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19-09-2007, 06:06 PM
The Fifth Element - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fifth Element is a 1997 science fantasy, action, comedy, techno thriller film, written and directed by Luc Besson, starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker. The production design for the film was developed by French comics creators Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières and shows a strong influence of French comic storytelling and aesthetic style. The costume design was created by French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, who produced 954 costumes for use in the film.
The film's central plot involves the survival of humanity, which becomes the duty of a taxicab driver named Korben Dallas (Willis) when an extraterrestrial young woman named Leeloo (Jovovich) falls into his taxicab. She is the Fifth Element, whose appearance was prophesied by the Father Vito Cornelius (Holm). Korben's mission is to gather the other four elements before a black planet that represents pure evil collides with Earth. Mangalores, slow-witted warrior mercenary aliens hired by corporate tyrant Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Oldman), are given the task to thwart Korben's efforts.
Although written and performed in the American English language and set in a futuristic New York City, the film was a British/French co-production. Most of the principal photography was filmed at Pinewood Studios in England, while some scenes were shot on location in Mauritania. The concert scenes were filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, except for the special effect shots that show the Planet Fhloston through the ship's portholes. The Fifth Element was shot in Super 35 mm film format; many scenes contain visual effects, and nearly all of visual effects scenes are hard-matted.
Every five millennia, when three planets are in eclipse, evil is embodied and attempts to destroy all life. The weapon used against this evil is housed in a temple in Egypt. The weapon is activated by bringing together the five elements of the universe: the first four are water, fire, earth, and air, which are embodied in the form of small, triangular stone prisms. The fifth element is Love. The five elements together produce the Divine Light, which vanquishes the Ultimate Evil for another five thousand years. This weapon was placed on Earth by the Mondoshawan, an ancient and mysterious extraterrestrial race, and the knowledge of the evil and the weapon is passed from generation to generation by a line of human priests who serve the Mondoshawan.
In 1914, the Mondoshawan guardians came to Earth to reclaim the element stones, explaining that they were no longer safe there, as war (World War I) was soon to begin. Three hundred years later, when the Ultimate Evil forms again, a Federated Army battleship unknowingly arrives at its location. The ship's commander is ordered by Federal President Lindberg to fire on it, but the Evil only grows larger with each attack, until it engulfs the entire ship.
The Mondoshawan attempt to bring the element stones back to Earth, but a powerful weapons manufacturer named Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg is employed by the Ultimate Evil (who takes on the alias Mr. Shadow) to obtain the stones. Zorg orders the beastly Mangalore warriors to destroy the Mondoshawan spaceship transporting the elements. The entire Mondoshawan crew dies when their ship crashes on a planet, but the Earthlings retrieve a severed hand from the wreckage. This appendage is regenerated in a laboratory on Earth and resurrects the "Perfect Being". The Perfect Being is an intelligent, strong, and beautiful woman with orange hair (Jovovich). Speaking in a bizarre language, she escapes the laboratory and dives from the side of the building into the flying taxicab driven by Korben Dallas (Willis).
Leeloo escapes into 2263 New York City.Korben, a former major in the Federated Army's elite special forces unit, brings the woman to a priest named Vito Cornelius (Holm), and learns that her name is Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat. Leeloo tells Cornelius that the first four elements were not aboard the ship that crashed on the moon; to keep them safe, the Mondoshawan gave the stones to an opera singer, the Diva Plavalaguna. Leeloo plans to rendezvous with the Diva in a hotel orbiting the planet Fhloston, where the Diva is scheduled to perform.
When Zorg learns that the Mangalores failed to collect the four elements, he refuses to give them anything in exchange for their efforts. Seemingly persuaded by their threats of violence, he offers them a crate of weapons as he leaves his office. The weapon is a hybrid of an assault rifle, mini-missile launcher, flamethrower, net-launcher, dart gun, and what appears to be a liquid nitrogen sprayer. However, a curious Mangalore presses a button that triggers a bomb built into his ZF1, inciting the surviving Mangalores to seek revenge against Zorg.
