Review of "Jupiter's Legacy" (2021)

This is a collection of a series of tweets written by Thomas McClure on Twitter on May the 8th of 2021.

Jupiter’s Legacy has since been cancelled.

So I'm watching Jupiter's Legacy and it feels mostly directionless, and the morals are kinda just bad. It feels like a cash in on the dark and gritty deconstruction of superheroes without actually deconstructing them, just talking about them and adding drugs and trauma.

There's a 'debate' around the idea of killing as a superhero. The first episode ends with someone choosing to kill a mass murderer instead of letting them kill everyone and nuke a state. And it's framed as them doing a horrific act.

They never actually talk about it properly. It's only killing is bad or killing is good, no debate on in some cases it might be necessary. Three heroes die in the fight but they don't bring them up until like 20 minutes later. The focus is on the guy who killed a nuke.

And then there is the flashbacks. First of all, they're very poorly paced. It deals with 1920s business stuff, exploring the market crash and capitalism, and it doesn't even allude to the superhero elements until the end of the second episode.

Those episodes themselves are strange. It has the protagonist's company get revealed to be stealing their workers money but then some workers pacify the people by saying "but our boss is a good kid" and that apparently solves the all criticism of capitalism.

The boss and his family and friends live in mansions but the fact they stole from the workers and they 'can't do anything about that' is used just to make the protagonist sad and vow to be better. Dude, pay your workers, sell shit if you have to.

This plotline is totally dropped to get into superhero stuff and ideas of virtue and ghost shit, but 90 years later the protagonist has bigger mansions and is a global hero, but no resolution on if he paid reparations to he people he built it all on. Just weird politics on this.

It also feels very stereotypically 'realistic' as in they have grumpy relationships and they brood and drugs exist. The comic it's adapted from came out in 2013 and it does have this strong Man of Steel level of empty dark and gritty deconstruction.

It also came out right after The Boys comic run ended and it clearly takes some inspiration from that "superheroes are celebrities" and "talk about economics" angle of it, but it doesn't say anything. They've learned that these ideas are interesting, but they've not learned why.

The drama is all very cookie-cutter. Nothing new is being explored, it just feels like a mash-up of different stories without the substance. One character does drugs and is a model who embraces nudity, and this is presented as sad and immoral and that's about it, no nuance.

We see her in the nightclub and it is framed to show that she's a degenerate and that she shouldn't be partying, she should be being a superhero instead The show's idea of bad people are those who do drugs and sex work and enjoy parties or want to do anything other than heroism.

And if anyone thinks it's not portraying this stuff as immoral, the synopsis literally claims "With her partying spiraling out of control, Chloe nears rock bottom". She parties, takes drugs, has a one-night stand, and is a model and overdoses. That's rock bottom.

I understand that taking certain drugs is bad, and that overdosing is an awful experience. But it's an addiction, she has clear mental health issues, and it's just portrayed as her choosing to be immoral. Also, the other characters don't know about the drugs, yet they judge her.

Also, the morals are super rigid. The heroes try to be totally good, but in a child-like way. One hero rejects using his mind control to wipe a traumatic memory from some kids because that's invasive, but apparently kids witnessing their dad's mutilated corpse is fine?

Having that memory is in no way good, it'll mess with those kids for the rest of their lives, they will need therapy. But no, deleting memories is doable but wrong because it sounds bad and that's it. No nuance, just black/white morality, and it's framed as right in the show.

I feel if the characters in this show encountered a cop gunning down civilians they'd side with the cop because police are good. And they'd beat up someone for stealing and distributing the cure for cancer for free if it was owned by a corporation, because stealing is bad.

Instead of deconstructing, discussing, and reconstructing the morals, they just reaffirm them without any critical thought. It's not trying to say something, it's just trying to appear like it's saying something.

An early episode has a journalist expose a company's unethical business practices, but then the protagonist gives a speech about how capitalists are good people who built everything while journalists are evil Marxists, and that's the end of that plotline.

And the next time we see the journalist she's frantic and being fired because of the crash, and she no longer cares about capitalism. The whole "you built your wealth on exploited labour" is gone and eventually she marries him!

Another weird aspect is that the aspect ratio is different for the present-day scenes and past scenes, but only very slightly. It's barely noticeable. I didn't even realise until three full episodes in when they used a slow transition that emphasized it.

And again with the pacing, the first episode starts with the family of heroes and their morals, with the flashbacks about the stock market, then ends with the twist that the villain they killed is somehow a copy. Ooh, a mystery. This mystery isn't mentioned again until episode 5.

The second episode is the fallout, with the funeral and a lot of brooding, and the flashbacks 'explore' unethical business practices. Then the third episode only follows a new criminal character and the flashbacks of another past character losing his wealth.

