Luc Besson tried to give us the city of a thousand planets. We weren't ready for it. But the city is still there, waiting for us to dock.
Think of it as a moving painting. The scene where Laureline is chased through the "Space Casino" by a three-headed alien? The geometry of that room defies physics. The scene where Valerian flies a ship through a collapsing neutron star? It looks like a Dali painting melted over a video game. valerian and the city of
The movie knows it. That is why Besson gives us Bubble. Luc Besson tried to give us the city of a thousand planets
Besson, a lifelong comic book nerd (he grew up on the French comic Valérian and Laureline by Christin and Mézières), understands that sci-fi works best when the technology serves the idea , not the explosion. The famous "VR suit" scene, where Valerian walks through a desert while wearing a massive mechanical suit that mimics his every move? That is lifted directly from the comics, and it remains one of the most tactile, believable pieces of future-tech ever put to film. Let’s address the elephant in the room: Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne. Think of it as a moving painting
Besson gives us a breathtaking montage in the opening sequence—set to David Bowie’s Space Oddity . We watch as an international space station in 1975 slowly docks with a Russian module, then a Chinese one, then a Martian one. Over centuries, nations become planets. Rivalries fade. Species after species arrives, builds, and stays.
But here is the re-evaluation: Valerian is not a film to be "watched" for the plot. It is a film to be inhabited .
Played by Rihanna in a extended cameo, Bubble is a shapeshifting alien performer who helps the heroes escape. In ten minutes of screen time, Rihanna goes through a dozen costume changes—a flapper, a maid, a nurse, a burlesque dancer, a military officer. Her death scene is heartbreaking not because of the plot, but because she represents the soul of Alpha: adaptable, beautiful, and ultimately disposable to the empire.