ZONE FILM CHALLENGE: ABORTED SCI-FI EPICS

Spoilers Ahead for Jupiter Ascending (2015)

John Wright: Hello hello. Welcome back once again to the Zone Film Challenge. This week’s prompt: Aborted Sci-Fi Epics. Pick a high-concept science fiction film with unrealized franchise ambitions, crummy box office numbers, crappy critical reception, or just generally a big ambitious expensive imaginative idea for a movie that did not succeed. We picked a big old failure that we had both been interested in for awhile. I hadn’t seen this movie until now. You hadn’t either, right?

Alex McDonough: No yeah this is one we both had not seen

John: Would you care to introduce it?

Alex: So we did 2015’s Jupiter Ascending by Lana and Lily Wachowski. It was infamous when it came out for its alleged lack of quality. It was hit on its acting, how overwrought it was, how goofy its plot was. Channing Tatum plays like a wolfman (kind of) from outer space and Mila Kunis plays a janitor house maid that is also-

John: She plays space Cinderella.

Alex: She plays space Cinderella. It was a really easy target when it came out. Especially because the Wachowski’s were in a a career downturn after the failures of Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas. At the time I think audiences cruelly only attributed them as “well they made The Matrix and they’ve been coasting on its good graces ever since.”

John: I’m happy you started this discussion because I definitely wanted to have it. I think we’ll save the plot summary for later here and kick off with a little Wachowski sisters talk.

Alex: I’m gonna wish us good luck on trying to describe this movie’s plot.

It’s totally Buck Rodgers. It’s totally Leigh Brackett or Edgar Rice Burroughs Princess of Mars stuff.

John: The Wachowskis have almost wound up regarded as one-hit wonders, which I think is a disservice to their obvious talent and their ambition to make unique, experimental films with a conscience. They’re not making boilerplate action movies about a man with a gun. They’ve very clearly not been interested in that since about 2/3rds of the way through The Matrix: Reloaded.

Alex: The Matrix sequels are really interesting because they’re this incredibly ambitious and experimental cross-media franchise that’s trying to do something new with the variety of different media at their disposal. Like they were fans of comic books and video games so they wanted to incorporate that into this grand vision of the series that they were creating and WB was all for it because more Matrix more money but you very quickly saw that start to fall apart. After they did The Matrix and they were finished with it they moved over to Speed Racer and they did Cloud Atlas. Both adaptations of things. But they were able to put their own distinctive mark on it. Jupiter Ascending is their return to doing an original concept and it is way more bombastic and over the top than the pretty simple conceit of The Matrix. It doesn’t totally work but this film has its fanbase and its fans are really for it. It’s messy but I understand where those fans are coming from I just don’t know if the film has the tightness and that’s a little by design.

John: I’d prefer to keep the Matrix talk to a minimum because as I said I feel we outsize that relative to what is otherwise a pretty interesting career for these two women. But having said that I recently revisited the Matrix sequels and I really liked Reloaded quite a bit more than I remembered. It’s really a great one-film summary of the Wachowski philosophy of doing something different, and they did it with maybe the most important blockbuster sequel of that decade. It clicked for me. Revolutions is a mess but I have to admit that it is am ambitious and at points very pretty mess. Which is a very good description for Jupiter Ascending as well.

Alex: If there’s one recurring thing about Wachowski films regardless of their quality or how much you enjoy them is that they’re all wildly ambitious. All of them are. I’ve never watched a Wachowski film and been like “oh this one they really phoned it in.” They’ve never phoned it in. Due credit to them. Even here where not everything is going right there was clearly a lot of effort placed into the film its just that the ideas are kind of bizarre and impossible to nail down.

This is the only film that Eddie Redmayne has done that takes place after 1910… It’s also the only movie I’ve liked him in

John: Last time we talked about the Happy Madison house style of comedy; there’s always jokes. They’re not always good. But there’s always jokes. The way the Wachowski’s make a sci-fi movie is that there’s always some sci-fi thing. It’s not always gonna be the most interesting, or stick with you, or make sense as a broader coherent part of the world but its always gonna be there. The difference here being they are a lot better at coming up with cool little details in a sci-fi universe than the Happy Madison house writers are at coming up with banter for Adam Sandler. Those miscellaneous ideas are the things that interested me about this movie because it certainly wasn’t the performances or plot. They clearly had a lot of money to craft this world even if it doesn’t always feel coherent. We’ll come back to that later. I’d disagree with you actually that the plot here is complicated. It’s only complicated because it makes itself complicated. It’s a pretty simple concept. Cinderella, in space, but we’re gonna make sure that her arc doesn’t conclude by becoming some guy’s wife.

