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‘Valerian’ and San Diego Comic Con ‘Blade Runner 2049’ Promos

I’m submitting my complete file for the print edition of “Circa Sixty Years Dead” early next week. Hopefully it will be available for purchase by Wednesday. I’ll post an update for the release on my Facebook page and definitely here next week. As busy as a weekend it has been, I’m squeesing in some time for a summer sci fi flick—Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.


Valerian




I’m always looking for the Star Wars-type blockbuster each summer and it looks like Valerian could be it. In fact, according to TheHollywood Reporter, it even borrows from Star Wars. However, according to the bulk of critics, it hasn’t been much of a blockbuster on this weekend of its release. But it’s definitely blockbuster-like yet with its own style and vision from its director, Luc Besson, who also directed The Fifth Element back in the ‘90s and look what became of that. It became a cult classic, and hopefully this movie will too. The reason I say that is because the majority of our nation’s population seems to only want to see what mass consumerism demands and so what the majority of people are willing to pay money for. They say “Screw the director’s vision!” This is how Hollywood works, unfortunately. Because of that, a good many films of unique style and vision have been turned down.

Europe’s movie industry has traditionally not been like that, this movie having grown out of France like the comic book series it originates from. Surprise! Not even a European surreal style film can get away from the comic book movie craze of the past 10 years. But I’ll see this new release on the big screen over a Guardians of the Galaxy new release anytime. Yet, hopefully it will stand well on its own while staying faithful to the comic. Not that I’ve read the comic. But if the movie’s really good I may pick up an anthology of reprints of the comic series and read it. If it’s really bad, then I’ll still read the comic because it will probably be better than the movie. Here’s a good article that compares the two. 

Blade Runner 2049 Promos


San Diego Comic Con (which I have not attended any yet) has been doing a lot of promotion of the upcoming Blade Runner sequel, which continues the adventures of Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and a new generation’s hero, K (Ryan Gosling), who takes the spotlight in this film. The movie is a sequel to the 1982 original that’s based on Philip K. Dick’s book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I read two interesting articles on the con’s promotion of the movie: one about a VR/ live-performance combo tease, the other about a timeline graph that shows the events between thefirst film and the upcoming one (which is due to release in October). Check them out!



That’s what’s happening this weekend. Next weekend will be two cons which I may or may not go to both but will attend one of them for sure. I’ll talk about that more then along with other topics in sci fi/fantasy reading, writing and viewing.

Do you think Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is destined to become a cult classic like The Fifth Element?

Do you think the sequel to 1982’s Blade Runner will be good even though it won’t be based directly on Philip K. Dick’s novel (since the novel itself never had a sequel)?

Until next time . . .





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