The Fifth Element is a 1997 English-language French Science Fiction/Space Opera film. The brainchild of producer, director and screenwriter Luc Besson, it stars Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Chris Tucker and Ian Holm. The soundtrack was composed by Besson's longtime collaborator, Éric Serra. It was released by Sony Pictures Releasing under Columbia Pictures in North America, while in France it was released by Disney under Gaumont Buena Vista International.

The movie opens in 1914, in an Egyptian temple, where an archaeologist, assisted by a reporter, discovers hieroglyphs that report about a Great Evil that is unleashed and tries to destroy all life every five millennia, and the weapons to defeat it: four stones representing water, fire, air and earth and a "perfect being" representing a fifth element sealed in a sarcophagus. A priest on site seems incredibly disturbed that the discovery is being made, going so far as to (unsuccessfully) poison the archaeologist to prevent the discovery.

Just as the discovery is made, the Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who made the temple in the first place (and whom the priest, and all those who have come before him, have secretly served) arrive in a giant spaceship and take away the stones and the sarcophagus, explaining that they are unsafe because of the imminent war on Earth. The aliens also order the priest to continue to take care of the temple and to pass on his knowledge, as it was passed on to him, to prepare for the Great Evil's incoming. The priest points out that they're leaving Earth defenseless, and the aliens reply that when the Great Evil returns, so shall they. Cut to...

2263, when the Great Evil is starting to form itself. On their way to deliver the five elements back, the aliens are shot down by a ship of another race of proud warrior aliens, who steal the box which would contain the stones. The remains of the "fifth element" are found and Earth scientists reconstruct it, generating an orange-haired Mysterious Waif named Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat, or "Leeloo" for short, who breaks out of the lab and dives into a taxi driven by ex-soldier Korben Dallas. With the Great Evil getting closer, Korben has to help Leeloo save the planet.

The Fifth Element provides examples of:

• 2-D Space: The border of the Federated Territories is a massive line of buoys (presumably scanners) that detect incoming ships and turn green to indicate that they may pass. There's not even multiple lines. Naturally, while the Mondoshawan politely fly through it, the Mangalores ignore it completely and suffer no immediate repurcussions.
• Absent-Minded Professor: The archaeologist in the first scene set in 1914. He is so absorbed in the symbols on the wall he's studying that he doesn't even notice the arrival of an alien spaceship.
• Absurdly Huge Population: The President of Earth mentions "some 200 billion of my fellow citizens", although these might not all be on Earth.
• Accidentally Beneficial Attack: The big dark planet of evil is attacked by Earth's military with several missiles. Instead of the missiles hurting it, they cause it to get bigger.
• Activation Sequence: Once the elements are collected, it's necessary to trigger the keystones with their respective Four-Element Ensemble, Leeloo and Dallas as Element Number Five, to activate the Pillar of Light that will neutralize the Eldritch Abomination that threatens the Earth.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Ian Holm on a spaceship with a man called Dallas. At least this time he's stopping aliens instead of helping them.
  • The Diva's name translates as 'blue lagoon' in Croatian. Milla Jovovich, who plays Leeloo, had starred in Return to the Blue Lagoon.
• Actually Pretty Funny: The Space Police are sweeping Korben Dallas's apartment complex and ask, "Sir, are you classified as human?" Korben deadpans back, "Negative, I am a meat popsicle." The cop smirks and moves on.
• Aerith and Bob: In the same character's name, no less. Jean-Baptiste Emanuel... Zorg?
• Aggressive Negotiations: Korben Dallas negotiates by shooting the leader of the Mangalores, knowing this will take the fight out of the others.
  Korben: Anyone else want to negotiate?
  Fog: [to Ruby] Where did he learn to negotiate like that?
  [listening in back on Earth]
  Lindberg: [with a glare towards General Munro] I wonder.
• Air Quotes: Ruby Rhod makes emphatic air quotes around the word "vocabulary" while scolding Korben for not being a very engaging interviewee. (Korben's response is a Neck Lift.)
  Ruby Rhod: Will you please act like you have more than a two-word vo-ca-bu-la-ry? It must be green, OK? OK?