Alex: There’s a simple log-line for a plot but the actual content of the story adds in probably close to fifteen named characters who do these things which is a lot. There’s a very George Lucas style attention to creating as large of a universe as possible with as many species as you can. there’s the greys there’s lizard guys, humans, wolfmen. There’s all these different species and they all presumably have large past histories that are unexplored. It’s really good table setting for a broader sci-fi universe. It’s unfortunate that nothing will happen with it. But what they did here was they created something that was even wider than the works they’d made previously. All of which are things with a lot of background. Like Cloud Atlas is a really intricately plotted and conceived world. Both in the original text and the movie. Speed Racer is a multimedia franchise from the 60s, and The Matrix has way more going on than most people who just watched the 3 movies realized. there’s the MMO, the videogames, the comics, anime, so on and so forth. Jupiter Ascending has all that depth crammed into a Cinderella story. It doesn’t quite make those two threads connect but its fascinating to watch them run concurrently.

John: It’s all very 90s. Which is part of why it was so derided at release because of that zany 90s quality to it.

Alex: I think that’s made it age better because I watch it now like “oh this is exciting and visually engaging” but when it came out in 2015 we were coming straight off of Interstellar and Guardians of the Galaxy which were becoming popular. You had these heady sci-fi films.

John: Guardians is a very interesting comparison here because the two are in similar territory tonally. It just has this ironic distance. It certainly gets better performances out of its key players. We can get into this in a bit here but I cannot stress enough just how bad Mila Kunis is here and how bored Channing Tatum seems and in a movie where it seems like he’s meant to be doing a lot of the heavy lifting charisma-wise.

Alex: Yeah neither actor seems particularly well-cast. They don’t seem to have a good handle on the emotion they’re supposed to be bringing to it. Eddie Redmayne does.

John: Eddie Redmayne really does man, he’s the only guy who understood the assignment.

We talked about the Wachowski’s previous work and how they always do a good job with the table-setting and world building. It’s worth pointing out that this is the only other original concept they’ve done besides The Matrix. The Matrix is very coherent in it’s construction and influences and it comes together in this nice smoothie. Jupiter Ascending doesn’t have that. It’s got all these jagged edges that don’t make sense. I have a theory that a lot of the clutter was due to trying to get as many ideas as they could into this.

Alex: That’s definitely what happened. But to return real quick to the Guardians discussion. The thing that made Guardians palatable to modern audiences was that it had that ironic detachment

John: Yep, exactly

Alex: Jupiter Ascending doesn’t have that. Guardians is self-aware. It knows that it has a Racoon and its all very ridiculous. The plant man just says his name and it means whatever it needs to mean at that time. It knows that it thinks it’s funny, it lampshades it. Jupiter Ascending has goofy stuff that it knows is goofy but it doesn’t tell the audience and critics and moviegoers alike misread that as the film being ignorant of what its doing when its entirely aware. I think the narrative changed around the directors where I think now audiences realize that their sincerity is a response to irony, not ignorance of irony. I think that’s another reason that this movie holds cultural cache in a way that other flops like Titan AE does not. Titan AE’s pretty rote and just kind of a failed experiment. Jupiter Ascending is doing something in response to other things.

I’ve never watched a Wachowski film and been like “oh this one they really phoned it in.”

John: It’s good that you bring that up because there’s been a whole parade of these, throughout the history of Hollywood and blockbuster filmmaking but in recent years we had Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets. We had the Ender’s Game movie. We had Alien prequel stuff Ridley Scott was trying to do. We had After Earth with Will and Jaden Smith.

Alex: You’ve got Battlefield Earth. A lot of these things were adaptation works that they just weren’t able to square the circle on.

John: It says something that when we decided on this prompt we both immediately went “I wanna do Jupiter Ascending. “ We both needed to know, right?

Alex: It’s really interesting! It’s this original IP. Another bonkers sci-fi IP from Warner Brothers, the studio that loves to spend a small country’s GDP on a movie that will never do well. That’s one of the reasons I think`that they have some power in the industry is that they are willing to take a chance on movies like this. Now I actually think this is mostly a nepotism thing as to why this movie got greenlit because the president of WB at the time, Jeff Robinov, was the Wachowski’s agent. It must have been something like “Well they got us the Matrix can they make lightning strike twice?” The answer was no. But he set them up and was like hey do you wanna make a new sci fi franchise for us? You can do whatever you want. Blank check!” And they put a lot of zeroes on that blank check.

John: Boy did they ever. Should we actually try and just do some kind of plot summary?

Alex: I think if we start from “Cinderella in Space” we can probably work something out.

John: Cinderella, in space, where the universe is governed by the CHOAM Corporation from Dune, meets weird genetics fetishism from GATTACA

Alex: So the Bene Gesserit

John: Oh yeah! There are huge Dune vibes throughout this thing. This is what people who hated the look of Villenueve’s Dune wanted it to look like.

Alex: Oh yeah. For sure.

