Sometimes, a good science fiction epic comes from almost out of nowhere and becomes an instant classic. It happened with Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. I and Pitch Black. It happened with Alien and Predator. But those movies also launched franchises or are a part of one. When The Fifth Element came out in 1997, there was just about nothing like it. In fact, some critics heralded it as “the next Star Wars.” In some ways, there still hasn’t been a film like this one.
Yes, the story of a savior and the people trying to help him or her save the world or the galaxy or what have you has been told before. But much like George Lucas did twenty years prior, writer and director Luc Besson took a simple story and crafted an entirely new way to tell it. 300 some odd years in the future, the galaxy is a super dense place with all kinds of colorful aliens. Bruce Willis is of course still playing the everyman character that he popularized.
With all of the insanity going on, Milla Jovovich steals the show at Leeloo, the savior tasked with saving the galaxy. She subverts what an action heroine usually is. She doesn’t need saving, although having Willis around for quippy one-liners and blowing things up is certainly helpful.
It’s one of the best sci-fi/action movies of all time. Here are 25 Hidden Details Only True Fans Noticed In The Fifth Element.
25 Luc Besson Wrote The Story At 16
If the world of The Fifth Element seems really fleshed out and lives in by the characters, that’s because it was! Director Luc Besson has dreamt up the story decades before cameras rolled. He was only 16 at the time he first thought of the story.
He conceived of a lot of the story elements to escape his lonely childhood. He had originally envisioned the story as a trilogy. But thankfully was able to condense it all into one jam-packed fun movie. He didn’t start filming it until he was 38 years old.
24 The Purple One As Ruby Rhod
Chris Tucker gives a way-over-the-top performance as radio shock jock, Ruby Rhod. Besides Chris Tucker’s casting unintentionally reuniting him with Friday co-star, Tiny Lister, The comedian gives one of the best performances of his career in this movie. The guy wasn’t even Besson’s first choice for the role.
Someone as outlandish as Rhod could have only been dreamt up with one or two of the eighties’ most charismatic and effeminate performers. One was the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson. The other was the Purple One himself, Prince. But he actually turned the role down, because Rhod was too effeminate for him.
23 The Director’s Diva
When Leeloo needs to meet with the Diva Plavalaguna, it gives way to some of the best sequences in the movie. The big blue opera singer is as a sight to behold and the original actress set to play the role stepped out, Besson turned to his wife for help.
Maïwenn Le Besco was more than willing to help her hubby out and jumped into the skin of the blue-skinned opera singer. She didn’t do the singing for her though, that would go to opera singer Inva Mula. She also wouldn’t be Besson’s wife much longer than these scenes.
22 Plavalaguna’s Impossible Voice
Even if you don’t like the Opera or seldom have heard an opera song, then you should at least know how difficult it is for an Opera Singer to hold those notes, let alone reach some of this octaves; no matter the range of your voice.
When opera singer Inva Mula was brought in to record the Diva Plavalaguna’s epic song, an arrangement of Il Dolce Suono, she had to explain to the composer, Eric Serra, that those notes and combinations together weren’t just a physical impossibility for her, but for any singer. Mula had to record parts separately that were spliced together and edited during post-production.
21 Oldman Hates The Flick
Gary Oldman does what he does best in The Fifth Element, he chews up scenery as if his life depended on it. As Zorg, Oldman is bent on retrieving the stones that are intended to be used to save humanity. As great as the actor is on the movie, he has expressed much dislike for this movie.
He did the movie without looking at a script as a favor to his friend, Besson. Luc Besson then helped to finance Oldman’s directorial debut, Nil By Mouth.
20 The Divine Language
When creating Leeloo, Besson decided that the savior needed to have her own language to speak. It’s not uncommon for sci-fi characters to wind up with languages of their own. But only a select few wind up fully functional. Klingon, Huttese, and the Divine Language to name a few.
While it sounds like nonsense, Besson had written at least 400 words for this language. By the end of filming, both Besson and Jovovich were able to have full conversations in this made up language.
19 Everyone Met On Set
Sometimes to get genuine reactions from their actors, directors will often wait to show their stars, or clue them into certain things. Luc Besson is no different. While making the movie, he didn’t show Bruce Willis what Milla Jovovich’s iconic “white tape” costume would look like.
He also didn’t let anyone know about what the Diva Plavlaguna would look like. When Maïwenn Le Besco came out onto the stage, the reaction from all of the extras was genuine, as if they really were staring at a giant blue alien opera singer.
