Trivia for
The Fifth Element (1997) More at IMDbPro »

• The language spoken by Leeloo was invented by director Luc Besson and further refined by Milla Jovovich. By the end of filming they were able to have full conversations in this language.
  
  
• The explosion in the Fhloston main hall was the largest indoor explosion ever filmed. The resulting fire almost got beyond control.
  
  
• Early in the film, Gary Oldman's character quotes Friedrich Nietzsche, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." Oldman's costar, Bruce Willis, released a record album on Motown Records with that title in the 1980s. 11 years later, Heath Ledger said a variation of the famous line in The Dark Knight (2008) (also starring Gary Oldman).
  
  
• This is one of two science-fiction movies featuring 'Ian Holm' in which there is a character by the name of Dallas. The other one is Alien (1979), which stars Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas.
  
  
• The actor playing the cop in the driver's seat waiting at the McDonald's restaurant is Mac McDonald.
  
  
• Ruby Rhod was not the original name for Chris Tucker's character, it was Loc Rhod. The original name appears in the script and the movie novelization.
  
  
• When Korben Dallas wakes up, the date can just be seen on his bedroom wall: March 18th, 2263. 18 March is director Luc Besson's birthday (a day before Bruce Willis').
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Luc Besson] [intro]
  
  
• In the future New York City, Central Park is the same size as the real one and is in the same place - but 100 feet in the air.
  
  
• Volumes of two manga series - Sanctuary, by Ryoichi Ikegami and Sho Fumimura (Buronson), and Adolf, by Osamu Tezuka - are briefly visible in Korben Dallas' apartment.
  
  
• When the President tells Father Vito Cornelius he has "twenty seconds" to state his point, Vito talks for exactly twenty seconds.
  
  
• The only phrases from Leeloo's alien language that are included in the captioning are "mlarta," "big ba-dah big boom," "akta," "seno akta gamat," "san agamat chay bet. Envolet," "danko," "domo danko," and "apipoulai." Everything else appears as Unknown Language or, after it's specified, the Divine Language.
  
  
• When the Mondoshawan aliens appear in 1914 Egypt, the Professor, panicking, says, "A... A... Are you German?" In the German version he says "Sind Sie... hier von der Erde?" which roughly translates as "Are you from here... Earth?"
  
  
• The hero (Bruce Willis) and the villain (Gary Oldman) never meet, nor do they communicate in any way.
  
  
• Luc Besson wrote the original screenplay when he was in high school.
  
  
• Korben's termination notice reads, in part, "Notice of termination of your contract, effective as of today. Due to violation of codes, HFGY56, 74HVB, 00JGHY, MNH356585, MCNH485757, 0478N - your engagement with this company finishes immediately. For, and on behalf of, ZORG." So it turns out Korben Dallas worked for Zorg when he drove his taxi, though this would have been implied anyway, as in the previous scene, Zorg gave the order for 1 million of his workers to be fired.
  
  
• The parasites being disinfected from the landing gear of the airplane (bound for Fhloston Paradise) by a team in sealed suits are actually Boglins, the 1980s puppet toys.
  
  
• Also noticeable among the parasites is a child's toy known as a Bumble Ball, a battery-operated shaking and vibrating ball covered with rubber knobs.
  
  
• The number 5 appears in the movie on several obvious occasions. There are 5 elements. Zorg stops his bomb with 5 seconds remaining on the timer and the Mangalore's bomb starts with a 5 second timer. Ruby Rhod, near the end of the movie after the alien planet is stopped, says, "There's a bomb going off every 5 minutes!" and the doctor at the end says that Leeloo and Korben need 5 more minutes. Also Ruby Rhod's show is at 5.
  
  
• The McDonald's train the police crash into says, "65 Trillion Served."
  
  
• Leeloo's full name is "Leeloo Minai Lekarariba-Laminai-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat". According to the subtitles in English DVD Region 1.
  
  
• At the time, this was the most expensive production in Gaumont's history.
  
  
• At US$80 million, the special-effects budget of the film was the highest of its time.
  
  
• At the time, it was the most expensive film ever produced outside of Hollywood.
  
  
• Selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
  
  
• In most shots of Gary Oldman, there is a circle around his head. In fact, a circle in the middle of the frame is a near-constant motif in this film. Bruce Willis, on the other hand, is more often framed by a rectangle or doorway behind him.
  
  
• According to the Ultimate Edition DVD, Prince and Lenny Kravitz were sources of inspiration for the part of Ruby Rhod.
  
  
• In every New York visual effects scene with flying traffic there is a flying bus with the Digital Domain (the facility responsible for most of the VFX) internal reference, or shot name, stenciled on the roof of a bus. The instructions for the visual effects team were to include one bus with the shot name but then all other buses and traffic could have personal references including birthdays, initials, etc. The front marquee for a bus's destination and side billboards were customized by the artists at Digital Domain to reference, invisibly or subliminally, some personal stamp or message.
  
  
• The flying traffic created by the visual effects team at Digital Domain allowed artists to create personalized license plates. Though never visible in the film, the state slogan printed on all license plates reads, "New York, The Fuck-You State."
  
