Nominated for 6 Razzie Awards!

I'm still waiting for that deeply hypothetical day when you'll give JA another chance :).

Also, were you the person who recommended Starry Eyes to me? It might have been someone else, but if it was you thank you very much - I loved it.

The Labyrinth wiki!
http://labyrinth.wikia.com/wiki/Labyrinth_Wiki

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The Razzies needs to give itself a Razzie.
No nominations for Terminator:Genisys, the worse scifi movie of the year.
How in the hell could they nominate JA six times and leave TG alone.

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Why would it be, when it's one of a vanishingly small group of entirely original sci-fi films? And please don't say it was derivative of other properties. Every film is derivative, none more so than Star Wars.

Because it is extremely similar to the Matrix, and not in any way that suggests mere inspiration. From plot points to editing techniques, the similarities are hard to deny. Star Wars is a bit more inspired by the Kurosawa-era works that it partially derives from, not trying to directly copy plot points or editing techniques but using that kind of story-telling or character arc or whatever.

I found Jupiter Ascending absolutely overflowing with heart and emotion. It's a big part of why I loved it so much, since I tend to find sci-fi films overly cold and overly married to science fact. If you read any of the interviews the Wachowskis gave about the film, you would realise that they lavished immense care, time and love on the film. To me, that passion is obvious on screen.

Pseudo-science and hard science gives a depth of realism and wonder to sci-fi by allowing the audience to ponder the possibility of what they're seeing on-screen. There's no doubt that a lot of Jupiter Ascending is fairly cold, including the unsubtle and overlong scene that satires the DMV, something that has actually improved years ago and it's things like that which only cause the movie to age worse. I refuse to doubt that the Wachowskis aren't meticulous in their craft, but sometimes it is possible that your craft is terrible by accident like the Matrix sequels. The thing is that most of the film's set pieces are heavy on obnoxious visual effects and the plot seems to revolve around them when it should be the other way - giant set pieces need to revolve around the plot. Look at the opening scenes of The Empire Strikes Back - there's so much drama, humour and build-up which brings us to the epic battle on Hoth and makes it so much more compelling. Revenge of the Sith had a similar problem, it was emotionless and vapid because it's characters were uninteresting and terribly underwritten and the action sequences were so obviously unreal that they stuck out massively. Jupiter Ascending's action scenes aren't intense or entertaining because the characters are no fun to watch and lack in development or compelling personalities.

I found it full of whimsy and fun! Do you see where this is going? And I was astonished by the breadth and complexity of Jupiter Ascending's world-building - I found it all simply fascinating.

Returning to the parallels I drew between Jupiter Ascending and the Star Wars prequels; you can have as much complex world-building as you want but that doesn't make your movie good. Especially if your way of doing it is through dull dialogue scenes and random name-dropping. That's what Jupiter Ascending did in it's first act, it raised so many questions while answering so few and in the midst of it all, you are stuck with these dull characters. Jupiter isn't funny or charismatic, Caine is disenchanting, especially with those terrible "wolf ears" and the splices, while interesting, never do very much besides talk and rarely service the plot. When you have scenes in your movie that don't contribute to anything, such as the scenes in The Phantom Menace where Jar Jar is doing anything, you have a plodding mess of a film.

Yes. It was a wonderful, epic and soaring score, easily one of the very best of the year - it's up there with the scores for TFA, Cinderella and Man from UNCLE. And I'm far from alone in this. Even people who disliked the film tend to acknowledge that the score was great.

I don't even remember the scores for Cinderella or The Man from UNCLE - I guess Cinderella's music fit the tone and whatever else happened in the drama but the score was exceptionally unmemorable. The Force Awakens and Steve Jobs both had haunting scores which immersed the viewer or took them to a galaxy far, far away. From what I could remember, Jupiter Ascending's score fit the same purpose as Cinderella's score, being unexceptional and merely fitting the movie when the movie called for it.

I found JA full of directorial flourishes, and found a lot of the imagery very striking and evocative. Jupiter suspended in the blue light in Kalique's planet, Jupiter and Caine being lifted up into the spaceship by the Sears Tower, and the wedding scene all immediately leap to mind as moments of great beauty and wonder

Pink planet, blue planet, red planet, Earth. Earth was Earth, the pink planet was pink and decorative, the blue planet was serene and... Blue, and the red planet was fiery and looked evil. It's not very inspiring. Those first two scenes you mentioned were structured so very similarly that they don't stick out as even remotely iconic and the wedding scene looked like it needed more rendering; the crowds looked distractingly fake and Jupiter looked confused and bored like she did for the entire movie. Although, maybe I should attribute that last part to Mila Kunis' face, not the script.

