On the negative side, there have been hassles about being forced to change our ISP because Virgin sold off 97,700 of their non-cable customers, including us, to TalkTalk. See this article in The Telegraph. Alice didn't want to go to TalkTalk, who have a poor reputation, and was somewhat stressed about it, so we won't go into all that. Suffice to say she swore an awful lot at the various telephone menus, because they never gave an option for exactly what she wanted. She adds that she wasn't back Underground, just fretting quite normally for her. And there is some progress afoot since she finally decided to move to good old BT. . .
Still, she also caught up with all those distant friends and relatives (we mean geographically, of course) whom she'd promised to bring up to date when she sent her Christmas cards. She made them the same promise in 2013 too, but her sojourn in the Underground had postponed the enterprise for a year. That's why the whole "informing" process took so many hours. Maybe now she'll get back to keeping this up to date.
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| The Wachowskis on set - do click! |
So, back to - Jupiter Ascending. It may well have had a poor rating on Rotten Tomatoes (26% from critics, and 46% from audiences) and it did have its flaws, but we're fans of the Wachowskis, and wanted to see it regardless. Even Mark Kermode, although he called the film "bonkers, all over the place" with "ridiculous dialogue", said he did enjoy it, and even had fun.
The artist, or "conceptual designer" we should say, George Hull, was interviewed by io9 and explained some of the influences on his work - such as Japanese fighting fish, for example. I thought a few of them looked like butterflies, but Alice says I'm being silly. He apparently likes "juxtaposing high tech with low tech." So there was plenty of that. He's worked on other Wachowski films, and with Neill Blomkamp too. (We've got his Chappie on our watchlist now, as well.)
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| Lana and Andy in the DePaul Visiting Artists Series |
There are simply loads of articles and reviews of Jupiter, plus interviews with the sibling directors. That's partly why writing up our view of it has taken so very long: Alice got carried away, then overwhelmed by her own research.
I kept telling her, Just make a list of links and add a few quotes, in no particular order, and sprinkle with the odd image. Be as sprawling as the movie tself! Thank goodness she's finally given in. So here goes:
HITFIX interview Part 1 and Part 2.
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| Jupiter and Caine with his anit-gravity boots |
For instance: they shot the gravity boots chase sequence through Chicago, a few six-minute shots at a time over the course of seven full months - to get the same Chicago skyline at dawn. They prefer stunt action to CGI, and these shots involved stunt skateboarders whizzing about on giant ramps.
[Watch Lana waxing lyrical about this decision on YouTube]
They admit they over-write, and then cut down, so the back-stories are still there for the actors. Maybe they aren't always there for us, though.
Screen Rant
Lana: We seem not to be very good at making small things. We keep saying Let's go make a small movie. But then they always end up being enormously complex. We want to somehow always find something that is different or that no one has tried.
Collider
Lots of interesting stuff here too, plus more details on the Chicago dawn shoots.
From the beginning we were like, Why are spaceships so damn ugly?... Human beings since the time we were designing chariots and basically litters in Egyptian times through carriages and boats, even Viking ships. They have a beauty and an aesthetic care to them ... human beings are always interested in expressing their conception of beauty. ... Let's extrapolate that out into this million year old culture. ... we were really excited about the idea of bringing a baroque in the way the baroque represents exuberance with logic and rationality underneath the surface of it. We wanted this kind of baroque design and aesthetic for our science fiction world.
The Mary Sue
Is this one a bad review or not? Whatever, it's an enjoyable read.
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| Jupiter meets Sean Bean's bees |
The Verge
After numerous criticisms, Bryan Bishop adds: For every narrative weakness, however, Jupiter Ascending soars as a visual accomplishment. It's outrageously gorgeous, full of life and color and intricately designed spectacle. None of it may be particularly original, but it's a wonderful screensaver of a movie.
7M Pictures
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| Terry Gilliam in "Jupiter Ascending" |
Add to this all the winks and nods the Wachowskis do to classic science fiction from "Flash Gordon" movie riffs to a brilliant cameo by Terry Gilliam in the most "Brazil"-esque sequences in the film.
Time Out
We'd love to say that the Wachowskis manage to wrangle all these disparate elements into a satisfying whole, but this is one mad mess from start to finish, crammed with flying dinosaur sidekicks, fetish-mask robots, impossible-to-follow intrigue and ripe, bizarrely straight-faced dialogue. But the sheer ambition is impossible to ignore, and the sense of fun is infectious: you may fear for your sanity during 'Jupiter Ascending', but you'll come out smiling.
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| Eddie Redmane as Balem Abrasax |
Now back to us.
Many have made moan over Eddie Redmane's peculiar quiet-and-husky tones, with the occasional extremely loud outbursts. But my theory is that Balem has had his throat ripped out (probably by the wolf side of Caine, who tells Jupiter he did commit such an act) and his ornate collar protects his damaged voicebox.
Alice thinks it's more likely a take-off of Darth Vader.
And she's rather proud that she spotted the reference to Ganesha. Did you?
Enough! Let's stop there. You get the picture.
