Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

[PerrySimm]

I'm a bit compelled now to try and find these comics Besson was so excited about.

Offhand I'd say Delevingne and even Rihanna were fine. DeHaan, well, maybe it was the script, maybe it's the role, but he's not exactly rocking the full Mark Meer level of presence.

[GandALF]

Well I haven't read all or even most of them but the premise was that the two were time police protecting the Terran galactic empire (sort of like crewman Daniels). The first book rather amusingly takes place in the distant future of 1986 where New York has been flooded because someone nuked the north pole. The other books, like Empire of a Thousand Planets, are more of a space operatic. The film appears to have ditched the time travel stuff and seems to be pure space opera.

[Karha of Honor]

Well I haven't read all or even most of them but the premise was that the two were time police protecting the Terran galactic empire (sort of like crewman Daniels). The first book rather amusingly takes place in the distant future of 1986 where New York has been flooded because someone nuked the north pole. The other books, like Empire of a Thousand Planets, are more of a space operatic. The film appears to have ditched the time travel stuff and seems to be pure space opera.

Really? I hated the Time Travel stuff in the animated series.

[Steve]

It was a visually stunning movie and the kind of thing that gives hope to making some truly spectacular SF works. And it has some brilliant ideas (the market/bazaar in another dimensional plane). Unfortunately the writers made a total hash of the characters. And they killed off one of the few truly interesting ones.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, this film's biggest problem (and it had many), besides the grating sexism anyway, was the fact that Valerian himself was an utterly unlikeable (and cliche) douchebag, and not terribly well-acted. So we're expected to spend two hours giving a damn about an utterly unlikeable character.

Sure, he's supposed to have gotten better at the end, but it was too little, too late

[MissKittyFantastico]

I'm really conflicted about this. On the one hand, all the problems people are talking about... yep, they're problems. Worst sin by a mile is Dane DeHaan just not having the charismatic cocky swagger to carry off his role a la Han Solo, where you forgive that he's kind of an asshole because he's just that much fun. That, and I didn't feel the chemistry between him and Delevigne - the were some sparks, but not the firecrackers going off whenever they looked at each other that I think there needed to be.

On the other hand, I loved it wholeheartedly - even DeHaan, in my fantasy-world where the French government steps in and funds Besson to keep making sequels for as long as it takes for the rest of the world to admit this is awesome, I want DeHaan to be Valerian. As much as he seemed wrong for the role, I kind of felt what I suppose Besson must've felt, that yes, this is the guy. Can't put my finger on why, just one of those things. And I basically spent the whole movie with a huge grin on my face at the sheer nutty space opera spectacle of it all, like it'd come from some bizarre lovechild of Flash Gordon and Cave Johnson ("Sci-fi isn't about 'why', it's about why not?!"), which when I consider the French sci-fi comics I've read (not Valerian & Laureline, although I'll be down at the bookstore fixing that soon, but others), yep, spot on. I want movies like this for miles. Seriously, we need a United Nations resolution that if Paramount's going to keep making Transformers movies, they have to fund Besson to make a new Valerian each time as reparations.

[raiken_]

I'd welcome another crack at it.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, good for you if you enjoyed this film, but I don't see the appeal. Even the much-vaunted visuals were nothing that special to me. Okay, their were some mildly nifty ideas (not necessarily terribly well-executed as a rule), but nothing better than I've seen in other, overall superior SF works. Maybe the source material could have made a good film with different direction/writing, I wouldn't know. But I'm not seeing anything special here.

Their were a few points I liked though, particularly the commander character (the non-evil one). Usually, in these kinds of films, you have the authorities are portrayed as just corrupt or incompetent, so that our rebel heroes can solve everything by going rogue. Which irks me both because its an overdone cliche at this point, and because it has a latent (and sometimes overt) anti-law and pro-vigilante message. So seeing an authority figure trying to work mostly inside the rules, who was still a basically decent man trying to do a good job, in a film like this, was a refreshing change.

Edit: At the same time, I did appreciate them skewering the "just following orders" excuse. As much as I tend to prefer rule of law in principle, their are lines a decent person just shouldn't cross, or try to hand wave away.