The fourth follows another family member in her hitting 'rock bottom' by the aforementioned bad reasons, with the flashbacks about the protag exploring a depression-era town.

The first episode established the son as the protagonist of present day, and at this point he's been absent for two episodes, a quarter of the season. This period has also been dedicated to the flashbacks where the other protagonist is slowly slowly following some dream he had.

I'm four episodes in so far and nothing is captivating me at all. It's a strange directionless show that doesn't seem to mean anything or try to say anything new. Nothing is connecting to anything and it seems like it's setting stuff up to only get a second season.

They do get close to having a debate about the whole morality of killing, but it's with a therapist who instantly turns it from "self-defense is just" to "actually this conversation is about your legacy and your father and this whole killing thing is wholly unimportant".

The points that are made about morality, when the therapist says there are shades of grey, it's immediately delegitimized by revealing the therapist is an evil villain, so it's framed as not trustworthy. It's like it's actively avoiding substance.

Also, I can't believe I've barely touched on the son hero. The first episode opened on him and ended on him doing something controversial, and then just dropped him. He's been brooding for 6 episodes by time of writing this and there's been zero change. There's zero direction!

It's mentioned at the end of the first episode that this guy had a girlfriend he recently broke up with. She appears a few times, and they have their first scene together in episode 6, 75% of the way through the show, and it's just pointless exposition.

It's actually quite difficult to comment on it beat for beat because it's just more of the same, only brief plot developments. This show could be 3 episodes long and accomplish the same amount, there's just so much unnecessary filler and barely any substance.

The make-up is also terrible. So many actors are wearing terrible wigs or have their hair dyed and fake wigs to make them look older, because their characters appear in the flashbacks. Lady Liberty has just perfect grey hair and no wrinkles at all to keep her hot, I guess?

Some characters who appear twice or so in the past then have to wear old person make-up in the present, so one guy who looks 20 has dyed grey hair and sits in a wheelchair pretending to look 80 for the whole season because a cameo in the past sequence. So unnecessary and silly.

These characters are supposed to be like 120 years old, but they age really slowly so they only seem like 60 or so. Here's a fix, just have them age even slower and keep their actors looking the same! You're in charge of this story, write the details so it fits the medium.

But no, they want comic book accuracy despite that clearly not being suitable for a live-action medium. A lot of stuff in this show is done just because it was done in the comics, but with no thought of why or whether they should also do it. This is such a passionless project.

The powers are also undefined. Tertiary characters, sure, we don't need their backstory, but the main characters just have vague Superman abilities. So any combat scene has no stakes because we have no idea what they're capable of or what they can take, and the same for villains.

The main hero travels from Los Angeles to Iowa and tracks down a guy in literal seconds. Later, he senses a comet hundreds of km away moving off course and he knows exactly where it will land. He just... sensed it. If these are his powers, then how could he ever be defeated?

How could he not have known the villain in the first episode was a clone then? He moves at the speed of light and senses everything in the universe, he's a god, and yet when he's in a fight he's just a sometimes fast and a little bit strong punchy man. So it fails hard at action.

It also fails at character drama. Episode 5 opens with the father talking about how his life is falling apart. But they're comically unimportant. "Things with my wife is strained" he says, because once she said he was too controlling.

His daughter is "out of control" because she doesn't want to follow in his footsteps. His son is corrupted because he killed a genocidal maniac rather than letting him murder his family, friends, all the heroes, and nuke a whole state. Such uninteresting conflicts.

The idea of a father's ideals not fitting his kid's wants is an okay story, but not for an eight episode series with so much filler between it. It just creates an unchanging unengaging uninteresting and unlikable character. And it has nothing to do with heroism, the entire genre!

He's also like 120 years old yet the only out of touch plotline they could think of was about whether killing in self defence is right? Come on. No bigotry or ignorance. Hell, in the 1920s he had black friends. It's like they're actively avoiding any substantial character study.

At this point I'm on episode 7 and I still don't know what it's about. Characters are discussing leaving the superhero group, which might be a plotline? Apparently the Code was fine for everyone for 90 years but in the span of a few weeks it starts falling apart?

By the way, I'm going through prior tweets and editing them if things change, but nothing has changed. The flaws from episode 2 I hoped would be fixed over time are still here, and it's still directionless and meaningless.

They're making it seem like a character in the past is gonna die despite him being alive in the present. This doesn't work, we know he's gonna be fine, this is just filler!

They also, instead of proper character interactions, talk about who they've lost that they would want to talk to again, for no reason. This is just set up for later when magic lets them talk to those ghosts, for no reason. It serves no narrative purpose in the moment or even afterwards, it makes no sense.

