Luc Bessen's Valerian
- Thread starter Flint
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The Fifth Element is one of my all time favorites and I have at least enjoyed every one of his movies that I've seen.
Hope it's good and doesn't turn into Jupiter Ascending (not by him, but looked a lot like this).
Hope it's good and doesn't turn into Jupiter Ascending (not by him, but looked a lot like this).
D
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I've loved much of Luc Besson's work. Nikita, Leon: The Professional, and The Fifth Element being but three examples. I'll even admit to enjoying The Family!
Valerian looks like a winner to me - especially if that's who I think it is at 1:19 of the teaser. (Guilty: I'm also a fan of hers and have been hoping she'd do more films.)
Jeff
Valerian looks like a winner to me - especially if that's who I think it is at 1:19 of the teaser. (Guilty: I'm also a fan of hers and have been hoping she'd do more films.)
Jeff
I haven't seen anything from the forum gang about this movie. I decided to go see it, despite the negative reviews and poor ticket sales because it looked incredible and I like Luc's other work. I wanted to believe the reviewers had it wrong, like they have in so many movies which later came to be classics (like The 5th Element, Brazil, and Blade Runner).
Some spoilers, but I tried to make them general enough to not take away from the movie -
Well, the reviewers got it right, generally. The movie was a visual spectacle, but the context of the visual effects was hard to define and the concepts which were introduced were difficult to understand and required that I spend too much mental energy making sense of the environment (such as the interdimensional shopping mall). That effort greatly distracted from the action and dialog I needed to follow to know what was going on. The heroes were flat out too nonchalant for their own good. I got the impression they were supposed to be so damn good at their jobs that they could screw around and hardly pay attention to the very extreme things they were having to deal with including split second reactions to impossible threats and so on, but instead their laziness in dealing with the intense moments made the intense moments dull and boring. And what's with the current acting style of damn near whispering your lines even when the character you are supposed to be talking to is across the room from you. I see that all the time now, and I find it irritating.
The overall premise was not terrible, but I have grown tires of the superior beings who are free loving primitives who get destroyed, or attacked, by evil characters who seem all too much like every stereotypical greedy, war-mongering, self-reserving American leader there is. The idea, for me at least, has been played out over and over and over and I have grown tired of it. But even accepting it, the motivations of the evil antagonist were not clear and confusing.
But what really drove me mad was the romantic drama which ran through the movie concerning our two protagonists. While complex concepts and undefined premises about aliens and the nature of space flight were unfolding and confusing me at breakneck speed without any clear explanation, the action would stall and the director would spend entirely too long on dull moments of blatantly obvious sexual tension which made little or no sense whatsoever. That was a drag.
Likewise, it was clear that many scenes setting up situations which occurred in the film were edited out. The action end at one scene then there would be a complete leap to another location and time with changes to the characters, their costumes, some of the stuff they had with them, and so on making me have to create the missing scene where the transition was explained.
The visuals were stunning, the costumes were fun, some of the cast were gorgeous, and the CGI actors were very good, but the story was the same old screed and the explanations for the strange world Luc created were completely missing.
What worked for The 5th Element - simply immersing us in a strange futuristic world where we put the pieces together in our minds - failed miserably in Valerian.
I am glad I saw it because it was unlike anything I've seen before and some of the concepts were fun and different. I also enjoyed some of the humor. But, I would rather not have paid to see it, much less waste a perfectly good Monday evening at the theater. I think this would make for a great demo disc of 4K material about a year from now.
Some spoilers, but I tried to make them general enough to not take away from the movie -
Well, the reviewers got it right, generally. The movie was a visual spectacle, but the context of the visual effects was hard to define and the concepts which were introduced were difficult to understand and required that I spend too much mental energy making sense of the environment (such as the interdimensional shopping mall). That effort greatly distracted from the action and dialog I needed to follow to know what was going on. The heroes were flat out too nonchalant for their own good. I got the impression they were supposed to be so damn good at their jobs that they could screw around and hardly pay attention to the very extreme things they were having to deal with including split second reactions to impossible threats and so on, but instead their laziness in dealing with the intense moments made the intense moments dull and boring. And what's with the current acting style of damn near whispering your lines even when the character you are supposed to be talking to is across the room from you. I see that all the time now, and I find it irritating.
