Escape to the Movies: Jupiter Ascending - Tries But Fails

[Ghadente]

I saw Jupiter Ascending a few days ago and it was actually enjoyable. Overall I thought it was entertainingly solid, but felt like it was a movie based on a novel that left some detail and plot out in order to fit into movie form. Similarities to other movies were quite apparent but they didn't feel deliberately ripping off those movies.
Not sure why it is getting such poor ratings. Not to say that its super outstanding, movie-of-the-year, or anything close to that, but the movie isn't bad. Sure the premise and story include some oddities, but its a sci-fi fantasy... what were people expecting?
I went to the wiki page after seeing this movie and really expected it to be based on book or even a series. I mean it is a pretty intricate universe they created, seems like it could be expanded upon.

 

[Ghadente]

if Clarke's "Childhood's End" were made into a movie today.

the Syfy Channel announced its plans to develop a TV miniseries based on Childhood's End

cross your fingers they hold true to the book, it is one of the books i would like to see (if done well)

 

[Alar]

Translation: Wait for the Director's cut.

My thoughts as well. I'd like to see Bob re-review it when it comes out, but sadly I don't think he does those sorts of releases.

 

[Baron Tanks]

I can't help but chuckle and struggle not to be snarky about the notion of Bob being excited for a movie (Jupiter Ascending) and finding the final release being a disappointment leading straight into one of his post credit statements to blatantly saying, this will be good without seeing the movie. Guess we'll find out later if it really works

 

[Cidward]

Translation: Wait for the Director's cut.

My thoughts as well. I'd like to see Bob re-review it when it comes out, but sadly I don't think he does those sorts of releases.

I saw it last night, and I felt like a ton of its problems came from the editing room. There's a gorgeous, pared-down and dumber action movie and a smarter, longer space opera kind of fighting each other in what I ultimately watched. That said, I'm glad I saw it. It's the sort of movie that benefits from a big screen, and I'll take a film that's trying for something it can't quite achieve over something boring and forgettable that I've seen a hundred times any day. I'll be REALLY interested to see a director's cut, or even just director's commentary, of this some day.

 

[The_Waspman]

I just saw this today, and it was honestly, the biggest pile of wank I have seen in a looooong time. One dimensional characters, none of whom you can give a shit about, dull action scenes that happen for no reason, zero backstory on anything, and a "comedic" scene halfway through where a bunch of the characters literally go to the central bureaucracy from Futurama.

While I was watching it, i did think that there was a hell of a lot cut out for a possible directors cut, but I honestly didn't care. Adding a whole load of badly written exposition and terrible dialogue is not going to improve upon a film that is already horrifically written.

As much as I dislike everything being franchised these days, after Pacific Rim, Elysium and this, I would prefer never to see a new IP again, because they've been godawful.

 

[XT6Wagon]

The issue is that it was the wrong format. It should have been a 12 episode 1 hour long show for TV or something. Give them time to develop an idea, explore it, and then atleast settle the idea into the overall universe before going on to the next one. Way too much cold explaining in too much of a hurry.

Point in fact, too much explaining in total. Its hard to feel the confusion they have the main character display when you are straight up told all the facts before they are important. It also makes her look really really stupid in some instances as Fact A + Fact B can only be the result of Fact C, but she wanders around for a massive amount of screen time not understanding C. I was praying that she was playing dumb to get the jump on the other person, but nope. Just flat dumb.

 

[Veylon]

Also a bit off-topic, is anyone else really sick of Sci-Fi so blatantly judging ideas and concepts, recently? Whatever happened to exploring difficult scenarios by means of Sci-Fi metaphors? You can't have a movie asking difficult questions anymore without every scene hammering a point into you how one solution is always, always(!) "right" and the other side is always "wrong".

This kind of scenario involves giving quite a bit of time to both (or maybe more than two) sides to explain and justify themselves, offer various solutions inspired by their ideologies to the difficult situation du jour, and introduce the leading lights of the factions, who may or may not be the best representatives of their factions or the ideologies they represent. It's complicated and eats a lot of verbiage and screen time.

 

[Nimcha]

Yeah I was afraid that might happen. Still waiting for the new Star Wars I suppose.

(as in, actual space opera).

 

[Nimcha]

...is anyone else really sick of Sci-Fi so blatantly judging ideas and concepts, recently?

Recently? Sci-fi was born of heavy-handed moralizing. Read Fahrenheit 451? Foundation? And while bubblegum space opera is big and has been for a long time, sci-fi as brazen metaphor has always been around.

It seems to be the only thing people make these days though, sci-fi wise. Take this one, incredible potential for world building and new ideas only to be stuck with 'capitalism is baaaaaaad'.

 

[Pyrian]

It seems to be the only thing people make these days though, sci-fi wise.

Guardians of the Galaxy? Edge of Tomorrow? Interstellar? Lucy? Predestination? The Signal?

What about straw man moralizing, a la "Fascism/caste sytems are Bad"? Divergent? Hunger Games? Maze Runner?

 

[ecoho]

The ads did look a little scattered, sad to hear that seems to be true of the whole movie.

I'm assuming Seventh Son is also a mess, but has anyone seen it to confirm/deny?

its not good and its not bad. To put it bluntly its a nice fantasy movie but you could see it had great potential and they kind of screw it up.

 

[RTR]

Bob just used screenshots of a Mexican animated film from the 80's called Katy la Oruga. That must be the most obscure thing he's referenced...in a while.

 

[Dandres]

The ads did look a little scattered, sad to hear that seems to be true of the whole movie.

I'm assuming Seventh Son is also a mess, but has anyone seen it to confirm/deny?

its not good and its not bad. To put it bluntly its a nice fantasy movie but you could see it had great potential and they kind of screw it up.

I just saw both movies and Seventh Son was a good mid-evil movie with interesting concepts though I thought the ending made no sense. Than I looked it up and found it was on a book series call The Spook's Apprentice and the movies story was made up from parts of the 7 + books not just the first one. At least I have a new book series to read.

As far as Jupiter Ascending, loved it. I find it funny Bob thought it might have been cut down from it's original length because it could have been cut even further with some up the repetitive close-ups that was in it. Not sure why Bob dissed the fight scenes. I thought these were quick and to the point while the Martix ones were way to drawn out. The story made sense & the whole movie was fun to watch.

 

[CelestDaer]

Starring: Mila Kunis (Not Cunis)
And, I saw it the other day, and my gods, is it hard to keep the names of the siblings beyond Titus straight. I also wondered what happened to their assistance droid in that sequence about bureaucracy... he's there, he's there, he's there... final scene? Gone. No explanation.

 

[Reason_To_Smile]

This movie is actually pretty good. I've never seen so many special effects in any movie before. It has more special effects than The Fifth Element. The storyline isn't really that deep tho. For the entire first half of the movie, they didn't even explain why the aliens were chasing after her, and trying to kill her, and you're just left wondering what the hell was going on. But the second half of the movie was pretty good when they finally started explaining everything. I give the movie an 8 out of 10.