• Air-Vent Passageway: Played straight when Leeloo escapes the lab in the beginning. Subverted when she tries it against Zorg; he has a machine gun and the vent is noisy, so he does eventually hit her.
• All Crimes Are Equal: Car thieving is. When the Police are on Korben's tail, they try to scan his ID but fail because of his scan blocker. They figure he is a car thief and immediately attempt to blast him away with some high-caliber gun.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: When the Mangalores take over Fhloston Paradise.
• Always Accurate Attack: The Replay feature on the ZF-1, which fires a tracer bullet, after which every shot fired will home in on it, even if the gun is pointed in the opposite direction.
• Ancient Tomb: In the Distant Prologue, we see an archaeologist discovering hieroglyphs in an Egyptian temple. The place becomes the setting for the reunion of the five elements in the future year of 2263.
• And Starring: The opening's cast roll ends with "and Luke Perry".
• Answer Cut: When Leeloo tells Cornelius that the stones have been stolen, he thinks to himself who in god's name would do such a vile thing. Cut to Zorg in his headquarters.
• Arc Number: The number 5 appears throughout the movie.
• Arc Words:
  • "Time not important. Only life important."
  • "Four elements gathered around a fifth."
  • "Perfect" - Korben looks for the perfect woman and Professor Mactilburgh and Cornelius call Leeloo "perfect".
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • Leeloo's DNA is composed of the same elements "but more tightly packed", resulting in a more coiled spiral with more helixes. Physics are what gives DNA its distinctive shape - the molecular forces arising from the component molecules and nucleotides. You can't just pack them more tightly.
  • The final part of Leeloo's resurrection process involves bombarding her skin-less body with UV radiation to stimulate the growth of skin. This would simply kill her. Skin isn't a natural response from the body to its environment, but an organ in itself. Also, for no reason this also causes Leeloo to grow hair.
• Artistic License – Economics: Zorg espouses the "Destruction Equals Employment" mentality, and demonstrates it by destroying a glass and explaining how the machines that clean the glass shards away employ so many people manufacturing them. However, Zorg doesn't mention that only companies like his, which profits off of war, stand to benefit, rather than society as a whole. It's a version of the Parable of the Broken Window, which is explained in more detail at The Other Wiki.^{short version}Destroying something only benefits those companies that can replace that destruction and nothing else. The theory is that a windowmaker hiring someone to go around breaking windows may benefit the windowmaker (in the short term), but does nothing for society as a whole, as money spent replacing windows is money that cannot be spent elsewhere, and is spent simply on restoring the status quo. Also, disasters are not profitable, as money is spent restoring a status quo that could have been spent on improvements elsewhere absent the disaster in question. War is also a useless expense, as money is spent on bullets that fire and bombs that destroy buildings and machines that money has been spent to create. Money spent on war and the military and the industries that support them are by definition a necessary sunk cost, as a state-sponsored military cannot generate profit or become self-sustaining (relying on continuous infusions of taxpayer money to function, hence the very existence of those taxes to begin with) and, at its most basic level, their function is to blow shit up and kill people, neither of which have an inherent economic benefit. This doesn't mean war cannot in the long term create conditions where future economic expansion can flourish, but that is outside the scope of this theory. This is lampshaded later in the scene: After Zorg finishes his speech, he begins choking on the cherry from his drink, prompting Cornelius to observe how all the little robots and gadgets he summoned (and continues to summon, due to his vain flailing to dislodge the cherry presently asphyxiating him) to clean the glass are utterly helpless to save his life, being that their only task is to clean up messes, not give lifesaving aid. Ultimately, before moving to save Zorg himself, Cornelius notes that his life, his empire, and his ambitions nearly came crashing down around him all thanks to "One. Little. Cherry."
• Artistic License – Gun Safety:
  • Korben Dallas uses this trope to his advantage. Korben is held at gunpoint by a thug; he then goes off saying the guy has the safety on and convinces him to turn it off. Turns out that Korben was lying and he just made the thug "turn off" the gun. Korben is quick to subdue the thug, take his gun and compliment his hat.
  • Later, Korben hands a loaded pistol with the safety off to Ruby Rhod, who clearly is terrified of it, and tells him to cover a prisoner. Ruby almost immediately kills said prisoner with an accidental discharge.
