Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) (1 Viewer)

[dpippel]

Yep, it's all about the money, which makes it amazing to me that a film like Arrival even got funded.

 

[AshJW]

I'm afraid too that this will flop. But at the same time I'm pretty sure that I will like this movie. And this is no contradiction.

 

[DavidMiller]

It's budget was $219M. I would imagine world wide it should easily clear that. International viewers seem to still like movies that are just popcorn flicks (i.e. Fate of the Furious). I believe that the graphic novel has a pretty big European following as well.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think between Luc Besson's international appeal and the pretty (if common) visuals, it should do ok worldwide.

But domestically, I don't think it has a chance. American audiences have rejected Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne before, and there's no reason to see why the material here would change that perception.

 

[Tino]

Less than $50 million domestic I say.

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

I was going to go and see it, but I skipped it when the reviews were almost universally negative. I'll rent it and see if it is really as bad as everyone says it is. Sometimes, I feel people pile on to a film because everyone else is doing it.

If films that at least try to do something original (such as this one) keep flopping then people should stop bitching about Hollywood's lack of originality in producing endless retreads and sequels. I don't care how bad this flick MIGHT turn out. At least it is not the umpteenth remake of Ben-Hur or an unneeded sequel like Blade Runner 2049.

Edit: Fixed typo caused by auto-correct. Can't figure why this thing would replace Ben-Hur with Ben Gurion.

Well, I respect tries to do originality, and when it's done well, like Cloud Atlas, I love it, but Jupiter Ascending was nothing original, it was an complete catastrophe of unoriginality badly executed, surprisingly enough, considering who did it, and considering Cloud Atlas.
Makes me wonder if they just got lucky with Cloud Atlas, since much of their other work after all is not so great, or original.
But I digress, and will probably see Valerian, after all, I rewatched Fifth Element the other week, and it's a fun, although juvenile and stupid, ride.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

By original, I mean it is its own property. It isn't a prequel, sequel, remake, or reboot. Whether all of those films you mentioned share elements that make them look the same to you doesn't make them any less original in that they have original characters and settings.

The fact that film makers lean heavily toward action-adventure Sci-Fi, rather than cerebral SF is just due to the visual nature of the medium, and the fact that, historically, those types of films will outperform "brainy" SF.

I'm not sure that I would consider a movie based on a long-running comic book series to be "trying to do something original."

That said, the movie looks fun and its source material doesn't matter to me.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Makes me wonder if they just got lucky with Cloud Atlas, since much of their other work after all is not so great, or original.

Was Jupiter Ascending based on another property, or was it the Wachowskis' original story? Cloud Atlas was a pretty faithful rendition of someone else's novel.

 

[Tino]

Loved Cloud Atlas by the way.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Well, I respect tries to do originality, and when it's done well, like Cloud Atlas, I love it

I didn't dislike Cloud Atlas, but I think you might be overestimating it's originalness. And, at the least, it was adapted from a book rather than being an original creation, which Jupiter Ascending was. So Cloud Atlas might have played as a better movie for you because it was based on a source material which was more literary, instead of being a crazy idea pulled out of thin air (which Jupiter Ascending seems like).

To quote Edwin (sorry couldn't get the proper "quote" function to properly quote this):

By original, I mean it is its own property. It isn't a prequel, sequel, remake, or reboot.

I'm less interested in those distinctions these days. And something like this movie might be a good example of why. By a lot of people's estimation, it would be considered "original" because it's new to the screen, even if it's based on a comic book. But the next Thor movie will somehow be "unoriginal" because it's based on a comic book character who has had other adventures told onscreen. I saw the trailers to both back to back last time I was at the movies. Valerian looks like it takes a bunch of visuals and concepts I've seen, from movies I enjoyed and movies I didn't, and put them in a blender to produce a slightly different mix. Thor 3 looks like it takes a character I enjoy, and puts him in a setting that I've never seen before. Why does one of those ideas have merit, and one of them doesn't?

Put it another way: Valerian looks like it's entire reason for being is that other spectacles have grossed a billion dollars, and the European studio behind this wanted their comic book money too, so they cynically picked a title that had all of the things that, on paper at least, made other comic book movies successful. It doesn't seem to be a passion project for anyone involved. I don't see the internet lighting up with excitement for it, I don't see fans of the comic book sharing buzz for finally getting to see their favorite story on the big screen, I don't see the actors being inundated with questions about their participation.

On the other hand, I see in Thor 3 the culmination of an idea that the Marvel Studios people had a long time ago, which was to try to make films that emulated what people loved about their comics. People who loved their comics loved the characters, and loved that what they read last week, month or year related to what was coming next week. Those audiences were somewhat disappointed with years of films, prior to Marvel Studios, where one film had little to do with the next, where there was never any character development or growth, and that it seemed all about making a one-off spectacle than telling a story in the same format the comics did: over time, developing characters and stories in multiple installments. This is why people loved Marvel comic books. So when Marvel started making movies themselves, they made this a key component to their filmmaking style.

Anyhow, I just don't see how Valerian is somehow more artistically pure or whatever because it's not a sequel. If the studio had its way, it would be successful enough to spawn a series of its own.

 

[DavidMiller]

Anyhow, I just don't see how Valerian is somehow more artistically pure or whatever because it's not a sequel. If the studio had its way, it would be successful enough to spawn a series of its own.

I totally believe that was their mission. I see some excitement around this on the UK home theater groups I'm part of on Facebook. I do not see a lot of talk about it at all in the US home theater groups.

