Mr Night Praising Space Capitalism, or Mr Night Being Passive-Aggressive With Jupiter
(Jupiter doesn't want to see any of this but something catches her eye, something soft amidst the hard lines of industry: human bodies, their skin white, brown and black, piled like mounds of coal waiting to be refined.)
“Impressive, isn't it? But this is just the Skim. A triflecompared to Harvest, when your entire planet will look like this.”
(The bodies are bulldozed onto grav-ways that feed into the glowing interiors of the refinery.)
“I find it amusing to think that you were born like them, just another piece of stock, and now here you are, a certified stock holder.”
(The ship arcs towards Balem’s citadel. Jupiter looks back for the Aegis.)
“I don’t see the Aegis. Where are they?”
“They’ll be along in good time. All in good time.”
(This snippet is from a deleted scene that comes just after Greeghan pilots the ship through the eye of Jupiter, with the eye being closed immediately afterwards to shut the Aegis out. It explains why there is concept art by Allen Wei (pictured) depicting piles of bodies waiting to be refined. Earlier posts on the script/call sheets can be found here (call-sheet trivia), here (deleted scene - Balem proposes that Jupiter rule the Verse with him) and here (background).)
This is yet another deleted scene, and this one is either amusing or horrifying depending on how dark your sense of humour is. I find it LOL-worthy because it takes the grand Jupiter Ascending tradition of taking pride in global genocide to the next level. The script doesn't go into much detail about Jupiter’s responses, but that’s probably because they would have left it up to Mila to convey Jupiter’s horror through expressions/line delivery, etc.
And Mr Night is totally being a passive-aggressive little rat here. That’s certainly not how you should talk to an entitled, but he’s past caring. And probably still a bit drunk.
I doubt this was actually filmed, since the ship that Greeghan pilots in the film doesn't have windows to the rear that Jupiter could look out of. They may have cut it for budget reasons, since rendering huge piles of dead bodies being processed would have come with a hefty price tag.
In the script, you very much get the impression that Jupiter is being taken to Balem like a lamb being taken to the slaughter - her helplessness and weariness with her experiences are accentuated far more than they are in the finished film, which adds a more sinister air to proceedings. I think I prefer how things played out in the film since Jupiter comes across as a stronger character, though I do wish they’d kept Jupiter seeing the mountains of bodies - it would have made the horrific nature of the refinery clearer and further underlined how monstrous harvesting is.
What are your thoughts on this little snippet?