John: It’s just hitting me now this is very Dune.

Alex: I don’t think it’s Dune setting the template so much as it is just them doing hero’s journey stuff. That’s generally the stuff they’re pulling from. Lana Wachowski’s favorite book is apparently The Odyssey. So they’re all kind of playing on that classical hero’s journey motif. That’s why a lot of these films are similar. That’s also why Francis Ford Coppola is right about Dune and No Time To Die being the same movie.

Mila Kunis lives on earth and no one on earth has any concept that they’re wrapped up in this broader intergalactic conspiracy. Earth is property to this intergalactic consortium

J: Earth is an agricultural plot. The thing being cultivated is us. Becuase soylent green is people and soylent green makes you immortal.

Alex: Mila Kunis is secretly the princess or queen or-

John: There’s this extremely powerful corporation that owns all these inhabited planets and makes the juice that makes you young forever out of people. Their matriarch was Mila Kunis in a past life because if you are an exact genetic duplicate of some previously living person, legally you’re treated as a reincarnation of that other person.

Alex: Eddie Redmayne and possibly his brother, I wasn’t always able to tell them apart they’re both handsome-ish British guys. But they send a group of mercenaries out to kidnap Mila Kunis, who is their legally reincarnated mom.

John: We’re still only like 30 minutes into this movie.

Alex: Basically Mila Kunis gets rescued by Channing Tatum, they end up going to space-

John: We also skipped the part where she tried to sell her eggs to buy a telescope.

Alex: Yeah her shitty Russian cousin-

John: Her family is awful.

Alex: Her shitty cousin who loves to play Dark Souls

John: This is “Men Are Trash” cinema if you couldn’t tell.

Alex: which is part of the reason its so exciting.

John: It’s nice it’s a good change of pace

Alex: The plot is really busy. Simple in the broad strokes but its got all these like details that makes everything a lot more complicated than it needs to be. A lot of the henchmen have like weird relationships with their bosses where they get along but they don’t get along.

John: There’s human hybrids spliced with other animals genetics. There’s a wolf man and a mouse girl. Sean Bean is a bee man and he’s not doing an prosthetics because he’s too good for that shit but he does have to say “bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty.” So it all evens out.

Alex: Also his name is fucking Stinger Apini

John: Stinger! *laughs* He’s a bee man, his name is Stinger! I hate this!

Alex: The names in this are all wild and absurd. Channing Tatum in this is named Caine Wise, the rich family are the Abraxes.

John: No they’re the Abrasix, not Abraxas, that would sound cooler. I like that they went out of their way to make it less cool. Avoid the Char Aznable problem.

Alex: Kunis’ name is Jupiter Jones which sounds to me like they were unaware that there was a character named Junie B Jones, which is phonetically so similar it ruins your characters name

John: This is very much that pulp space sci fi naming convention here. We’re very much in Buck Rodgers territory.

Alex: It’s totally Buck Rodgers. It’s totally Leigh Brackett or Edgar Rice Burroughs Princess of Mars stuff. It’s really cool to see people creating new stuff whole cloth, obviously it borrows significantly from influences but it’s its own thing even though like- did you feel like this movie had the trappings of like a YA novel?

John: Yes. It is very much in a YA space tonally. One foot in that one foot in the Marvel movie space. It reads as very cynical to me. For some reason they decided this things was going to be a big needle mover, or at least that’s how it’s been designed.

Alex: It seems like it was positioned as something that was going to be a big needle mover but by the time the test screenings came around they were like “ah shit this ain’t gonna do well.”

John: “we got a lemon.”

Alex: It was a pretty early recognized lemon. I saw on the Deadline article about its box office returns which were low that it was dropped in February because more teens go to the movies. They didn’t drop it in January because more kids are going back to school. So it was specifically marketed towards teenagers. I think that’s really where it fails. The movie has this really simplistic YA politic to it that lacks the depth of something like The Matrix or even just going off of their influences if this is a YA novel then The Matrix is like Fight Club or like Ghost in the Shell, it’s a seinen manga. This falls in shounen territory or something like that. Really simplistic politic for teenagers.

John: You could definitely do a shoujo manga with this premise. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t one. We’re already dangerously close to Tenchi Muuyo territory.

Alex: That cool. That’s fine.

John: The difference being that if this was shoujo the point would be to pick one of the cute boys. That would need to be the end point.

Alex: That’s fine. You can make a fun movie for teens with teenager politics. I just don’t have to look at it and be like “oh this is like Solaris.”

John: Before we head to the barn on this thing we need to talk about the big man and by the big man I mean Eddie Redmayne. Who I have never before and never will again call the big man. In this particular instance he is indisputably the big man.

Alex: This is the only film that Eddie Redmayne has done that takes place after 1910. *laughs* It’s also the only movie i’ve liked him in.

