Pretty Packaging: The French VALERIAN Limited Collector's Edition

Last summer, Luc Besson released his long-awaited Valerian film, an epic forty years in the ... dreaming? Conception? Making? Anyway, we were promised that the director's beloved The Fifth Element would pale in comparison...

Weeeeeell... the end result, called Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, kinda flopped hard. Luc Besson wasn't the only one dreaming about a Valerian film: I, a confessed Valerian-comic-mega-fan, had been waiting for as least as long for someone to bring this to the big screen in a proper way. And even I had problems catching the film, as I was on holiday when it premiered and it was almost already impossible to find when I returned, a mere two weeks later!

I know people who utterly hate this film. I myself don't; I love that universe, I think the beginning rocks, and when I popped in the Blu-ray disc to re-watch a scene or two I actually kept watching for more than an hour, usually a very good sign. But I will fully admit that the two main characters, Valerian and Laureline, seem ridiculously off-key when compared to their graphic novel counterparts, even though their world(s) have been beautifully captured.

Anyway, if anyone was going to be be giving this film a pimped home edition, it was going to be the French. And WHOA.... they delivered. But be aware of two things: first, it's hella-pricey. Second, it's only French-friendly, not English-friendly: even though the English dub is on there, all alien languages and captions only have French subs, and the same goes for all the extras.

So with that in mind, here is a gallery of shots. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through them, or at the center of each to see a bigger version.