• Artistic License – History: The gun that Billy pulls out in the opening is a Mauser M712 Schnellfeuer. While the C96 "Broomhandle" pistol had been available for almost two decades by 1914, the Schnellfeuer full-automatic model was not introduced until the 1930s.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • The battleship captain says that the Dark Planet is giving conflicting temperature readings varying from one million degrees to -5000. There is no temperature scale that goes to -5000, as absolute zero (or 0 Kelvin) is only -273 Celsius (-460 Fahrenheit). Of course, this could simply be a result of the sensors being jammed, as was mentioned just prior.
  • During the climax, the Dark Planet is described as having been stopped 62 miles from impact. Previously, the Planet was described as being 1200 miles in diameter. This means an object about half the size of Earth's moon is parked in an orbit no more than 62 miles above Earth's surface. That's closer than the orbit of a geosynchronous satellite. Not only would such an orbit be untenable, but an object that size orbiting that close to Earth would wreak utter havoc on the planet's surface due to tidal forces (unless it were somehow mostly hollow inside). In fact that's so close the limb of the Dark Planet would be inside Earth's atmosphere.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Overlaps with Indy Ploy when the cops are looking for Korben due to a phony plutonium smuggling tip and they lockdown his apartment complex:
  Cop: Sir, are you classified as human?
  Korben: Uhh, negative. I am a meat popsicle.
• Asshole Victim: While being wrongfully arrested, kidnapped by Mangalores, and having his identity stolen is pitiable, one has a hard time feeling sorry for Korben's neighbor when his response to the police ordering him to follow instructions is to obnoxiously tell them to screw off.
• At the Opera Tonight: One of the most entertaining opera scenes on film, intercut with a fight scene for Leeloo. Actually an opera in space in a Space Opera.
• Auto-Doc: The machine used to "repair" Leeloo. It actually reconstructs her from what is essentially a bone fragment containing living cells. In an example of Life Imitates Art, it acts like a modern 3-D printer.invoked
• Ballistic Discount: Subverted, where Zorg shows the Mangalores all the fancy special features of the consignment of assault rifles they've ordered, and they walk off with them without completing their side of the bargain (they did destroy the assigned target, the MacGuffin just wasn't actually there). Turns out his insurance policy was to show them all the fancy special features except explaining What That Little Red Button Does — it's a high-explosive self-destruct.
• BFG: The huge ZF-1, with rehoming shots, flamethrower, freeze ray, net launcher, arrow launcher, rocket launcher, and last but not least a Big Red Button which serves as a self-destruct.
• Big Applesauce: Of all the places to bring a Supreme Being, it's of course New York City, which is apparently the future capital of The Federation (since the president and military command seem to be in residence there).
• Big Red Button:
  • Not Big, but definitely red, is one mentioned by Zorg: "I hate warriors, too narrow-minded. I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun". Immediately after, Aknot the Mangalore pushes that button, and the weapon self destructs. Impressively.
  • While the doctors are reassembling the Sole Survivor of the Mangalore vessel, General Munro keeps his hand hovering over a large red dome, warning that their patient had better be polite. On revealing that their patient is a beautiful woman, the doctor gently moves a gaping Munro's hand away from the button.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Father Cornelius is able to understand Leeloo's rapid-fire delivery of her, "divine language". And she has no problem understanding his responses in English. Leeloo does eventually learn how to speak slightly broken English.
• Brick Joke:
  • When the Mangalores fail to deliver the stones to Zorg, he tricks them into blowing themselves up with the ZF-1's self-destruct function. Guess what happens to Zorg on the ship later? Zorg disparages the Mangalores afterwards, saying he prefers cold-blooded killers to warriors because warriors prefer to fight for honor and hopeless causes. The last words by the Mangalores right before Zorg is blown up is that he's doing it for their honor.
  • During one of the phone calls with Korben's mother (specifically, to the President because her son saves the Earth), she can be briefly heard alluding to previous scenes:
    Korben's mother: I might as well throw myself into traffic^note (Happens to Leeloo during her lab escape.) or Saran Wrap myself to the bed^note (Happens to Cornelius in Korben's apartment.) and pretend my child is suffocating me...