The overall premise was not terrible, but I have grown tires of the superior beings who are free loving primitives who get destroyed, or attacked, by evil characters who seem all too much like every stereotypical greedy, war-mongering, self-reserving American leader there is. The idea, for me at least, has been played out over and over and over and I have grown tired of it. But even accepting it, the motivations of the evil antagonist were not clear and confusing.
But what really drove me mad was the romantic drama which ran through the movie concerning our two protagonists. While complex concepts and undefined premises about aliens and the nature of space flight were unfolding and confusing me at breakneck speed without any clear explanation, the action would stall and the director would spend entirely too long on dull moments of blatantly obvious sexual tension which made little or no sense whatsoever. That was a drag.
Likewise, it was clear that many scenes setting up situations which occurred in the film were edited out. The action end at one scene then there would be a complete leap to another location and time with changes to the characters, their costumes, some of the stuff they had with them, and so on making me have to create the missing scene where the transition was explained.
The visuals were stunning, the costumes were fun, some of the cast were gorgeous, and the CGI actors were very good, but the story was the same old screed and the explanations for the strange world Luc created were completely missing.
What worked for The 5th Element - simply immersing us in a strange futuristic world where we put the pieces together in our minds - failed miserably in Valerian.
I am glad I saw it because it was unlike anything I've seen before and some of the concepts were fun and different. I also enjoyed some of the humor. But, I would rather not have paid to see it, much less waste a perfectly good Monday evening at the theater. I think this would make for a great demo disc of 4K material about a year from now.
We saw it opening weekend and enjoyed it, although I agree with most of what you are saying. Poor chemistry between the couple, plus they seemed so young, but Rihanna did a great job I feel. Maybe a directors cut will fill in the missing pieces and make it a more cohesive movie?
I found the story terrible, hard to follow, and often pointless. The acting was average at best - like I could understand what they were attempting to do, but they failed to make it real.
That said, the images were amazing and worthy of playing in the background with the sound off during an LSD party.
Finally had a chance to watch the whole movie yesterday since upgrading player and tv. Wow! Looks fantastic and sounds great. I can still see why the movie bombed, but I think I actually liked it better after seeing it a second time. I doubt we will ever see a sequel, but I would love to see this world fleshed out a little more. Maybe with older and different actors, somebody will convince somebody to have a go at a sequel.
I was pissed on Saturday, my rental place only had one 4k copy of Valerian and someone had rented it about 15 minutes before I got there.
This is from the review of teh 4k version from blu-ray.com
"After several months of at least somewhat questionable choices as to which of its releases were chosen for the 4K UHD format, Lionsgate provides consumers with a film that has all the earmarks of what ultra high definition aficionados often look for, namely mind boggling visuals and astounding sound design, both of which are part and parcel of Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets."
"After several months of at least somewhat questionable choices as to which of its releases were chosen for the 4K UHD format, Lionsgate provides consumers with a film that has all the earmarks of what ultra high definition aficionados often look for, namely mind boggling visuals and astounding sound design, both of which are part and parcel of Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets."
How often are any of you popping in Transformers movies because of the visuals?
Well, never. In fact, I've never seen more than a few minutes when others forced me or I needed to drool over Megan.
I do revisit the second to the last iteration of transformers once or twice a month. But i could not finish it. I like the movie as a whole but it looks over saturated for my taste on both my lg and sharp tvs. I have been wondering why they processed its color that way. Just too much for me.I’ll eventually see it at some point......but there’s plenty of GOOD movies with stunning audio and video. How often are any of you popping in Transformers movies because of the visuals?