When the Earth's government learns of the Diva from the Mondoshawan, they reactivate Korben's status and send him to retrieve the stones. In order to transport him to Fhloston inconspicuously, the government rigs a contest in which the winner receives tickets for a cruise to Fhloston, which Korben wins. In one of the film's most humorous scenes, General Munro comes to brief Korben on the mission; when Leeloo and Cornelius come to take Korben's tickets (after hearing about him winning on the radio), Korben hides Munro and his aides in his refrigerator. The police (having been tipped off by Zorg to an alleged uranium smuggling) arrive and Korben hides Leeloo in his shower and Cornelius in his plastic encasing bed. After the police leave (as Leeloo planted Korben's cab number on another door), Cornelius knocks out Korben with his Medal of Honor trophy and steals the tickets.
At JFK International Airport, his novice, David (Charlie Creed-Miles), tries to board the plane with Leeloo. Korben arrives as they are checking in, and he and Leeloo board the flight and meet their host, a flamboyant radio DJ named Ruby Rhod (Tucker), while Cornelius stows away in the ventilation system, after sending his apprentice to Egypt to prepare for their arrival. Two shape-shifting Mangalores attempt to board the plane, but are sent away by the check-in attendant. Zorg's assistant, Right Arm, also poses as Korben, but is refused entry to the flight. He calls Zorg to report the situation, who remotely triggers an explosive in the phone booth, killing Right Arm, upon learning of his assistant's failure.
The trio arrives on Fhloston. Cornelius is arrested by the hotel security; Korben goes to his luxury suite and receives an abusive phone call from his mother (as he did not take her on the trip); and Leeloo awaits the Diva to give her the stones. In a sequence of rapid cross-cutting, Diva Plavalaguna begins her operatic performance in the theater aboard the cruise ship, while Leeloo engages in a gun fight and martial arts combat with Mangalores in the Diva's suite. The Diva's performance ends abruptly when she is killed by Mangalores, who then attempt to take control of the ship after Leeloo attacks them. President Lindberg and General Munro listen to the chaos on Ruby's radio program. As the crowd flees the theater, Zorg arrives. He intends to seize the stones; he confronts Leeloo and takes a wooden chest he believes contains the stones. He then shoots at her as she hides in the ventilation system, and plants a bomb on the ship. Once he departs, he is enraged to discover that the stones are not inside the chest.
After retrieving the four stones from their hiding place (the Diva's abdomen), Korben finally defeats the Mangalores simply by killing their leader. Immediately following this conflict, the protagonists find Zorg's bomb, and both the crew and the passengers begin to evacuate the ship. Zorg returns while the evacuation is under way; he deactivates his bomb with only seconds to spare, but is killed in an explosion from another bomb, detonated by a surviving Mangalore. Korben, Leeloo, Cornelius, and Ruby escape with seconds to spare in Zorg's fighter ship.
As President Lindberg and his staff celebrate the apparent success of Korben's mission, they are interrupted by a scientist who tells them that the Ultimate Evil (now a fireball 1,200 miles in diameter) has shifted position and is heading directly for Earth. This allows Korben less than two hours to prepare the weapon, the operation of which he does not yet understand.
As Korben, Leeloo, Cornelius, David, and Ruby Rhod return to Earth, the Ultimate Evil continues its trajectory toward Earth. During the flight, Leeloo researches human history on the ship's computer; as she arrives at the "war" category, she learns of humanity's cruelty and hatred.
With only minutes until impact, the protagonists arrive on Earth and begin to prepare the weapon. They place the stones around Leeloo, then David discovers that they must expose each stone to its corresponding element: to the air stone, breath; to the earth stone, dust; to the water stone, perspiration; and to the fire stone, a flame from the last match in Korben's matchbox. Leeloo is reluctant to create the Divine Light, and asks "What is the point of saving life if all you do is destroy it?" Korben convinces her that some things are worth saving, such as love. He finally tells her that he loves her, and they kiss passionately. Their love triggers the stones and fires the weapon. The Divine Light is released from her, and halts the Ultimate Evil in its path, only 62 miles from Earth. The Ultimate Evil is instantaneously petrified and the Earth is saved.
