City of a Thousand Planets
Jul. 27th, 2017 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaSaw it VOSTFR 3D.
Way back when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I went HOLY SHIT THEY'RE ADAPTING L'AMBASSADEUR DES OMBRES? THAT'S MY FAVOURITE. Well. I was right, but also, I was wrong.
It has a lot similarities with L'ambassadeur des Ombres, but some major changes make it a story with a different theme/message. I'm not saying the new story has a bad theme/message -- it's a good message and I can understand the reasoning behind the changes -- but it is 100% a different message. Idk, the original Ambassadeur des Ombres comic (especially the ending!) blew my tiny mind when I read it as a child and this movie would not have. Although these changes gave us the opening scene, set to Bowie's Space Oddity, which is pretty lovely.
It's a decent movie, I guess, but it's a bad adaptation.
For example, the movie implies Laureline is from the future, which NO. The really cool thing about Laureline is that she's from the mid-Middle Ages, circa 1000CE, and used Valérian as her ticket out of that hellhole. Then she becomes a space-time cop. She is the best.Also she's a redhead.
Not sure why the Shingouz go by a different name. That seems like a pointless change.
In a way the changes -- Laureline's hair colour, the names (not how you say Valérian, Alpha vs Point central), etc -- made it easier to think of this as its own thing, rather than an adaptation.
I came out of the movie shipping Laureline/Bubble the most out of everything. I did not ship Laureline/Valérian at all. I would ship Laureline/Neza first (he recognised her temper, hahaha).
I was kind of really disappointed that Laureline seemed to be one of only two women in the Earth military. Nice future there :/ There are some vaguely sexist moments that rubbed me the wrong way, as well. (Also the comic is SO MUCH MORE Laureline's story.)
GOOD STUFF:
Way back when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I went HOLY SHIT THEY'RE ADAPTING L'AMBASSADEUR DES OMBRES? THAT'S MY FAVOURITE. Well. I was right, but also, I was wrong.
It has a lot similarities with L'ambassadeur des Ombres, but some major changes make it a story with a different theme/message. I'm not saying the new story has a bad theme/message -- it's a good message and I can understand the reasoning behind the changes -- but it is 100% a different message. Idk, the original Ambassadeur des Ombres comic (especially the ending!) blew my tiny mind when I read it as a child and this movie would not have. Although these changes gave us the opening scene, set to Bowie's Space Oddity, which is pretty lovely.
It's a decent movie, I guess, but it's a bad adaptation.
For example, the movie implies Laureline is from the future, which NO. The really cool thing about Laureline is that she's from the mid-Middle Ages, circa 1000CE, and used Valérian as her ticket out of that hellhole. Then she becomes a space-time cop. She is the best.
Not sure why the Shingouz go by a different name. That seems like a pointless change.
In a way the changes -- Laureline's hair colour, the names (not how you say Valérian, Alpha vs Point central), etc -- made it easier to think of this as its own thing, rather than an adaptation.
I came out of the movie shipping Laureline/Bubble the most out of everything. I did not ship Laureline/Valérian at all. I would ship Laureline/Neza first (he recognised her temper, hahaha).
I was kind of really disappointed that Laureline seemed to be one of only two women in the Earth military. Nice future there :/ There are some vaguely sexist moments that rubbed me the wrong way, as well. (Also the comic is SO MUCH MORE Laureline's story.)
GOOD STUFF:
- BUBBLE WAS GREAT. Bring back Bubble for the sequel!
- The heist was pretty cool.
- THE VISUALS ARE AMAZING.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-28 12:46 am (UTC)I am sorry! I am glad it at least gave you enough distance to see the movie as its own thing, so as not to interfere with the comic.
May I ask about the different messages?
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-28 11:05 pm (UTC)Sure. The movie is very much about the refugiee crisis (despite the fact they iirc never say refugiee, which kind of bugged me), while the original comic was not, being from the 1970s. The theme of the comic that really stuck with me was, in essence, "just because you're sorry doesn't mean people owe you forgiveness" and it's also about how Earth/Humanity is just a small part of a wide and varied universe, not the center of it.
