Lit Influence of French Comics on Star Wars

Here we go:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Jam:_Valerian_&_Laureline

Hmmm ... "Although its tone and storyline are different from the original work, this adaptation borrows many characters, settings and plot elements from the comic books." Generally sounds closer than the film does though. The idea of earth being erased from history is a major arc in the comics, though not directly related to Val taking Laur from the medieval era.

 

I just looked at the teaser trailer for the TV show. It seems half way between the comic books and the film in tone actually:

 

On a lighter note, someone has recreated Valerian's astro-ship, the XB982, in Lego:

https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/123149-xb982-astroship/

 

Jedi Ben there is a Thorgal television series under development!

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/lives-others-director-adapt-thorgal-940011

 

Interesting. Thorgal isn't your standard barbarian tale at all, so wonder how it'll turn out?

 

Hopefully with a lot more fidelity to the source material than the Valerian film! Let's hope they have more emphasis on thoughtfulness than on violence and action. As discussed above, perhaps utilising the medium of a television series rather than film will help.

 

Just putting this here for posterity...

 

Only joking, ladies and gents...

 

For anyone interested, Cinebooks have now released Vols 20 and 21.

The concluding volume 22 is due Feb 2018.

 

Cheers. Will buy soon as a Christmas present to myself. I have heard what happens in the end but I am interested to see how it unfolds in the telling.

 

Go to Books Etc if you're UK-based, they had the best prices I could find.

 

I'm an Aussie. I'll probably just grab them from Cinebooks directly or Amazon. Depends on the shipping fees.

That raises an interesting point though: besides the fact that the film was a terrible, terrible adaptation of the story, it really wasn't marketed well. Besides the trailers not really introducing the characters well or giving audiences any reason to care about them, no bookstore here stocked any of the comics in the lead up to the release. (Major book chains here in Australia readily stock Asterix and Tintin.) With a high profile film version of V&L debuting, you'd think there'd be co-ordination to make some of the comics available in stores. If Besson and his colleagues really had delusions of competing head on against Star Wars, they would have needed to have had the marketingside perfected and that was an aspect of the promotional strategy for the film that just didn't happen.

The only merchandising I've seen in stores is a few "Pop" Vinyl figurines. Apparently there is also a board game that was only just released in the last month or so, long after the film had disappeared from cinemas. It seems to me like it was a real fiasco. They needed products in stores in the lead up to the release, especially the comic books, as a way of introducing potential film-viewers to the characters. Sigh.

 

Ah, bugger, had forgotten that - knew you'd told me a while back.

 

The Last Jedi's rating free-fall continues overnight. The public have spoken - they now officially consider Valerian to be the better film of the two!




Maybe Kath Kennedy needs to give Monsieur Besson a phone call about directing Episode IX...

 

Here is a French view of l'affaire du Star Wars:

 

There's a moment in TLJ that is straight of Moebius. Thought of it the minute I saw it. Can't post spoilers thooooo