Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Shows Off Its Aliens in the Latest Trailer, Luc Besson Answers Fan Questions

Jill Pantozzi | March 29th, 2017

Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets gets a new trailer that shows off more aliens civilizations.

The first trailer made many of us think back to Besson’s fantastic The Fifth Element but as Besson said in a reddit AMA today, this new film would not have been possible before now due to effects limitations. “I was very frustrated at the time of The Fifth Element because the VFX was ‘old fashioned’ and today the technology allows you to do anything you want,” he wrote, “the limits are your imagination. Valerian was not possible to make 10 years ago.”

Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan star but the film has an interesting cast which also includes, Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Rutger Hauer, and musicians Herbie Hancock and Rihanna. But I swear to god I’m hearing Cate Blanchett in this new trailer. I don’t see her name attached to this at all though so I guess she has a vocal twin…

VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS is the visually spectacular new adventure film from Luc Besson, the legendary director of The Professional, The Fifth Element and Lucy, based on the ground-breaking comic book series which inspired a generation of artists, writers and filmmakers.

In the 28th century, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are a team of special operatives charged with maintaining order throughout the human territories. Under assignment from the Minister of Defense, the two embark on a mission to the astonishing city of Alpha—an ever-expanding metropolis where species from all over the universe have converged over centuries to share knowledge, intelligence and cultures with each other. There is a mystery at the center of Alpha, a dark force which threatens the peaceful existence of the City of a Thousand Planets, and Valerian and Laureline must race to identify the marauding menace and safeguard not just Alpha, but the future of the universe.

Based on the comic book series Valérian and Laureline, written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mézières, Besson mentioned on reddit that he spoke to them regularly about the adaptation. “Mézières and Christin are the parents of Valerian, and I wanted to respect them. I kept them aware of the script, updating them regularly and I gave them the final the version that I liked,” he said. “They were very happy with it and offered some very useful and intelligent comments that I addressed in the script. It was not contractual but based on friendship and admiration for their work.”

Besson was also asked which volumes of the lengthy series he pulled from for the film. “The main volume that I used is the Ambassador of Shadows, but then I took some elements from other volumes. But you read a volume in 20 minutes and the film is 2 hours, so I also brought a lot of new ideas to the story,” he said. The director also mentioned just how long he’s been working to get this one on screen:

I started working on Valerian almost 10 years ago. The first step is to find the artists to do the conceptual drawings. I put out a call for artists to contribute designs and received 2,000 submissions. I picked 5 artists from that pool, who worked with me on the film for a year. That gave us the foundation for the world. Then when they went dry, I added 6 other designers for another year.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets will hit theaters July 21, 2017.