So far, there's arguably one theme. It's about legacy, living up to your father's ideals, but only to the point of "being good", with no exploration as to what good is beyond the concept of kill. But that's like 5% of the story, the rest is just a bunch of ideas thrown at a wall.

The flashback story is about the stock market, then ghosts and visions, then a classic adventure for treasure, then madness, then a magical island. The present is about killing, the Union, drugs, family drama, a clone mystery, and a supervillain randomly breaking out of prison.

It takes 7 episodes to tell the story of how they got powers. The first 1/3 of a typical superhero story. It also has no substantial thematic connection to the present-day plotlines. It doesn't even explain anything. Why did magic tell them to come? Why did it want them? What?

Every single thing just sets up events that could happen in the second season. It's like 7 hours of teasers. There's no conclusions, no catharsis, no central plotline. I'm starting episode 8 and it still feels like everything is just a prelude.

So now it's over, and it certainly was an awful slog. It just throws a bunch of ideas at a wall but delivers on nothing then promises to deliver if they're given money to create a second season. What a waste of a show.

They introduce a mystery in the pilot. They don't do anything about it until the end of episode 7, and in episode 8 we find out some supervillain we've never met was behind it to mess with the heroes, so tune in next season because he wants to fight them!

BUT it's revealed the supervillain they've been talking about for 8 episodes who we haven't met actually isn't behind it! The character who has had 'probably gonna be evil' on his forehead all season is bad actually and orchestrated it so it looked like the villain did all that.

This real villain actually wants to be king of the world. And the problems he has with his brother are the exact same as the ones he overcame in the flashbacks 90 years ago! What a waste of time then I guess. Tune in next season to potentially see that actual superhero story!

Just to make it clear, the secret supervillain created a clone of a secondary villain to nearly kill them all, hoping the son would kill it (if he didn't, they'd all die) and then use that to drive the father and son apart so he could kill the father and take over the world.

So he pretty much succeeded in the pilot. He only had like 1 or 2 scenes with the son. Then nothing happened for 7 episodes and he did nothing to progress his plans. What an engaging master plan.

Wait, why did he have a conversation alone in the clone's mind if the clone worked for him? Who's he keeping the lie up for? Also, why did he implant fake memories to try and nearly succeed in killing him when he went inside its mind?

No, like, seriously, he nearly died to his own creation. He was saved by Grace. He also says he didn't plan for her to save him. What was any of that for? Why didn't he just lie and say he read its mind and the known supervillain was behind it? What did any of that achieve?

Similarly, why release the secondary villain from prison? It distracted the father and son, sure, but why? They could do nothing during the mind reading, so there was no need to distract them. Plus the secondary villain could have killed the son, literally ruining his whole plan!

They almost reach some kind of conclusion in a finale battle when the main hero may or may not let his son die because killing bad. Oh, thematic conclusions and arcs maybe? No. He gets an out before that happens, so tune in next season to see if this story has an end!

The final battle, by the way, happens because the secret villain lets out the secondary villain in secret, so we have no idea why anything is happening in the final fight. How engaging!

This predictable twist also just feels like it's trying to trick us into thinking it's trying to go somewhere. Like, "see here, we knew where we were going, now give us money for next season to see evidence of that" It's pretending to have a story but functionally doesn't.

The apparent collapse of the Union, the superhero team, with all the young members dying or leaving, is just dropped in the last episode. So tune in next season to see what that was setting up!

The daughter drug and crime plotline concludes in the final episode with the reveal that her boyfriend is creating a weapon to kill the big supervillain that we still haven't met. So tune in next season to see how that plays out!

But even that itself doesn’t make any sense as how would they know the powers of this mysterious villain, no one has ever seen him? And it’s revealed to us who the evil guy is, and you don’t need that superpowered weapon to kill him. So what’s the point of it?

The flashbacks end with the one and only scene of the original heroes existing, and it actually shows character interactions, despite having 8 episodes of them to potentially show that off. It's cute but damn it took so long to get there and now it's over.

This final flashback scene has them stating the same questions I've been asking. Why did they get powers? Who gave them it? The questions an origin story like THIS should have answered! So tune in next season to find out why the fuck anything happened in this show!

Overall, this entire season of 8 episodes functions, from a storytelling perspective, the same as the first 20 minutes of a superhero movie.

Flashbacks = Opening Narration

Copy Mystery = Hook

Everything Else = Character Introductions

And the finale twists should be midpoints.

If any show doesn't deserve a second season, it's #JupitersLegacy. The most interesting thing about this is the idea of video essays picking it apart to show where it went wrong.

Jupiter's Legacy is, in my opinion and in relation to the story, thoroughly shit.

Do not watch. 2/10