18 Vin Diesel’s Voice
After films like Saving Private Ryan and Pitch Black, Vin Diesel would be just about everywhere on his road to becoming one of the world’s biggest action stars. He’s also in The Fifth Element, playing an ancillary character – Korben’s dispatcher, Finger.
You don’t remember him, do you? That’s because you didn’t. Diesel did the gig as an uncredited voice actor. For everyone who never knew this before go back and watch…and listen. Hearing him here will be a trip.
17 The Most Expensive Foreign Film Ever Made
With the special and practical effects extravaganza, not to mention landing a big name like Bruce Willis (even at a reduced price) – making a movie gets pretty expensive. “Duh,” right. We all know this. But what you might not know is that all those production houses that get a credit at the beginning of any movie forked over a slew of cash to get the movie made.
In America Columbia Pictures and abroad, Gaumont shared the funds to get the movie made. A movie that Besson kept asking more money for, it would become at this point the most expensive foreign film ever made.
16 No Face To Face Meeting
When an action hero like Bruce Willis is in your movie, you can expect a lot of explosions and snappy one-liners. You can also expect him to be a smart alec right in front of the bad guy pointing a gun at him.
But The Fifth Element is a much different movie. While there are plenty of elements of an action sci-fi movie are there, they’re also slightly skewed. Which is why Korben and Zorg never meet face to face or have any confrontation at all in the movie.
15 The Fifth Element Has Fives On It
In the movie, according to the priests who have been handing down the story for generations, the four elements of Earth will combine with the Chosen One, aka the Fifth Element to fight back a terrible evil.
There are fives hidden all over the movie. Ruby Rhod’s show starts promptly at five. Zorg stops the bomb with five seconds left to go. Korben has five points left on his license. There’s symmetry and callbacks in films all of the time, the amount of fives in this movie, you would think Leeloo would have it tattooed on her arm. Oh, that’s right – she does, but someone goofed up and tattooed her with six lines instead of five.
14 Valerian Influences
When you’ve been working on a story for over twenty years, you’re bound to have all sorts of influences. Luc Besson has stated in the past that the French comic book Valerian And Laureline was a huge source of inspiration for The Fifth Element.
Unfortunately for Besson, when he finally got the chance to create a fully-fledged Valerian movie, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, the movie was released to less-than-stellar fanfare and therefore didn’t do well at the box office.
13 The Time Difference Is Off
The beginning of the film sets up a backstory in the early 20th Century; 1914 to be exact. The duck-billed aliens arrive and tell the priest to tell the story and the instructions to each subsequent priest until the time has come for them to return and save humanity.
The movie cuts to 300 years later, which would make it the year 2214. But there is a timestamp somewhere in the movie that shows it’s 2263, nearly fifty years later than it is supposed to be. It doesn’t do anything to hinder the movie, but with all of the attention to detail, this one should have been caught; then it again, as it is said in the film, “time is not important.”
12 Gaultier Design And Model Cameos
Fashion Designer icon Jean–Paul Gaultier designed all of the costumes for the film. If you ever thought to yourself that they look pretty wild, Jean-Paul is your answer to everything from the stewardesses to Korben, Rob, Leeloo, everyone. Gaultier even personally checked on the costumes of every single extra for a scene.
His model of choice during the day was Eve Salvail. He caught wind of her when she decided to shave her head and tattoo a dragon onto it. She wasn’t the only model who had a part in the movie. Milla Jovovich had also done some modeling before becoming an actress.
11 Casting Korben Dallas
The movie seems like a film tailor-made for Willis. But that could also be because once he was officially on board, Besson rewrote some of the dialogue to suit Willis’ talents. According to Besson, he always had Willis in mind for the role.
While the actor was debating on taking the role or not, Besson actually thought he wouldn’t have been able to afford him. The role was also offered to Jean Reno (from Besson’s Leon) and Mel Gibson, who made the director wait nearly three months before making his choice.
10 All The Training And Still No High Kicks
The movie took svelte Milla Jovovich and turned her in an action star. She parlayed the role into some of the more memorable “B–action” movies over the years, like The Messenger, Ultraviolet, and about 83 Resident Evil movies.
With this being her first big action movie, even though Jovovich had a slew of martial arts training, the tremendous high kick that Leeloo performs was just physically impossible at the time. In these scenes, there was a stunt leg used.