  • While talking to Finger at the beginning of the film, Korben says that he drives a cab now, not a Space Fighter. Then when they're stealing Zorg's fighter:
    Rhod: Korben, you know how to fly this?!
    Korben: Like driving a cab!
• Bridal Carry: When Cornelius opens his door and sees Korben carrying Leeloo in his arms, he assumes that they want to get married and refers them to the wedding room downstairs. Korben then has to explain that this is actually a Crisis Catch-and-Carry situation.
• Bullet Dodges You: Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg demonstrates a gun that has avoiding friendly fire as one of its special features. Even if you aim directly at your own units, the bullets will just navigate around them.
• Bullethole Door: Ruby Rhod gets an oval floor exit from Korben Dallas and the opportunity to ride the piece down one level.
• The Cameo
  • Mathieu Kassovitz as the mugger waiting at Korben's door.
  • The Mangalores' human disguises (and a lot of extras) are played by fashion models who worked with costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.
  • Fog, the nervous, stammering bellboy, is played by British stand-up comedian/occasional actor Lee Evans.
  • The larger of the two cops getting their lunch at McDonald's is played by Mac McDonald, well known (in the UK, at least) for playing Captain Frank Hollister, the ranking officer in charge of Red Dwarf.
• Camera Spoofing: A thief at the beginning of the film does this to Korben's apartment camera by wearing a hat with a picture of the background on it. Thus, by tilting his head at the camera, it looks like everything's clear. Then he pops up and tries to mug Korben. Korben tricks him into turning the gun safety on, takes his gun, then compliments the hat.
• Camp Straight:
  • Ruby Rhod and his entourage play every camp stereotype to the hilt, even though they're not gay. Just because Ruby owns a collection of lycra catsuits doesn't mean he isn't a ladies' man. As evidenced by his tryst with a flight attendant during the takeoff of the ship to Fhloston Paradise. According to the DVD Commentary, Ruby (originally named "Loc") is a combination of Prince and Lenny Kravitz. Ruby even oddly uses the female pronoun when referring to himself on radio, calling himself Miss Ruby Rhod.
  • Also applies to Baby Ray, the deaf "star of stage and screen", who is surrounded by a gaggle of admiring ladies when we first meet him. If anything, it seems like this is the fashion of the future and Korben is an aberration for dressing in a masculine way. It could be a class thing, as they're both wealthy celebrities, and Korben is very much working class. Zorg's outrageous "space Hitler meets Frank-N-Furter" fashion supports this hypothesis.
• Cassette Futurism: The film has a distinctive aesthetic that looks like a lot of '90s music videos. It's deliberately futuristic-looking but also quite campy.
• Casting Gag: The man waiting impatiently at McDonald's is played by Mac McDonald.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: Star-hopping is apparently a common past-time of the rich and powerful, who think no more of vacationing on another planet (or, as in the film, on a cruise ship orbiting a planet) as their counterparts today would of seeing the Caribbean.
• Catchphrase: A Rat Pack catchphrase of old, "badda-boom!" gets a new lease on life, too.
• Celeb Crush: Korben Dallas' hotel concierge lady has a crush on Ruby Rhod. "I just love him. He's so talented, don't you think? He's so sexy".
• Chance Activation: As they are trying to activate the stones, there are no instructions or directions found. David lets out a frustrated sigh, accidentally blowing air onto the Air stone. It reacts by slightly opening. After he alerts the others, David remembers about the breath and Korben surmises that the stones are simple: air (David's breath) for Air, water (Cornelius' sweat) for Water, earth (dirt) for Earth and fire (Korben's match) for Fire. Good thing he hadn't given up smoking!
• Chekhov's Gun: If you want an example of how to use this trope well, look no further. Almost everything important in this movie is introduced in a previous scene. A partial list includes Korben's matchbook, Leeloo reading about martial arts, and the Mangalores being able to shapeshift.
• Chirping Crickets: It's subtle, but both times Ruby Rhod tries to get Korben Dallas to say something in the mic, during the pregnant pause that follows you can faintly hear crickets chirping.