John: He’s so good in this. He’s in that Ian McDiamid or Tim Curry-type role. Just so wonderfully hammy. He speaks in this weird rasp.

Alex: Ian McDiamid is a good comparison for it because he also plays the villain in this and he does take on this Palpatine qualities where he’s like plotting and he’s always manipulating people he’s like gleeful at this. It’s a really silly character which fits in perfectly for the maximalist space opera they’re putting on here.

John: He knew what kind of movie he was in. I can’t say that for basically anyone else here. Sean Bean knew he just didn’t wanna be a part of it.

Alex: Sean Bean’s usually just there for the check.

John: Channing Tatum is thinking about firing his agent because he lost an onscreen fist fight to Sean Bean

Alex: Tatum and Kunis definitely feel pretty miscast here. they aren’t having fun with it. Another movie that came out in 2015, that is a think another Warner Bros misfire is I think their Peter Pan movie Pan.

John: I vaguely remember this

Alex: It’s got that Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana cover.

John: Oh my God right.

Alex: With Hugh Jackman. It’s bad. But Gareth Hedlund in that movie is really fun. he’s doing this like fake Harrison Ford thing but he can’t pull it off at all. But he’s still going for the gold with it. Hedlund would have been perfectly cast here because when he’s given a role like this he seems to grine ar to ear. That’s just me. I don’t know who could have taken on Kunis’ role.

John: I should be nicer to Mila Kunis because she is done no favors whatsoever by the script here.

Alex: The script is tough. The script does the thing that all the movies they’ve made do where it’s really on the nose and you’re either with it or against it. I’m generally with it but there’s so many things they have to show you and explain to you that it gets exhausting over time.

John: It is very much like one of the Star Wars prequels in that you can get an hour and change into this movie and still be like “okay when’s the movie gonna start?”

Alex: That’s not to say there aren’t action set-pieces because there are a lot

John: No but the action set-pieces bore me more than the bits where they’re showing me how much they can spend on costuming and set dressing. The action is all just orange and blue CGI slush puppy. It’s weightless and I have no idea what’s going on, and I don’t care.

Alex: That is the movie’s biggest issue that they’re doing this blockbuster spectacle thing that the Wachowskis are old hands at. You think about the Matrix but more specifically Speed Racer where they start utilizing this new visual language that’s really interesting and cool and none of that translates over to this film. a lot of the CGI fighting in this yeah just feels like a slush and it doesn’t stimulate the mind and I do think if I’d had watched this in a theater I might have enjoyed it a little more but on a television it translates really poorly. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt with the theater thing

John: It’s rough here. I’d like to recommend this. It’s only two hours long. If it hits something that you have on streaming and you’re not looking to be wowed by great performances, you just want cool ideas and stuff that will stick with you in an audiovisual sense from your sci-fi you will do will with this. If you want characters look elsewhere.

Alex: My take on the movie is that it is interesting in that, it’s got a lot of things going on that are theoretically and superficially cool but the film itself is kinda junky. I think we have too many well made films to the point of being smooth. This is not a smooth film by any means. You enjoyment of that is variable I suppose.

John: Yeah, on reflection I’m gonna say no.

For some reason they decided this things was going to be a big needle mover, or at least that’s how it’s been designed.

Alex: I recommend it. But really only to people who know what they’re getting into and are Wachowski fans I guess

John: If you’re a Wachowski fan I don’t need to recommend this to you is the thing. You’ve already seen it.

Alex: I do recommend it to someone who’s like “I don’t really like the Marvel stuff or star wars or the really smooth action films that are coming out. I’m looking for something a little chunkier and maybe not meatier but weirder.” Jupiter Ascending is what you’re looking for. Just to get a better taste of what’s out there.

John: As a counterpoint I guess. You could do far worse.

Alex: Even to the film’s theme’s it’s more about class consciousness and knowing your own power and what you can do with that power than like the militarism that’s baked into every Marvel or DC film.

John: “You can save the day in some small way that will protect yourself and the people you care about but you don’t need to do it by gun murdering, allying yourself to the military-industrial complex, or becoming some guy’s wife.” That’s a generally pretty good message.

Alex: It serves well as an ideological counterpoint. To fully wrap up on this, can you give me a plot description in 15 words or less.

John: There’s a cop out answer I could give here

Alex: Is it “it ain’t the matrix?”

John: No it’s “bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty.” I gotta think of a real one. If you have one in mind I’ll defer to you.

Alex: I got one. “Maximalist space opera, minimal brain activity.”

John: “Inuyasha and Sailor Moon fight the Space Romney’s.”

Alex: They just continue to bite off anime.

Wanna take the Challenge? Next week’s prompt is: Luck of the Irish, pick an Irish Film. No, The Quiet Man (1952) does not count, that was made in America. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) technically does but c’mon, man, broaden those horizons!