Director Luc Besson, a lifelong fan of the source material, spent decades waiting for technology to catch up to his vision, citing James Cameron's Avatar as proof that such a complex world could be realized.
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[The Central Conflict] │ ├── Human Federation Mission: Retrieve a rare Mül Converter ├── Arrival at Alpha: The City of a Thousand Planets └── The Core Threat: A radioactive "dead zone" expanding in the city's center
Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) walks a razor’s edge between cinematic excess and imaginative bravura. It’s a film that refuses modesty — a cartoon of cosmic ambition, drenched in saturated color, kinetic editing, and relentless invention. For anyone who loves science fiction as a genre of wonder rather than merely ideology, Valerian is an essential, if imperfect, modern fable: an argument that cinema can still astonish when it chooses imagination over convenience.
The film’s pièce de résistance is the "Big Market" sequence. Here, Besson visualizes a concept that could only exist in cinema: a dimensional marketplace where tourists in a barren desert wear virtual reality headsets to shop in a bustling, futuristic bazaar existing in another dimension. The interplay between the tactile desert reality and the digital overlay creates a heist sequence that is innovative, confusing, and utterly exhilarating. It represents the peak of the film’s ambition: using CGI not just to blow things up, but to bend the rules of physics and perception. Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - E...
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets remains a polarizing masterpiece of visual design. It is a film that values the "wonder" of the unknown over the mechanics of a tight plot. By prioritizing the ecological and sociological complexity of its universe, Besson created a vibrant alternative to the monochrome aesthetics of modern sci-fi, ensuring the film's status as a cult classic for years to come.
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.
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Because is a film that prioritizes imagination over logic. In an era where sci-fi is often grey, gritty, and realistic (think Blade Runner 2049 or The Expanse ), Besson’s film is blindingly bright and unapologetically weird. Director Luc Besson, a lifelong fan of the
The film ends with Valerian and Laureline defying orders. They return the stolen converter to the Pearls, which regenerates their home planet’s core. Instead of punishing them, the Federation Commander thanks them, and the two agents request to be stationed on Alpha permanently. The final shot is the two of them walking into the depths of the city, ready for new adventures—a perfect setup for a sequel that will likely never happen.
as Commander Arün Filitt, a rigid military leader harboring dark secrets.
Luc Besson grew up reading these comics, harboring a lifelong dream of adapting them. However, technology had to catch up to his imagination. It wasn't until Besson witnessed the revolutionary digital visual effects of James Cameron's Avatar that he realized creating the mega-city of Alpha was finally possible. The Plot: A Race to Save Alpha
To understand the sheer scale of Valerian , one must understand its source material. Debuting in 1967, the Valérian and Laureline comic books fundamentally shaped modern science fiction, directly influencing iconic franchises like Star Wars and Besson’s own 1997 classic, The Fifth Element . For anyone who loves science fiction as a
Are you interested in a detailed comparison between the film and the original ? Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) - IMDb
The heart of the film is Alpha: the "City of a Thousand Planets." What began as the International Space Station in our near future gradually expanded over centuries as hundreds of alien species docked their own vessels and modules to it. Eventually becoming too massive for Earth's orbit, Alpha was pushed out into deep space. By the 28th century, it evolved into a sprawling, floating metropolis where thirty million inhabitants from thousands of different worlds share their knowledge, culture, and technologies. A Visual Masterpiece of World-Building
The film's casting also leans heavily into avant-garde pop culture. Rihanna steals the second act as Bubble, a shape-shifting alien entertainer trapped in a futuristic red-light district. Her performance—which transitions from a jaw-dropping, costume-fluid dance routine into a tragic story of an undocumented immigrant alien seeking freedom—serves as a microcosm for the film’s underlying themes of empathy and displacement. Alongside Ethan Hawke's manic performance as Jolly the Pimp, these character vignettes ensure that the universe feels deeply textured and unpredictable. The Legacy of Besson's Space Opera
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