Jupiter Ascending Headcanons

Quick thoughts - Jupiter Ascending is a better movie than they say

I just rewatched Jupiter Ascending and I really think it’s a lot better and deeper than they say. Even fans tend to call it a fun “trashy” movie, but like … I think it’s superficial superficiality is part of the artistic point. The larger world is consistently presented as exquisitely opulent yet shallow and hollow … only skin deep. It contrasts with Jones’s boisterous family full of love and vitality. The film doesn’t come out and explicitly say it, but the people on Earth are alive, while those who would feed upon us are empty vampires.

The three royals exemplify hollowness. The eldest viscerally displays nothing but pain throughout … when he finally reveals that his mother said she hated her life, and that she begged him to kill her, everything in his body language screams that he feels exactly the same. The middle sibling literally says, “feel my skin”, showing how utterly shallow her only pleasure is … she has taken the path of denial, figuratively closing her eyes. The youngest  displays the most superficiality of all; his only pleasure in life seems to be playing games of lies and deception. None of them have anything remotely close to fulfillment. None of them have any love or feel any love. They just coast forward through time, having nothing to look forward to other than more time.

This is contrasted with Jupiter’s family, which is constantly full of color, passion, and noise … all with love pervading throughout. The coldness of the world beyond is such a contrast. With such a contrast, of course Jupiter would chose to go back home rather than live with the horrible vampires.

But also … it’s not just the vampires. The entire society is like that. The extended bureaucracy sequence demonstrates … well, okay. They have awesome technology which heals wounds in a flash. They could do the same with bureaucratic paperwork, but they don’t. That’s not an accident, it’s a choice they made. They chose to make life more miserable. They chose to make their own society sap the spirit out of themselves.

So yeah, Jupiter has every reason to return to her life on Earth. Except of course the villain has kidnapped her family.

And here’s where Jupiter Ascending takes it to the next level. This story has been building up to a climax where Jupiter has to save her family - the family she loves and which is worth so much more than the awful royal family. But she has an epiphany - it’s not just her own family. It’s every family on Earth. Jupiter realizes that this is the true treasure of Earth, and it’s more important than just her own.

Near the start of the movie, we see the royals virtually meeting in the aftermath of a planetary harvest. We see from the architecture a world full of people with hopes and aspirations. The eldest sibling dismisses the loss, claiming that most of them were miserable and it was a mercy. At this point in the movie, we don’t know how much of a self serving lie this is. The truth is that it’s their own universe which is completely miserable and sapped of spirit and life. Their own universe is so utterly miserable that the only thing people strive for is more time.

The movie doesn’t explicitly state it, but the planets harvested must be ones which are kept in the dark about the larger universe. Why? Why the secrecy? Is it that peoples tempted by immortality become so obsessed with that one thing that they completely drain themselves of actual vitality and meaningful life? Is it that vitality which is what produces a “robust” harvest?

That’s the big tragedy, then. The royals only see this vitality as a resource to be consumed. They don’t see that this vitality itself is the true treasure. Jupiter Jones, in her epiphany, sees this truth that none of the vampires can see. The vampires have spent the whole movie telling her that Earth is just a small part in a bigger picture. Jupiter realizes that it’s really the other way around - it’s the rest of the universe which has made itself small. That universe is vast in size but skin-deep shallow. Earth may be small in size but it’s deep in life.

This is old hat to you lot, though I’m hoping there might be some newbies around too! If this is your first time be sure to check out the participation page as well as the FAQs. That done, you can send your sign up to

[email protected]

and remember to include

1. Your tumblr username / URL.

2. A 5 word (maximum) prompt for your Santa.

3. Are you willing (but not guaranteed) to create AND receive porn? YES SMUT or NO SMUT.

4. Are you willing to be a pinch hitter?

5. A list of any triggers/things your Santa cannot mention/show in their gift to you.

Thanks for the question! I have no problem with a question like this - you’re being very polite and respectful.

