Useless Movie Trivia For
The Fifth Element
Memorable Movie Quotes
Zorg: A case with FOUR STONES in it! Not one or two or three, but four! Four stones! What the hell am I supposed to do with an empty case?
Mugger: Give me the cash!
Leeloo: Leeloo Dallas mul-ti-pass.
Leeloo: Everything you create, you use to destroy.
Korben Dallas: Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English.
Leeloo: Me fifth element - supreme being. Me protect you.
Zorg: I don't like warriors. Too narrow-minded, no subtlety. And worse, they fight for hopeless causes. Honor? Huh! Honor's killed millions of people, it hasn't saved a single one.
Korben's Mother: You miserable bastard! I never should've pushed you out.
Trivia
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.
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.
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').
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 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.
The McDonald's train the police crash into says, "65 Trillion Served."
Leeloo's full name is Leeloo Minai Lekatariba Laminatcha Ekbat De Sabat.
At US$80 million, the special-effects budget of the film was the highest of its time.
Selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.
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.
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.
Goofs
In the very beginning of the movie, right before Leeloo punches through the glass that is supposed to be "unbreakable", you can see that the glass is already cracked and ready to be broken.
Since Leeloo was "reconstructed" from a small sample of her DNA, the flaming red hair color is clearly intended to be her natural color. However, inconsistently varying amounts of brown "roots" are apparent in her hair in various scenes. It is perhaps most obvious When Leeloo is about to fall from the ledge into Korben's taxi, where a good half inch of brown "root" can be seen.
When Leeloo is standing on the ledge and is being blinded by the police lights she raises her hands right before she jumps. Her hands are very dirty, almost completely black. After that she jumps down, crashes into Corbens cab, and puts her hands against the glass, here you can see her hands are much cleaner. Also her face seems less dirty.
Box Office Info USA
Budget: $90,000,000
Opening Weekend: $17,031,345
Gross: $63,540,020
Filming Locations
London, England, UK
Mauritania
Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
Royal Opera House, Bow Street, Covent Garden, London, England, UK
Vatnajökull, Austurland, Iceland