User blog:GamerNerd i/Musings II - Real Talk: Valerian & Laureline

Okay, so like the title says, real talk here. I am me as a writer, not as a character right now. Heck, this isn't even prewritten like all my other things. For once I'm doing something in one sitting.

Topic here: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. Okay, not really, but that's what kinda sparked this whole thing. I promise, no spoilers.

If you have been living under a rock haven't heard of it, it's this space movie based on a French graphic novel series called Valerian and Laureline. The "City of a Thousand Planets" is actually the ISS (International Space Station) hundreds of years in the future. At this point, it's housing basically every known alien species in the universe. As a side effect, it's also had to be pushed out of Earth's orbit because otherwise it would be come Dinokiller II.

Now, I just watched the movie. It's pretty good, although personally there's a bit too much "real talk" in it (the sappy kind, in case you were wondering). One thing DID strike me about it though; the two starring characters. Obviously, they're Valerian and Laureline.

When I first saw the trailer, I admittedly did a bit of a double take. Why? Well, the duo by appearance looked too much like my duo. You see, you guys probably don't see Aidan and Nadia (those are their actual names in case some of you had forgotten) the way that I do. I know I put the physical descriptions in one of the stories, but that tends to fade with the semi-long gaps between stories. Basically, Aidan is an Asian kid with black hair and glasses, while Nadia is white with blonde hair and green eyes. And what did I see when I first saw that trailer? Something rather similar. Black-haired guy paired up with a blonde girl. Keep in mind that before this I had never heard of this series, in movie or book form. I've never read the source material.

That's not the weirdest part though. You see, after watching the movie, I noticed that Laureline has a pretty similar personality to what I imagine Nadia to have. Sarcastic and a bit of a jerk (or another word) for a good amount of the time, a real badass in a fight, and an occasional soft spot for small creatures and certain people at certain times. For Laureline, the small creature is... a spoiler, so I won't mention it. For N, the small creature is Rotom. The persons for both people should be obvious.

As for Ai... Well, not so much. Val over there flirts around a bit too much to match Ai. Both can be serious, so there's that. And while both duos really have no designated leader, Ai and Val are both "I'll go first" types (for now, at least). Like Laureline and N, both are awesome in a fight, naturally. So... I mean... It's not as strong as N and Laureline, but it's something...?

I guess the other worthwhile thing to mention is the relationships between the characters. Both have this dynamic I call "bickering siblings." They'll usually cooperate, but occasionally you have a fight break out and one gets salty at the other and bla bla bla. Oh yeah, V&L are also romantically involved. It should be pretty obvious why I mentioned that, but trust me I don't plan on crossing that bridge for a long time with my characters.

But that's not even the weirdest part. As I stated before, this is a space movie. So space => planets. Well, not really in this movie, but from what I hear of the source material, there's a heck of a lot more planet-hopping than the movie shows. You guys wouldn't know this, but at the conception of these two characters, that's EXACTLY what they were doing. Planet-hopping. Granted, the planets each held a fictional universe rather than real aliens, but it's another link. Did I also mention that apparently V&L are time travelers too? Like I said, I'm working off secondhand information but obviously my interdimensional travel involves some temporal manipulation as well.

So, I mean... I dunno. This is kinda just food for thought. Again, keep in mind that I had never heard of/encountered this series or its source material before, let alone when my world was creating itself.

Now that I think about it, I don't really know why I decided to write a blog post on this. This is my conundrum, not yours, and technically it's not even a real conundrum. I guess I just felt the need to put this down on paper somewhere. I don't think I really did it for you guys to know. For all I know, you guys don't care about my thought process as a writer as long as you get your stories, if anyone besides GamesterD even reads them.

Well, whatever it is, this is out there now. So... I mean, interpret this as you will. I don't even know how to end this. Uh... Thanks for reading?

Valerian and Laureline source material information courtesy of MatPat.