In the end the President and his staff arrive at the laboratory where Leeloo was regenerated. Korben and Leeloo are making love in a "reactor" (the regeneration chamber), and the president answers an abusive phone call from Korben's mother.
Influence
Some of the elements of the story of The Fifth Element are reminiscent of the Harry Canyon segment in the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal. Both stories feature a world-weary taxi driver in a dystopian future New York City who accidentally encounters a beautiful woman, who is at the center of a conflict involving an evil entity.
Additionally, The Fifth Element shares narrative elements with the French space opera comic book series Valérian and Laureline, which takes place in a highly-stylized future metropolis and features a masculine protagonist assigned to protect a seemingly vulnerable female character. The female character is named Laureline and is depicted with artificially red hair, while in The Fifth Element, Leeloo has orange hair.
Several scenes pay homage to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. When the police attempt to arrest Leeloo after she has crash-landed in Dallas' taxicab, they twice use the expression "thank you for your cooperation", a line directly from Paul Verhoeven's Robocop. Also, the film is often compared to, and credited alongside, Blade Runner, possibly drawing some influences from the film.
Script
Korben Dallas was originally intended to be a laborer in a rocket ship factory.[citation needed] As the film went into development in the early 1990s, Besson went on to create Léon starring Jean Reno, while comic book artist Jean-Claude Mézières, who had been hired as a conceptual designer for The Fifth Element, returned to illustrating The Circles of Power, the fifteenth volume in the Valérian and Lareline series. This particular volume featured a character named S'Traks who drives a flying taxicab through the congested air traffic of the vast metropolis on the planet Rubanis. Besson read the book and was inspired to change the character of Dallas to a taxicab driver who flies through a futuristic New York City.
The original name of the character Ruby Rhod was Loc Rhod. This name also appears in the novelization of the film
Minor roles and cameo appearances
There are several well-known performers in the supporting cast of The Fifth Element. Actor Luke Perry makes a cameo appearance as an artist for Professor Pacoli in the film's prologue. President Lindberg is played by Tom Lister, Jr., while General Munro is played by Brion James, who played Leon the replicant in the film Blade Runner. Zorg's assistant Right Arm is played by Adrian Thaws, who is better known as British musical artist Tricky.
General Staedert is played by John Neville who is better known for playing Baron Munchausen in Terry Gilliam's 1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and "the Well-Manicured Man" on The X-Files.
The man who attempts to rob Korben on his doorstep is played by Mathieu Kassovitz, a French film director and actor known for his role in Amelie, who is a close friend of Luc Besson. The member of the cruise ship crew named Fog, who assists Korben in his gunfight with the Mangalores, is played by British comedian Lee Evans.
The police officer in the driver's seat of the flying police car parked at the drive-through window of McDonald's is played by American actor Mac McDonald. McDonald also played Captain Frank Hollister in the British series Red Dwarf, and appeared briefly in the extended scenes at the beginning of the Special Edition Aliens.
Besson cast several fashion models, for both speaking and non-speaking roles. Many of them play attendants on the cruise ship orbiting Fhloston, including Ève Salvail, Nicole Merry, and Stacey McKenzie. French-American fashion model Sybil Buck plays Zorg's secretary.
The Diva Plavalaguna is played by Maïwenn Le Besco.
Although not recognizable onscreen, one of the Mondoshawans is played by British performer Jerome Blake, who performed four different alien characters in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, as well as an alien soldier in the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Cultural references
New York City in the year 2263.Several references are made to both real life and fiction sources throughout the film. When Korben is shown getting out of bed, the date on his bedroom wall is 18 March 2263; Besson's birthday is 18 March 1959. A number of manga volumes can be seen in Korben's apartment, including Adolf by Osamu Tezuka and Sanctuary by Sho Fumimura and Ryoichi Ikegami.
