Lexus Gets Into Spacecraft Design Game With ‘Valerian’

By adpock - November 11, 2016

lexus_valerian_skyjet

If you were going to tap a current automaker to build your own personal spacecraft, would you pick any marque other than Lexus?

Well, maybe Tesla, but that’s not who film studio EuropaCorp tapped for a creative partnership on their massive new film, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, starring Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan. Check out the trailer below featuring the SKYJET, a “single-seat pursuit craft” that Lexus and EuropaCorp “imagined and brought to life,” as noted by a Lexus press release.

Though Valerian takes place 700 years in the future, director Luc Besson wanted to anchor the film in reality, right down to the design of the space craft. So the film’s creative team met with Chief Engineer, Takeaki Kato, and the Lexus design team, “to discuss incorporating believable, imaginative technologies and contemporary design cues” into the SKYJET.

Do you notice any similarities to the 2018 LC coupe’s spindle grill and aggressive headlight design? You should.

lc 500

Besson — who also directed The Fifth Element, Lucy, Léon: The Professional, and many more — wanted to partner with a company that’s “pioneering in innovation and technology, who is focused on the future more than the past.”

Sounds like they made the right choice. And judging by the design of the SKYJET, it looks like it too.