was so. And that is the first
example of many where we technically pass the Backel test.
This one's hilarious, although you could argue because this character
disappears immediately that maybe it's not an important interaction, but

(42:38):
it is one of the Bechdel test passes. That is
just Jupiter saying hello, I am Jupiter, and the other
character says hello, I'm this character, and it's punctuated by
the fact that they are literally having this conversation in
front of Sean Bean and Channing Tatum getting into a
violent physical altercation as they're passing the Baxtel test uselessly

(43:02):
correct I liked it.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, it was pretty sick. Okay. So then Stinger tells
Jupiter more about Cain and his checkered past, also about
the history of Earth and how the abraxis a brassics
I don't know how to say it, dynasty that controls

(43:25):
Earth deliberately makes sure that the human population reaches an
unsustainable number so that the planet can be considered ripe
for harvest, whatever that means. But it's pretty obvious that
it's not great. Then the evil aliens find them again,

(43:46):
as do a couple like human hybrid bounty hunters. There's
this big fight scene and a couple of the Bounty
Hunters capture Jupiter and fly her away on a spaceship.
Jupiter wakes up in the home of the sister callique
A Brassis.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
By the way, this becomes a running joke in the
movie that Jupiter is regularly passing out and waking up
somewhere again and has been changed into a different set
of clothes yes, and doesn't remember it. This is presented
as an adorable joke, even though the love interest does
this at one point. Yeah, that people are while she's unconscious,

(44:28):
either because of medicine or combat. She wakes up at
another place in a different outfit that and the joke
is usually that she just doesn't like the outfit, but
the subtext of the joke is that she has been
stripped and redressed while unconscious, and you're like, Lily, Lana,

(44:48):
what is this joke? What is the joke? Come on,
you have final cut, no excuses.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's not great.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
Anyways, It's very like win Wigna not of like, well,
hopefully at this time I get to pick my outfit
and I'll be awake when I put it on, and
you're like, uh wild.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Yeah. Anyway, Jupiter meets Khalik, who tells her that Jupiter
is what they call a recurrence, which is basically a
genetic reincarnation of the late mother of Calikue, Titus, and Balam,
which means that Jupiter is essentially a queen slash like

(45:34):
kind of their mother, but kind of not. She's just
like a genetic replica recurrence of this late queen, who
Khalik mentions was ninety one thousand years old when she died,
but she would have lived longer except that she was murdered.
But they don't know by whom.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
I'm so confused about this.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Well there, yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Okay, look, I guess it's like it's well, okay, there's
so many elements of this movie that is like, okay,
there is technology in this world beyond my wildest imagination,
So why can't they explain this to me? Because they
the closest they get to be like, we know you're

(46:23):
our mother, and we know your recurrence is like because
you kind of look like this statue and I'm like,
we don't have better technology than you kind of look
like this statue.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Okay, So like I thought it was that, Like I
don't know, maybe I'm extrapolating too much.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
No, you know this movie far better than I do.
I was just trying to figure out, like it's there
seems like a lot of guesswork for this very high
tech universe.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
So like I thought it was because like when you're
I don't know, theoretically, when you're going to donate eggs,
you give some sort of like DNA sample and perhaps
on all of their planets they like are keeping trapped
of like all of the DNA records, and so she's
like a genetic match of the mother when she like

(47:07):
went to the hospital and like registered under her.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
Friend's name, why they under Vanessa Kirby's identity for something.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, And so they were like, oh, like ding, ding,
we found a match. Time to go to like this
medical specific medical record. But I don't know why, Like
has she never gone to the doctor before? Like I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Why, like a blood sample?

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yeah, like why do they not? And I was sure,
and again I've seen this movie many times. How long
ago did the mother die? Was it.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
Did she just that's a really good question.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
That's not clear.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
They're acting as if she did, but time is so
fluid to them.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
I'm like, maybe like she gets like reborn when the
mother dies, and like her DNA is like re recycled
on their holdings.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
I'm creating the rules of it felt very like I guess. Yeah.
With the Abrassics group, it's like it seemed like so
much was within their control, but then the things that
weren't within their control I didn't understand, Like, yeah, I
don't know the other thing, and this is like more
Bechtelcasti stuff, but that in this world where anything can

(48:25):
be true, and like we're being encouraged by this story
to be like, the world is completely different if you
just look just beneath the surface, which is so much
of what the Wachowskis are doing. Even in this world,
the ultimate goal across millennia, across planets and galaxies is
to be a young attractive woman. Yeah, and to not

(48:51):
appear old or age in any way. And it's just
presented as a universal truth and as it just made
kind of sad.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Yeah, I mean, I guess you could argue that that's
what the villains.

Speaker 4 (49:04):
Want I but I don't think that there's anything applied.
There's no pushback on that being a good thing from
our heroes. They're just sort of like, oh oh, weird,
got it. Well we're already young and hot, so anyways,
like I don't know, shrug, but uh, I liked any
movie you guys, No, no.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
I know, I feel the same way. And I think,
like again, this watch especially, like I think maybe this
is the first time I've watched it with like a
fully grown brain. Okay, it was kind of like, al right,
like this is what the great wishes, this is what
it all is about. Presumably Mila kunis now like in
her inheritance as Queen, gets this power too, but she doesn't.

(49:49):
She doesn't seem interested in using it. But she also
doesn't seem uninteresting.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
Right, It's all so vague with her. It's like because
again don't know what she wants. She's just sort of
here for the ride, like another one of the awesome
Jupiter moments where you're like, Jupiter is an iconic apathetic character.
She is like on the Apathy Hall of Fame because

(50:17):
even after she's been abducted, this is going back a
little bit by Cain and Sean Bean. She calls her
cousin on the phone and says nothing about what is
going on. She's like, hey, sorry, something went wild at
the eggs situation and I'm busy now, and you're like,
so to be told over an hour later, all Jupiter

(50:40):
wants is to be with her family. I'm like, I
don't know. It seems like she was abducted and had
no interest in returning just for something to happen to her.
I know that, Like, and this is all like pulled
into focus for me when I learned that the witch
House Keys were pulling from Dorothy a lot for Jupiter
character and pulling from the Wizard of Oz. Yeah, but

(51:04):
it hasn't quite come together.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
But I mean, compare it to again The Matrix, one
of the finest films ever made. I think they're both
chosen One narratives in the sense that it's someone who
is an ordinary person who is actually special and destined
for great things, and they discover this along the way

(51:27):
and have to decide what to do with all of
that information. And for Neo, he's actively seeking out answers.
He's actively trying to figure out, like what is the
matrix and do I want to be a part of
the resistance against it? And then with Jupiter, she's just
sort of like, oh.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
We kids.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
What's so interesting about her is that she's like from
a working class immigrant family.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
And undocumented too specializes that she's undocumented.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Yeah, that was that was That was one of the
things that like on this watch, I was like, this
is like refugee imagery of like in the like bottom
of like the cellar of a boat, the harsh journey
across the waters, like that's they're very much pulling from
that kind of iconography, and I feel this kind of like, well,
my family is everything is like the like tagline for

(52:23):
like immigrant family stories, but there's no like grounding or
anything to hold on to with that. She's not a
fully fledged character grounded in that kind of reality or
family structure or family dynamic or tie at all, which
I think is very funny. I don't know, it makes
it makes it feel like her family is in a

(52:43):
completely different movie, and when they are pulled in to
the narrative, it's like what is going on? But yeah,
it's so interesting. It's like, what do you mean she's undocumented?
What do you mean that's the story that's being.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
Told, right, Say more, save more, say more.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
And like, how does it connect to like realizing that
you are the reincarnation of like the ultimate colonizer, Like
that's crazy, right.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
And that she doesn't seem to have any opinions on that.
We're I mean, this is fastwording to the literal end
of the movie. But I was like, yeah, kind of
agg one might say that. At the end, she's like
talking with Caine and he's like, so you own the
world and she has no. I mean, it would have
been like easy, to the point of like bad writing,

(53:32):
to be like, well, I don't think anyone should own
the world. You can't really own the world. But she
was like, yeah, I do own the world, and I'm
still trying to figure out what that means. And you're like, yeah,
I guess I am too. Jupiter, are you and me both.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
Like I think? Especially it's interesting that the way that
her father dies is also so like anti climactic. Is
just like some random people we don't I don't know,
I don't know if I would like want this of
my Jupiter ascending, but it's like, what what is what
is the what's their situation? In Russia. What are the vibes?

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Like what when is when?

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Like what is there? Like what is their context? And
I think that that's such an there's no like political
socio political grounding for any of their movements, of their
migration of anything. And so when you have this overarching
theme or like kind of like motif of the film
is essentially about like colonization and like annihilatory violence and

(54:34):
harvesting of resources, it's just kind of like what an
interesting character to put at the heart of it, who
also like does nothing at the end. I I you know,
earlier in the movie she says something like yeah, like
no one should own the world or something like that, right, right,
And so if that came back, that would be interesting.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
But she owns the world. Yeah, She's like this is weird.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
But she's also not tuned into any of society's ills either.
She's not like, oh, like the oppression of the working class.
You know, she's just like I hate my life, you know,
Like what was she You know, it's just so funny.
I don't know, like that there's such a nothingness to
it where there are so many points where it's like, well,
it could have been like a weird, heavy handed, cheesy,

(55:20):
sort of like liberal posturing, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
It's really interesting, yeah, because it's like I have to
imagine there were drafts of this where her family was
more meaningfully included, because the specifics are too specific to
have never meant anything, right, like yeah, but then her
family kind of becomes cartoon characters and in the final product,

(55:46):
I just am like, I wonder who is at the
charge of that, because you know, the Wachowskis have quite
a bit of like influence over the final product, but
also they still get studio notes and all that stuff,
Like I just I'd be so curious. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Well, the other thing about it is that with other
Chosen One hero's journey type narratives, there are many where
there's a call to adventure in the sense that like
it falls in their lap and they unlike Neo, where
like they're not actively searching for answers, something comes to
them and falls in their lap and then they have

(56:21):
to decide what to do about it. But a lot
of those stories, whatever it is, ends up like radicalizing
them to realize. Oh, like Luke Skywalker, let's take that example,
things fall in his lap. He decides to go and
join the resistance. He doesn't really know a whole lot
of what that specifically means at first, but then he's like,

(56:42):
oh yeah, I hate the Empire, I hate Darth Vader,
Like this experience has radicalized me.

