The Final Final (?) ‘Valerian’ Trailer

VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS Photo courtesy of STX Films and Europacorp

This weekend at Baycon in San Mateo, Ric Bretschneider and I will be on a panel about other cinematic universes from comics, and here’s Exhibit A, conveniently dropping a new trailer. Opening July 21st, Valerian looks eye-popping, and as I’ve noted before, its source French graphic albums from the 1960s went a long way toward influencing George Lucas on a little thing called Star Wars and director Luc Besson’s own The Fifth Element.

The trailer is now calling it Luc Besson’s Valerian, which I get, but I think is a little unfair. Maybe it flows a little better and has higher name recognition than Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres. I also wouldn’t be surprised if by about July 1, all marketing just calls it Valerian, instead of its full title, [amazon text=Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets&asin=1849180873]Because we’re only going to remember the word Valerian.

There’s a lot of backstory to Valerian and Laureline, the two lead characters. In the graphic albums, they’re time travelers, and Laureline herself is an 11th Century peasant girl. Is there time for that much exposition when you have a city of a thousand planets to explore? We’ll see.

 

 

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About Derek McCaw 2502 Articles
In addition to running Fanboy Planet, Derek has written for ActionAce, Daily Radar, Once Upon A Dime, and The Wave. He has contributed stories to Arcana Comics (The Greatest American Hero) and Monsterverse Comics (Bela Lugosi's Tales from the Grave). He has performed with ComedySportz and Silicon Valley Shakespeare, though relocated to Hollywood to... work in an office? If you ever played Eric's Ultimate Solitaire on the Macintosh, it was Derek's voice as The Weasel that urged you to play longer. You can buy his book "I Was Flesh Gordon" on the Amazon link at the right. Email him at [email protected].