It's dystopian space opera with a happy ending, right? That fits the bill.
I'm still trying to invent a show for my character to become obsessed with.
This movie has so many serious problems. It's really not good, but it's amazing anyway. Take the main character, for example. She gets sucked into this giant drama but plays almost no role in its resolution. She's the most passive heroine ever. This isn't a character-driven story, at least not on her part. You could argue that the dog man Caine's character drives it much more than she does.
It is a DELIGHTFUL movie to watch because of the flying and diving and falling and swooping through the air, because of the larger than life villains who are fighting with each other, because of the gorgeous settings and costumes and beautifully imagined scenarios, but most of all because of Caine rollerblading through the sky and moving with such profound grace and strength.
He gets wings at the end. It's AMAZING. But even up to that point, he's fabulous to watch.
The story is daft, much of it makes no sense, and as mentioned the heroine is practically passive the whole time. She seems half asleep. She wakes up enough to make a feeble protest here and there, that's all. I'm not sure how much of that is the sleepy actress.
If I were teaching screenwriting, I'd use this movie to illustrate how not to write a character. There is nothing there at all where she's supposed to be. Truly, she has almost no traits. She gets pushed around by everyone, manipulated, bullied, anesthetized, dressed, pushed off buildings, saved. She barely does anything and almost never even makes a choice.
My first novel was the exact same way. Passive, reactive character. Brr, awful.
The positive side to a zero character like this is that your audience can put themselves in her place with no effort at all. They don't have to match up or anything, just exist.
Somehow she saves the world in the end, but how? I'll watch it again this week and see.
Mostly I remember that Caine is gorgeous and devoted to her and can fly, so a dream character, obviously. Now Caine has a backstory and motivation and angst and so on, where Jupiter has essentially nothing.
So weird!
Compare Jupiter to any actual heroine like Katniss Everdeen and it becomes obvious that there's nothing there.
Anyway, dystopian space opera for sure. There are whole extended blocks about each villain, a sketch of a plot, scenery-chewing soliloquies, insane costumes, dramatic destruction of the bad guys.
Now I wonder whether space opera is always somewhat dystopian? Having conflict is not the same thing as dystopia, though.
Look at this! The crowning moment of the movie is when Caine gets his wings in the very last scene. That character has an arc and a moment of triumph. I wish they'd written Jupiter that way, too.
