Re: the work-in-progress
OVERALL RESPONSE: Big, big thumbs up with this one. Your fan edit successfully turns VALERIAN into the spiritual successor to THE FIFTH ELEMENT I’d hoped for when the movie came out– fast, bright, relatively light-hearted, and weird. Excising the love story from the movie smartly streamlines the narrative, not just at the beginning, but throughout the film. It also improves the Valerian/Laureline dynamic, shifting it from borderline harassment to fun bantering between them both. Jumping straight into Valerian and Laureline’s mission does a fantastic job of transforming the movie, and for the better. Removing the Mul scene lets the audience learn things when our protagonists do. Now we learn what the converter does when Laureline does, we learn what happened to Mul when Valerian and Laureline do, etc.. We are going on the adventure with them, instead of being ahead of them from the word go.
Most of my suggestions below have more to do with the original film and things I think are still in your power to fix that Besson did rather than what you’ve cut. As ever, take them with generous dashes of salt.
SUGGESTIONS RE: ALPHA’S INTRODUCTION/EXPOSITION
One problem I had with the theatrical cut was opening the movie with the fantastic, fun montage of Alpha’s creation, then finally arriving on Alpha 45 minutes later to be treated to Alex’s academically interesting but non-vital exposition about Alpha during the flyover of the station (most of the footage of which was featured heavily in the cool original trailer set to the Beatles’ “Because.”).
- Suggestion A: Let the opening montage and the later visuals of the fly-over do a great job of setting the scene without the exposition. Mute Alex’s exposition and instead replace it with “Because.” It worked wonders for the ad and would work well in the fan edit, I think.
- Suggestion B: Relocate the opening montage and credits to later in the film, after the successful mission, before they arrive on Alpha, that way the credits segue directly into their arrival, and more naturally feed into the exposition during the flyover. That way, similarly to what you’ve accomplished elsewhere, the audience is following the protagonists’ journey instead of being ahead and waiting for the protagonists to catch up.
SUGGESTION RE: THE PRINCESS SUBPLOT
Admittedly, the Princess plot thread in the theatrical cut is already shockingly thin. I feel the Spirit of the Princess plot thread has either been pruned too much or not enough. As it stands in your edit, when it’s first brought up now while Valerian and Laureline are approaching the red zone, it seems to come completely out of nowhere (I watched the fanedit with my wife, who’d never seen the movie before. Her response: “What the hell? Did I miss something?”) To remedy, I suggest either: A: incorporating a few flashes of the Princess from the deleted opening at certain important moments, to indicate her guidance. Or B: cutting the Princess plot entirely. You’ve already cut the dream and Valerian mentioning it to Alex. Cutting the Princess plot entirely could be accomplished by with relative ease
- cut the mysterious hooded figures while Valerian is at the map
- cut Valerian asking “haven’t I seen you before?” and Igon’s retort about the tea room
- cut Valerian saying the Princess has been leading him/inside him the whole time
- cut the Emperor’s explanation of the daughter’s death and soul
- cut the “our daughter made a good choice” exchange
Honestly, I think this choice serves the movie (and your fanedit) best, as it give more agency to Valerian instead of making him a Chosen One.
Going the other way, though, flashes of the princess would work at the following moments to actually create the plot thread that the movie suggest, that visions from the Princess are somehow guiding Valerian to the Pearls. (I wouldn’t suggest doing all of them, as that would probably be overkill). The opening shot of her laying down seems particularly ripe for use.
- A brief flash right before Valerian asks “haven’t I seen you before?” during the standoff
- A moment while he’s gazing at the pearl, right after freeing his hand from the box.
- When Valerian is asking Alex about the pearl and Planet Mul.
- Right before the Mul aliens cover Valerian in blue goop
- While Valerian has his eyes closed incased in blue goop, before the robot spider cuts him free
- When Lorelei revives Valerian after his crash
SUGGESTED SMALL CUT DURING BIG MARKET SCENE
Right before the (thankfully) cut wedding proposal at the gates of Big Market, there’s a brief shot after Laureline says “be careful” with Valerian wordlessly mouthing – in the original cut it segued into his awkward proposal, but here it feels like either something’s been censored or lost in the audio mix. I’d suggest using the last reaction shot of Valerian, after she rebuffs him and is turning around for the bus a second time.
SUGGESTED CUT DURING THE RADIOACTIVE ZONE DEBRIEFING
I would suggest cutting the brief shots of the special unit during General Okto-Bar’s Radioactive Zone debriefing, and all mention of it. Narratively, it makes it seem like the Pearl aliens killed them; if the film’s intention was that it was actually Commander Fillitt, it fails but muddies the waters in the process. Better, I think, to not mention it and instead keep the debriefing on the mysterious impenetrable zone (cutting straight from “several probes/none came back” to “this is the situation today).
Likewise, when Commander Fillitt is updating the Council, cutting from “we do not know the origins of” to “in light of this alarming…” removes mention of the Pearls supposedly killing troopers.
SUGGESTION CUTS RE: THE TORTURED ALIEN
Ideally, we shouldn’t see the Pearl alien being tortured, or rather, shouldn't know that it’s a Pearl alien getting tortured just yet, but instead let that get confirmed when the prisoner gets discovered later. A few very judicious cuts of the shots directly showing the Pearl alien could maintain the mystery, however, leaving it as a blurry prisoner. It also lets the torture happen off-screen, which lets the audience fill in the horror of what’s happening.
SUGGESTION RE: BUBBLE’S EXIT
Cutting Bubble’s death is a very good choice, as her death in the theatrical versin is random and kind of pointless, in my opinion. However, I suggest repurposing a line (maybe one that got cut) during the weak wave to make it clear she’s alive and well. “It was my pleasure performing for you” could work.
SUGGESTION RE: COMMANDER FILLITT’S REVEAL
There’s an odd moment during the scene where Commander Fillitt’s guilt gets spelled out that’s always stood out as a bit odd to me. While Valerian and Laureline are accusing him, it flashes to Fillitt telling someone “I want no survivors.” Great, evil and all, but who is he telling this to? There are no assassins in the movie. It could be the recon units mentioned earlier, but that brings us back to the problem with the Pearl aliens being killers. It could be the K-Trons, but an insert shot of them would be necessary to make that make sense, and it telegraphs the later K-Tron attack too much. The character that would make the most sense? Ikon, who the movie criminally underuses (It’s John Goodman!!!). Adding an insert shot of him would connect us back to the very beginning of the movie at Big Market in a nice, clean way. Otherwise, I would just trim it out to fill in the plothole.
SUGGESTION RE: THE VERY ENDING
So glad that the romance plot is gone. A small technical thing: the volume jump to the song playing over the end credits was a bit jarring.
Random idea: It might be fun to have a mid-credits or after-credits scene of the Valerian and Laureline finally at the beach, using footage cut from the beginning of the film.
It was a pleasure to finally get to watch your workprint, Malthus. I look forward to seeing the finished product.
Stay well, and stay safe!
) i was looking forward to Valerian...ive watched it a couple of times and there is a decent film in there somewhere amongst the cheese but It's been a while since ive seen it so i may have to give it a rewatch to comment on your edit constructively...but i'm interested. I'm surprised there isn't a ton of edits for this film already.