9 “Bigatures”
If you’ve ever watched the behind-the-scenes making-of documentaries on the Lord Of The Rings extended edition DVDs, you’ll hear the production crew talk about “Bigatures” in relation to the larger than normal “miniature” production models they had to build for shooting.
The Fifth Element didn’t use the term, but they might have beaten Peter Jackson to the punch. The film featured a lot of CGI, but there were also plenty of practical effects and models that were used, too. It took a team of 80 workers and approximately five months to build the New York City of the future which was nearly 20 feet high in some places.
8 All Of This Innovative Storytelling – Only One Oscar
At the 1998 Academy Awards, a little-known critical darling called Titanic swept in and took home a slew of awards, leaving very little for every other film to claim. Strangely enough, with all of the details, the costumes, and the effects, one would have thought that The Fifth Element was at least nominated for more than one award.
You’d be wrong. Even the outlandish costumes weren’t nominated. The only award the movie got nominated for was Mark Mangini and his Sound Effects Editing. He would finally win this award for Mad Max: Fury Road. But in 1998, he lost out to…drumroll…Titanic.
7 The Biggest Indoor Explosion Ever
When you’re the most expensive foreign produced film of the time, but the movie also had some crazy firsts in other places as well. Plavalaguna’s opera performance isn’t going to be replicated any time soon. But the action scene that takes place in and around her performance features not just one of, but the largest indoor explosion in cinema history.
The scene had no CGI and was all real pyrotechnics. The fire did get out of control, and it cleared the set for several minutes while the fire brigade came and set out the flames.
6 Jessie Spano As Leeloo
With a role as coveted as Leeloo, some 200-300 actresses supposedly had auditioned before Besson cast Milla Jovovich. One such actress was “Jessie Spano” herself, Elizabeth Berkley was one of them. She had recently come hot off the heels of the cinematic gem known as Showgirls.
According to an interview with Movieline, Berkley had stated that she came close to getting the part, and Besson had supported her for the role. But the reality of the terrible press that her performance got in Showgirls not only sunk her chances there, but sadly everywhere else.
5 Besson Directs Everything
As the name says, the Director does just that – lets his actors and entire crew know what he or she wants and hopes that he or she hired the right team to see his vision realized on the big screen. Seldom though are they actually the person behind the camera.
Besson was though. While making The Fifth Element, Besson was the man behind the camera framing every shot. His style was unique, and he didn’t like to call “cut” either. He would just walk up to his actors and move them where they needed to be and/or explained what he wanted out of a scene.
4 Besson Wanted To Wait Longer To Make It
When you’re making a grand sweeping sci-fi adventure, the action on screen could take weeks and even months to film only a few seconds of the movie. That was the way it was at least in the mid-nineties. Had Besson waited just a little bit more to start filming, he might have had an easier go of it.
He once said, “I was a little bit frustrated because I made the film right before all the new effects arrived. So when I did the film it was all blue screen, six hours, dots on the wall, takes forever to do one shot. Now, basically, you put the camera on your shoulder and then you run and then you add a couple of dinosaurs and spaceships.”
3 Made Mostly With Practical Effects
While Besson was waiting, hoping Special Effects to come along to better serve his vision; he wasn’t waiting long. Plenty of the movie was made with good old fashioned practical effects and makeup.
Besides the models and Plavalaguna, there were a litany of practical effects on hand for the world to see. The Mondoshawans (The “robot ducks”) as well as the Mangalores, who served as Zorg’s henchmen were all made from real material and on set for the world to see.
2 The Director’s Chosen One
Taking one look at Milla Jovovich and from a physical standpoint, it’s easy to see why she’d be cast as the Chosen One in any film. But the actress happened to have been Besson’s as well. The very married at the time, Besson (remember his then-current wife was Plavalaguna) had fallen for Milla.
The director and the actress would be together and married at the end of 1997. Their marriage didn’t last as long as love for this film – they divorced two years later.
1 Luke Perry’s Cameo
In between his stints as Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills, 90210, the recently departed heartthrob, Luke Perry has several movie roles. None more successful than his cameo in The Fifth Element.
It’s not a big role (hence why it’s a cameo), and it does actually feel a bit jarring. But it’s still fun to see him play Billy, a young assistant to a professor who believes in the prophecy of the Fifth Element. It’s a brief role but still ranks amongst Perry’s most memorable.