• Closet Shuffle: A rather spectacular example involving multiple people and a truly improbable selection of hiding places (including a freezer and a self-making pull-out bed). None of the people Korben hides enjoy their hiding places very much. Leeloo ends up wet and freezing when the shower begins its self-cleaning cycle, the military brass are frozen, and Cornelius nearly suffocates under a plastic sheet when the bed makes itself.
• Clothing Damage: As he retrieves the stones from the diva, Korben is wearing an immaculate tuxedo minus the jacket. Cut to the next scene and his shirt is torn to shreds with no explanation. Ruby Rhod's flamboyant outfit is all torn up with no explanation as well.
• Cobweb of Disuse: The hall inside the tomb where the ritual is taking place is full of dust and cobwebs when the Mondoshawan arrive early on. After all it's been 5,000 years since it was last used.
• Coitus Uninterruptus: At the end, Korben and Leeloo are making love in the regeneration chamber when the President comes in to congratulate Korben. Dr. MacTilburgh looks through a peephole and says they need five more minutes of "regeneration".
• Color-Coded Elements: The four stones that are collected represent each element and when opened glow a specific elemental color: red = fire, blue = water, yellow = air and green = earth.
• Color Motif: Warm colors, especially Vibrant Orange. Leeloo's hair, Korben’s shirt (apparently standard wear for taxi drivers), McDonald's, the Diva's dressing room.
• Concealment Equals Cover: A snooker table somehow provides protection from the Mangalores' More Dakka; although such tables are usually floored by a big slab of slate, it would be unlikely to stop high-powered rifle rounds. The Mangalores are shooting at an angle; it's likely the rounds ricochet off the table instead of it having to stop the rounds entirely.
• Conlang: Director Luc Besson developed the "divine language" heard in the film on his own and taught it to Milla Jovovich. They had conversations in it and wrote letters to each other in it to practice.
• Consolation Backfire: Korben Dallas is eating lunch when he gets a message. He points out to the window-to-window chef that the last two messages were from his wife, who was leaving him, and from his lawyer, who was also leaving him with his wife. The chef responds with some words of wisdom: "Grandfather say, 'it never rains every day'. This one is good news! I bet you lunch!" Of course, his next line as he reads the message is "You are fired". At least Korben got a free lunch?
• The Constant: Having become a Mega City, the skyline of New York has changed much in 2263. The one recognizable element is the Statue of Liberty which has been raised onto a larger pedestal in order to still stand out against the mega-skyscapers in its vicinity.
• Constellations as Locations: The cruise ship is stated to be orbiting the planet Phloston in the "Angel" constellation.
• Contrived Coincidence: Some of it is specifically invoked by characters, but the government fixes a radio contest to give Korben a cover story on Fhloston Paradise during his mission to retrieve the four elemental stones for them. He just happens to be the cab driver who, earlier, had Leeloo (the Fifth Element) drop in on him. He dropped her off with a priest, who later heard he won the contest on the radio and shows up at Korben's apartment while the military is there to recruit him.
• Converging-Stream Weapon: The four stones arranged around "a Fifth Element, a supreme being", direct their energies into Leeloo, who directs the combined energy toward the Ultimate Evil.
• Costume Porn: Literally. Costumes by Jean-Paul Gaultier! (At the time, hands down the single most sought-after fashion designer in the world.)
• Crapsaccharine World: On the surface, New York City is a gorgeous metropolis packed with amazing technology, but more than a cursory glance shows an overcrowded and polluted Police State under Zorg's thumb. It is implied that Zorg's influence may have spread this beyond the city's borders.
• Crash-Into Hello: Leeloo literally crashes through the roof of Dallas's car.
• Creator's Culture Carryover: Korben lives in New York, and loses all five points left on his driver's license. In America, points are added for traffic violations, whereas in France, points are removed. Partly justified by the story being set 300 years in the future.
• Deep South: At least, Zorg's accent seems to imply that he's from the region.
• Description Cut: This exchange between the President and General Munro:
  President: Is that your idea of a discreet operation?
  General Munro: Don't-don't worry, sir. I know my man, he'll calm things down...
  [cut to three Mangalores going down under a hail of bullets and Korben charging out of a door with guns blazing]
• Destroy the Product Placement: The flying car chase scene has a police car crashing into a McDonald's truck, spilling its contents onto the officers.
