A new movie coming from Luc Besson in 2017 - not sure if it's going to be any good, but the visuals are impressive:

I think it will be safe to say that if you liked "The Fifth Element" you'll most likely enjoy this as well. I'll be seeing it!

Yes, it does have the same vibe, at least in this trailer.

Fifth Element is one of my all-time favourite Sci-Fi movies so I'll be checking this out for sure.

They changed the subtitle to "And the City of a Thousand Planets"... which is facepalm worthy if you had read the original comics "The Empire of a Thousand Planets". To avoid Star Wars comparisons? They would be right, you know (but in the opposite direction), but still sounds goofy to me. And they made Laureline a blond... right.

Hope they go with the comic's design of their spaceship, so people go - "They are copying STAR WARS!"

Anyway, based on the Valerian and Laureline series of French Sci-Fi comics. There are several issues over 40 or 50 years, I think. I must have read four or five over the years. Hard to come by when I was younger and never made the effort to find any more. They were good. I have forgotten all about them until I saw this. Maybe I'll try to read them again now.

The trailer looks very good.

Am I the only one who was expecting You Never Give Me Your Money to start playing next?

Kind of a weird choice for the trailer.




The Jedi Master

I really wanted to like that movie but it just didn't work for me.


Wheels

I'm in.

I'm just thankful it's not a reboot, but merely an adaption (and that'll be the closest we'll ever get to "original", I fear).

With Luc Besson, it's always difficult to predict whether the film will be a hit or miss. With the sheer volume of movies he's been chugging out it's understandable that not every one can be good.

It looks a little too heavy on action and special effects. What made Fifth Element great, and any story for that matter, was the characters, dialogue and how they interacted. I'm getting a little episode I - III vibe here...

I looooove Fifth Element... but I don't care for comics.

Trailers aren't going to focus on characters and dialogue. They're going to feature action and fx. I've seen some films where all the action was in the trailer and the rest was a talk-fest, because the marketers wanted people to go to see it.

You can't judge the balance of that on a trailer because it will always be intentionally slanted to appeal to the whizz-bang aspect.



The Jedi Master

After they took just of all Brad Pitt with blond (!) hair to just of all represent Achilles in "Troy", i have given up all hope on Hollywood.. and now they do it in France as well.

The sky is falling !

It is hard to use real filming instead of CGI, when it comes to Science Fiction...

These films did alright in my book without any CGI,


2001
Alien
Star Wars
Blade Runner
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Tron

^ Yes you are right, perhaps i should have said
"It is hard to use real filming instead of CGI, when it comes to Science Fiction nowadays",
to cope with the expectation of the recent cinema visitors.

But those you mentioned are all done very well. I guess nowadays it costs more to build a proper model and arrange it with the scenes, than to do it all on a computer (?)

It depends. The really good CGI that looks almost indistinguishable from something real is very expensive. The cheap looking CGI that you often see in SyFy Channel movies is cheaper than building physical sets and models.

Uh...TRON was the first major motion picture to rely heavily on CGI???



The Jedi Master

Sorry, not Tron. It must have been a momentary brainfart. The glow effects on the suits were done in-camera but obviously all of those wideshots of the computer world were CGI.

Of course, every other film you listed was released before Tron, so naturally they didn't have any.

The truth is there are almost zero films made without using CGI in some way or form. Sunny sky supposed to be cloudy? CG! Making a film taking place in 1982 in NYC? Can't get a twin towers skyline without CG.

The numbers also don't work. In old films, there would be 100-150 FX shots in the entire film. It's not uncommon to have 2000+ today. You can't do a film with that many using 40 year old techniques unless you accept taking 10 years to release it.

I'm tired of people blaming CG for everything when the issue is bad CG. It used to be you'd see a god awful cheap set made of cardboard and you'd know they didn't spend enough money. Yet people didn't complain about too much cardboard in films!

For every bad CG shot you've seen in a film, it could've been done better had they had more time and money for it. They didn't, so it looks bad. THAT is the problem, not the CG itself! It's a tool that wasn't properly used, the tool itself isn't the problem. If you hire a bunch of 3rd graders to build your Roman Senate, I'll bet a CG version will blow it away!

The reluctance to slip film dates today is a major part. I'm relieved every time I hear film XYZ has been pushed back 6 months or a year because there is NO way it would've been ok to release it on time if they feel that way. Yes, it may STILL suck, but the odds are better that it won't than if they'd released on the original date.
Quality takes time and CG is no different.




The Jedi Master

I believe most do blame, as you mentioned, bad CGI. Or an overabundance of "vanity effects" (because we can!). Or using CGI as a substitute for good storytelling (hello Mr. Bay).

The ideal employment of CGI is to use it when necessary, and use just the right amount to advance your story and/or make your Universe look plausible.

Of course, with current recording technology having outpaced traditional film-making techniques, movie makers may find they'd have to rely on CGI even more.

Or, costume designers and especially makeup artists come up with better ways to "conceal" their work (again, depending on the genre), with 4k - or even worse, from their POV - 8k resolution making imperfections previously unnoticed very detectable .

Just look at the remastered version of TNG, which is "only" in HD: you can see where the makeup artists glued the masks to the actors's faces.

The remastered blurays for ST:TOS have revealed some funny goofs. The funniest one is from the episode "Catspaw" where you can clearly see the strings/cables that were used to move the alien puppets around. lol

They're definitely more noticeable now, but I actually remember seeing those strings in the original airing - not a high point for that production

Something I think is also more visible in the HD versions is when they were sweating on set, and when they miss focus, mostly in closeups.