Speaker 4 (56:48):
And this movie was said to be heavily influenced by
Star Wars, enough that Sean Bean has said that his
character that Stinger a ped his half human half honey
bee character he plays pie Hans. It says Stinger a Penie.
I don't know if they ever say his last name

(57:09):
about Loud. I'm just looking at Wikipedia. Stinger a Penie
Comma a Han solo type character.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
I will say it is way more of a Han
solo type.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
I was not getting Han solo from Stinger a Penie.
But I just, you know, dare to dream mean, yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
I would say that about myself, you know, sure, like you.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Know exactly, Yeah, I'm a Han solo.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
Anything is a Han solo type. Half honey bee is
just like it's just so funny.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Wait, okay, sorry, back up a second. He yes, he's
a honeybee hybrid. Is that why he has all the bees?

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah? So he's a bee?

Speaker 4 (57:53):
Yeah, you know how a dog while Sean Bee is
half bee and there's no yeah, does he just look
like a man? Well, yeah, looks like a man, but
let's not worry about it. Also, going back to the
Wizard of Oz, stuff like just I don't know, this
movie is so chaotic. There are quotes about this that
I was like, what the hell, Maybe I'm being too

(58:16):
close minded. This is a quote about because the Wochowskis
have repeatedly said this is influenced by the Odyssey, the
Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars, the big influences. You
can definitely feel those often in conflict with each other. Right,
But this is a quote from Lana Wachowski comparing Cain

(58:39):
to a character from the Wizard of Oz. She says,
we were like, can we bring a different kind of
female character like Dorothy or Alice, characters who negotiate conflict
and complex situations with intelligence and empathy. Yes, Dorothy has
a protector, Toto, who's always barking at everyone, and that
was the origin of Cain. This movie asks what if

(59:03):
Dorothy and Toto were fucking like it's so weird, Like too,
I love the Waitchousekis. I'm like, why would you say that,
why would you say what if Dorothy was fucking Toto?
And that's kind of the whole idea.

Speaker 3 (59:19):
And then okay, so that's we're already getting into the discussion.
But yeah, there's just so much to unpack. I think
the reason Jupiter's character doesn't end up being radicalized by
her learning about this very large scale colonial capitalist genocidal

(59:39):
project is she you know, at the end she does
say like, no, I'm not gonna let you do this,
but through most of the movie she's not really asking
the right question. She doesn't seem curious about what's going on.
She's just sort of like you might even say, she
put on some gravity boots and is just sort of
coasting along and.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Maarda, she's on dial up internet.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Yes, And it's because I think the main arc that
seems to be written for her character, rather than any
sort of like political ideological shift or anything like that.
It's like hetero romance where in the very beginning there's
like mention in her voiceover of something about not finding love,

(01:00:25):
and then she's talking to her friend Catherine and she's like, well,
my mom always told me that fairy tales were ridiculous,
and the love isn't I don't know if it's real.
And then when she's talking to Kine in various situations,
she's like, I always seem to go after the wrong
man who doesn't love me back. So everything everything that
revolves around her arc.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Which we have no context for, like we don't know that.
And you're also like, yeah, Meili Kunnas, I'm sure you're
getting turned down right and left. But like, but it is.
It is interesting again where I have to feel like
her mom because this move he wants to be about
mothers a lot. And so it also does feel weird

(01:01:04):
that Jupiter's mother is so estranged from the movie because
at the end, again because her family is kind of
operating in a totally different movie than the rest of
the movie, especially her cousin's Flattie, Oh my god, her
cousin's Flatty is in like a fairly Brothers movie. He's
like somewhere else, He's like in nineteen ninety nine. But

(01:01:30):
like you're saying, like all of the groundwork is laid
for them to be actively engaged with the story. So
I'm wondering if, like when and if that was severed.
But the end, her her mother is just like, oh,
by the way, I'm over your father's death and like
you should have a telescope. Sorry, and you're like surely.

(01:01:50):
At one point, this was more of an arc between
Jupiter and her mother, because it feels like it's like
even the opening sequence establishes some tension between them, but
then she just kind of disappears.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
Anyways, I like it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Yeah, best movie ever? Yeah, what happens next? King?

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
I would love to tell you. Okay, so Jupiter is
with Colique Khaliku is trying to buddy up to our
friend Jupiter.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
It what strokes her face?

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
Oh yeah, it's intimate awesome. Colique explains that to her people,
time is the most valuable resource and that she and
her family can live for so long because they use
this advanced technology that they've created to replace their dying
cells with new ones. But where do they get the

(01:02:44):
new cells? I wonder if we'll find out? And then
we see Colique go through this like rejuvenation process where
she takes a dip in a pool and comes out
looking much younger. She has washed all the oldness off.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
Right, because looking young is the ultimate goal of not
just humanity, of all living beings throughout time is looking
hot in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Yeah, and then Khalik is like, by the way, my
mother wrote in her will that any recurrence of hers,
which again is what Jupiter is, will inherit the Earth.
So technically Jupiter owns like is the rightful heir to Earth,
even though it was Ballam who was originally supposed to

(01:03:38):
inherit the Earth, and that's why he wants Jupiter dead
so that he can keep Earth. And we're not really
sure how Jupiter processes this, but.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
There's a lot of cliffhangers with Jupiter about to form
an opinion.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
But the important thing is that she thinks Kalek is
kind of nice and on her side. But then Kane
shows up to be like, m I'm not too sure
about that. That's probably not true. Then Jupiter is like, yeah,
so she'll be kiss and she's suddenly very horny for him,
but he rejects her.

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
She's the Tyra Dolpha was rejected mate. One might say, yeah,
I really, I mean yeah truly to fans of that book.
I literally got horny and had to stop because I
was like, I don't want to know. I don't want it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Sometimes you just I don't want to uncover that part
of yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
Such as you're like, if I'm into this, I really cannot.
I'm I've got a lot going on right now.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
I can't know this is this when she says I
love dogs. I've always loved dogs, and then yes, yeah,
okay yeah, and then her like she like her strange,
like to herself like I love dogs, like kind of
realizing something, and it's like, I don't know, I don't
know what emotion you're expressing.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
I feel I do feel like there is an actor
that could have sold that line. It just Mila Kunas
is not that actor.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Natalie Portland.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
Let's see it, Natalie Portman. Maybe could I love dogs?

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Like?

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
You know, like there there is someone who or or
even a Jennifer Lawrence type could have made it funny,
you know, like.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Yeah, well, I think I think the way you're supposed
to read this is her repeating the ridiculous line she
just said to herself, as if to say, like, you idiot,
what did you say? I love dogs? But that's not
quite how Mila Kunaz delivers it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:33):
So she just sort of says I love dogs again. Yeah,
she says, must love dogs and I love dogs. The
Wes Anderson movie.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
Wow makes you think.

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
I'm thinking, I've never seen that movie, but I love
that it is just I love dogs.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I think it's also twenty fifteen maybe, oh wow, it
might be twenty fourteen.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
Huge years either, huge year for movies. I didn't watch.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Okay, So Jupiter owns Earth.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
She's working it out.

Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
Yes, a cyborg named Bob starts on the paperwork that's
required so that Jupiter can access the title to Earth
the way that you like, you know, have a title
to a car or a deed to the house.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
She's trying to write it down. If this came out today,
this part would be played by John Early, because this
actor is strongly channeling John Early.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Oh true. Okay, so Bob is helping her. There's a
ton of bureaucratic red tape, but she finally gets the
title to Earth and now she owns the planet. This
makes her even hornier because once again Jupiter lays it
on real thick on Cain. She wants to smooth him

(01:06:55):
so bad.

Speaker 4 (01:06:56):
And she likes to be called queen. And this is
like a wish filment thing. But I'm begging Jupiter to
think more critically about what's happening.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
He says, like your majesty and she's like, oh.

Speaker 4 (01:07:10):
Say it again, and you're like, okay, Jupiter, but what
are you going to do with the deed to Earth?

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
Yeah? But she's too horny for that, and it seems
like Caine might be kind of reciprocating these feelings, but
the moment is ruined when twist Stinger betrays them and
we're like, oh, a Sean Bean character turning on someone
and betraying them and being a bad guy the whole time.

(01:07:39):
I would have never thought, just kidding, this is the
character he plays every time.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
But unlike every other time, it doesn't have too much
of an effect on the plot because later Kine just
comes back and he's like, oh, well right, your daughter,
so whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:53):
I liked it. That felt like the twist on the
Sean Being character is that he betrayed him and guess what,
it doesn't affect them.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
That way, and actually he's he is a good guy.
He just betrayed them for reasons, but now he's good again.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
I thought Caine was real for that. I was like, yeah,
you know what, life is hard, and you know we're
putting compromising positions and yeah, let's just keep things moving.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
True. Compare it to his character in, for example, National Treasure,
when he betrays Nicholas Cage's character whose name is Benjamin
Franklin or.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
Something, Benjamin Franklin Gates Gates. Sorry, I hate that I
had that ready, that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
Locked and loaded. Anyway, he betrays Benjamin Franklin Gates and
then is a bad guy the whole time, the whole
rest of the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:08:44):
So yeah, he's only a bad guy for half of
the time, much like he is only half of a
honey bee. Yeah, which like truly which half? I just
And it's also like if you're casting a part and
I love Sean Bean, but I don't look at him

(01:09:06):
and I'm like, oh right, he's so b like like
you know, like you would think of maybe casting a
type that you're like, oh, like a uh, I don't know.
I don't think of bees as like muscular and gruff. Yeah,
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Wait, okay, was were his parents Renezel Wigger's character from
B Movie and the Bee from B Movie?

