It came to my curiosity when Looper had this article by Julia Bianco titled The Real Reason Valerian Flopped At The Box Office that was in my Facebook feed. You can find the same information told virtually verbatim on Looper's YouTube video here, by a guy with an Australian accent. However, what made me decide to take a trip to the local movie theater to see for myself if the movie is really as much of a flop as articulated came more from Alachi Queen's more raunchy review, where her main argument was that the story of Valerian: The City of a Thousand Planets was that the story was 'stupid', 'ridiculous', and a 'terrible movie'. Why? Because the story was based around Valerian and Laureline, which is a typical love story between an alpha male and a strong woman that keeps rejecting the man's courting until the end. She claims that she can't buy into the story because human beings hadn't progressed to the intelligence she would have expected. Never mind that Alachi Queen herself doesn't show a lot of intellect in her arguments, not to mention something of a naiveté about human progress with regards to her notion that human leaders will evolve into some pure nobility without personal motives. I'm not sure what universe she expects this in, nor how she can have no problem overlooking all the rest of the aliens that have their personal motives and not see how hypocritical her critique is. Regardless, none of this persuades me to believe that Valerian is a flop, beyond what people expect as per monetary commercial success.
The issue behind the source, for one, makes me more interested in seeing the movie. As Looper notes, the movie is based on Valerian et Laureline. However, I don't understand why Looper/Julia Bianco seem to dismiss it as just a comic strip, and not at least grant more detail, as Wikipedia did, including the artists who created the story, writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières, as well as the first publication, Pilote, a French comic magazine published from 1959 to 1989 that showcased major French and Belgian comic art and story talents during its era of circulation. Looper/Julia Bianco at least noted that the Valerian series influenced Star Wars, and briefly acknowledge how it influenced other science fiction franchises, omitting writer Luc Besson's own movie from 1997, The Fifth Element. One also has to wonder why they downplay that Valerian is a landmark franchise in European comics and pop culture and influenced until you read in the Looper article (or hear the verbatim of it in the YouTube video) about how "in the United States, the comic never really found the audience that it did on the other side of the Atlantic," and "[n]on-franchise and non-sequel films without much name recognition can struggle at the box office." In other words, the big picture for success and failure of movies in the US is not based on originality or compelling legacy source material that influenced big name science fiction movies, but whether the franchise can be turned into sequels and if it already has popularity in the United States. Alachia Queen doesn't seem to argue about this, and seems to be oblivious to the original source material, which is apparent in her lack of understanding why the main story is what it is. If anything, she shows the particular expectations she has about what she thinks would be human progress in 400 years. I'm not really sure why she expects this when one of her first things to note about the concept of the first ten minutes us some mention of her husband was supposedly masturbating while enjoying the big idea around the future of the International Space Station being made into an Intergalactic, Inter-species city-planet. Just on that alone do I question the intellect of the critique, especially when she is trying to talk about the movie with a false pretense of intellect that can only resort to mind in the gutter humor.
I'm not going to make this all about trying to debunk the two critiques of the movie mentioned, as they were examples of the sort of thing that made me decide to go check out the movie. For one, I love a nice love story, and one that keeps in the PG-13 rating. It's supposed to follow a traditional trope because it is following the source material that influenced major space operas and science fiction movies like Star Wars and The Fifth Element. If you look closely, you'll see some of the elements that made it into those movies, such as the spaceship that Valerian and Laureline travel around the universe in that looks very similar to the Milennium Falcon. Then there is a silly reference to the source material itself, when Valerian is in a part of the city of Alpha and is confronted by a woman that speaks French, and says to her, "Sorry, I don't speak French." Obscure, but it is a humorous irony that you can appreciate if you understand where it's coming from. Admittedly, I do agree that Dane DeHaan sounds a lot like Keanu Reeves, but, since I liked Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, and even his earlier work of Bill and Ted, this is no problem for me. Keanu Reeves, in his own right, helped form the trope that DeHaan is playing, so it's not that terrible to me. Plus, I love movies from the 80's and 90's, and find, really, that the modern YouTube critics, other than maybe Cinema Sins, are really the ones that are terrible and not worth listening to. To that, I'm glad I didn't listen to the critics, and instead gave the movie a chance. It is actually a pretty awesome space opera, and, considering its source material, could become a cult classic in its own right. So, all I ask is, if you're tired of all the big, dramatic, commercially successful movies, or even if you are not, to consider giving Valerian: The City of a Thousand Planets a chance and go watch it. If you are not a jaded YouTube critic who hates 80's and 90's movies, but rather loves them, including The Fifth Element, then you are likely to love this movie. So go see it! 😉
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