Valerian And The City Of A Thousand: Planets - E...

Both films utilize vibrant, imaginative designs, eccentric costumes, and a blend of high-stakes action with quirky humor.

Before Star Wars , before Dune , there was Valérian and Laureline . Created by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières in 1967, the comic series ran for over four decades, influencing virtually every sci-fi creator who came after it. George Lucas has openly cited Mézières’s designs—specifically the bustling city-planets and worn-down spaceports—as direct inspirations for the Star Wars universe.

The narrative follows Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne), two operatives of the human government. They are a classic bickering-couple duo: Valerian is a charming but cocky womanizer desperate to marry Laureline, while Laureline is pragmatic, sharp, and perpetually annoyed by his advances.

Besson’s genius in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is how he introduces Alpha. The opening sequence, set to David Bowie’s Space Oddity , shows the station growing from a small module to a massive organism through a montage of diplomatic handshakes and dockings. There are no words of exposition; it is pure visual storytelling. We see a pearl-diving alien race (the Pearls of Mul) visit humanity, and we watch as the station accretes species like a coral reef. By the time the title card appears, the audience understands exactly what Alpha is: a fragile miracle of multicultural coexistence on the brink of collapse.

If you want to dive deeper into the lore of this cinematic universe, let me know: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - E...

The write-up on the "Environment" is crucial because Alpha is the film’s true protagonist. We traverse:

It eschews the safe, formulaic structures of many superhero movies in favor of weird, whimsical, and often risky storytelling choices. A Legacy of Ambition

: The first alien species to integrate into Alpha, known for their distinct abstract physiology. 💼 Economic Ambition and the Box Office Gamble

The box office performance of Valerian was nothing short of catastrophic. Opening in the United States on July 21, 2017, it was expected to be a summer blockbuster. Instead, it earned a paltry , placing it in fifth place for the week. It debuted behind the World War II epic Dunkirk , a film from a competing studio that went on to dominate the box office. Besson’s genius in Valerian and the City of

Developed based on the title provided.

The film’s tone was also a major issue. Besson tried to blend the bright, colorful weirdness of his European sensibilities with the epic, serious stakes of a space opera. The result was often jarring. The sexual politics felt dated and uncomfortable, and the script‘s attempts at witty banter fell flat. It was a film caught between being a campy throwback and a modern blockbuster, failing to satisfy fans of either approach.

With a staggering budget of nearly $200 million, Valerian stands as one of the most expensive independent films ever made. The investment is fully visible on screen, handled by top-tier VFX houses including Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Weta Digital, and Rodeo FX. The Big Market Sequence

You require tight pacing, believable romance, or gritty realism in your space adventures. and uninhibitedly creative universe.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets opened in July 2017, directly against Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk . It earned only $225 million worldwide against a $180 million budget (plus marketing), making it a significant box office bomb. American audiences rejected it, but it performed well in China ($60 million) and France (Besson’s home country).

Dane DeHaan (Valerian) and Cara Delevingne (Laureline).

Despite its narrative flaws, the film is widely considered a cult masterpiece for pure world-building. It rejects the dark, gritty, and utilitarian aesthetic of modern sci-fi in favor of a bright, optimistic, and uninhibitedly creative universe.