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
No, I really can't Sean Bean Sean Bean. Maybe they're
thinking Sean Bee much like Larry B. King from B
Movie or.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Larry Bealy Is that anything like Larry geely.

Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
Be and who is that joke for? But it's for me,
thank you so much. Okay, the thread I won't wish,
I wouldn't wish Sean Bean being the spawn of Jerry
seinfeldt like there's I want better for him, but but
but some are the question stands he's half be where exactly?

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
And it's also like surprising that he's able to betray
the queen when he is part B. You'd think that,
Oh my.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
God, yes, and he would sooner.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Die wouldn't allow him?

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
Oh my god. They didn't even think of that. It's
just like, I mean, okay, so technically Jupiter Ascending is
giving the same deference to Bees that B movie is
because B movie makes bees a patriarchy. Still yeah, wow,
yeah he shouldn't. Okay, first of all, he I thought you.
I thought you were getting at something far sillier, which
is that if he's half B, he should be able

(01:10:45):
to get between those bars.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Oh yeah, you know like shape shift and I.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
Do love that, Like, yeah, well is it? I can't
even remember. This movie is blurred in my head, Like
I know that it's a big deal for Caine to
get his wings back, which is not something I associate
with wolves or dogs. But sure, yeah, so shouldn't Sean
Bean be trying to get his wings back?

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Is he?

Speaker 4 (01:11:11):
Also?

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
I was thinking that his bee too, Like he's trying
to get back bee wings, not angel wings.

Speaker 6 (01:11:18):
I guess why don't we get to see him with
bee wings the little ones?

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:11:23):
Yeah, there should have been like a post credits scene
where he's buzzing around in his little bee wings.

Speaker 4 (01:11:28):
Yeah that is so oh my god, wait, I cannot stop,
Like Summer, he should not be able to betray the queen.
That's like that should be his whole thing. Yeah, that's infuriating.
Why didn't they think of that? Why go? Why go
out of the way to make Jupiter queen? If if
the only bee in the story is going to betray

(01:11:50):
her with no consequence.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
It's like, I don't know, how is he the outside
of the name stinger? I don't know, singer?

Speaker 4 (01:11:59):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean we.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
Can talk about this later. But I am interested in
Cain as a name. But that's that's for after.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
That's for after Cain K nine K nine that I
was thinking, Okay, but the biblical.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
Cane also a peenie I just learned is just like
a Latin word for b. So his name is stinger
b yes, and Okay, yet he is just a tattooed
man man.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Yeah, at least the at least they put Channing Tatum
in again pointy ears. He's wearing eyeliner because dogs famously
wear eyeliner, and he I think he does have kind
of sharper more pronounced can nine teeth.

Speaker 1 (01:12:45):
The bleached brows are something.

Speaker 3 (01:12:48):
Which is like all things I associate with dogs.

Speaker 4 (01:12:52):
They're just trying to make Channing Tatum look fucky in
a way we haven't seen him before. Yeah, I think
kind of and that and that's good to be clear,
that's good, just like Eddie Redmain sort of looks kardashian
esque in a way that I was like, is this?
What is this? What am I looking at? Why isn't

(01:13:14):
he opening his mouth?

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
His long neck, the longest neck that's ever been seen?

Speaker 4 (01:13:22):
How dare they give him a razzie? I just I
guarantee that this is a more interesting performance than both
of his Oscar performances.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Yeah, I agree. I saw a theory of everything, and
I saw Jupiter sending and let me tell you when
do I remember?

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
And what are we talking about? In the Bechdel theory
and everything tell you that much.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
That's the most culturally relevant exact the oscars don't matter.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
Who has stood the test of time?

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
And what's Stephen Hawking not named in the Epstein files here?

Speaker 4 (01:14:00):
And you know who wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Makes you think?

Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
Makes you think?

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
Okay, back to the story. Okay, Stinger has just betrayed them.
Jupiter is detained and brought to Titus, the youngest of
the three siblings, and she's like, you're violating space code

(01:14:30):
and you have to bring me back to Earth and
he's like, okay, fair, but first you must dine with me,
and he puts her in a patent leather catwoman style dress.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
Yeah really like it reminded me of in the recent
Weathering Heights adaptation, which but when like Margaret Robbie all
of a sudden randomly looks like Kula Deville and you're like,
what like it is? It's an interesting outfit, But it's
so like the tone of this movie is so inconsistent

(01:15:04):
because Mila Kunis is still playing like I'm just a
regular girl. So she's like, this dress isn't really my style?
I'm like, dude, or don't Jupiter? Come on? It's a
weird dress though, And.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
Even more bizarre is that Titus is like Hubba hubba,
even though it's been established that Jupiter looks exactly like
his mother. So he wants to fuck his mom question.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
Mark, Great, well, Caitlyn, you've heard of that one before.
Come on, well have you heard this one before? I mean,
I wants to fuck a lady that looks like his mom,
but rarely the uh proven incarnation of his actual mom. Right,
But then it turns out just kidding for some reason,
just kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Yeah, we'll find out more about that in a moment.
But in the meantime, he shows Jupiter all these canisters
of this liquid. It's the same thing that Kaliku bathed
in earlier, and he explains that it's made from humans,
that Earth is a farm that they harvest people from

(01:16:14):
to create this like rejuvenating youth juice. But he's trying
to put a stop to all this because that's wrong,
as was his mother, and he's just following in her footsteps.
And he's like, but enough about all that, will you
marry me? Jupiter?

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
And we're somehow left on a cliffhanger for this.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
Yeah, she gasps, and then there's another hard cut to
the next scene.

Speaker 4 (01:16:42):
And you're like, Jupiter, what's in it for you? She
this becomes and again I'm like, is there like a
Wizard of Ozsie? I was trying to, like, see, I
have not read the Odyssey looking forward to the Christopher
and noll In Odyssey, I have to say, so I

(01:17:05):
only know the broad strokes. I can see the Wizard
of Oz episodic nature of like what if instead of
meeting three friends on your way to Oz, you were
kidnapped by three diabolical siblings on the way to nowhere
or on the way back to home? Right technically if

(01:17:27):
Chicago is Kansas something like that, Like it is episodic,
but but the episodes don't really advance the plot. They
kind of just continue it. I don't know. I was
trying to get there. The tightest one at very least,
I will say, was interesting. Yeah, I didn't see brother

(01:17:48):
proposal coming.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
M M.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
This is really where it all starts, like really falling
apart for me. Okay, this is where I'm really like,
I don't I don't know what's happening. I don't know
there's like a there's a continually shifting allegiance of Jupiter
to different characters, and it's like, why why are you
with this person now? Why?

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
Like I don't she's she's very very gullible and she
just sort of like becomes best friends with whoever the
next sibling she meets is yeah, and we're like, have
a little bit more discernment of character.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
And think she should be more weirded out, more and
more excited, you know, like she.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
Just has like sub reactions to again, like that's it's
part of why she's such a frustrating character. Where like
Lanava Chowski said in different interviews, like oh, well Dorothy, Well,
first of all, I think she kind of misreads the
character Dorothy, where she's like Dorothy doesn't change that much
from the beginning to the end, And you're like, well
that's not true at all. But like Dorothy is maybe

(01:18:52):
not the most active protagonist, right, There's it's a lot
of things happening to her, but Dorothy is consist making
emotional choices. She is consistently stating where she stands with things,
and these are qualities jupid relax, Like, yeah, I wouldn't
characterize her as a particularly empathetic I wouldn't characterize her

(01:19:15):
as anything. I don't like she just seems to be like, wow,
this is so like it's like she's talking to an
audience that isn't there, both figuratively and if box Office
receets her to be indicated literally being like this is
so weird. Wow, Like you're just like, how do you
feel about this? Critical it's impossible to feel nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Dorothy and Alice of Alice, they're both little girls, so that's.

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
Also adult women part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Like they're little girls, and she's an adult woman with
a job and like a life and is donating her eggs.
You know, I don't know, Like there is like just
an incredible passivity that also doesn't seem to be like
noticed by the narrative either, Like it's not passive character
in an interesting way, like right, you know, but it's

(01:20:05):
just like she's like getting a river and she's being
knocked around.

Speaker 4 (01:20:10):
I feel like she's weirdly kind of subject to these
like tropes I would normally and this is kind of
like old hat at this point, but that I would
like attribute to like a born sexy Yesterday character, except
she wasn't born sexy yesterday, she was she was born, Like,
we know so much about her origin story, we know

(01:20:31):
so much about her, and so it's like, with all
that being true, it's really bizarre that she has no
reaction to anything that's going on. I do like, Okay,
I just scrolled past this note and I don't know
if I'll find it again, because I have so many
notes that even in deep space, the poorly constructed H

(01:20:51):
and m V neck will find its way to you.
Everyone is wearing an H and M V neck at
some point in the movie, including billionaire aliens, and I
celebrate that that's monoculture in a way we no longer have.

Speaker 3 (01:21:10):
So true.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
Yeah, so yeah, So her brothers like, marry me, and
she bafflingly is like, yeah, maybe her son.

Speaker 3 (01:21:19):
Her son's marry me, and she's like.

Speaker 4 (01:21:24):
And she's about to do it, and they literally I
thought they were gonna do like a series of unfortunate
events thing where she's like secretly kind of playing a
trick and she's like, I'm going to sign the contract
with the wrong hand or like somehow, but like no,
she's just gonna marry him and wait for Channing Tatum
to interrupt the wedding.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Yes, which is more or less what happens next. Titus
disposes of Cain by like launching him into space, but
Cain uses his nifty gravity boots and a magical oxygen
suit that he happens to have right there to survive
until he is rescued by Like they're described as space

(01:22:03):
cops who we've seen before. They're like buds with Stinger.
Stinger a penie, of course, so he gets rescueees Stinger
is a penie. Yes. Jupiter meanwhile is going through with
this marriage. So Cain and Stinger reconcile, and then they

(01:22:29):
go to the wedding to stop it. And Caine is
starting to realize that he's in love with Jupiter two,
and so they go in and they crash the wedding
and it's very Shrek crashing in to stop the Fiona
Farquad wedding.

