Spatio-Temporal Agents Valerian and Laureline could be encountering an opera singing alien ambassador in their travels. Luc Besson’s Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets looks to be taking serious inspiration from his past work.
The world’s been provided with an official first look at Ambassador Dan Makta, one of the roughly 2,000 alien species Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) will be tackling in Luc Besson’s upcoming Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. The film is based on a series of French graphic novel by Pierre Christin, which follows two space cops (Valerian and Laureline) on their missions from Earth to the universe at large. According to a report from Empire Online, Dan Makta can usually be found in council meetings on Alpha Station, the city of a thousand planets the film is aptly named after.
Dan Makta holds a resemblance to something that might have been found in Besson’s 1997 cult sci-fi project The Fifth Element, which shares the fantastical qualities that Besson seems to be going for again in Valerian. This alien’s high, bald head and translucently pale skin, as well as the cartilage-esque tentacles protruding from the bottom of his skull, look almost identical to singer Diva Plavalaguna’s similar attributes in The Fifth Element.
Dan Makta from 'Valerian' and Diva Plavalaguna from 'The Fifth Element' look incredibly similar.
While little is known about Besson’s new space opera project, it’s obviously drawing comparisons to his last large expedition into this genre of film. Besson’s been busy in more recent years with the Taken trilogy, Colombiana (starring recent sci-fi queen Zoe Saldana), and a couple of TV series.
Be on the lookout for more news about Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets as the film’s 2017 release date draws closer.
