Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets: all the trailers and commentary from Luc Besson’s sci-fi flick – The Verge

The French comics behind Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets imagine a messy, exciting future

2017-08-01T11:53:17-04:00

Luc Besson's latest film, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, is clearly the culmination of a long-simmering passion. Besson has talked at length about how the comics that served as his source material were among his only avenues of entertainment in childhood, and how he became addicted to them, even though they were only released at the rate of two pages a week. While his movie adaptation stumbles over characters and plot, it does excel at capturing the look and feel of the world created in those French comics.

Valérian et Laureline was created by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières. The pair grew up together, a …

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Before Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was an outrageous movie, it was an odd, ambitious anime

2017-07-27T14:42:12-04:00

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the latest sci-fi epic from Luc Besson, had far more humble beginnings than the silver screen. It started out as a series of French comics called Valérian and Laureline that launched in 1967 and wrapped in 2010.

Besson has talked at length about his love for the series, especially its heroine Laureline, and it inspired some of his 1990s hit The Fifth Element. In the comics, Valerian and Laureline are "spatio-temporal" agents who travel through time and space solving problems, like the title character on Doctor Who. Unlike her Cara Delevingne live-action counterpart, the comic version of Laureline …

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is the perfect spiritual successor to The Fifth Element

2017-07-27T11:00:22-04:00

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets' arrival in theaters, the same year as The Fifth Element's 20th anniversary, feels like cosmic karma. Luc Besson directed both films, and his late-1990s cult classic has a lot in common with the new celebration of his favorite childhood comic. Both are colorful takes on a science fiction future filled with fantastical creatures and brawling heroes.

Besson has said he will never make a Fifth Element sequel, and there's a lot to be grateful for there. It's hard to imagine that the original film's charming kitsch would translate well on modern screens. Bruce Willis plays a retired special forces sold …

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Valerian is the ultimate argument in favor of CGI

2017-07-26T15:53:40-04:00

The most thrilling scene in Luc Besson's stupefyingly ambitious new science fiction opus Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets takes place inside a giant metaphor. Protagonists Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) have been tasked with retrieving a McGuffin from an alien junk dealer whose storefront happens to be located in an alternate dimension. Through the use of virtual reality-style gear and miniportals resembling old-school boomboxes, they're able to reach through the membrane of reality and into the world layered on top of their own. The ensuing chase straddles the line between thrilling and silly, cross-cuttin …

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How close are we to building the virtual Big Market from Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets?

2017-07-26T11:12:51-04:00

In Luc Besson's science-fiction fantasy Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, one of the major action sequences takes place in a space called the Big Market. It's a sort of hyperdimensional mall where tourists show up in busses to strap on VR gear and wander around in a desert, while virtually experiencing a promised 1 million shops. Valerian's Big Market has some technology that we aren't likely to achieve anytime soon. It isn't just virtual reality: the stores exist in a different dimension, and shoppers can access their purchases instantly by yanking them through a dimensional portal at the checkout stand. But apart from instant de …

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Director Luc Besson on designing his wild space opera Valerian, and why he’s tired of superhero movies

2017-07-20T13:06:10-04:00

Luc Besson is in a hotel room in Beverly Hills, looking at pictures of frogs, and he can't stop giggling.

The French filmmaker behind movies like The Professional and The Fifth Element is explaining the creative process behind his new film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. It's a visually stunning space opera that brings the classic French graphic novel Valérian and Laureline to life with Besson's usual stylistic flair. And when it comes to some of the movie's dozens of creatures and alien races, the inspiration lies in the photos he's scrolling through on his iPhone, including a bird with a rainbow spray of plumage, and a frog w …

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Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a fan project, in the best and worst ways

2017-07-20T08:09:25-04:00

Writer-director Luc Besson encapsulates the soul of his latest movie, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, in its first three scenes. The film opens on a sweeping, centuries-long history of Alpha, a space station that's grown from a near-present-day base into a chaotic floating city. Then the story jumps to an extensive sequence on a bright paradise planet of willowy, iridescent humanoids, about to suffer a cataclysmic fate. The forgettable title character only comes in after all this is over, and he's introduced almost grudgingly. From the start, Besson's priorities are clear: he loves this vast, complicated future world much more t …

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39 science fiction, fantasy, and horror books to read this June

2017-06-01T11:16:03-04:00

I have a confession to make: I like books. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's followed this monthly list, but I don't mean just reading them. I'm fascinated by the form of a book, the book as a technology, and an object that's changed how we transmit information from one person to another.

Recently, I came across a really interesting book put out by the Library of Congress: The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures. It's a history of the card catalog, and it proves to be a really interesting look at not only the system itself, but also the history of public libraries in America. Plus, there are lots of really gorgeous …

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Watch the new trailer for Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

2017-03-29T09:42:22-04:00

Europa has released the first full trailer for Luc Besson's upcoming science fiction film, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, showing off more of the movie's wild sci-fi world.

We got our first look at the film back in November with a dazzling teaser trailer that introduces the two main characters, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne). This new trailer shows off more of the story, revealing that the duo is sent to Alpha - the titular "City of a Thousand Planets" - to help save the city from an unknown threat that could destroy it.

Like the teaser, the trailer portrays a film that looks very much like it's in the …

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The first trailer for Luc Besson’s Valerian promises a dazzling space opera romp

2016-11-10T10:51:16-05:00

A teaser trailer for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets has arrived, and it looks as though it'll be 2017's most amazing-looking thrill ride through space.

Based on a series of French graphic novels Valérian and Laureline, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is the latest film from Luc Besson, who's best known for The Fifth Element and Lucy. The film will follow Valerian and Laureline, a pair of government operatives who are sent to the city of Alpha on a mission that will help save the human race.

Set to the Beatles' "Because," we're treated to a montage of busy and fantastic scenes. There's spaceships approaching bustlin …

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