 

[Mikael Soderholm]

I didn't dislike Cloud Atlas, but I think you might be overestimating it's originalness. And, at the least, it was adapted from a book rather than being an original creation, which Jupiter Ascending was. So Cloud Atlas might have played as a better movie for you because it was based on a source material which was more literary, instead of being a crazy idea pulled out of thin air (which Jupiter Ascending seems like).

To quote Edwin (sorry couldn't get the proper "quote" function to properly quote this):


I'm less interested in those distinctions these days. And something like this movie might be a good example of why. By a lot of people's estimation, it would be considered "original" because it's new to the screen, even if it's based on a comic book. But the next Thor movie will somehow be "unoriginal" because it's based on a comic book character who has had other adventures told onscreen. I saw the trailers to both back to back last time I was at the movies. Valerian looks like it takes a bunch of visuals and concepts I've seen, from movies I enjoyed and movies I didn't, and put them in a blender to produce a slightly different mix. Thor 3 looks like it takes a character I enjoy, and puts him in a setting that I've never seen before. Why does one of those ideas have merit, and one of them doesn't?

Put it another way: Valerian looks like it's entire reason for being is that other spectacles have grossed a billion dollars, and the European studio behind this wanted their comic book money too, so they cynically picked a title that had all of the things that, on paper at least, made other comic book movies successful. It doesn't seem to be a passion project for anyone involved. I don't see the internet lighting up with excitement for it, I don't see fans of the comic book sharing buzz for finally getting to see their favorite story on the big screen, I don't see the actors being inundated with questions about their participation.

On the other hand, I see in Thor 3 the culmination of an idea that the Marvel Studios people had a long time ago, which was to try to make films that emulated what people loved about their comics. People who loved their comics loved the characters, and loved that what they read last week, month or year related to what was coming next week. Those audiences were somewhat disappointed with years of films, prior to Marvel Studios, where one film had little to do with the next, where there was never any character development or growth, and that it seemed all about making a one-off spectacle than telling a story in the same format the comics did: over time, developing characters and stories in multiple installments. This is why people loved Marvel comic books. So when Marvel started making movies themselves, they made this a key component to their filmmaking style.

Anyhow, I just don't see how Valerian is somehow more artistically pure or whatever because it's not a sequel. If the studio had its way, it would be successful enough to spawn a series of its own.

I understand your point re the Marvel movies, although I personally find them boring, but I respect the idea you describe, although it doesn't work for me
.
Although Cloud Atlas was based on a book, also original, the scope of the movie, and the way it executed the book in a different way, using the actors the way it did, was quite original, while Jupiter was, like you wrote, 'pulled out of thin air', a light remix of well-known SF themes with a large dose of cool-looking CGI.
IMHO, there is no comparison between these two movies, but YMMV.
Valerian seems coser to Jupiter, unfortunately, for exactly the reasons you described.

But I'm hoping ...

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm not sure that I would consider a movie based on a long-running comic book series to be "trying to do something original."

That said, the movie looks fun and its source material doesn't matter to me.

Like I said, by original I mean it is a property that has not been made into a film before. Are we really going to be splitting hairs that the film is not original because it is based on a comic series? Would you say that the film "Cloud Atlas" isn't an original film because it is based on a book?

Or does a film only become unoriginal when it's progenitor is a series of comic books?

 

[Edwin-S]

I started watching "Cloud Atlas" and shut it off after twenty minutes. I was intending to finish watching it, but I never did due to lack of interest. I don't make a habit of shutting films off in the middle so, in my case, CA wasn't interesting enough to spend any more time on it.

I mean, I didn't really care for La La Land, but I did manage to finish it. That demonstrates how little CA had in it to keep me interested. So one person's masterpiece is another person's dog.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Would you say that the film "Cloud Atlas" isn't an original film because it is based on a book?

I wouldn't define that as original, yes. I kinda go with the reasoning the Academy takes on when it distinguishes between Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

If a film is based on a previously published or produced idea, whether that idea is a poem, short story, novel, newspaper article, comic book, play, radio show, television series or some other medium, I'd consider it to be an adaptation and therefore not original. That's not to suggest that "not original" automatically means "without merit"; many of my favorite movies are based on existing works.

I would only define an original film as one based on an idea which had not been previously produced, i.e. an original screenplay.

That might be a more limited definition than some people go with, but it works pretty well for me.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Like I said, by original I mean it is a property that has not been made into a film before. Are we really going to be splitting hairs that the film is not original because it is based on a comic series? Would you say that the film "Cloud Atlas" isn't an original film because it is based on a book?

Or does a film only become unoriginal when it's progenitor is a series of comic books?

Yes, I would say that Cloud Atlas is not an original film, for exactly that reason.

I started watching "Cloud Atlas" and shut it off after twenty minutes. I was intending to finish watching it, but I never did due to lack of interest. I don't make a habit of shutting films off in the middle so, in my case, CA wasn't interesting enough to spend any more time on it.

I mean, I didn't really care for La La Land, but I did manage to finish it. That demonstrates how little CA had in it to keep me interested. So one person's masterpiece is another person's dog.

I really enjoyed Cloud Atlas, but I had read the book and understood what was going on. The people I watched it with were a little lost.

Note that the filmmakers made an odd choice to re-arrange the stories in a very non-linear way. The book uses an unusual boomerang-linear structure along the lines of: A B C D E D' C' B' A', where A, B, C, and D are the first halves of the stories in chronological order, and the primes are the second halves of the corresponding stories in reverse chronological order. E is the chronologically latest story, which is not split in half.

It was confusing at first, but once I realized what was going on, it wasn't hard to follow. The movie was more jumbled.

 

[dpippel]

The final trailer was released today:

 

[AshJW]

Can't wait!

 

[Chris Will]

No IMAX for this, that's too bad.

 

[Tino]

Ooof.