I think a good way to illustrate the difference between the two is the opening scene from the movie. It starts of with the Apollo-Soyuz docking, then jumps to iirc 2020 with a Chinese module docking onto the ISS, then more and more Earth countries docking/attaching to the Station, until an alien spaceship shows up and attaches as well. Then more aliens! Then they detach "Alpha" from Earth orbit and set it adrift to explore space. This is all dialogue-less, set to Bowie's Space Oddity. It's a lovely scene.
Unfortunately, it's also antithetical to the comic. As is the fact they have super detailed maps in the movie -- the comic explicitly says no one has a complete map of Point Central. It's too big. In the comic, the equivalent of Alpha, Point Central, does not originate from Earth. Hell, Earth is one of very newest species/planets aboard (and they get kicked out over the course of the comic, because they done fucked up). Idk, that really stuck with me when I read it (I was, like, 6).
Does that make sense?
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-29 01:31 am (UTC)That does make sense and suggests I would be much better served reading the comic than watching the movie. I think I would like the non-Earth-centric-ness much better.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-28 06:33 am (UTC)I loved her, too. Thanks for all of this, I've been wanting an actual fan perspective on it. I've been trying to hunt down copies but like Yoko Tsuno, it's hard to get good ones.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-28 11:08 pm (UTC)Hope you manage to find copies of both! Do you have any SF comics in the US?
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-29 12:04 am (UTC)Hmm, you mean like original ideas? Other than Guardians of the Galaxy and stuff?
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-29 10:23 pm (UTC)Idk it sounds like the US mostly only has superero comics?
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-30 04:58 am (UTC)OH! Since you know the source material so well, I had a couple of questions...
1. Is the converter from the comic? A pet who can excrete valuable materials including fuel?
2. Was there this whole government cover-up including deleted files?
Well, you guys have awesome fantasy comics not related to each other. We tend to have comics in two varieties.
A. The superhero comics
B. Slice of Life comics where it's basically a character, possibly themselves, doing normal every day stuff, no magic powers, no fantasy
All our fantasy similar to the French comics seems to be reserved for novels or cinema/television. I'm not sure why.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-30 10:47 pm (UTC)1. The converter is from comic. It gets used much more in L'ambassadeur des Ombres and shows up in some other albums. It's not from Mül, though. It's from Bluxte -- his full name is Transmuteur Grognon de Bluxte (Grumpy Converter from Bluxte). he has a much more pronounced personality/temper in the comic.
2. Nope. That's one of the things they changed for the movie to fit the new story/message they wanted.
Interesting, thanks for answering.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-07-31 03:51 am (UTC)Part of the problem here seems to be that since people are so unfamiliar with the source material, they think it's an original film ripping off other stories. It kind of felt like the newer versions of Doctor Who/Star Trek/Star Wars where the original source material is so old that it inspired all these other stories but the newer versions are in turn inspired by the stories inspired by the original material.
Which led me wondering which was original and which was inspired...
1. Myself and others have nicknamed the Converter "Nibbler" after the creature from Futurama that excretes pure fuel and definitely was inspired by Bluxte from your description.
2. This part screamed SERENITY to me so it confirms that the film was also inspired by the media inspired by the source material.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-01 10:11 pm (UTC)FUNNY YOU MENTION STAR WARS. (First English source I could find.)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-02 04:18 am (UTC)I'm a little disappointed that the ship was that far down on the page because the ship is one of the first references to Valerian I usually see mentioned and was one of the main problems in people thinking Valerian ripped off Star Wars when Star Wars ripped off Valerian first.
But unfortunately, this is me as a Star Wars and film geek having that knowledge and most people in this country are ignorant...which I totally blame on not properly marketing the source material; availability, translation, new adaptation, etc.
I have been able to think of a few Science Fiction comics from US or Canadian creators...
Descender
http://comicsalliance.com/jeff-lemire-dustin-nguyens-descender-review/
Bitch Planet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitch_Planet
Southern Cross
http://readcomicbooksonline.net/southern-cross
and there's ODY-C but it's based off the Odyssey so I'm not sure it counts even if it's a reimagining but damn, is it so pretty...
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/30/503067759/in-ody-c-a-greek-hero-worthy-of-women
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-03 10:31 pm (UTC)