{"id":18863,"date":"2017-07-22T22:23:24","date_gmt":"2017-07-22T14:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/fifth-element-squared-5-cool-ideas-from-the-sci-fi-visuals-of-valerian\/"},"modified":"2017-07-22T22:23:24","modified_gmt":"2017-07-22T14:23:24","slug":"fifth-element-squared-5-cool-ideas-from-the-sci-fi-visuals-of-valerian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/fifth-element-squared-5-cool-ideas-from-the-sci-fi-visuals-of-valerian\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Fifth Element\u2019 squared: 5 cool ideas from the sci-fi visuals of \u2018Valerian\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_350533\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-350533\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-350533\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/170721-valerian-630x338.jpg\" alt=\"Valerian and Laureline\" width=\"630\" height=\"338\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/170721-valerian-630x338.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/170721-valerian-768x412.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/170721-valerian.jpg 1028w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-350533\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Valerian and Laureline (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne) make off with a treasure taken from a virtual marketplace in \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.\u201d (STX Entertainment)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Spoiler alert:<\/strong> We\u2019re not giving away any major plot points, but if you want to see \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets\u201d before you read any reviews, stop reading now and come back later.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Does director Luc Besson\u2019s latest movie, \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,\u201d live up to his sci-fi cult classic, \u201cThe Fifth Element\u201d? Mmm, no. But the visuals and fictional tech concepts are literally out of this world, and well worth seeing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cValerian\u201d has been getting decidedly mixed opening reviews \u2013 mostly due to the plodding plot and what some have called the anti-chemistry between the two lead actors, Dane DeHaan as Valerian and Cara Delevingne as Laureline. (To be fair, \u201cThe Fifth Element\u201d got similarly mixed reviews when it premiered 20 years ago.)<\/p>\n<p>The visuals are over-the-top, but the problem with \u201cValerian\u201d may well be that it takes itself too seriously. The heroes and the villains are too earnest, in contrast to the cartoonish baddies in \u201cThe Fifth Element.\u201d Ironically, a new movie based on a comic-book classic isn\u2019t comic-bookish enough.<\/p>\n<p>The best way to experience the movie is to set your expectations accordingly, and then let the computer-generated visual effects wash over you for two hours. Here are some of my favorite moments, based on the visuals as well as what they say about technologies to come.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How the Alpha space station grows:<\/strong> The movie starts out with a real-world encounter&nbsp;\u2013 the Apollo-Soyuz meetup between Soviet and American spacefliers in 1975. The historic handshake between Alexey Leonov and Tom Stafford is re-enacted aboard the Alpha space station, first with the Chinese in 2020, then with a rainbow of other nations, and then with a parade of exotic aliens. It\u2019s a great opening sequence, set to the tune of David Bowie\u2019s \u201cSpace Oddity.\u201d Fun fact: Alpha was one of the proposed names for the International Space Station, but it never took. Reality check: the \u201cDestiny module\u201d you see later in the movie looks a lot like an Apollo spacecraft, and nothing like the Destiny module on the real-life space station.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets | &quot;See You In Space&quot; Featurette | Own It Now\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1CWfrJL-hC0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Augmented-reality bazaars:<\/strong> Valerian and Laureline are dropped into a wide stretch of empty desert that\u2019s transformed into a teeming bazaar when you put on glasses that look a lot like Microsoft\u2019s HoloLens headsets. Visitors supposedly make their way through \u201cthe other dimension,\u201d but it looks a lot like an augmented-reality environment where you can actually pick up virtual stuff and buy it. When you\u2019re ready to bring your purchases out of the touristy bazaar, you put them through the augmented-realyt end of a \u201ctransmatter\u201d device, and the real-world products come out the other side. That\u2019s something to think about if you\u2019re planning an augmented-reality shopping center for 3-D-printed goods. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if there\u2019s already an Amazon patent application for that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Haptic mind control:<\/strong> One of the cleverest tricks for Valerian\u2019s raid on the market is to have one of his commandos jack into the nervous system of a guard who\u2019s manning a machine gun in a watchtower. The commando gets a virtual view of the scene through the eyes of the zombified guard, and makes arm gestures that are mirrored up in the tower, with hilarious (or deadly) effect. Military researchers haven\u2019t yet perfected that kind of haptic remote control, and let\u2019s hope they never do. But researchers have been experimenting with haptic belts, vests and other gizmos that can provide soldiers with tactile cues about how to proceed in a combat situation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shape-shifting for fun and profit:<\/strong> In one scene, Valerian is wowed by a shape-shifter\u2019s bravura performance, morphing from one sex-siren fantasy into another. The singer-songwriter Rihanna\u2019s big-screen cameo as shape-shifting Bubble wowed the critics, too. The New York Post\u2019s one-star review of the movie was headlined, \u201cRihanna Is the Only Good Part of \u2018Valerian.&#8217;\u201d&nbsp;Her shape-shifting strip tease, and her struggle as Bubble to take on a different and challenging role, serve as metaphors for the actor\u2019s art. The closest thing to it in the natural world is a color-shifting cephalopod&nbsp;\u2013 which Bubble resembles in her true form.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Meet Bubble: Rihanna Talks Valerian\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Kq3llUuwST0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Illegal immigrants in space:<\/strong> The closest that \u201cValerian\u201d comes to real-world commentary is when Bubble laments her status as an alien on the Alpha station. \u201cWhat good is freedom when you\u2019re an illegal immigrant, far from home?\u201d she asks. If there\u2019s any message to be gotten from \u201cValerian,\u201d perhaps it\u2019s the message that we\u2019ll survive to embrace the full rainbow of nations in the year 2150 \u2013 and extend a hand to any true aliens that come our way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Valerian and Laureline (Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne) make off with a treasure taken from a virtual marketplace in \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.\u201d (STX Entertainment) Spoiler alert: We\u2019re not giving away any major plot points, but if you want to see \u201cValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets\u201d before you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4550,4482,21,5359],"class_list":["post-18863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-movies","tag-science-fiction","tag-space","tag-valerian"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}