  
• The text scrolling across a Times Square theater marquee as Korben dives down through traffic is actually an excerpt from an e-mail dispute between several artists at Digital Domain. Other signs on digital and practical, miniature buildings contain similar in-jokes and references and the large cylindrical tanker truck that Korben's cab almost hits at the end of his decent is decorated with the logo of a Venice, California, pizza parlor that was a favorite of Digital Domain artists.
  
  
• The people populating the roofs, decks and windows during the visual effects sequences in New York are actually the artists and employees at Digital Domain who worked on the film.
  
  
• Bruce Willis ad-libbed the line, "Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English."
  
  
• When Leeloo is reconstructed from her damaged arm, her clothing consists of bands that are nearly identical in placement to the metal bands covering Maria in Metropolis (1927) when the Man-Machine is converted into her.
  
  
• Zorg's monologue about destruction creating productivity is actually a classic economics fallacy exposed in "The Parable of the Broken Window" by economist Frederic Bastiat.
  
  
• The alien who detonates the final bomb at the hotel uses a device which is actually a MasterLock with a timing lamp attached.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Luc Besson] [music] .
  
  
• Luc Besson, an admitted comic book fan, had two famous French comic book artists in mind for the film's visual style when he started writing the movie in high school. Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières. Both artists have long-standing comic book series in France. Moebius is best known for "Blueberry" and the (French) Magazine and (US) movie Heavy Metal (1981). Mézières is best known for the "Valerian" series. Both series are still in production today. Mobeius and Mezieres, who attended art school together but had never collaborated on a project until The Fifth Element (1997), started renderings for the film in the early '90s and are responsible for the majority of the over all look of the film, including the vehicles, spacecrafts, buildings, human characters and aliens. However, only Giraud is credited, and even then he wasn't even granted a premium when the movie was eventually produced.
  
  
• As Korben and Leeloo approach an intersection in his cab the camera whips forward to reveal to the audience that six police cars are waiting for him ahead. In the far background, behind the police cars, is a chase between a police car and a long black car complete with muzzle flashes to represent gun fire between the two cars. Ever an eye for detail, Luc Besson noticed the embellishment the first time the visual effects shot was reviewed, thought that it was funny and it remains in the final film.
  
  
• Part of the song that the Diva sings is from the opera Lucia Di Lammermoor, and very often goes by the title "The Mad Song', as it is sung by Lucia just after she murders Arturo (whom she was forced to marry) on their wedding day - Lucia is hallucinating that she has married the man she really loves; Edgardo, her brother's nemesis.
  
  
• Triangles feature frequently in the film. They appear on the Egyptian ruins, on the displays of the planet alignment, and in the missile formation fired from the cruiser. Also, the stones are triangular prisms.
  
  
• The Zorg Industries ZF-1 Pod Weapons System was actually based upon an AKSU-74 compact assault rifle.
  
  
• When filming began, the production decided to dye Milla Jovovich's hair from its natural brown color to her character's signature orange color. However, due to the fact that her hair had to be re-dyed regularly to maintain the bright color, Milla's hair quickly became too damaged and broken to withstand the dye. Eventually a wig was created to match the color and style of Leeloo's hair, and was used for the remainder of the production.
  
  
• Plavalaguna, Diva's name, is actually composed of two words: Plava i Laguna. "Plava" in Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian language means Blue (feminine, masculine would be "plav"). Laguna means lagoon, though Laguna is used in English as well as in Laguna Beach, California. So we have her name as: Blue Lagoon. The fact that she is blue just confirms this.
  
  
• The Diva's name, Plavalaguna, means Blue Lagoon. Milla Jovovich was Lilli in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991).
  
  
• When composer Eric Serra showed soprano 'Inva Mulla Tchako' (who dubs the voice of the Diva) the sheet music for the Diva Dance, she reportedly smiled and relayed to him that some of the notes written were not humanly possible to achieve because the human voice cannot change notes that fast. Hence, she performed the notes in isolation - one by one, as opposed to consecutively singing them all together and they digitized the notes to fit the music. There are a few moments when you can hear the differences in the vocal tones of The Diva's voice.
  
  
• WILHELM SCREAM: Heard when Zorg blows up Right Arm at the airport and when Leeloo tosses two Mangalores out of the Diva's room.
  
  
• When the mugger tries to rob Dallas early in the film, his weapon includes a very large, clear aiming device with the image of a man on it, which is identical to the logo of the 1960s TV series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (1964).
  
  
• All but one of the Mondoshawan suits were destroyed after production. The surviving suit now belongs to Nick Dudman.
  
  
• Nick Dudman's creature crew created a group of spindly, long-nosed alien garbage collectors that never made it to the final film. In the scenes at the spaceport, there's a huge pile of garbage which has gone uncollected because the garbage collectors are on strike (as explained in some dialogue). These creatures would have been seen amidst the garbage, holding sandwich board signs reading "On strike" if they had made it to the final cut.
  
  
• WILHELM SCREAM: Heard during Leeloo's fight with the Mangalores, as two Mangalores are sent flying out of the Diva's suite.
  
  
• The cityscape with its enormous advertisement screens is an homage to Blade Runner (1982).
  
  
• The hair style of the lady suggested to pose as Korben's wife, Major Iceborg (Julie T. Wallace), seems inspired by that of Princess Leia in Star Wars (1977)
  
  
• Director Luc Besson has stated in numerous interviews that the "fifth element" is actually sexual intercourse.
  
  

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