Bechdel Test Movie List

This movie isn't going to become anyone's favorite Strong Female Character action film. The main character, Jupiter (Mila Kunis) spends the entire film getting captured, and rescued, and tricked, and rescued, and baited into a trap, and rescued, always by the same hunky love interest who's the actual protagonist of the story. Jupiter is positioned as the main character, but she's really just an object who gets passed around endlessly. She manages to rescue herself exactly once in the film, and only temporarily—immediately after that, he has to save her yet again.

But that said, it does pass the test. She has some short exchanges with her mother about their work as maids, and a lengthy one with an alien princess named Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) about reincarnation, Kalique's mother, the galactic empire, a fountain-of-youth formula, and other things.

You forget that jupiter takes on the main antagonist 1 on 1, channing fights the main henchman. She was plenty strong.

Cannot accept the test´s outcome. I know it made it past all the obstacles.

It was a Disney princess flick coated in scifi action candy. Space cinderella. She isn´t able to do anything until the big "solider" arrives. The american solider hero. Puke on my keyboard. And to the other guy, "No, I´m not your mother…". It could not have been more cliche on feminine stereotypes. The other bad princess is prone to time but furthermore beauty. WTF?!
Their love gets the ok from the black female captain - nice try hollywood.
So wrong everything. A protagonist as the godmother. I´m sorry to rant, but this movie has too many flaws. :(

Jubuter made a lot of strong decisions In this movie. She did need to be rescued a couple of times, but she made the decision to fight all on her own without knowing help was coming. Also all the best heroes in movies and comics are full of cliches. Her not your mother line was awesome. This movie is really about the length one woman goes to, to protect her planet.

MaleViewer - I haven't actually seen the movie, so I can't really make an argument in favor of or against yours.

But, I have to point... the Bechdel Test and the rating given has nothing to do with whether the female characters involved are strong, complex characters. There's a different website for that. It passed the test and that's that. If you want to rant about the film's flaws, fine, but don't say you disagree with the rating when you really have no possible argument for it.

Even though I think the movie was weak in terms of screenplay, acting, story and, well, everything except for the special effects and stunts (and I also liked the bureaucracy scenes), I think that Jupiter is an interesting female character. She has to make hard decisions on the run (Do I accept the title? Do I get married to protect worlds and give up on love? Do I save my family or save the Earth?...), and although she is tricked at first, it appears that she learns her lesson. Plus, this movie passes the test.
And something I just noted is that there aren't that many conversations between males in the movie, are there? Except for the bad guy giving orders to his underlings (but then again, there's no way to be sure the dragon-looking soldiers were males. For all I know they could be males, females or have no gender). Plus, a large part of the conversations between males are related to Jupiter.

Warning, spoilers for plot and possible themes from horrible mess plot...

The plot is a horrible mess--perhaps there was some intention somewhere to compare and contrast the underclass poor working immigrants from a violent society with the ultrarich privileged ultrahigh tech spoiled rotten upper class with life extension from S/o/yl/e/n/t G/r/e/e/n.

There are several different clear breaks in the film--there is the courtship of her father and mother, with her father and his telescope fascinating her mother. There is the love and friendship of her parents and her father wanting to name the baby "Jupiter" and the mother resistant. Then there is the death for the father brutally and violently, the birth of Jupiter and, with telling rather than thosing, her mother turning away from everyone but her sibling and in-laws, become cynical and untrusting.

Fast forward to Jupiter as a young adult woman cleaning toilets and her relatives in the fringes of things otherwise. There is her interaction with "Katherine Dexter," was that the name,privileged and affluent versus Jupiter the maid--but their talk sounded like equals talking, not privileged affluent person and hired help. That range off for me.

There's the rest of the sequence leading to Jupiter's semi-abduction off planet. There are no ground car chases (hooray!) but there is that essentially speedskating race in the air with the jet antigravity boots playing skates, which was reminiscent of the alien dragon-things flying through nyc in The Avengers.

There are the bounty hunters, never quite really explained or substantiated for me.

On the other side of the jump gate, Jupter gets introduced into a different universe. the genetics and reincarnation stuff was straining my willing suspension of disbelief (so did most of the flight dynamics and space maneuvers and such. I know from having been an orbital analyst and satellite systems project officer about failure modes including things blown apart in orbit, and it really puts a damper on Hollywood space battles turning and banking etc. stuff.

The bureaucracy and the stmie-steampunk tech for ID stuff was amusing, but the baroque tech and mechanical parts while amusing, was incongruent with the rest of the tech level. The dysfunctional imperial family dynamics sat on a base of "hmm, have I seen I Claudius and Gladiator and the copying of Caligula in Babylon 5, etc.?" Jupiter is an unlikely Spartacus...

The scenery is very pretty the CGI impressive, the winged sapients amazing... but the plot, oh, the plot, is a horrible mess. There is megadestruction and stupid dramatic scenes of trying to escape the in-the-process-of-destruction facility (more credibility failure, my comment to people is park your critical faculties for credibility outside the theater or room...)>

And then we're back on Earth with Jupiter cleaning toilets agina even though she's the owner of the poanet--no transition of her leaving and returning, just the abrupt suddenly the scene is back on earth and she's cleaning toilets again, but has a date with the hybrid. Uh, wha? I supposed that that is part of the somewhere in the scripting and translation of script to final print film, the themes of compare and contract hardworking marginal patriarchal immigrant family with degenerate genetic empire royal family got truncated or some such...

ANyway, the movie is very pretty. The lead character is someone born and raised in a patriarchal opporttnity limited society and culture, amibitious enough for the family to have emigrated to the USA living a hardscrabble life in a city.... The subtleties rather got lost, and were not focused on, and social subtle commentary is big special effects wannabee epic movies, tend to get lost....

I definitely agree that, while sometimes capable, Jupiter spends most of the movie waiting for someone else to rescue her. However one early detail did catch my attention. After one early fight scene, the main duo are driving on their way to the house with all the bees. (I watched this quite a while ago so forgive my vague descriptions and inaccuracies.) Jupiter notices that her mysterious savior has some bullet holes and uses some tampons to plug the wounds. It's rather rare for movies to even acknowledge the existence of female menstruation, much less in a practical note.

NessieNos - when I read your review I felt like there is hope in the world!

I can't believe some people think Jupiter is a strong female character. The only "decision" she made during the movie was not giving up Earth but oh God, she would have to be a damn moron not to get the clues that the guy was not going to let her go alive and that he was going to harvest the planet as soon as possible, really, he was even smiling!