This is probably where I disagree most strongly, since I found Jupiter Ascending very rich, thought-provoking and involving in this respect. For me, Jupiter Ascending is a story about personal struggle in a midst of a system designed to subjugate and turn people into resources and objects. The whole point of Jupiter being a reincarnation is to show that there is no fundamental difference between the lowest in society and the highest - the hierarchy is a false construct, and it metaphorically crumbles at the end of the film when the refinery falls apart. But beyond that, it's about Jupiter learning who she is by coming to appreciate what she isn't who others assume her to be - she's constantly told she's important because she's a reincarnation, but the film and Jupiter herself show that that's not what makes her who she is. Instead, she is defined by her kindness, humanity and compassion - the woman she's a reincarnation of would have gladly harvested the Earth to profit from it, but Jupiter refuses, sacrificing herself and her family for the greater good by refusing to sign Balem's contract. It's an allegory for the real-world capitalist system, with ideas and themes from myths and fairy tales. The thematic richness of Jupiter Ascending is a big part of why I love it so much.

But where haven't those themes been explored before? I can think of so many different movies that did this better. Snowpiercer immediately coming to mind because that film had some sign of inspiration and depth to it. Jupiter is a selfish, whining, smart-ass who either wants to be saved or simply wants to get out of certain situations. No matter what she does, it has to be about her or her family to some extent. She doesn't try and donate her eggs for other people or to try and afford better things for her sexist and demeaning family, she tries to sell them to buy a telescope and goes back to complaining about her family near the end of the movie again. When she defeats Eddie Redmayne, it isn't to attempt to stop the space-Human holocaust, it's so that space people can stop bothering her. Besides, hierarchy being bad is the only subtext the film has to offer alongside its outdated satire -- why not dwell upon the idea that there is life on other planets and the implication it has for mankind? Why not talk about how Jupiter, the queen of the Earth and most powerful person in the galaxy can make life better for everyone? Instead, she flies around Chicago with the Step-Up guy.

I liked all of the main characters, and Caine's motivations were pretty clear to me. He started off as a paid mercenary, but fell in love with his mark so his loyalties shifted to protecting her. And Jupiter was out of her depth but far from useless - she reacted with appropriate wonder, curiosity and exasperation, as those emotions were called for. And she out-gamed Balem. He was powerless to move forward with the harvest without her consent, which she refused to give - that's why she so enraged him. And she beat him down until he was immobile, and refused to kill him because she's not the murderer he is. I found that extremely noble and heroic. And while hardly one of the great romances, I thought Jupiter and Caine were sweet together - it was an awkward and goofy romance, but I found it worked with the tone of the film.

Caine was a bad Han Solo with pointy ears. Don't believe me? Han and Caine both were rogues who did odd jobs around the galaxy and then ended up falling in love with a princess and getting involved in large-scale Star Wars. The only difference is that it's Caine's job to tow around the endlessly captured, endlessly falling Jupiter. Also, the paradoxical logic of "I won't kill you, I don't have to save you" is indirect murder which actually does make Jupiter a killer. Jupiter's allusions to bestiality are odd and disgusting and Caine's sheer disinterest diffuses their chemistry to the point of their subplot being pointless.

And all I can say at this point is that I'm sorry you felt that way about it. I know I'm not going to change your mind, but I hope you can at least appreciate that plenty of people - myself included - found it fun, thought-provoking and really rather wonderful.

I'm terribly sorry, but I think it's a dangerously clumsy film that takes so little care with its characters that you set back women in action and sci-fi films decades by creating a pseudo-lead that lacks independence, always ends up getting trapped and has never any clue about what goes on in the movie. Anderson in Judge Dredd was full of wonder and eager to learn from her fascist partner, their chemistry and interaction was fun and interesting. Ellen Ripley and the rest of her crew on the Nostrodamus were very much like space truckers and had clear-cut personalities, watching them work together was interesting and when the ship gets attacked, you feel a strong sense of terror as you worry for the lives of the crew members. Jupiter Jones is a bored, confused and occasionally annoying idiot surrounded by other idiots and fellow confused/bored folk.

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