Zorg paraphrases Friedrich Nietzsche when he says "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Later in the film, Zorg detonates a bomb within a telephone booth at the New York Spaceport after ending his conversation with his assistant, an homage to the original James Bond novel Casino Royale. Additionally, there are numerous references to the Star Wars films. For instance, the Federated Army battleships are similar in design to the Imperial Star Destroyers and Major Iceborg has a similar hairstyle to Princess Leia Organa.
The diva's name, Plavalaguna, means "blue lagoon" in several Slavic languages. Return to the Blue Lagoon was Milla Jovovich's second starring role as an actress.
Clever devices are used to mock certain aspects of modern culture. Korben Dallas' cigarettes are colored in such a way to imply that most of the cigarette is a filter, with only a small part actually smokable. Korben, in the course of meeting Leeloo, goes from 5 points on his license to 1 point on his license. This is inverted from the point system used in the US and UK, in which points are added, not subtracted for violations, but is in accordance with the point system used in France, where a fresh driving license has 12 points. There is also a type of national ID card in the film called a multipass, which is, evidently, easily forgeable. Additionally, the word "green" is used in the film as slang for "cool". In one scene, two police officers get their lunch from McDonald's and a crushed bottle of Coca-Cola can be seen in Korben's apartment.
The Divine Language
The Divine language spoken in the film is an artificial language with only 400 words, invented by director Luc Besson and Milla Jovovich. In an interview with Jovovich included in the bonus feature "The Adventure and Discovery of a Film: The Story of the Fifth Element" on the DVD release of The Fifth Element (Ultimate Edition), Jovovich stated that she and Besson wrote letters to each other in the Divine Language as practice.
The first part of Leeloo's name, "Leeloominaï" means "precious stones", and the latter "Ekbat De Sebat" is an honorific that is never defined. No meaning is given for "Lekatariba" or "Lamina-Tchaï". "Leeloominaï" is the only word in her name that appears in Luc Besson's published dictionary. Other spellings of her name include "Leeloo mi naï", and "Leeloo Minai Lekatariba Lamin-atchai Ekbat Desebat", with "Lekarariba" being wrongly mistaken as the pronunciation of her "third" name. No formal declaration of the truth behind the spelling of Leeloo's name has ever come forth from Besson, but a post-production promotional poster of Leeloo leaping from a building is subtitled "Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat".
The term "Senno Ekto Gamat" used by Leeloo, after Korben Dallas kisses her means, "never without my permission".
thoughts:
Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Oldman)= john baptist immanuel/jesus zorg?
the id card, green as cool. also the annunaki/fallen, ultimate evil/planet x/wormwood
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/8452/5thelement.html
Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg - Gary Oldman
Zorg is a financial mogul who specializes in arms-dealing and other illicit and illegal markets. He has a southern accent and a taste for flamboyant clothes and hairstyles. He is working for the absolute evil threatening the Universe. He is trying to get a hold of the four stones that represent the four elements of Earth. He converses with Evil via the telephone where evil is known simply as Mr. Shadow.
Evil - Mr. Shadow
Now the thing is that when someone thinks of an ultimate evil threatening the Universe they tend to dehumanize it and picture a mindless force of nature. This is, however, not so and instead Evil is a conscience. Evil is calculating and intelligent and adapts to changes in the plot.
Theme
Basically it's the story of the age old battle between Good and Evil, but here it takes on an unusual aspect. Evil is supreme, absolute Evil. There is only one thing that bothers it : Life! Evil isn't motivated by money, power or domination; it doesn't need energy to spread itself around. Life disturbs it, smothers it and its purpose is to destroy men, women, children, animals, plants and even light. It comes into our universe every 5,000 years to wage battle - and every 5,000 years, we forget how to fight it.
best line in the film: "evil begets evil". only love/life can conquer it.
