Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is one of the most bonkers movies to come out in some time. The film, which is based on a French comic book series, tells the story of a massive city made up of a thousand different alien societies, all of whom live together in peace and harmony. But when an evil force threatens to upend that lifestyle, it's up to special agents Valerian and Laureline to save the day. The film is a visual feast and a big budget space epic that seemingly has franchise potential, so why is there no Valerian post-credits scene?
The truth is that it doesn't really need one, and it's refreshing that it doesn't try to shoehorn one in. With seemingly every film studio these days attempting to build a cinematic universe first and make a decent film second (see: Mummy, The), it's nice to see something of this scale that's content to stand on its own. The film tells a contained story, albeit a very epic one, and while there is certainly room for more films that tell more stories (there are a thousand planets to explore, after all), the goal of Valerian is to entertain you during the movie you're watching — not to tease you for another film that may or may not premiere in several years, depending on how well Valerian does at the box office.
But just because there's no tease of a future film after the credits, that doesn't necessarily mean the City of a Thousand Planets won't return eventually. Writer/director Luc Besson, who has wanted to make this film for basically his whole life, is apparently already busy working on two sequels for the film. He has already finished the script for part two, and is currently writing part 3, according to Nerdist. The comic the movie is based on, Valérian and Laureline, ran from 1967 to 2010, meaning there is plenty of material out there for a cinematic universe, if that's the direction in which Besson eventually wants to go.
But for now, with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the goal is simply to entertain audiences with outstanding 3D visuals for 137 minutes — no extra scene required.