Speaker 4 (01:22:45):
Sure, except we know what Fiona wants.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
Yes, that is the big difference.

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
And also there's a huge matrix reference in Trek there
is featuring Fiona.

Speaker 3 (01:22:58):
It's all connected, web connects them all, it sure does.

Speaker 4 (01:23:04):
I think maybe the only person who said with love
the only person who maybe could have been worse in
the part of Jupiter is to go to Johnson's to
go to Johnson is maybe the only living actor who
could have given less in this role.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
Yeah, yeah, this this movie is pretty like Madam Webbian.
I think it's.

Speaker 4 (01:23:24):
She really could have but but maybe Dakota Johnson could
have sold me on apathy as a as a character choice.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
Yeah, let's let's remake it. I want to.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
I would love to see another Jupiter's ending. All they
needed was four hundred million dollars and that would have That.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Would have fixed it, that would have made the story
made sense.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
Yeah, we all know that money equals good story exactly
for sure. Okay. So then Kine, who has rescued Jupiter
from the wedding, takes her back to Earth, but when
she goes into her house, her family is gone because
they've been abducted by Balam's giant space lizard man. And

(01:24:09):
then that other servant of Balam's, mister Knight, blackmails.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
Had completely forgotten about him.

Speaker 3 (01:24:18):
He blackmails Jupiter saying that if she relinquishes her title
to Earth so that Balam can have it, they'll let
her family live. So she agrees to go with mister
Knight to keep her family safe. She meets with Balam,
who demands that she hand over her title to Earth,

(01:24:42):
and she's like, well, if I do that, you're just
gonna harvest and kill everyone there, and he's like yeah yeah,
and she's like, well, I guess I should form an
opinion about.

Speaker 4 (01:24:54):
That later, and she does.

Speaker 3 (01:24:57):
I guess and she says, no, don't do it, Balam.
But before she can like really do anything on her own,
Cain and his buddies attack Balum and I think the
like the refinery where they make the youth juice at
So things are kind of like crashing down around them,

(01:25:20):
and Jupiter and Balom fall into a hole and they're
like plummeting downward.

Speaker 4 (01:25:27):
One could one could even call it, okay, horrible in
coming a plot hole. Oh wow?

Speaker 3 (01:25:33):
Oh wait, I thought you were gonna say Jupiter descending.

Speaker 4 (01:25:38):
Oh god, if I only had a bigger brain. Thankfully
you do.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
I do, so I got you covered. Thank you so
much anytime. Okay, So they're falling. Cain is I don't know,
he's doing something. He's battling the giant lizards.

Speaker 4 (01:25:55):
He's busting as hump, He's busting us up.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
Jupiter starts to make her way back to Caine, but
then Balum attacks Jupiter again. They're fighting, they fall again,
they're descending again, but then finally Caine swoops in with
his gravity boots and saves Jupiter. I think this is
the fifth or sixth time he has saved her throughout
the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:26:19):
Yeah, not to mention, I mean she's also been saved
by characters. We never really get full context for thinking
of you, missus ponytails, where the hell you were? You
also saved Jupiter at some point?

Speaker 3 (01:26:32):
Wait? Who she has?

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
Like the it's like purple hair.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
Yeah, she has like purple pigtails that are like crimped,
and she's got this cool outfit and she but like,
I have no idea who she is. I don't know
how beside she's on We see her once or twice.
Oh wait, no, isn't she one of She's the kind
of character you see and you're like, yeah, she's gonna
be awesome, but then you just never really figure out

(01:26:58):
who she is.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
Isn't she one of the bounty hunters who captures her?
I don't think she saves.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
Who told you that?

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
Who told me that?

Speaker 4 (01:27:05):
Yeah? Wait, I want I want to know who that
character is.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
I mean if you if I'm thinking of who you're describing,
I think she she like abducts Jupiter, not saves her.

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
Well, she does Jupiter, I guess. I'm thinking, like Jupiter
is like unconscious and someone wakes her up. Did she
wake Jupiter up for being unconscious?

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
Maybe I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
He's in the like really long scene at the beginning
that's like yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:27:33):
And then she instruction Yeah yeah, she's a bounty.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
Join don't the two bounty hunters like join them?

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
No?

Speaker 4 (01:27:43):
On their side?

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Really I thought so too, but it was unclear.

Speaker 3 (01:27:46):
Well, I mean, Summer, you've seen this movie way more
than me. But I was like, I was so locked in.
I was like, I have to understand.

Speaker 1 (01:27:54):
No, you're doing so good. I was really wondering.

Speaker 3 (01:27:56):
I was like, reare, Okay, we're almost done, So given
us the ultimate challenge. Yeah, Cain and Jupiter are making
their way back to the ship, but oh no, something's
about to explode. Will they make it in time? They do,
and then Jupiter returns to Earth. She's safe and sound

(01:28:18):
with her mom and aunt and the rest of her family.
Though she's back to cleaning toilets.

Speaker 4 (01:28:24):
But now it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:28:26):
But now she's the Queen of Earth, so she loves
her life.

Speaker 4 (01:28:31):
And now that's what I call You can't say that.
I mean, at the beginning she hated toilets, but now
she likes them.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
And that's an arc if I've ever seen one.

Speaker 4 (01:28:40):
That's an arc that counts.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
Then her family gives her the telescope that she was
hoping to buy, and then the movie ends with her
not using it at all. Instead, she's noodling with Cain,
who has wings now.

Speaker 4 (01:28:55):
Like a dog would right, right, guys, right.

Speaker 3 (01:28:58):
Exactly, and then she has his gravity boots on and
then they're flying around together the end. Yes, so an
hour and a half into the episode, let's take another
break and we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
And we're bad, We're back. I do feel like we've
had a large portion of the discussion. Ye starting the
recap as is increasingly common on this show. But summer,
where would you like to begin?

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
Let's let's let's talk about the mother daughter relationship, Jupiter's
mother daughter relationship. Absolutely, I feel like there are there
are movies when you rewatch them. Every time you watch it,
you're kind of like, oh, I forgot it starts like that,
and this is one of them. I'm always like, oh, yeah,
it doesn't start with the toilets, it starts with the parents.

(01:30:02):
And I think something that always throws me off is
when her family buys her the telescope at the end.
I always wonder when did her mom tell her about
the telescope? Like, when when did she get any kind
of access to her family history. She says, like, my
mom like pushed away all of her family except for

(01:30:22):
her sister. And it seems like maybe she doesn't talk
about her dad very much. Maybe she only knows the
origin of her name, but I don't know. I always
found that to be such a dropped thing. It's like,
why does she know what telescope her dead dad had?
How is it relevant to any of this? How do
we spend so much time in space? And then like

(01:30:44):
her astronomer father isn't relevant?

Speaker 4 (01:30:47):
Really he never comes back. That's really yeah. I felt
the same. I just I have to believe and would
I did not have a lot of luck finding out
like what happened in earlier drafts of this script, but
that her mother had to like, especially at the end
where it feels throwaway. In the version of the movie

(01:31:07):
that we get where she's like, you know, I've really
like she says something I can to like, I've realized,
like you should be able to use a telescope and
explore your passions and blah blah blah, and like says
something that you're like, Well in a movie where this
character was a character that could be really impactful and
could have really like symbolized an arc that mother and

(01:31:29):
daughter have been on, but like, I don't know, yeah,
like somewhere, like you're saying, there's a lot established about
the mom that I find it very hard to believe
that there wasn't originally intentioned to have that mother daughter
story running throughout, because that would also track with how
disregulated the Abrasis family is yea with their dead mother,

(01:31:52):
and then you have like why don't we know how
I mean whatever, It's like, you know, Jupiter never knew
her father and we don't really know how much or
when she learned about him, But there are ways that
you think that Jupiter could connect with In contrast, the
Abrasis family, where they have a dead parent, they have
mommy issues, yeah, but none of these similarities are explored.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
And like thinking about the Wizard of Oz comparison, so
much of like Dorothy's journey, right is seeing the parallels
of the Ossians to the troubles that she has in
her life at the start of the movie, right, like
the mean Lady is the wicked Witch, and on and
on and on, right, And so it's it's very funny,

(01:32:40):
I don't know to be to site Wizard of All
as an influence, but have such a drastic disconnect between
these two narratives, especially with like any redmaking murders his mom,
Like what I don't know, Like what does that do
to a person to be faced with a person who
has like killed the parent. Does it make you think

(01:33:02):
about your relationship to your parent at all? It would
make me right.

Speaker 4 (01:33:06):
And it's like, but that's kind of not Jupiter's style.
Jupiter's like brain off.

Speaker 3 (01:33:12):
I was not really asking questions or being curious about anything.

Speaker 4 (01:33:16):
And that's actually self care. And she's like touching grass
or something. But yeah, I guess something that I wondered
that I'm like, maybe I'm really kind of like off
the deep end here. But at the end when you
find out randomly like Eddie Redmain murdered his mother, but
he also says that she was begging to ask you,

(01:33:39):
if not begged him to do we believe him there?
Like I think we're supposed to believe him, but it
just feels like again like if true, so under explored. Yeah,
and such a last minute thing to learn about a
character before they fall into a literal void never to
be seen again.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
I believed Tim, and I thought it was meant to
say that there is like something in the genetics that
she possesses that like, oh, you hate your life because
my mother hated her life, and so you're genetically predisposed.