The Fifth Element is a 1997 science fantasy, action, comedy, techno thriller film, written and directed by Luc Besson, starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker. The production design for the film was developed by French comics creators Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières and shows a strong influence of French comic storytelling and aesthetic style. The costume design was created by French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, who produced 954 costumes for use in the film.
The film's central plot involves the survival of humanity, which becomes the duty of a taxicab driver named Korben Dallas (Willis) when an extraterrestrial young woman named Leeloo (Jovovich) falls into his taxicab. She is the Fifth Element, whose appearance was prophesied by the Father Vito Cornelius (Holm). Korben's mission is to gather the other four elements before a black planet that represents pure evil collides with Earth. Mangalores, slow-witted warrior mercenary aliens hired by corporate tyrant Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Oldman), are given the task to thwart Korben's efforts.
Although written and performed in the American English language and set in a futuristic New York City, the film was a British/French co-production. Most of the principal photography was filmed at Pinewood Studios in England, while some scenes were shot on location in Mauritania. The concert scenes were filmed at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, except for the special effect shots that show the Planet Fhloston through the ship's portholes. The Fifth Element was shot in Super 35 mm film format; many scenes contain visual effects, and nearly all of visual effects scenes are hard-matted.
Every five millennia, when three planets are in eclipse, evil is embodied and attempts to destroy all life. The weapon used against this evil is housed in a temple in Egypt. The weapon is activated by bringing together the five elements of the universe: the first four are water, fire, earth, and air, which are embodied in the form of small, triangular stone prisms. The fifth element is Love. The five elements together produce the Divine Light, which vanquishes the Ultimate Evil for another five thousand years. This weapon was placed on Earth by the Mondoshawan, an ancient and mysterious extraterrestrial race, and the knowledge of the evil and the weapon is passed from generation to generation by a line of human priests who serve the Mondoshawan.
In 1914, the Mondoshawan guardians came to Earth to reclaim the element stones, explaining that they were no longer safe there, as war (World War I) was soon to begin. Three hundred years later, when the Ultimate Evil forms again, a Federated Army battleship unknowingly arrives at its location. The ship's commander is ordered by Federal President Lindberg to fire on it, but the Evil only grows larger with each attack, until it engulfs the entire ship.
The Mondoshawan attempt to bring the element stones back to Earth, but a powerful weapons manufacturer named Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg is employed by the Ultimate Evil (who takes on the alias Mr. Shadow) to obtain the stones. Zorg orders the beastly Mangalore warriors to destroy the Mondoshawan spaceship transporting the elements. The entire Mondoshawan crew dies when their ship crashes on a planet, but the Earthlings retrieve a severed hand from the wreckage. This appendage is regenerated in a laboratory on Earth and resurrects the "Perfect Being". The Perfect Being is an intelligent, strong, and beautiful woman with orange hair (Jovovich). Speaking in a bizarre language, she escapes the laboratory and dives from the side of the building into the flying taxicab driven by Korben Dallas (Willis).
Leeloo escapes into 2263 New York City.Korben, a former major in the Federated Army's elite special forces unit, brings the woman to a priest named Vito Cornelius (Holm), and learns that her name is Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat. Leeloo tells Cornelius that the first four elements were not aboard the ship that crashed on the moon; to keep them safe, the Mondoshawan gave the stones to an opera singer, the Diva Plavalaguna. Leeloo plans to rendezvous with the Diva in a hotel orbiting the planet Fhloston, where the Diva is scheduled to perform.
When Zorg learns that the Mangalores failed to collect the four elements, he refuses to give them anything in exchange for their efforts. Seemingly persuaded by their threats of violence, he offers them a crate of weapons as he leaves his office. The weapon is a hybrid of an assault rifle, mini-missile launcher, flamethrower, net-launcher, dart gun, and what appears to be a liquid nitrogen sprayer. However, a curious Mangalore presses a button that triggers a bomb built into his ZF1, inciting the surviving Mangalores to seek revenge against Zorg.
