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The full title refers to — the eponymous city of a thousand planets. What Besson achieves here is staggering. The film opens with a montage set to David Bowie’s "Space Oddity" showing the International Space Station gradually absorbing more and more international, then alien, docking ports over centuries. By the 28th century, Alpha is a teeming, bio-diverse metropolis the size of a moon. Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - E...
Valerian is presented as a cocky, somewhat traditional hero, yet his performance is intentionally subversive; he lacks the physical imposingness of a typical action star. This choice highlights a recurring Besson theme: the "hero" is often less important than the environment they inhabit. Laureline, conversely, serves as the emotional and moral anchor, reflecting the comic’s progressive roots in portraying female characters with high agency and intellectual superiority. For those typing into their search bars, here
The narrative follows Major Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne), two operatives of the human government. They are a classic bickering-couple duo: Valerian is a charming but cocky womanizer desperate to marry Laureline, while Laureline is pragmatic, sharp, and perpetually annoyed by his advances. By the 28th century, Alpha is a teeming,
Cultural Impact and Reception Commercially and critically, Valerian divided audiences. Praised by some for its inventiveness and criticized by others for a perceived lack of narrative focus, the film has since been read as both a valiant modern riff on classic sci-fi comics and an example of spectacle exceeding story. Its ambitious attempt to bring European bande dessinée aesthetics to a Hollywood blockbuster register marks it as an interesting cross-cultural experiment, even if it does not always cohere dramatically.
: Much of the action takes place on Alpha , a massive, ever-expanding space station where thousands of species from across the universe live together and share knowledge.