high fives Jilli

Teenage girls (and other girls, too, I must assume) on Tumblr are going mad for J.A., and it's great. There's definitely a lot of swooning over Jupiter/Caine, and a lot of Jupiter/Balem (WTF, really?), and a lot of girls discovering their obedience kink*, but there's also a lot of serious examination of capitalism and class/gender issues and backstory worldbuilding, and that's all pretty cool.

*Look, Caine's basically a dog, canonically. He's utterly loyal, and when J. says roll over, he sighs and rolls over. The girls dig it.

I lost it at the "I like dogs" line.

"I've always loved dogs! Oh god did I really say that."

If you squint, the Age of Ultron poster lists among its cast members: Anthony Mackie (Falcon), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter) and Idris Elba (Heimdall) .

ooo that's interesting.

Nice!

where's Phil! Maybe an after credit scene or something.

"I've always loved dogs! Oh god did I really say that."

I chortled at that.

but there's also a lot of serious examination of capitalism and class/gender issues and backstory worldbuilding, and that's all pretty cool.

It is! Not to mention that it does not follow the standard Hero's Journey story beats that are, at this point, almost mandatory for fantasy/sf/superhero movies. Nope, it's a completely different type of narrative line, and I think that threw a lot of people. (Plus the knowingly over-the-top space opera parts.)

Also, I loved the fact (as you also pointed out) that Jupiter spends a lot of the time actively listening/paying attention to what is going on. Agreeing to marry Titus? Not a great idea, but he presented himself as supporting not harvesting the earth, which is the idea fighting for top space in Jupiter's brain. (The other idea being "Oh fuck this, I want to go home".) She chooses to sacrifice herself and her family, if it means that Balem can't stripmine the earth. And then when chaos and explosions happen, her primary focus is to rescue her family, THEN try and beat the crap out of Balem.

And the end, where she goes back to her earth life. Again, she chooses family, but she does it with no outward sense of resentment (no more "I hate my life" comments at the alarm), and she's setting up her secret life to learn about the other side of her existence. You get on those rocket rollerblades, girl! Zoom around the Chicago skyline with your wolfboy toy who will obey you.

So, I really liked it.

it does not follow the standard Hero's Journey story

It's a Secret Princess story! I don't think Joseph Campbell did anything with feminine archetypal narrative structures. This is the kind of thing I was actually planning on doing my thesis on, if I'd gone to grad school. (I want to go back to school and get my Masters in folklore. What a waste of money that would be, huh?) But it's fascinating. A folklorist named Maria Tater recently wrote a book called The Turnip Princess, about some folktales that escaped the influence of the Grimm brothers, and they show the female heroes in a different light than the fairytales we're used to. I'm looking forward to reading it.

I don't think Joseph Campbell did anything with feminine archetypal narrative structures.

Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz follows Campbell's structure pretty closely.