In “Jupiter Ascending,” How Was Jupiter the Reincarnation of the Abrasax’s Mother?
In Jupiter Ascending (2015), Jupiter (Mila Kunis) wasn’t so much a reincarnation (which is defined as the rebirth of a soul into a new body) as she was a genetic recurrence. A genetic recurrence means Jupiter had the same genome as the matriarch of the Abrasax family, Seraphi. This would make Jupiter physically identical, but not the same person spiritually. Titus (Douglas Booth) and Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) seem to identify this definition, as they speak to Jupiter as her own person. Balem (Eddie Redmayne) is a little more detached from the concept, speaking to Jupiter as if she’s actually his mother, with all her memories and experiences. But he’s also exceptionally old, crazy, and murderous.
The probability of a genetic recurrence is not technically impossible, but for all intents and purposes as it applies to real life, is extraordinarily miniscule. The film skirts this mathematical improbability by telling us Seaphi was around 91,000 years old when she died, and the Abraxas family members are effectively immortal as long as they can avoid being killed and keep using their supply of RegeneX. In that amount of time, billions upon trillions of people would have been born and died on an undefined number of planets in the galaxy, making the astronomical impossibility of a genetic recurrence slightly more believable.