When the Earth's government learns of the Diva from the Mondoshawan, they reactivate Korben's status and send him to retrieve the stones. In order to transport him to Fhloston inconspicuously, the government rigs a contest in which the winner receives tickets for a cruise to Fhloston, which Korben wins. In one of the film's most humorous scenes, General Munro comes to brief Korben on the mission; when Leeloo and Cornelius come to take Korben's tickets (after hearing about him winning on the radio), Korben hides Munro and his aides in his refrigerator. The police (having been tipped off by Zorg to an alleged uranium smuggling) arrive and Korben hides Leeloo in his shower and Cornelius in his plastic encasing bed. After the police leave (as Leeloo planted Korben's cab number on another door), Cornelius knocks out Korben with his Medal of Honor trophy and steals the tickets.
At JFK International Airport, his novice, David (Charlie Creed-Miles), tries to board the plane with Leeloo. Korben arrives as they are checking in, and he and Leeloo board the flight and meet their host, a flamboyant radio DJ named Ruby Rhod (Tucker), while Cornelius stows away in the ventilation system, after sending his apprentice to Egypt to prepare for their arrival. Two shape-shifting Mangalores attempt to board the plane, but are sent away by the check-in attendant. Zorg's assistant, Right Arm, also poses as Korben, but is refused entry to the flight. He calls Zorg to report the situation, who remotely triggers an explosive in the phone booth, killing Right Arm, upon learning of his assistant's failure.
The trio arrives on Fhloston. Cornelius is arrested by the hotel security; Korben goes to his luxury suite and receives an abusive phone call from his mother (as he did not take her on the trip); and Leeloo awaits the Diva to give her the stones. In a sequence of rapid cross-cutting, Diva Plavalaguna begins her operatic performance in the theater aboard the cruise ship, while Leeloo engages in a gun fight and martial arts combat with Mangalores in the Diva's suite. The Diva's performance ends abruptly when she is killed by Mangalores, who then attempt to take control of the ship after Leeloo attacks them. President Lindberg and General Munro listen to the chaos on Ruby's radio program. As the crowd flees the theater, Zorg arrives. He intends to seize the stones; he confronts Leeloo and takes a wooden chest he believes contains the stones. He then shoots at her as she hides in the ventilation system, and plants a bomb on the ship. Once he departs, he is enraged to discover that the stones are not inside the chest.
After retrieving the four stones from their hiding place (the Diva's abdomen), Korben finally defeats the Mangalores simply by killing their leader. Immediately following this conflict, the protagonists find Zorg's bomb, and both the crew and the passengers begin to evacuate the ship. Zorg returns while the evacuation is under way; he deactivates his bomb with only seconds to spare, but is killed in an explosion from another bomb, detonated by a surviving Mangalore. Korben, Leeloo, Cornelius, and Ruby escape with seconds to spare in Zorg's fighter ship.
As President Lindberg and his staff celebrate the apparent success of Korben's mission, they are interrupted by a scientist who tells them that the Ultimate Evil (now a fireball 1,200 miles in diameter) has shifted position and is heading directly for Earth. This allows Korben less than two hours to prepare the weapon, the operation of which he does not yet understand.
As Korben, Leeloo, Cornelius, David, and Ruby Rhod return to Earth, the Ultimate Evil continues its trajectory toward Earth. During the flight, Leeloo researches human history on the ship's computer; as she arrives at the "war" category, she learns of humanity's cruelty and hatred.
With only minutes until impact, the protagonists arrive on Earth and begin to prepare the weapon. They place the stones around Leeloo, then David discovers that they must expose each stone to its corresponding element: to the air stone, breath; to the earth stone, dust; to the water stone, perspiration; and to the fire stone, a flame from the last match in Korben's matchbox. Leeloo is reluctant to create the Divine Light, and asks "What is the point of saving life if all you do is destroy it?" Korben convinces her that some things are worth saving, such as love. He finally tells her that he loves her, and they kiss passionately. Their love triggers the stones and fires the weapon. The Divine Light is released from her, and halts the Ultimate Evil in its path, only 62 miles from Earth. The Ultimate Evil is instantaneously petrified and the Earth is saved.
