Creating new science fiction movies is hard. In the current decade, science fiction sequels and franchise installments are far more common than original films. And when it comes to massive space opera franchises in the mode of Star Wars, standalone sci-fi romps that feel like franchise films are practically unheard of. Before the true explosion of the MCU in 2011, the closest thing to an impressive non-franchise space opera film was The Chronicles of Riddick in 2004, which of course, was technically a sequel. Today, if one is looking for a non-Star Wars space opera, the closest thing we got was Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon films in 2023 and 2024, which even he admitted were just R-rated Star Wars movies with the serial numbers shaved off.
So, if you consider Avatar an outlier, then somewhere in the middle of The Chronicles of Riddick and Rebel Moon sits the Wachowskis’ strange, brave film, Jupiter Ascending. After The Matrix trilogy and their live-action Speed Racer, the famous filmmaking siblings dropped a massive space opera, made in the mold of very old-school sci-fi. And it was utterly misunderstood.