Speaker 3 (01:34:18):
I interpreted it as their mother realized the atrocities that
she committed by harvesting humans from various planets.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
But see, like that would be great, like imagine that
like an interiority of like your I don't know, like
the being that you're reincarnated from, like like like like
an Avatar cycle kind of thing, like teaching you the
harm of that past life or whatever that would have

(01:34:49):
been sick.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
Which is right, Yeah, But then even so, why would
you force your son to do that?

Speaker 6 (01:34:57):
That doesn't feel like a the way to do that,
steady little son, right, You're like Eddie Redmain is having
clearly enough issues as it is the genetics of it all.

Speaker 4 (01:35:10):
I don't really have that much to say that. It
isn't extremely obvious, but there is a sort of I
don't know, I don't know because it's like, you know,
we have two iconic trans filmmakers making this film, so
I'm like, who the fuck am I? But you know,
when genetics are brought up too much, you kind of
have to start tilting your head a little bit and

(01:35:30):
being like, ah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):
Again, it is the villains who are obsessed with, yeah,
this whole genetic thing.

Speaker 4 (01:35:40):
Well but yes, but again it's like, but there's no
pushback on the hero side. Like at the end, Mila Kunas,
due to genetics, owns the deed to Earth and seems
fine with that. Yeah, because she will be a benevolent
ruler to Earth.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
Right, so well, like.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
You know, functionally, what does it mean to own the
Earth at that point? Like seemingly she doesn't, I don't
know if she has she continues to have access to
the technology of right, hey, the Braxist family because I
don't know, it's it's it's very I mean, it's it's
poorly done. So there's many questions, but I think that

(01:36:19):
there is such a strange sort of like she is
happy now I guess because she has a dog boyfriend,
but also because she is the owner of earth. But
I think there you know, there is a there is
like oh, like she wants to buy things and she
has to work really hard. But does ownership of earth

(01:36:40):
give her wealth?

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
I don't know what it gives.

Speaker 4 (01:36:42):
Her really know what she gets out of it? And
also just I don't know. Jupiter, bless her heart, she
is like unbelievably vague to the very end where the
last time we see her with her family, she's like, sorry, everyone,
I've got a date tonight. And then her aunt, because

(01:37:02):
her aunt's whole thing is she is like a caricature
of like I love astrology, which you think would become
plot relevant, but don't worry, it never does. And she's like,
what's his sign? And Jupiter says, ha ha, I don't know.
End of scene and see yup. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Well, to go back to your point summer about her
relationship with her mother and how there were opportunities to
characterize Jupiter, either by like setting up an arc or
giving her a desire or motivation or something like that
because she wants to buy this telescope, but we have

(01:37:41):
no specific indication of why, Like, yeah, did her mother
tell her about her father's telescope.

Speaker 4 (01:37:47):
I have to believe there's a draft word where that
was there.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
Why true? Right, because she's gonna spend four thousand dollars
on it, Yeah, that's that is no small purchase, But
there's no indication that, like, maybe she wants to by
this telescope to feel closer to the memory of her father.
Maybe she wants it because she legitimately has an interest
in space. If so, that could explain why when she
gets abducted and taken to space, she's like, this is

(01:38:12):
actually cool the way that like Moana another hero's Journey
chosen one style narrative that came out right around this time,
it's very clearly established that Moana longs to be out
on the ocean and to explore if there's a similar
thing for Jupiter, where she likes she longs to explore space,

(01:38:33):
but she it doesn't seem conceivable because she's a working
class woman who will never have access to that. And
then when she finally does again, that could explain why
she's so enamored by Oh I'm on this new planet,
I'm meeting these aliens. This is also cool, this is
what I dreamed of. But because none of that is established,

(01:38:54):
we have no idea how she feels about her situation.
We have no idea what she wants or what motivates her.

Speaker 4 (01:39:01):
Choices, Like it reminds me of this is very random.
But a recent criticism I saw of Belle from Beauty
and the Beast in a YouTube video that I liked
was that she is kind of a bizarre protagonist on
the grounds that we know what she doesn't want, but

(01:39:26):
we don't know what she does want, which makes her
whole journey rather confusing and sort of serves to make
someone else the protagonist in her story, which is something
I was thinking about with Jupiter and Cain, where I
think Cain more clearly fits the role of a protagonist
in that he grows and changes.

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
And has a specific motivation, a specific desire yea.

Speaker 4 (01:39:46):
He wants his wings, which is vague but a tangible goal,
whereas we really are only told what Jupiter doesn't want,
and it's her life.

Speaker 3 (01:39:57):
Yes, she wants much more than this provincial life, right ye,
which is that's the whole bells I want. It was
just just like I don't want this, but you're like, okay,
but what do you want?

Speaker 4 (01:40:06):
Yeah, and so you could sort of give that character
anything and be sort of like I guess maybe I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
And then when Jupiter, it's like nothing really changes. I
think that's that's the thing that's like always just so
kooky at the end of the movie, Like she's so
much happier, she's more a beat, she's full of life,
and it's like that things are the same. Is it
really just the boyfriend? I don't know, Like it's so

(01:40:33):
it is so in some ways, it's kind of it's
kind of fun to be like all she needed is
this like little secret that she owns the earth and
she's good.

Speaker 4 (01:40:42):
But I don't know, I kind of I mean, I
wanted to give the movie that like, and maybe I
don't know. Again, I'm like, maybe I'm overthinking it, but
like that at the end, I feel like there's I mean,
it feels sort of similar to Dorothy, where Dorothy technically
and up exactly where she started with a whole new

(01:41:03):
appreciation for what she has. Maybe that's what it's supposed
to be.

Speaker 3 (01:41:10):
Yeah, She's like oh, I could have been harvested and
I wasn't, so I'm grateful now.

Speaker 4 (01:41:19):
And it's just I just want more for her than
to be satisfied that she hasn't been harvested. I don't know.
I mean, although it's like there are a lot of
really interesting ideas and like going back to like the Wachowski's, like, yeah,
they're not underthinking the mythology they're pulling from. They're pulling
from these movies, but they're also pulling from a bunch

(01:41:42):
of folklore, specifically like gnostic ideas and the Okay, I
was I was afraid you would ask that. Sorry, sorry,
not so like basically ideas of transhumanism, of gnosticism, of reincarnation.

(01:42:03):
There is something I learned about called the Gaya hypothesis.
I was really, I was summer. Maybe you know all
of this way better than I know. Do you know
about the Gaya hypothesis? I was afraid that. I was, like,
I'm like Mother Earth, yes exactly, that Jupiter is and
I guess that the Witch Housekis gave some interviews to

(01:42:25):
this effect. But there's also just been a lot of
speculation for people who are interested in folklore like this
that Jupiter is supposed to be a representation of Earth
itself and is supposed to embody all of the gaya
like beautiful qualities of Earth. I'm going to quote from

(01:42:47):
bravely from a medium dot com interview here, So take
with a grain of salt. But there's just really not
a lot of good info about the background of this.
This is from Golden Age timeline. Jupiter is said gnostic
themes of transhumanism versus soul embo, spiritual awakening, and the
divine feminism. One of the main themes in Jupiterous ending

(01:43:08):
relates to Gnosticism, an ancient religious movement associated with the
Es Senes that views the material world as a lower
density learning ground for souls to evolve. According to gnostic beliefs,
human souls are divine beings who choose to get trapped
in the physical world that is controlled by evil archons.
It's starting to give scientology here, and archon is defined

(01:43:31):
as a technological ruler that enslaves through mind control, frequency implants,
and military strategies, and works through controlling more embodied sources
such as corrupt humans or non humans perhaps bees or dinosaurs,
only through attaining gnosis or esoteric spiritual knowledge. This is
absolutely some l Roone humbridshit. Can the soul transcend its

(01:43:54):
earthly prison and reach liberation? So it's pulling from ancient
ideas that el Ron Hubber would later steal. And again,
like when I was reading stuff like this, I was like, oh,
I kind of see how the siblings fall into that idea,
and that Jupiter is theoretically a foil to that idea.

(01:44:16):
But again, she's so inactive that it's like hard to
telegraph those ideas effectively because she's not if she's embodying Earth,
I don't think Earth is coming off particularly well. Like
it's just sort of like, here's this because the idea
of like harvesting humans for fuel is so horrific and potent,

(01:44:40):
but it's kind of just like left there in this story.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
I don't know I was thinking about. It starts with
her theoretically donating her eggs, and I don't know, there's
something interesting there too, with a sort of kind of
like exploitation of a working woman in like having to
resort to donating your eggs in order to afford things

(01:45:07):
that you want and need. And also I don't know,
like the cousin thing is like it's absurd, like why
why is she letting her cousin take.

Speaker 3 (01:45:14):
The bulk of the bulk it's going to earn.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
But I think there is something interesting there of like
this sort of patriarchal exploitation continuing, and then when she
becomes a queen, there is a weird empowerment to it.
But it just doesn't it doesn't work well right, And
like I think that I don't know there is hearing
hearing you read these like spiritual themes, like that's so beautiful.
I wish I wish it was coming through.

Speaker 4 (01:45:41):
I know, yeah, I think, Wait, sorry, can I tell
you more about the guy A hypothesis? Yeah, because I
was like, I because I do believe, like I I
don't know the Wachowski's, I fully believe they are well
acquainted with the guy A hypothesis. This all feels very
within their wheelhouse. And this is where I was like, wait,
this really could have been something. The Gya hypothesis posits

(01:46:03):
that the Earth, also known as Gaya, along with the
planets and the stars, are sentient beings on their own
evolutionary journey. Humans and other life forms on the planet
are like cells within her body. Her desire to understand
the origins of creation led her to bring the material
world into existence without approval from supreme creator of the
universe aka eddie Redmain. And so there is this massive

(01:46:27):
cosmic story that is being referenced. But of all the
things that are explained to us in the course of
this story, this is something I could have actually really used.
I don't know if that is what they're referencing, hmm,
but it's interesting. I was like, Oh, I want more
about the Gaya hypothesis.