• "Die Hard" on an X: The space cruise opera sequence, with bonus points for starring Bruce Willis himself. Korben Dallas is sent to attend an alien opera singer's performance on a luxurious cruise spaceship that gets invaded by the vengeful Mangalores, forcing Dallas to get armed and respond in kind just like how McClane would do. Leeloo also must rely on an Air-Vent Passageway while evading the Big Bad.
• Distant Prologue: The film starts in c.1914 when the Mondoshawans take artifacts from an archaeological dig. The story then jumps forward to the far future, where we're introduced to the main characters.
• Don't Celebrate Just Yet: The President pops open a bottle of champagne for his staff when Korben acquires the four stones. Then they get told that the Dark Planet is heading straight for Earth.
• Dope Slap: After the hostage situation on the luxury cruiser is resolved, Ruby Rhod announces on the radio that he's still alive, while a crewmember is pulling splinters from his hand. Ruby yelps in pain mid-announcement, and slaps the doctor's head in annoyance.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Leeloo, who knows how to activate the four stones, is too weak by the end to inform the others so they have to figure it out themselves while the doomsday clock is ticking down.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: The Sealed Evil in a Can pops out every 5,000 years to attack Earth. Justified in that an Ancient alien race hid a weapon there capable of destroying said evil, which would also have allowed the evil to wipe out all life in creation.
• Element Number Five: The movie uses this trope as a central plot point, as the title implies. However, it's not until the very end that this is explained. While Leeloo is called "the Fifth Element", the movie's director says the actual fifth element is sex.
• Escape Pod: When the bomb alert is announced on Fhloston Paradise, civilians start escaping the spaceship via escape pods.
• "Eureka!" Moment: After David's Chance Activation of the Air Stone, it takes the others a few minutes to work out that he did so by breathing on it; from there it's a short step to "use each Element to activate its respective Stone".
• Everybody Smokes: Korben, Ruby Rhod and Zorg all smoke. Subverted in that cigarettes are reversed from their real-world counterparts, being mostly filter and a tiny part being actual tobacco. And Korben, who is automatically dispensed four (and only four) when he wakes up, is trying to quit.
• Every Bullet Is a Tracer: When Zorg demos the ZF-1's "replay button" feature for the Mangalores, not only is every bullet a tracer, but they self-guide to the target even when he is pointing completely the other way.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: The personification of evil springs up every 5,000 years. The titular element has to be used in conjunction with the four element stones to wipe it out, but it keeps coming back. If evil gets the four stones, however, it can wipe out all life in the universe. No recovering from that.
• Evil Overlord List: Zorg practically quotes Number 68 as he lets Cornelius go after Cornelius had saved his life.
• Exact Words:
  • When Vito offers a differing theory, the President says he has twenty seconds to explain it. Vito then talks for exactly twenty seconds.
  • Zorg hires the Mangalores to shoot down a Mondoshawan transport and recover a case from the wreckage. Unfortunately, he forgot to specify that the case was supposed to contain the four elemental stones in it. Despite Zorg's objection, Aknot insists he held up his end of the deal:
    Aknot: You asked for a case, we brought you a case.
• Excessive Steam Syndrome: The airlock of the Mondoshawans' ship hisses steam and drips condensation when it first opens up at the Egyptian temple.
• Exposed Starship Bridge: The Federation battleship has its bridge sit atop the ship's body much like a marine battleship.
• Extremely Short Timespan: Taking away the opening and closing scenes, most of the movie takes place across two days. And during that the main characters are able to go to another planet and back.
• Fall-in Angel: Korben Dallas gets pulled into the adventure when Leeloo (who's just escaped from the lab that recreated her) dives from a skyscraper ledge and lands in Dallas's cab.
• Fanservice with a Smile: The female staff of every non-governmental organization shown onscreen. From Zorg's Sexy Secretary to the McDonald's drive-thru girls.
• Fantastic Vermin: Spaceport ground crew use flamethrowers to deal with the problem of alien lifeforms hiding in spacecraft landing gear wells.
• The Federation: Referred to as "The Federated Territories," possibly implying that not only local system planets, but entire extra-solar regions are under Terran jurisdiction.
• Floating Head Syndrome:
  • The poster on this page.