I adore Jupiter Ascending but it certainly has problems, and Jupiter is clearly no Ridley or Sarah Connor. For me, though, that’s almost part of the charm. Jupiter is lethargic and disinterested, and the nature of her upbringing and her financial circumstances mean she has little ambition and no ideas about where she wants her life to go. She’s then drawn into an outrageous space adventure (if you haven’t seen it, Jupiter learns she is the genetic reincarnation of the former queen of the universe - really!) that completely turns her life on its head - she’s overwhelmed and has to either just go with it or have a complete nervous breakdown. She just goes with it and that means she’s rather passive for much of the film, but that - for me - makes it more powerful when she finally does make a stand in the final act and basically decides to sacrifice her life for the sake of Earth. For me, it’s the story of a young woman whose sphere goes from very small and enclosed to vast and all-encompassing. While she’s not an action heroine, she’s principled and good and makes the right choice when push comes to shove. She embodies a very humble kind of bravery that I appreciate.

Beyond Jupiter herself, I love Jupiter Ascending for many reasons. I love the expansive and imaginative world it creates. I love the quasi-Shakespearean interpersonal drama between the millennia-old siblings. I love that so many of the interactions on screen are between women, and that women dominate in Jupiter’s household. I love that it’s shameless girly wish fulfilment, complete with shirtless Channing Tatum roller-blading through the corridors of a palace.

I agree with your thoughts on her being ambitionless and directionless due to poverty and feeling trapped, but I don’t agree that she’s passive. Jupiter has an unprecedented level of agency in the narrative of the film, even more so than classic action heroines, but it’s expressed in ways that are very different from what we’re used to seeing. She’s active and dominant in ways that don’t align with masculine archetypes: she’s inquisitive and empathetic, analytical and careful, but still very much in control of what’s happening to her. With only one exception (her kidnapping by Kalique’s bounty hunters), the plot only moves forward when Jupiter makes a choice. Her choices, even when they’re bad ones (such as agreeing to marry Titus), are the single driving force behind the story. In every case except that one, nothing happens unless Jupiter decides it’s going to. She chooses to go to the clinic; she chooses to go with Caine; to go to Orous to claim her title; I’m not gonna rehash the entire plot, but you catch my drift.

I read an excellent analysis, which I am linking to here on my personal, discussing the differences between a male and female power fantasy, which goes into more detail comparing the “Chosen Hero” archetype to the “Secret Princess” archetype. If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, the specific quote I want to point to is this:

we’re not criticising the film for how it tells its story: we’re criticising it for the kind of story it’s telling.

so what do they do with everyone elses money, and if they have so much of it, why did margaery pay anime hair and featherhawk in soylent?

it strongly suggests that credits do represent a soylent standard, and that the abrasaxi run effectively a barter economy, making them kingmakers and power brokers to whom all are indebted for their longevity

which is a good source for simmering resentment and a tiered series of impending rebellions from the bourgeousie down to the proles

wait wait but like Advocate Bob pays off the bureaucrat using credits though!! and he fires a little credit card like thing. So there IS some sort of cash system going on and we just didn’t see very much of it

which begs the question, what do those credits //represent//? is it just an abstraction like dollars, or is it tied to the soylent blue standard, one credit is worth one cc or whatnot of soylent, ala the fremen’s water economy?

probably most people don’t have immortality money, but if you work your whole life and save up to buy a rejuvenation treatment, do you just have to go back to work? margaery is fourteen thousand years old, and her family //makes// the stuff, but is that common? we don’t know how old anyone else in the film is, not the plebs or the grumpy brazil dudes or the rad burnt out space cop

if only the richest of the rich can afford space yachts and people juice, does this mean the abrasax life economy exists as a pyramid on top of the normal capitalist pyramid, a vampire economy preying on the normal robber barons?

if, say, peter weyland and eldon tyrell are putting the lions share of their income - and by extension the labor of all of weyland-yutani and the tyrell corporation - into abrasax industries in exchange for people juice, can anyone else at those companies afford any?

and is that level of royal elitism sustainable, on a millennia long timeline? i had thought sean bean would be drafting jupiter into a rebellion against the system, but apparently most people are fine with it