Throughout the years ever since Star Wars' original release, especially after the 2017 release of the sci-fi epic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, critics and historians have wondered about the influence of the french comic Valérian and Laureline on the Star Wars franchise. Things certainly look similar, but is it that clear-cut? There are lots of arguments: for instance, all of sci-fi is basically based on the works of a few influential authors (think Wells, Asimov, etc.); but then again, that doesn't mean you can just copy/paste stuff from another source.

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Moff Tarkin

In 1977's Star Wars, Grand Moff Tarkin, commander of the Death Star, is played by actor Peter Cushing. Oddly enough, the actor bears a striking resemblance to the Ambassador in the 1975 Valérian volume Ambassador of the Shadows.

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Of all these examples, this one is probably the one most likely to be a coincidence; still, the distinctive resemblance between the two characters should not be dismissed immediately.

Cantina

The Moss Eisley Cantina is one of the Star Wars universe's key locations, as well as one of its most popular. While its overall layout was most likely based on real-life cantinas, there's no denying the fact that an alien bar with a certain semblance of sameness appears on the pages of Valérian.

At the very least, the Valérian art seems to have been an inspiration, given both the similar atmosphere and the similar aliens.

Cloud City

The image on the left, of course, comes from Valérian; the image on the right is Cloud City, a floating city located on the gas planet Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back. The visual similarities here seem almost to great to ignore.

Sure, the idea of a floating city has been proposed by numerous sci-fi titans throughout the years, perhaps even as far back as the 17th century, but again the overall designs just seem so similar in terms of sculpting and aesthetic.

Clone Army

There's a little controversy around this one. A Clone Army storyline appears in the 1977 Valérian volume On the False Earths. This might not mean anything; after all, 1977's Star Wars mentions the "clone wars", meaning that at the very least the introduction of Clones into the Star Wars mythos was an idea not directly taken from the pages of Valérian. As pointed out by Force Material, however, given that 2002's Attack of the Clones was the first piece of Star Wars canon to full dive into the story of the Clone Wars, ideas could have been recycled from Valérian for later use.

Millenium Falcon

Known for its sleek, "cool" appearance, the Millennium Falcon has long been recognized as one of the greatest spaceships in sci-fi history. However, as pointed out by Kitbashed, it might owe something to the XB982, a ship with similar size, shape, and structural details that was used by Valérian in 1971's The Empire of a Thousand Planets.

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Admittedly, however, it's a little far-fetched to assume the artists for Star Wars just tore a page out of Valérian and Laureline, especially considering the multiple design stages that the Millennium Falcon went through before arriving at its final form.

Watto

This may be the first claim of a Valérian-Star Wars connection where there's actually some real-world evidence - however insignificant - to back up the claim with. The creature on the left is known as a Shingouz; they first appear in Valerian's 1975 publication Ambassador of the Shadows. The creature on the right is Watto, a Toydarian merchant who appears in the first two films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy; he's known for his ability to resist the Force.

Jean-Claude Mézières, the artist for Valérian and Laureline, has claimed multiple times that Watto's designer, Doug Chiang, was the proud owner of several Valérian albums; and given the similarities between the two characters, that's not too absurd a claim to make.

Familiar Planets

As Popular Mechanics was quick to recognize, 1971's Empire of a Thousand Planets features a desert planet known as Syrte, home to alien travelers, scores of marketplaces, and, interestingly, two suns.

If you're even the least bit interested in Star Wars lore, you should recognize this as a near-carbon-copy of Tatooine - except, as we've stated time and time again, Valérian was first.

Darth Vader

The creature shown on the left appears in 1971's Empire of a Thousand Planets as a member of a cult-like group known as the Enlightened. Unmasked, his face is scarred and burned with few features, similarly to Darth Vader's in 1983's Return of the Jedi.

And while the characters are clearly very different, even their helmets are somewhat similar in that, as pointed out by YouTube channel The Film Theorists, both are inspired by Samurai armor.

Slave Leia

In 1980's The Empire Strikes Back, Leia Organa is enslaved by a morbidly obese ruler (Jabba the Hutt), and forced to wear a revealing slave-girl outfit. Believe it or not, almost the exact same thing happens to Laureline in the 1972 Valérian volume World Without Stars; although, in this case, the overweight monarch is Emperor Alzafar, who rules the city of Valsennar and has pioneered a system where women are basically responsible for everything, including fighting in wars.

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The two outfits do bear a striking similarity to each other, although Industrial Light & Magic costume designer Aggie Rodgers cited the work of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta as her main inspiration.

Carbonite

In the 1971 Valérian and Laureline compliation Empire of a Thousand Planets, Valérian is frozen is a substance that bears an uncanny resemblance to Carbonite, the substance Han Solo was frozen in nearly a decade later in 1980's The Empire Strikes Back. As pointed out, again, by The Film Theorists, Valérian's memory loss while frozen matches up a known symptom of Carbonite sickness.

Ultimately, whether all these similarities are a coincidence or not, both franchises introduced many new ideas to the sci-fi genre, and both drew a lot from previous sci-fi works as well.

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