Speaker 3 (01:46:47):
Something I think the movie does handle pretty well is
its criticism of genocidal colonial capitalism, because the villains are
this royal family who control this empire where they implant

(01:47:10):
human DNA on various planets, wait till the population grows
basically out of control and becomes unsustainable, and then harvests
them aka kills everybody on the planet to create their
youth juice. And the movie presents this as like, this
is absolutely horrible and these they need to be stopped,

(01:47:34):
and Jupiter is kind of the one to stop them,
but she barely does, and therein lies the problem. But
where I think the movie missteps with this is that
the cops and the military of this movie are poised

(01:47:55):
as the good guys actually, because with Cain being this
like ex military soldier character, and then with the Aegis,
which is the like cops, they're running around with Stinger
and they help Caine and Jupiter with different things. They're

(01:48:19):
always like, oh no, they're the good guys. They're helping,
they're doing good stuff. And maybe maybe in this world
these sort of like intergalactic police and military are maybe
doing good things and like holding the horrible genocide committers accountable.

Speaker 4 (01:48:39):
But it seems like the rest of the world reflects
ours enough that probably not exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:48:45):
The far more likely scenario would be that the cops
and the military are working to protect the property of
the ruling class and carrying out the genocide on behalf
of the ruling class. So yeah, the way these entities
are portrayed in the movie does not track.

Speaker 1 (01:49:05):
I think there's just like a broader problem with sci
fi often where genocide is kind of like this sort
of like singular event, and I think it it's sort
of like and it's happened in Star Wars, happens in
like there was like a novel I read like a
year after this. It was like a like a y

(01:49:27):
novel that was like Earth becomes inhabitable and so ever
moves to space and like there's like a genocide of
like the space Arabs, and it's like the inciting incident
for the novels, and it's just so casual of like
the kind of aftermaths of like what genocide is, and
it's often just this kind of like singular event. And

(01:49:49):
I think that similarly, this movie is doing that, which
I think is sort of why we have those sort
of broader I mean, of course, I don't know, we're
not how often we're gonna getting movies that are anti military,
anti cop, like very rarely. If we're watching films that
are two hundred million dollar budgets right like that, you're
not gonna get that. But I think that like it

(01:50:11):
is kind of like the Royals are bad because they
do this one singular act and so there are no
reverberations of this event, right, and so the I don't know,
it's like so interesting, what who who does this? Like
intergalactic space force answer to also is interesting. It's like

(01:50:34):
who who is Who's in charge? Which also makes them
feel like I don't know, I can't even like fathom
a criticism of them because I'm like, they're nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:50:44):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's yeah, the speaking to
to your point, like how this is presented in a
very movie like way of, oh well, if you get
rid of these three people, everything will be fine, and
it's not like it's like I don't need Jupiter ascending
to be like and here's what this is going to

(01:51:05):
look like on a longer timeline. But I don't think
it's unreasonable to want like something that feels like such
a gaping hole in this plot is like that we
don't even really feel at the end from jupiter stated
intent to do better or that her I mean, we

(01:51:26):
know that she she disagrees with the I want to
keep using the dune name a Tredees, I'm thinking of Abrassics. Oh,
we know that she knows that what the Abrassics family
represents and their genocidal ideology is horrific, But we don't

(01:51:47):
know what she is going to do. And that is like,
it's very frustrating and bizarre in a movie that seems
to want us to leave feeling like this character is
going to do better and do differently, but we're just
sort of told like and now she has a boyfriend.

Speaker 3 (01:52:08):
Yeah right, Well we learned that Earth is one of
many planets, Yeah, that this dynasty harvests from. So is
she going?

Speaker 4 (01:52:17):
So wouldn't this be the beginning of a revolution?

Speaker 3 (01:52:20):
Like exactly, Like wouldn't she try to? And maybe I
mean this movie, this movie was planned to be the
first of a franchise, so maybe in in sequels that
would never happen because this movie was a flop at
the box office.

Speaker 4 (01:52:33):
I feel like, I don't know, I should try.

Speaker 1 (01:52:35):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:52:37):
It's time.

Speaker 4 (01:52:38):
It's time.

Speaker 1 (01:52:39):
What I know.

Speaker 4 (01:52:41):
They were just about to tell us.

Speaker 3 (01:52:43):
We're just about to show her being the leader of
a revolution, but oops, they forgot worth mentioning. And this
is something we've talked about on many past episodes, so
we don't necessarily need to harp on it a ton.
But this is an action movie with a protagonist who

(01:53:04):
is a woman who is not allowed to participate in
the action most of the time.

Speaker 4 (01:53:11):
Oh, we should talk about it because it's egregious. Yeah,
she does nothing like.

Speaker 3 (01:53:17):
Not only just like, as we've already talked about, she
doesn't really make any active choices that propel the narrative forward.
Nor does she participate in the actual like action sequences,
any fight or chase sequences or anything like that. She
is either having to be rescued. She is clinging to Cain,

(01:53:38):
who is doing all of the action. And I did
count like I think five different times where she needed
to be rescued by Cain usually and again, going back
to a comparison to the Matrix.

Speaker 4 (01:53:53):
Movies, starts with Trinity.

Speaker 3 (01:53:55):
It starts with Trinity kicking ass. It's about Neo, who
again chosen One, had no prior combat experience, but in
that movie he trains and he becomes a fighter, and
then he fights in a bunch of fight scenes. Jupiter
also had no prior fighting experience, but then is never trained.

(01:54:15):
It never fights, never participates, And I have to imagine
it's because Neo is a man and Jupiter is a woman.

Speaker 4 (01:54:23):
And which is all the more frustrating having this come
from women filmmakers who are historically feminist filmmakers. They made
bound right, What do you mean Jupiter isn't doing anything? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:54:36):
I know, you know, thinking back to the weird undressing
while she's unconscious and putting things on. Even something like that,
I feel like is asking for some kind of like
mon taught, like outfit montage. You know, however corny or
like silly that would have been. I feel like, like,

(01:54:56):
you know, you get princess Diary's, you find out your royalty,
you get a little makeover montage. And I don't want
a makeover montage necessarily, but even that is something that
is less abhorrent than being like total loss of agency
of like you being undressed, well unconscious and then change

(01:55:17):
where like I don't know, it feels like it feels
in line with well, of course, she also doesn't get
to learn to fight because she can't even try on
outfits of her own free will.

Speaker 4 (01:55:29):
Well yeah, I mean with sad in mine, it's like
one of the few things a lot of women protagonists
do have is a way to telegraph their personality through
what they're wearing. And Jupiter doesn't even get that because
other people are undressing her, arguably via assault, so we
don't even know like what her personal style is other

(01:55:51):
than like what we see her wearing at work. I ah, man, yeah,
I I that point about Neo makes so much sense
because I was thinking a lot about how in the
mid twenty tens there's a lot of talk about Mary
too characters. Yeah, and like how I think it was
sort of a kind of nothing argument in the case

(01:56:12):
of some where, yes, there are definitely Mary Sue characters
that are, you know, maybe frustrating, but I think that
that exists with men as well, and is not hers
back on half the same amount, and that it's an
over correction usually weaponized by male critics. But it almost
felt like with Jupiter it was like, oh, well, of course,
you know, she's just a regular girl. She wouldn't know

(01:56:32):
how to fight, And you're like, yeah, Neo was a
regular guy.

Speaker 3 (01:56:36):
He was a computer programmer or something.

Speaker 4 (01:56:40):
But he learned how to fight and it was awesome
to watch. But and also like part of this could
be solved by writing, is like if we knew that
even if Jupiter didn't have the ability she needed at
the beginning, if she had the interest in astronomy, feels
like the obvious thing. If she had an interest in

(01:57:00):
something that could translate to a usable skill. But she's
not given an interest or an ambition, and it's not
translated to a usable skill. They don't even bother to
give her an interest that doesn't really come up.

Speaker 1 (01:57:14):
Ever, they couldn't even just like given her like a
gun or something. I don't know, Like what is this
like advanced technology. She doesn't even get like a laser
gun or something. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:57:26):
She doesn't even get to lay it like she yah. Yeah.
Her big moment is telling Eddie Redmain, I'm not your mother,
and you're.

Speaker 1 (01:57:33):
Like they're hitting him with like a crowbar.

Speaker 3 (01:57:37):
That is the one scene where she does some combat
in this movie full of combat where they're scuffling. She
picks up a pipe or something, gets a few good
hits in, but then for some reason tosses her weapon aside,
and he's still there. He could still very easily over

(01:58:00):
power her.

Speaker 4 (01:58:00):
I mean any Redmid really just like pops up wherever
the plot needs him to, where he's just like wink,
here I am, and he's.

Speaker 1 (01:58:08):
Like I it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:11):
He's so weird because he disappears for like a full
hour in the middle of the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:58:17):
Well he's scolding lizards at his last feeling what do
you think he's doing? He is so funny in this
he to be fair, I appreciate I've watched a video
he gave a video of an interview he gave on
the Red Carpet at the Oscars where he was about
to I think win for thory of Everything. Again, I

(01:58:39):
haven't seen it, but he he did have a very
good attitude about winning the Razzie. He said quote, I
gave what I thought was a very bold performance, but
it turned out to be a bit disastrous. And first
of all, don't be so hard on yourself, King, And
second of all, I just appreciate when someone takes something

(01:59:02):
like that in stride. And it wouldn't be his last
big swing that people didn't care for. If you recall
him recently appearing in Cabaret, where a lot of people
did not appreciate Eddie Redmain's swing. I can't speak to it,
but yeah, he uh, he swings and he misses.

Speaker 3 (01:59:20):
Well, he was just doing what all of them were
doing for seven months, busting their humps.

Speaker 4 (01:59:26):
Look, humps were being busted. I appreciated the swing.

