After Jupiter Ascending came out two years ago, I didn’t
know if there would ever be another Jupiter Ascending again.
I mean, I didn’t want another Jupiter Ascending, per se,
because that movie was awful. No sequels necessary. But I did want another “Jupiter
Ascending.”
The difference indicated by those quotation marks is as
follows: I wanted another movie that took the same risks as Jupiter Ascending,
in a genre in which only sure bets are usually green lit. I wanted it still to
be possible to have movies that fit that small cinematic niche of “big,
imaginative science fiction movie with fantasy worlds and no established
characters.” I didn’t want studios only to gamble on Star Wars movies, though
that’s obviously no gamble at all. I wanted them to gamble on what might become
the next Star Wars.
But after several recent major flops in this arena –
Ascending, but more catastrophically, John Carter – it seemed less and less
likely that we would see many, or even any, more of these. One cautionary tale
is enough for most studios – two, and you have serious
cinematic leprosy on your hands. No one wants to go anywhere near it.
So I guess the pressure is really, really on Valerian and
the City of a Thousand Planets.
When I was at the movies on Wednesday, I watched enough of
the trailer for Luc Besson’s new movie to know that I didn’t want to watch any
more of it. In a good way. I start avoiding a trailer once I get to
that point where I say “Yep, I’m hooked, now leave the rest of it as a
surprise.”
“Hooked” may be the wrong word for Valerian, because there
are a million ways a movie like this could go wrong and only a scarce quantity
of ways to do it right. So just because it looks nice – like really, really
nice – doesn’t mean that it’s got anything going for it.
But if it’s great, I want to experience its greatness unspoiled.
And if it’s not great … well, we definitely won’t see another
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.