In the end the President and his staff arrive at the laboratory where Leeloo was regenerated. Korben and Leeloo are making love in a "reactor" (the regeneration chamber), and the president answers an abusive phone call from Korben's mother.
Influence
Some of the elements of the story of The Fifth Element are reminiscent of the Harry Canyon segment in the 1981 animated film Heavy Metal. Both stories feature a world-weary taxi driver in a dystopian future New York City who accidentally encounters a beautiful woman, who is at the center of a conflict involving an evil entity.
Additionally, The Fifth Element shares narrative elements with the French space opera comic book series Valérian and Laureline, which takes place in a highly-stylized future metropolis and features a masculine protagonist assigned to protect a seemingly vulnerable female character. The female character is named Laureline and is depicted with artificially red hair, while in The Fifth Element, Leeloo has orange hair.
Several scenes pay homage to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. When the police attempt to arrest Leeloo after she has crash-landed in Dallas' taxicab, they twice use the expression "thank you for your cooperation", a line directly from Paul Verhoeven's Robocop. Also, the film is often compared to, and credited alongside, Blade Runner, possibly drawing some influences from the film.
Script
Korben Dallas was originally intended to be a laborer in a rocket ship factory.[citation needed] As the film went into development in the early 1990s, Besson went on to create Léon starring Jean Reno, while comic book artist Jean-Claude Mézières, who had been hired as a conceptual designer for The Fifth Element, returned to illustrating The Circles of Power, the fifteenth volume in the Valérian and Lareline series. This particular volume featured a character named S'Traks who drives a flying taxicab through the congested air traffic of the vast metropolis on the planet Rubanis. Besson read the book and was inspired to change the character of Dallas to a taxicab driver who flies through a futuristic New York City.
The original name of the character Ruby Rhod was Loc Rhod. This name also appears in the novelization of the film
Minor roles and cameo appearances
There are several well-known performers in the supporting cast of The Fifth Element. Actor Luke Perry makes a cameo appearance as an artist for Professor Pacoli in the film's prologue. President Lindberg is played by Tom Lister, Jr., while General Munro is played by Brion James, who played Leon the replicant in the film Blade Runner. Zorg's assistant Right Arm is played by Adrian Thaws, who is better known as British musical artist Tricky.
General Staedert is played by John Neville who is better known for playing Baron Munchausen in Terry Gilliam's 1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and "the Well-Manicured Man" on The X-Files.
The man who attempts to rob Korben on his doorstep is played by Mathieu Kassovitz, a French film director and actor known for his role in Amelie, who is a close friend of Luc Besson. The member of the cruise ship crew named Fog, who assists Korben in his gunfight with the Mangalores, is played by British comedian Lee Evans.
The police officer in the driver's seat of the flying police car parked at the drive-through window of McDonald's is played by American actor Mac McDonald. McDonald also played Captain Frank Hollister in the British series Red Dwarf, and appeared briefly in the extended scenes at the beginning of the Special Edition Aliens.
Besson cast several fashion models, for both speaking and non-speaking roles. Many of them play attendants on the cruise ship orbiting Fhloston, including Ève Salvail, Nicole Merry, and Stacey McKenzie. French-American fashion model Sybil Buck plays Zorg's secretary.
The Diva Plavalaguna is played by Maïwenn Le Besco.
Although not recognizable onscreen, one of the Mondoshawans is played by British performer Jerome Blake, who performed four different alien characters in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, as well as an alien soldier in the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Cultural references
New York City in the year 2263.Several references are made to both real life and fiction sources throughout the film. When Korben is shown getting out of bed, the date on his bedroom wall is 18 March 2263; Besson's birthday is 18 March 1959. A number of manga volumes can be seen in Korben's apartment, including Adolf by Osamu Tezuka and Sanctuary by Sho Fumimura and Ryoichi Ikegami.