Speaker 1 (01:59:31):
Yeah, I would say that, like I don't know as
much as I and like, you know, this movie's bad,
I love it in all of the ways that it's bad.
I think Eddie Redmain is doing exactly like what you.

Speaker 4 (01:59:43):
Want what the movie for.

Speaker 1 (01:59:46):
Yeah, and it's really fun, Like I find it very
compelling I enjoy the choices he's making and like, I
don't know, like it's it's weird and it's kind of like,
well why not. I don't know, like let's go for.

Speaker 4 (02:00:00):
That's us Like that's a Wachowski movie too of like yeah,
you're you're a weird villain. I don't know. Yeah, I
thought it was fun. I like I think that as
you're talking about this summer, it feels like, I don't know,
this is how I feel a lot about like I
Frankenstein sometimes where you're just like it is unquestionably a

(02:00:21):
swing and a miss, but everyone is. You can really
feel everyone being like we're gonna do something cool here,
and I just like cannot help but be charmed by
it even though it never comes together.

Speaker 1 (02:00:38):
It's like, isn't it so cool to try something? You know?

Speaker 4 (02:00:43):
It's beautiful? Yeah, I don't know. I just I think
that they should give the Razzie to someone else. There's
a few out there. There's other women in this movie.
There were not many that we really get to know
very well, but I did want to shout out. Familists

(02:01:06):
character played by Googa, who has been in a bunch
of things. She is a half human half deer.

Speaker 3 (02:01:16):
Oh those are deer ears.

Speaker 4 (02:01:17):
Yes, those are deer ears. They look like gigantic mouse ears,
but they are deer ears played by a very talented
actor who is being underused. We also have Captain of
the aegis Diamika. I think I don't know if we
hear her name spoken out loud very often, but we.

Speaker 3 (02:01:37):
Do, keeping her like captain singh.

Speaker 4 (02:01:39):
Yes, yeah, but we see her a number of times.
She is generally just commenting on what others are doing.
But hey, so is Jupiter, and she she has I
think a fair amount of presence in the movie. She's there. Yeah,

(02:01:59):
that my it.

Speaker 3 (02:02:01):
That's more or less. It's it did seem like casting wise,
there was a commitment to casting not just white people.
It's mostly white people in the main roles.

Speaker 4 (02:02:16):
I was gonna say, with characters who have impact on
the plot. And I do think it is still majority
of the white characters.

Speaker 3 (02:02:21):
This is true.

Speaker 1 (02:02:22):
Like the Bee people didn't need to be white, you.

Speaker 3 (02:02:26):
Know, certainly not Why yeah, why is Sean Bee would
be there? They can you know.

Speaker 4 (02:02:33):
I It's all just it's just like who would I
wish into this scenario. I don't know who is mister Knight.

Speaker 3 (02:02:44):
What what is that? A character who.

Speaker 4 (02:02:47):
Is mister Knight? I was not quite I gave up
on trying to figure out who mister Knight was and
just decided to enjoy the ride.

Speaker 3 (02:02:55):
Well, think of it like, think of it in terms
of minions. I love to Balamist group. Mister Knight is
probably like Kevin Kevin Lemgnon.

Speaker 4 (02:03:08):
He kind of is kind of Kevin coded, isn't he?
He reminded me of Summer. Did you ever read Circu Freak?
I loved circ to Freak when I was a kid.
That was my like pre Twilight Vampire book. It was
like for preteens and there's a villain in there that
even when I was a kid, I was like, all right,

(02:03:30):
this is getting ridiculous. There's a character named Desmond Tiny
aka des Tiny Destiny, and even at the time, I
was like, all right, all right, this is too much
and I'm ten. Mister Knight feels like that where you're
like it's like, what do you look? Sure? I'm ten,

(02:03:53):
but I'm not. I can read. I can handle something
more complicated than mister Knight, but they didn't believe it. Yeah,
does Tiny. I will never stop thinking about Desmond tiny.

Speaker 3 (02:04:08):
I'll never stop thinking about stinger a Penie stinger pee uh.

Speaker 1 (02:04:15):
Thinking about the women. I think it is a bummer
that the sister of the family kind of has the
least amount to do of the siblings. I guess she
does reveal like how how their youth works, and that's
like important, plot relevant, but I don't know, like they

(02:04:35):
all have a weird, like erotic relationship with this woman
that looks like their mom. Couldn't she have tricked the marriage?
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:04:43):
I know, it's like it's not like I more. Yeah,
I was like the other two were being so evil
that it's like it does feel like she mostly just
sets up the plot and she's like we would get
along great, yeah, and then she's gone, and you're like me,
of all her brothers are you know, well especially I
think Titus Titus, Titus is the weirdest of all.

Speaker 1 (02:05:05):
So Titus is the youngest, right, Yes, Okay, I've been,
I've been. I've been very Bridgerton pilled lately. And so
I was thinking about, like, you know, like the inheritance
in a royal family or like a wealthy family, and
it's like, oh yeah, I guess. I guess the youngest
son would be the most evil because he doesn't he

(02:05:29):
has the least inheritance.

Speaker 4 (02:05:33):
Or like the most heads to chop to arrive at
an inheritance. Yeah, yeah, he he definitely. I was like, Wow,
he really makes to me because Baalam is so I
mean iconic, but his his goals are vague, and I
think part of what makes Titus diabolical is that he's
also like two horny, which is a great quality and

(02:05:56):
a villain. Ballum is just kind of pacing around his
office yelling at dinosaurs, and his whole thing is I
start a sentence loud and then I ended very quiet,
and I like, he's just doing something totally different. But Titus,
I feel like, is to me the scariest of the three.

(02:06:17):
And I agree that, like, you know, not that I whatever, like,
if we're gonna have three villains, then don't make the
women of them kind of just like vaguely threatening.

Speaker 1 (02:06:29):
Yeah, And she's kind of just there. I don't know,
like I don't know where her goals are necessarily, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:06:35):
They all want to manipulate Jupiter in some ways so
that they can have access to Earth. They go about
it different ways, and many of those ways don't really
make any sense.

Speaker 4 (02:06:45):
But it seems like Kaliku's goals being or like the
information collique in parts, being related to physical beauty also
feels very gender yes, because this is not something that
the men are really bringing up in the same context. Again,
so whoever is editing this Wikipedia page clearly shares our

(02:07:07):
opinions because in the description. The character description for Khalik
tuppens Middleson as Khaleik Abersach's second primary of the ballum
and Titus's sister whose motives appear to be less business
oriented than her brother's, which I think is a polite
way of saying, so what does she want? Like it

(02:07:28):
seems like she might just want a friend.

Speaker 1 (02:07:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:07:31):
Also, I didn't know that Terry Gilliam has a cameo
in this movie. Whoa who the seal insignet minister, the
bureaucrat who confirms Jupiter's title to Earth, And I like
Terry Gillium. I wouldn't recon it, but that's Terry Gillium.
And and that was like a big deal for the
Wochowskis because they love Terry Gillium. So that's kind of

(02:07:53):
fun good for those.

Speaker 1 (02:07:55):
Yeah, that's sweet.

Speaker 3 (02:07:56):
He directed one of my favorite movies ever, Earned Twelve Monkeys.

Speaker 4 (02:08:00):
He's great and definitely like a big influence on The Wachowski.
So I thought that was sweet. I wish it was
in a different movie, but also kind of awesome because
Terry gilliam has also liked the Wachowski has made a
lot of swings, some of which have connected and some
not so much. And that's what Also the fact that

(02:08:21):
they were making I haven't seen Cloud Outless before, but
that the fact that they were they were working, they
were finishing Cloud out Lists at the time that they
were working on Jupiter Ascending, and you're just like they
just had a rough twenty tens, Like there's no way
around it.

Speaker 3 (02:08:35):
Yeah, I saw Cloud out Lists and it's maybe not
their best work, to put it lightly, that's okay, But
we all just have to go watch speed Racer too.

Speaker 4 (02:08:47):
Yeah, let's go to speed Racer.

Speaker 3 (02:08:49):
Let's do it. Does anyone have anything else they'd like
to talk about?

Speaker 1 (02:08:54):
Just the loose the like aerial fight at the beginning
between the Bounty Hunters came so long, so long, and
it's like there's your Star Wars, you know, It's like
very very much like pod Racer, Phantom Menace vibes.

Speaker 4 (02:09:13):
It is, it is, it is, It is very Prequels vibes.

Speaker 1 (02:09:17):
It's so funny to be like, let's take the thing
that people famously hated.

Speaker 4 (02:09:23):
And do it too, do it again, much like the Prequels.
My eyes glazed over immediately, and you're like, unfortunately, there
goes probably one hundred and fifty million dollars, and I
just like, I'm like, okay, so where's Channing Tatum dug.

Speaker 3 (02:09:37):
Well, especially because it's characters who we do not know
what role they plan the story. Yeah, Channing Tatum is there.
His character will become we will come to understand his significance,
but at this point we don't know who the fuck
he is, and the movie doesn't make it clear. So
now we're just watching a bunch of random ass people

(02:09:59):
flying around on gravity boots and we're just like, why
am I watching this? Who are these people? What?

Speaker 1 (02:10:04):
Well?

Speaker 4 (02:10:04):
And the fact and this is again like we're like
snake eating it's on tail at this point, but I'm
having so much fun. Like the two characters we meet
in the introduction have no bearing on the plot. Jupiter's
parents no bearing on the plot, the father least of all.

Speaker 1 (02:10:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:10:21):
Yeah, and the mother may be in some draft, but
not in what we get. So it's like we meet
two characters very intentionally and basically never interact with them again,
except very superficially in the case of Jupiter's mom. Yes,
and then like you're saying, like, then we meet all
these other characters who we have no attachment or stakes too.

