We sat down to watch this visual extravaganza of a movie from 2017, and to chat about what we liked about it. The movie didn’t receive much acclaim on its release, but there’s so attention paid to the world building that one can’t discount there is much to see and love about this space opera – yes, space opera. Who doesn’t love a good space opera?

The movie was based on a French graphic novel (Valerian and Laureline 1967-2010), and was directed by Luc Besson. If that name sounds familiar it’s because it should. He has also directed the cult classic The Fifth Element – I know you’ve seen it. On top of having visionary director and a whole lot of independent capital, the cast touts some big names like Ethan Hawke, Rianna, John Goodman, Clive Owen, Herbie Hancock (really?).

This movie tries to cover a whole lot of ground in a very short amount of time. The scope of world-building is momentous and the visuals are good enough that the movie pulls it off.

If you’re someone who watches this movie without any background on the original story, your expectations should be framed in that way. It’s still very enjoyable to watch, fast-paced, and written like a comic book. Don’t expect neatly polished narrative, academic exposition, or a spiritual deeper meaning. It’s fun, there is something interesting to look at every second of this movie, there’s not a bunch of gore or outright violence, and it can hold a kid’s attention.

Lots of visual touchstones that make the world look familiar and believable for people who have watched lots of scifi (Fifth Element, Roger Rabbit, Avatar, Return of the Jedi, Star Trek franchise, etc). You might even notice minor characters such as the Dogan Daguis are very much styled in a manner similar to the Ferengis of the Deep Space Nine series.

What’s Bat-shit Crazy

• Cute little armadillo guinea pigs that can poop pearls
• Valierian cannot stop proposing to his coworker.
• After thousands of years of peace in the Universe, agents Valerian and Lauraline have 10 hours to find the thing disturbing this peace.
• BIG MARKET!
• There’s a HUGE space station, Alpha, that’s a cultural melting pot in space.
• An entire planet and race are erased from historical records by a military officer.
• Ethan Hawke is Rhianna’s pimp (who ever thought that would be a sentence we would ever write?).
• Rhianna’s Glamopod dance
• Laureline contracts an ancient space captain and his space submarine to steal a jellyfish from the blowhole of a giant sea creature, then she puts her head into that jellyfish to retrieve some memories.
• A seemingly tribal race leaves their planet and learns sufficient technology to build their own spacecraft within a single generation.

Technology in This Movie

• Something like a Star Trek Holodeck
• Virtual playlists of former lovers
• Communicators
• BIG MARKET! AR/VR for the shoppers and for the soldiers (one of them “hacks” into one of the guards and controls it as part of their mission to recover the Mül converter)
• Mül converter
• Alpha space station
• Spider bots that can fit in your mouth
• “Evil” imperial robots

Looking for more voices in this conversation? The Verge has a great write up of this movie.

Things That Blew Us Away

Christen: In keeping with the recent Halloween holiday, the Smithsonian Magazine has a story about what might be the first depiction of a ghost, datin