As I said on Twitter, I was going to write a blog post about what I wanted/expected from Jupiter Ascending, and then I thought “shit, maybe I should write a book!” But a blog post is a lot faster. :)
This will make more sense if you’ve seen JA, obviously, and will be rife with spoilers if you haven’t.
First off, I saw absolutely no reason for a physical-only Recurrence to mean anything to anybody unless the only way to revive a stored/backed up memory/person was to a perfect genetic match, because seriously, who cares if a body is just like another body, it’s the mind inside that makes it who it is. Which of course Eddie Starnipples and Teen Boffo Boy and Sinister Sister would not choose to mention to Jupiter, so I was waiting for the Seal Of Owning Everything to also be the Unexpected Download Of Sentience which would then trigger a battle of personalities between 25 year old Jupiter and 100K year old Queen Mother Bee.
Jupiter would then find out of her own accord/from Queen Bee that the Soylent Green was People, and be appropriately horrified, but also have the (not quite updated because who uploads their last memories while being murdered) knowledge that Teen Boffo Boy had at least made overtures of Being Equally Horrified, and attempting to (cautiously, b/c 100K years of cynicism) build an alliance with Boffo Boy, keeping all the interesting incestuous overtones in place, thus deeply disturbing/causing jealousy in the Conveniently Shirtless Caine, who is not sure if it’s Jupiter or Queen Bee in control save through his Totally Unexplained Antipathy Toward The Ruling Class Which Is Totally Genetic By The Way, He Just Can’t Help Going For Their Throats Except In Jupiter’s Case which leads to the inevitable conclusion that Queen Bee developed his genetics so he would rip out the throats of all the other members of the ruling class but be strangely drawn to her.
In the meantime Jupiter struggles with her own Strange Draw to Caine (“I like dogs! I’ve always…liked dogs…” which is way ahead of “I carried a watermelon!” in terms of Stupid Embarrassing Things People Say In Movies To The People They Fancy, because I *got* that “I like dogs” was a stupid embarrassing thing to say and I had to have “I carried a watermelon” explained to me, it just didn’t make any sense to me when she said it) which she cannot be sure is her own or if it could be Queen Bee’s and also she doesn’t know that Eddie Starnipples murdered her because again who uploads while being murdered but come on this is a girl from Earth who has presumably been exposed to Rocky Horror Picture Show or The Fifth Element and has to know anybody that campy in outer space is probably the villain and thus should probably be working to thwart him UNLESS we really want to ratchet up the incest thing which is actually just fine (and also I liked somebody’s idea of dropping Boffo Boy and just having Sinister Sister want to marry Mommy) and so we have Jupiter also Irresistably Drawn to Sinister Starnipples Boffo while her Jupiter self is all like OH MY GOD NO but also NO WAIT DO I *REALLY* LIKE DOGS?! and also maybe a little bit “hey zero g space orgies kinda sound intriguing but probably not with Caine and Boffo Starnipples because of the whole going for the throat and that’s not a euphamism thing.”
So anyway instead of just being all “I struggle with and then make a bad decision and have Conveniently Shirtless Caine skate in to rescue me from it” in my version she has actual agency and ultimately defeats the presence of the Queen Bee in her mind without sacrificing who she actually is and goes back to Earth, that’s totally fine, to scrub toilets and figure it all out while now being sure that she totally digs Caine for his personal attributes including the super sexy wings instead of it definitely being all about Queen Bee’s desires and then in the sequel she chooses to leave Earth and go set the rest of the universe to rights all without sacrificing being her basically decent human self.
That’s what I wanted from Jupiter Ascending.