Zorg paraphrases Friedrich Nietzsche when he says "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Later in the film, Zorg detonates a bomb within a telephone booth at the New York Spaceport after ending his conversation with his assistant, an homage to the original James Bond novel Casino Royale. Additionally, there are numerous references to the Star Wars films. For instance, the Federated Army battleships are similar in design to the Imperial Star Destroyers and Major Iceborg has a similar hairstyle to Princess Leia Organa.
The diva's name, Plavalaguna, means "blue lagoon" in several Slavic languages. Return to the Blue Lagoon was Milla Jovovich's second starring role as an actress.
Clever devices are used to mock certain aspects of modern culture. Korben Dallas' cigarettes are colored in such a way to imply that most of the cigarette is a filter, with only a small part actually smokable. Korben, in the course of meeting Leeloo, goes from 5 points on his license to 1 point on his license. This is inverted from the point system used in the US and UK, in which points are added, not subtracted for violations, but is in accordance with the point system used in France, where a fresh driving license has 12 points. There is also a type of national ID card in the film called a multipass, which is, evidently, easily forgeable. Additionally, the word "green" is used in the film as slang for "cool". In one scene, two police officers get their lunch from McDonald's and a crushed bottle of Coca-Cola can be seen in Korben's apartment.
The Divine Language
The Divine language spoken in the film is an artificial language with only 400 words, invented by director Luc Besson and Milla Jovovich. In an interview with Jovovich included in the bonus feature "The Adventure and Discovery of a Film: The Story of the Fifth Element" on the DVD release of The Fifth Element (Ultimate Edition), Jovovich stated that she and Besson wrote letters to each other in the Divine Language as practice.
The first part of Leeloo's name, "Leeloominaï" means "precious stones", and the latter "Ekbat De Sebat" is an honorific that is never defined. No meaning is given for "Lekatariba" or "Lamina-Tchaï". "Leeloominaï" is the only word in her name that appears in Luc Besson's published dictionary. Other spellings of her name include "Leeloo mi naï", and "Leeloo Minai Lekatariba Lamin-atchai Ekbat Desebat", with "Lekarariba" being wrongly mistaken as the pronunciation of her "third" name. No formal declaration of the truth behind the spelling of Leeloo's name has ever come forth from Besson, but a post-production promotional poster of Leeloo leaping from a building is subtitled "Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat".
The term "Senno Ekto Gamat" used by Leeloo, after Korben Dallas kisses her means, "never without my permission".
thoughts:
Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg (Oldman)= john baptist immanuel/jesus zorg?
the id card, green as cool. also the annunaki/fallen, ultimate evil/planet x/wormwood
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/8452/5thelement.html
Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg - Gary Oldman
Zorg is a financial mogul who specializes in arms-dealing and other illicit and illegal markets. He has a southern accent and a taste for flamboyant clothes and hairstyles. He is working for the absolute evil threatening the Universe. He is trying to get a hold of the four stones that represent the four elements of Earth. He converses with Evil via the telephone where evil is known simply as Mr. Shadow.
Evil - Mr. Shadow
Now the thing is that when someone thinks of an ultimate evil threatening the Universe they tend to dehumanize it and picture a mindless force of nature. This is, however, not so and instead Evil is a conscience. Evil is calculating and intelligent and adapts to changes in the plot.
Theme
Basically it's the story of the age old battle between Good and Evil, but here it takes on an unusual aspect. Evil is supreme, absolute Evil. There is only one thing that bothers it : Life! Evil isn't motivated by money, power or domination; it doesn't need energy to spread itself around. Life disturbs it, smothers it and its purpose is to destroy men, women, children, animals, plants and even light. It comes into our universe every 5,000 years to wage battle - and every 5,000 years, we forget how to fight it.
best line in the film: "evil begets evil". only love/life can conquer it.