Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is not a perfect film. It is a flawed masterpiece of production design. If you watch it expecting Star Wars logic, you will be frustrated. But if you watch it as a sensory art piece — a gallery of impossible creatures, vibrant planets, and the boundless optimism of 1970s sci-fi — it is an unforgettable ride.
The heart of the film is "Alpha," the titular City of a Thousand Planets. The opening sequence, set to David Bowie’s "Space Oddity," elegantly charts the history of the International Space Station as it grows over centuries, welcoming alien species until it becomes too massive for Earth's orbit and is pushed into deep space. Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets - E...
Because In a Hollywood landscape dominated by IP franchises that play it safe, Valerian is gloriously, messily original. It prioritizes world-building over plot and visual wonder over character depth. For every clunky line of dialogue, there is a shot of a shapeshifting jellyfish alien or a VR marketplace that makes The Matrix look dated. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
David Bowie’s haunting, melancholic track is not an arbitrary choice. "Space Oddity" is a song about isolation ("Can you hear me, Major Tom?"), yet Besson repurposes it as an anthem of connection. As the station grows, Major Tom’s lonely fate contrasts with Alpha’s crowded harmony. It suggests that the tragedy of our early space age was isolation, and the triumph of the future is symbiosis. But if you watch it as a sensory
Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) walks a razor’s edge between cinematic excess and imaginative bravura. It’s a film that refuses modesty — a cartoon of cosmic ambition, drenched in saturated color, kinetic editing, and relentless invention. For anyone who loves science fiction as a genre of wonder rather than merely ideology, Valerian is an essential, if imperfect, modern fable: an argument that cinema can still astonish when it chooses imagination over convenience.
If you’re after further angles, I can write a scene-by-scene breakdown, analyze visual motifs, or compare Valerian’s worldbuilding to classics like Blade Runner, Fifth Element, and The Fifth Element’s spiritual heirs. Which would you prefer?