  • In the DVD cover, the floating heads take up almost the whole cover, and it looks as if the cars are frantically running away from them.
• Flying Car: There are lots of these, given the very distant future the movie takes place in. The Hero even drives a flying taxi for a living.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Korben meets Leeloo in the spaceport, he tells the ticket agent that they met, sparks flew, and they fell in love. At the climax of the movie, he lights a match and admits he's in love with Leeloo.
  • When the Mondashiwans arrive to collect the fifth element and the stones at the beginning of the film, the sarcophagus holding the fifth element has its face angled upwards, mouth agape. Leeloo fires her wave motion gun at Mr Shadow the same way.
  • Leeloo sure seems traumatized by finding out about humanity's wars for a living weapon designed to kill the ultimate evil. Because she wasn't created to kill, she was created to love, to give life. The "ultimate weapon against evil" is creating life, not ending it. Notably Leeloo herself is unaware of this fact, when she claims she was "built to protect, not to love".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Korben receives his letter telling him he's fired, you see the company he's been working for is Zorg's, in a nod to the scene in which Zorg fires a million employees to slow the economy down, "from smaller companies, like the taxi drivers'". It also contains a laundry list of code violations, ostensibly from Korben's driving antics earlier in the day, which is probably also why he isn't surprised by the news.
• Funny Background Event: When Korben confiscates a weapon from a would-be mugger at his apartment door, a cache of other weapons descends from the ceiling, suggesting this happens to him all the time.
• Future Music: The techno-rock-opera fusion performed by the Diva.
• Futuristic Superhighway: New York City of the 23rd Century has designated "lanes" for Flying Cars stacked on top of each other throughout the city.
• Gambit Pileup:
  • The Federation and Priest Vito Cornelius and Leeloo are trying to get the Stones from the Diva on Fhloston Paradise. The Federation rigs a contest to get Korben Dallas to the hotel. As they're briefing him on this, Vito and Leeloo arrive to try and take Korben's tickets. Korben hides the military folks from Vito and Leeloo, then has to hide Vito and Leeloo from the cops, since Zorg's man has called in a tip to get Korben Dallas arrested so he can take Korben's place and go to Fhloston to get the Stones. Fortunately, Vito had moved Korben's nameplate to a different door, so that guy gets arrested instead. Then the Mangalores ambush the police, capture "Korben Dallas" and plan to have one of them shapeshift into him and get to Fhloston to get the Stones to get revenge on Zorg. This pileup isn't fully resolved until Korben's plane to Fhloston is in the air.
  • Then there's the pileup onboard the Fhloston Paradise. Korben and Leeloo wait for after the Diva's performance to get the stones. The Mangalores, having already infiltrated the ship, raid the Diva's suite looking for the stones. They're met by Leeloo, who kicks their asses. This prompts Aknot to initiate a takeover of the ship. During this, Zorg comes on board, finds Leeloo holding what he thinks are the stones, shoots at her, and leaves, planting a bomb as he departs, only to find the case didn't have the stones. Korben recovers the stones from the Diva herself, then fights and defeats the Mangalores. At that point, he finds Zorg's bomb, prompting an evacuation of the cruise ship. Zorg returns to deactivate his bomb and find the stones for real this time, but is then killed by another planted by a surviving Mangalore.
• Genre Throwback: The movie's script was intended to be basically a Troperiffic Reconstruction of all the Sci-Fi Franco-Belgian Comics of The '70s and The '80s that the writer was a fan of.
• Good Needs Evil: Zorg's perfect example of the Broken Window Fallacy:
  Zorg: Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. Now take this empty glass. Here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed... [pushes the glass off the table; it shatters on the floor, and several small machines come out to clean it up] ... Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life. You see, father, by causing a little destruction, I am in fact encouraging life. In reality, you and I are in the same business.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: The Funny Foreigner noodle chef's interjection of "Aiya!" when Korben tells him about the time his wife left him (for his lawyer, hence him getting hosed in the divorce) is an authentic Chinese exclamation that translates roughly as "Oh heavens!"
• Ham and Deadpan Duo: Korben Dallas, the serious Action Hero, is the Deadpan; and Ruby Rhod, the Camp Straight Jive Turkey Non-Action Guy is the Ham.
