Author Topic: Valerian- The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)  (Read 1157 times)

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Neumatic

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Re: Valerian- The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)
« Reply #15 on: September 17, 2017, 07:42:44 pm »
"Ground Control to Major Tom."


I love this, feels very Star Trek (in fact, it reminds me of the opening theme from Enterprise, though I love the inclusion of Bowie).

Neumatic

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Re: Valerian- The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)
« Reply #16 on: December 10, 2017, 12:45:46 am »
Finally finished this up, and my initial assessment was right: total parts movie.  And you know what?  Not even that many parts.  I barely drew or made notes watching this movie.  I wasn't that inspired by it.  I got a couple GIFs out of it, though.

I don't know if I would watch the whole thing again, but there are big setpieces I liked, particularly the clever Big Mart sequence at the start.  Also love the "Space Oddity" title sequence I posted earlier, but in the movie it's covered in credits, combine that with the dates (which... why even include those?)... it just looks messy with all that text.

The effects are absolutely fantastic, especially with the pearls, and I love how detailed and busy the locales are.  The Bg Mart is visually clever, the whole market exists in another dimension so you need these goggles, but it means that we'll cut from one reality to another to see Valerian just run around a wide open desert.  And we get John Goodman as a big ugly alien.

What kind of sucks is that it feels like all the weirdness of the movie is there.  And that's a big thing for me and I think a lot of the audience, this was touted (rightly or not) as the second Fifth Element, and that movie had weirdness, catchy characters and humour coming out the ears.  This didn't.  Maybe it was because Besson was protective about someone else's IP, but the characters were lacking character.  Remember Korben Dallas?  He was in love with Leeloo, but he didn't want to save the world and he didn't enjoy his cab driving job, he was always being bothered by his mother, he's trying to quit smoking... there's a lot going on there.  Leeloo is curious, constantly learning, wanders around like a cat, but also has a funny sense of humour.  Ian Holm's character (I'm blanking on his name) was a wise priest but he was also a nervous wreck, he was clumsy and forgetful, easily intimidated... you see where I'm going with this?  Valerian was lacking all of that, the characters were just their functions.

Lemme riff a little on this.  Valerian is in love with Laureline, who points out that he's had a TON of girlfriends.  Even though he's trying to propose to her the whole movie (why?), seeing him still be girl crazy and trying to stop himself, or maybe trying to make reparations to his exes, or not being able to stop asking people for advice.  Laureline in the books is from the middle ages, where the hell was that?  That would have been a GREAT wrinkle to bring into things, why not have this be their first adventure?  How about Alex the computer having a personality, maybe condescending or dry or something since they keep having to talk to her?  Without spoiling Clive Owen's character, he was a military guy in a war and now he's in charge of the station, maybe he's got some anger management issues or something?
« Last Edit: December 10, 2017, 12:48:01 am by Neumatic »

 

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