City of a Thousand Planets

Saw 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:

• BUBBLE WAS GREAT. Bring back Bubble for the sequel!
• The heist was pretty cool.
• THE VISUALS ARE AMAZING.

In conclusion, good visuals, bad adapatation, decent-ish movie.