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Jupiter Ascending (2015) is over-the-top and frequently absurd, and attempts to couple modern scientific principles with its futuristic, fictional story. The extraterrestrial characters are introduced as majorly old and extremely intelligent in their scientific and genomic research. But do the things they say make sense with our (apparently) primitive understanding of science and the world in which we live?

Jupiter Ascending says humans didn’t originate on Earth, but on a planet called Orus. The Abrasax family colonizes planets with humans, waits for them to hit capacity, then harvests them to craft a youth serum. Though the film never says anything about who buys this serum, it seems to sell pretty well. In addition to this, these aliens have created energy shields, hovering anti-gravity boots, spacesuits that form instantly from what looks like a splash of water, and all sorts of other fancy fictional goodies.

But when Jupiter (Mila Kunis) gets to the Abrasax home and starts learning all this, whats he hears contradicts everything we know about evolution and genetics - starting with the claim the Abrasax family killed off the dinosaurs so humans could be planted here.

As noted by Amanda Biederman on Cennamology, “Humans would have absolutely no biological link to ancient archaea and the dinosaurs. The map that encompasses the life work of scientists genetically tracing the lineage of organisms to the species of today would have no basis in reality. True, some of the other animals on Earth may be connected to one another. But, as fully-developed aliens, we wouldn’t have any connection to them… If humans invaded the Earth immediately after killing off the dinosaurs, why do we have fossil records of non-human hominids who appear to have speciated from a common ancestor?”

She goes on to assess the likelihood of Jupiter being born with the same genome as Seraphi:

“[Seraphi] was 90,000 years old when she died, and her daughter is 14,000 years old, so these women’s births were separated by somewhere between 90,000 and 104,000 years. It’s impossible to estimate how many births took place during this time, as we don’t know how many planets have been colonized by humans at this point. So what is the probability that these two women could share the same genetic sequence? The human genome is estimated to contain three billion base pairs. Each pair encompasses four possibilities for its sequence: A-T, G-C, C-G or T-A.

At this point, the math is simple logic. Four possibilities per base pair, to the power of 3 billion, 4^3E9. The only problem: Most calculators won’t generate an answer that large…If your calculator can’t even calculate the probability of something happening, it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon… And of course, the human genome is much more complicated than that. Certain genes won’t be functional if certain base pairs are generated, resulting in either a disorder or death. Other genes are linked. Some genes have effects on genes that are physically distant within the genome.

There’s also the small fact that, assuming evolution is actually canon to this film, that the great amount of time - along with the population isolation - between these two women would make it even more unlikely for them to share similar genetic traits. But even if Jupiter’s initial DNA sequence was identical to this woman’s, they probably wouldn’t really be identical by strict definition, for the same reason that identical twins aren’t truly identical. This is partially due to the environment- and ancestor-controlled phenomenon known as epigenetics. The way Jupiter lives, and even the way her parents and grandparents lived, affects which genes are expressed within her genome, potentially causing physical, medical, and behavioral differences from someone with her exact genetic sequence. It goes without saying that a maid would grow up in a different environment than an intergalactic queen.”

The fundamental job of RegeneX, the Abrasax family product, is cell regeneration that completely restores the human body. Jupiter asks Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) why they have to harvest living populations, why they can’t just use clones. Kalique replies that clone cells are not plastic enough and don’t work well for the process. This is scientifically opposite of what has been shown in modern stem cell research, which indicates personalized cells are better than foreign ones. As such, wouldn’t a clone of someone make more effective RegeneX than the cells of someone else?

Biederman continues that point, saying “I understand that this society does not value human life the same way that we do. But it seems to me that culturing personalized cells would be much more effective, and likely efficient, than raising up entire planets. I also don’t understand why the cells of a random human would be more effective than an identical clone of the intended person.”