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

The emotional and structural anchor of the film is Alpha, the titular "City of a Thousand Planets." The film’s brilliant opening sequence, set to David Bowie’s "Space Oddity," chronicles the real-world history of the International Space Station. Over centuries, human astronauts welcome increasingly bizarre alien species, docking new modules to the station until it becomes too massive for Earth's orbit. Pushed into deep space, Alpha evolves into a floating metropolis of 30 million inhabitants.

Alpha is the titular "City of a Thousand Planets." It started centuries prior as the International Space Station (ISS) in Earth's orbit. Over generations, thousands of different alien species connected their own vessels and habitats to the structure, creating an ever-expanding, floating metropolis where millions of creatures from all corners of the cosmos share their knowledge, cultures, and technologies. Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - E...

Turn off your critical brain, turn your HDR brightness to maximum, and dive into Alpha. Just don't expect the romance to work. The emotional and structural anchor of the film

Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) is a cinematic paradox: a film of breathtaking imagination and frustrating execution. Based on the French comic series Valérian and Laureline by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières—a work that directly inspired Star Wars —the film arrived with a legacy of influential source material and a $180 million budget. While it delivers an unparalleled sensory feast of world-building and visual effects, it ultimately stumbles over its lead characters and dialogue. This essay argues that Valerian is best understood as a landmark of production design and conceptual art, yet a cautionary tale about the irreplaceable need for emotional authenticity and charismatic casting in science fiction. Alpha is the titular "City of a Thousand Planets

Besson chose a pair of young, unconventional leads to embody his space-faring heroes. (known for his roles in Chronicle and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ) was cast as Major Valerian , a skilled, cocky, and somewhat womanizing operative. Model and actress Cara Delevingne was cast as Sergeant Laureline , Valerian’s more pragmatic and competent partner. The supporting cast was a star-studded affair, featuring Clive Owen as Commander Arun Filitt, Rihanna in a memorable cameo as the shape-shifting dancer Bubble, Ethan Hawke as her pimp, Jolly the Pimp, and even a cameo from musician Herbie Hancock.

The film performed marginally better internationally, particularly in China, where it brought in a modest $29 million. However, these numbers were nowhere near enough to save the film. The total worldwide gross ended at approximately . With a production budget of $180 million and a marketing budget of roughly $60 million, the film needed to gross somewhere in the region of $400 million to break even. It fell nearly $200 million short of that target.