(02:10:43):
And unless you watch this movie five times, you don't
even know that Sean Bean is half honey bee. And
I really feel like they should really bash you over
the head with that information because that's so awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:10:54):
Yes, I do love the scene of all of the
bees like coming to her. I find it very pretty
with the like the the plants. Yeah, it's like, all right,
another like fifty million right there, because they must be
cgi bees, right, they got it?

Speaker 4 (02:11:12):
Oh yeah, what if they just threw a hive of
bees at Mailicunis? That would be so wild?

Speaker 1 (02:11:17):
They did, do you that? On Supernatures?

Speaker 3 (02:11:20):
Whoa?

Speaker 4 (02:11:21):
They say more wait, okay for listeners that may somehow
not know Summer is the I was a premier supernatural scholar.

Speaker 1 (02:11:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:11:32):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (02:11:33):
In an episode in season one, they sic a swarm
of bees on to Jensen Acles and Jared Padaluki. It
is an episode called Bugs. There's lots of bugs in
it and they're like real, real bees and they are
in enclosed space. And then it didn't show up well
on camera and so they did SEEGI the bees anyway, Andy,

(02:11:59):
just like through bees on these guys, and this is
like season one, and so it's like, you know, you
can't what can you? What can you say?

Speaker 4 (02:12:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:12:10):
You don't have that much power, right, They're forcing me
into a room with bees. And I think about it
every time I see bees in any film, any movie,
and I'm just like, yeah, I remember.

Speaker 3 (02:12:23):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (02:12:23):
My friend Nina texted me today. It was like because
she saw that I had logged Jupiter Ascending on letterbox
and she was just like, I think of this movie
every time I see bees. Ten out of ten. I
was like, that's beautiful a movie. And now I will
think of Jupiter Ascending every time I see bees.

Speaker 1 (02:12:41):
I really will, I mean, and I do. I think
of bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty, Like that's
my b movie script, just like it's just in there
all the time. Yeah, I do. I think it's I
think it's a lot of like cool looking things in

(02:13:02):
this movie.

Speaker 3 (02:13:03):
I mean visually, like I think the world building, the
production design. Yeah, visually like the movie is pretty good.

Speaker 4 (02:13:12):
Yeah, I mean it's like you are getting the Wachowski treatment,
like it is a visual feast.

Speaker 1 (02:13:17):
Yeah. I always think about Jupiter's like wedding dress, the
like the head piece, and like how her hair is
so cool, like very like pop star. You know, yes,
I love that. I feel like I always misremember the
outfits as like more fabulous than they are, Like they're

(02:13:37):
kind of the dresses themselves are kind of like simple.
But yeah, just that that hair so gorgeous.

Speaker 4 (02:13:44):
Yeah, yeah, well it passes the Bactels test. Actually it does.
Look look, there's no way around it. Mila Kunis meets
a lot of blonde women in this movie, and there
are like brief exchanges she has with her mother, her aunt,
with the sister.

Speaker 3 (02:14:04):
Khaleiku and Khalik.

Speaker 4 (02:14:07):
I will say that, like most interactions that Miela Kunas
has with anyone of any gener in this movie, it
is mostly her just being like either saying hello, I'm
Jupiter Jones or saying hello, where am I? What is this?
But those are important interactions because I would also like
to know where she is and what is this.

Speaker 3 (02:14:28):
And then there's that one scene where she says call me.

Speaker 1 (02:14:31):
Joop, Like what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (02:14:35):
Since when do you go by Joop?

Speaker 1 (02:14:37):
She like just decided that surely.

Speaker 3 (02:14:40):
Well, she's in space. Now she's reinventing herself. It's like
when you go to college and you're like, I have
a I'm a new person.

Speaker 4 (02:14:47):
It reminded me of a very humiliating like week in
middle school for me where I both tried to get
people to call to call me JJ and when that
didn't stick, I was like, how about mem? And neither
of them stuck j me me and I get it.
I've never had a nickname. This really worked out for

(02:15:09):
me in my life. But that's okay. It's okay, it's
a short name. It's fine.

Speaker 3 (02:15:16):
It does pass the Bechtel test. What about our nipple scale,
the scale where we rate the movie zero to five
nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.

Speaker 4 (02:15:27):
Summer, I almost want to let you go first. You're
the expert, like tell us, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (02:15:34):
It's like it's like the jubiter ascending in my head five,
But it's got to be like one, like there are
women present and they talk to each other. But and
you know what, I think I'll give it to any
red name.

Speaker 4 (02:15:53):
Paradoxically, it's like I do think, I don't know he's
he's putting his he's giving it his own, he's busting
his hump over there. Yeah, I think I'll be either.
I might go one and a half because it's like
you can feel intent. I want to believe there's a

(02:16:13):
draft of this script that really gets it there. The
witch housekis are feminist icons, which makes this movie very confusing,
and going back to your earlier point Summer, that this
movie that is like is trying to say something about
colonization but then really kind of refuses to at the

(02:16:33):
end is bizarre, especially because we are like given a
character that you would think would have strong feelings about this.
It's just a weird one. Women are there, and so.

Speaker 3 (02:16:49):
One and a half.

Speaker 4 (02:16:53):
I'm giving one to Eddie Redmond and I'm giving half
to the Bees.

Speaker 3 (02:16:57):
If I will give the movie, I think I think
also one and a half.

Speaker 4 (02:17:03):
Because oh no, this is the episode that breaks the
system where you're like, what what do things for me.

Speaker 3 (02:17:13):
Doesn't mean because of reasons. And that's exactly what I
kept writing in my recap the first time I watched
this movie. They do things because of reasons.

Speaker 4 (02:17:25):
And sometimes the reasons have become clear with time.

Speaker 3 (02:17:28):
Yeah, and sometimes not so much. So I'm gonna I'm
gonna keep it vague. But also we just we just
talked for over two hours, so I've already said my piece.

Speaker 4 (02:17:38):
It felt it felt earned. I'm like there, I could
have kept going there. There's I have more questions. Did
telescopes really cost four thousand dollars? I mean, I have
so many more questions.

Speaker 3 (02:17:51):
Great question. I'm gonna give one nipple to the scene
where Titus is having a floating space or Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:18:00):
I can't believe we didn't even talk about that.

Speaker 4 (02:18:03):
It's that kind of movie. It's that kind of movie.

Speaker 1 (02:18:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:18:06):
And then okay, and then my half nipple goes to
the scene where Jupiter puts a pad on Caine's bleeding wound.

Speaker 4 (02:18:15):
Oh my god, how did we not talk about that clearly?

Speaker 3 (02:18:18):
This car?

Speaker 4 (02:18:20):
What is it lucky for you? This car belongs to
a woman's time. And then she pulls out like an
overnight MAXI pad unwrapped out of the glove compartment.

Speaker 3 (02:18:29):
And then she sticks the adhesive side on his wound, which,
what the hell is that gonna do?

Speaker 4 (02:18:36):
That's not absorbent, hurts kind of blood, which also feels
very astormative for a movie made by two trans women.
It you see, I can't believe did there's that much
going on in Jupiter Ascending and he's a side up.
I'm like, does she hate does she hate him? That's

(02:18:56):
going to make the problem.

Speaker 3 (02:18:58):
Far worse, way worse. Yeah, and yes, it happens right
before the bees. Yeah, it just it's it's cinema. It's cinema.

Speaker 1 (02:19:07):
That's a movie.

Speaker 4 (02:19:08):
It is a movie that feels like a movie.

Speaker 3 (02:19:10):
It really does feel like that movie. Summer. Thank you
so much for joining us.

Speaker 1 (02:19:16):
Thank you so much for having me. This is so
much fun.

Speaker 4 (02:19:19):
This was a blast. I feel like I could do
this episode again and have it completely new thoughts.

Speaker 3 (02:19:26):
I feel like I have ascended to a new plane
of existence. So thank you for that. Tell us where
people can buy your book? Find your work plug away.

Speaker 1 (02:19:38):
So my book. You can buy it through host Publications
website or check out your local bookstore. We distribute through Asterism.
You can follow me. I'm still on Twitter, not really
at some of this, but you can follow me on
Instagram at Borders book Store. I guess I'm on the

(02:20:02):
Blue Sky too at some I don't know. I don't
use that, but Instagram bores bookstore. That is my crowning achievement.

Speaker 4 (02:20:09):
So yeah, hell yeah, that's thank you. Also, thank you
so much. Good luck finding another movie with protagonists whose
name starts with ju. I believe you will do it.

Speaker 1 (02:20:23):
That'll, that'll, that'll really like narrow it down.

Speaker 3 (02:20:27):
Yeah. Yeah, you're not allowed to come back on the
show until you find that movie.

Speaker 4 (02:20:32):
But also for guess anything, this was like, oh yes,
sometimes you see a movie like Jupiter Ascending and you're like,
I think I've I think we've talked about it all
and then you're stumped.

Speaker 1 (02:20:44):
Yeah, I'm so glad. That was my goal.

Speaker 3 (02:20:48):
Yeah, thank you for being here. Come back anytime, and
you can find us on our Patreon aka Matreon, where
we do two bonus episodes a month for five dollars
a month, always on an amazing theme. You get to
choose the movies matrons a lot of the time, and

(02:21:09):
it's the best way to support the show, and you
get access to the entire back catalog of now over
two hundred bonus episodes. So what a damn good special.
Oh yeah, and with that, should we put on our
gravity boots and roller blade around the sky.

Speaker 4 (02:21:29):
But don't worry if you don't have your boots. We
also have wings for some reason, like all dogs.

Speaker 3 (02:21:35):
Like all dogs.

Speaker 4 (02:21:37):
Yeah, Bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
hosted and produced by Me Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (02:21:48):
And Me Caitlyn Durante. The podcast is also produced by
Sophie Lichtermann and.

Speaker 4 (02:21:53):
Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of them?

Speaker 3 (02:21:56):
That's me? And our logo and merch and all of
our art work, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus,
Ever heard of her?

Speaker 4 (02:22:04):
Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 3 (02:22:16):
For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jupiter Ascending with Summer Farah