They talked about those strings and that they could have erased them digitally but left them in deliberately.



The Jedi Master

I watched the trailer again and I couldn't help but notice the Mass Effect-style outfits the two leads are wearing. Coincidence or just a popular suit design for scifi stuff?

Art departments aren't known for their ability to come up with much new in spacesuits. They've been doing them for 70 years.



The Jedi Master

Well, also inspired by the original comic's design.

This series has been around since 1967. It's art has always been impressive and you can find influences from it in all major Hollywood sci-fi productions from the 70's to the 90's, including The Fifth Element and Start Wars.

Welp...it happened.

This thing will bomb really baaad!

Just like Ghost in the Shell, the visuals are stunning. Best 3D effects in a long time. This was made with love.

And same as Ghost in the Shell might have killed adapting hard anime sci-fi for a while, this movie will kill the science fiction epics for years to come. Reminded me of watching Attack of the Clones after going in thinking it would be "so much better than Episode I !!

The difference is I still found GitS passable. Valerian is a badly written mess with unlikable bratty characters.

This year's Jupiter Ascending.

Not what I wanted to hear.
Gotta say, on second viewing of Ghost, I really liked it. I was just so-so after leaving the theater, but still got the urge to see it again.
Jupiter still sucks, even though I've seen it again trying to like it.

That's just silly. adapting animes to live-action have always been a niche market - you can count on one hand the number of movies.
On the other hand we have had a ton of sci-fi stinkers which haven't killed the genre.

-It is niche now.

But there are so many good manga and anime hard sci-fi stories that could become really great live action movies if they were developed properly. But the box office failure of one of the flagship anime sci-fi franchises would give studios the distorted idea that people don't want to watch this.

Also, sci-fi in the last few years has really remained small scale, relying more on CGI and intimate localized stories (making studios and producers happy). Not many succesfull sci-fi movies with major battles or sprawling cities with interesting characters (maybe Rogue One being the exception - to certain limit). When that has happened, movies have lost focus and become visual demos. Valerian is a great concept to develop into an amazing series, but the issue I saw with story is that they wanted to drop you into the middle of a story very few in this side of the world know, and then bore you out of your senses in exposition so you can catch up. If at least the characters were engaging, that would still make a pass in my opinion.

I did no say failed revenues will kill sci-fi. But will make studios think twice before investing in anything on this scale.

It's my understanding that Valerian was 100% funded with foreign money so if it does well at the global box office it will make a profit.

How many attempts of western big studio live action version of animes have there been?
Frankly only Ghost in the Shell come to mind.

Akira has been in development hell for a century soon. Same with Robotech.

A few coming up! Netflix is doing one that's supposed to be good.

Speed Racer ...

Beyblade

Dragonball Evolution

The Guyver


ok i'm done. my brain hurts, mostly because i have seen them.

So the movie only made 17 million in its opening weekend in the US but the film was financed entirely outside the Hollywood studio system so as long as it does well internationally it will make money.

Saw it last night with my significant other and best friend. We had a really good time and I think if you enjoyed Fifth Element you would enjoy this. Character writing has never really been Luc Besson's strong suit he does set pieces very well though and that is pretty much what this film is about. Stunning visuals and when you see it in 3D it really gives a depth to the scenery. Sure some of the characters are whiny (Ruby Rod anyone?) and maybe the more aged of the viewership may have a difficult time relating to them but apparently it is direct source material stuff so you can't really fault Besson for that. It's a good popcorn film and there are far far worse ways to spend your night out.

Ruby Rod was awesome though, and was full of personality and character quirks. Hell, most of the characters in Fifth Element had a certain charm to them, one way or another, and many were well written considering the pace of the film. These days, however, you don't see much of that, and instead plenty of movies are made hoping the viewers are dumb and overlook obvious faults or flaws. With Valerian, all I hear is excuses and apologies and suggestions to overlook this, that or whatever. Do I have to overlook anything in Fifth Element? Nope. The movie, like the heroine's namesake, is perfect.

Spent ten bucks today on it, and I don't feel cheated. It has about as much depth as you can expect from a comic book series adaptation. As a film it works, and it easily beats all DC comic films in every aspect, except maybe Wonder Woman. It doesn't take the heroes too seriously, the villain has a decent motive and isn't just e-e-e-e-vul for the sake of sheer villainy, which is usually a big plus for me.

Frankly, I don't understand where the all hate's coming from. It's a visually rich universe, the kaboom factor isn't overdone. If you love 3D effects, I suppose it has enough roller coaster camera moves; I for one got to see it on a really big screen but in 2D, and as an avowed 3D hater I was glad I could do without those silly extra goggles. There's certainly enough action, and Rihanna doesn't bomb her scenes like so many non-film show biz types thrown into a big movie production.


All in all: One thumb up.

It was a quick 2 hours of fun for me. The 3D version is interesting too.

So much HOTAS Warthog sticks in this movie - incredible! Or not: Thrustmaster Guillemot is as french as Luc Besson. Reminds me of of the Star Trek 9 movie when Riker commandeered the detached Enterprise hull section manually and used a Gravis Thunderbird 2 stick
On one Warthog stick you could even see the yellow arrow sticker pointing down being still attached.

In the comics Valerian develops into an lovable oaf with a can-do mentality, his obedience to terran authority exists from the beginning. In the movie I saw only the latter fleshed out. The complete comic Valerian characterization would have helped the film IMHO. But as a big fan of the Valerian comics I like it this movie also.