• Hard Head: Vito Cornelius steals the tickets Korben won for Fhloston Paradise by conking him on the head with one of his trophies. Leeloo chews him out the entire way as they escape.
• Hard-to-Light Fire: Saving billions of lives comes down, in part, to whether or not one match will be blown out before it can open the Fire stone.
• Harmless Freezing: General Munro and two of his men are stuffed in the freezer by Korben Dallas to get them out of the way when Leeloo reappears at his door. He frees them after a couple of minutes; they're already frozen solid, but later on the General seems to be OK again.^note In the novelization, it's not so harmless: the General is later described as having had a couple of fingers amputated as a result.
• Homage:
  • Much of the futuristic New York and the character of Korben Dallas pay homage to the "Harry Canyon" story from Heavy Metal. To the point Luc Besson hired Métal Hurlant artists as designers.
  • The French comic series Valérian by Jean-Claude Mézières and Pierre Christin features a near-identical flying taxi in the album Circles of Power, though with a driver whose personality has little in common with Korben's. Much of the costume inspirations also come from this comic. Mézières was one of the film's Production Designers. (The other was Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Mœbius). Luc Besson would later create a more direct adaptation in 2017.
• Homing Projectile: In the famous scene where Zorg demos the ZF-1 for the Mangalores, he proudly shows off the "replay button" feature, firing a single bullet at the target, then pointing the gun in the opposite direction and firing on full auto; all the bullets curve backwards and hit the target where the first bullet did.
• Honor Before Reason: The Mangalores may have their own skewed concept of what is and isn't honorable, but they otherwise abide by this trope in spades, allowing Korben to fake surrender after he's killed a number of their men.
• Hostage Situation: Onboard the Fhloston Paradise, the Mangalores intend to use the ship's crew as bargaining chips before Korben strides in and takes out their leader.
• Hot Pursuit: How many police cars does it take to stop one taxi?
  Korben: If they don't chase you after a mile, they don't chase you. [back shot of Korban's taxi, with 4 advancing cops in a diamond configuration] Maybe it's two miles.
• Humans Are Bastards: Leeloo despairs when she learns about the human race's tendency to inflict horrible things onto themselves (specifically World War II) to the point of her seeing no point in helping them escape destruction, but then decides otherwise when Korben tells her that there are things that deserve to be saved and professes his love for her.
• Hyperfixation-Induced Error: The unnamed archaeologist in the first scene is so absorbed in the symbols on the ancient wall he's studying that he does not notice the arrival of an alien spaceship. He even assumes that the blast of bright light from the ship is courtesy of the young boy he's hired to hold a mirror to provide illumination for him as he works.
• IKEA Weaponry: The ZF-1 is described as doing this so it can pass undetected through X-ray scans.
• I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin:
  • The four element stones are held by Diva Plavalaguna () who hands them over to Dallas as she is dying.
• Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Everything Ruby Rhod wears, plus plenty of others' clothes as well.
• Incredibly Obvious Bomb: The movie has something with a flashy countdown timer that when the heroes discover leads to this timeless exchange:
  Cornelius: It's a — it's a — it's a — it's a — it's a — it's a...
  Ruby Rhod: No no no no no no. 'Cuz if it was a bomb, the alarms would go off 'cuz all these hotels have bomb detectors, right?
  [the alarms go off]
• Incredibly Obvious Bug: Literally: the bad guy uses a cockroach fitted with an antenna to spy on the president. Of course, there's a downside to this: the President squashes the bug (and the microphone) when it climbs onto the desk. Goodbye, eardrums! It tries to maneuver a fully grown cockroach right through a bustling and absolutely pristine room without anyone noticing. The chances for the roach to make it through alive were basically zilch even without the listening equipment grafted to its back.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Leeloo, who takes her clothes off in front of other people twice with seemingly no knowledge that it’s considered inappropriate.
  [Leeloo takes off her shirt]
  David: They really made her…
  Cornelius: …perfect.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Korben Dallas, fleeing from the cops after Leeloo has crash-landed into his taxi, breathes a sigh of relief and notes that "if they don't chase you after a mile, they don't chase you." Immediately, four cop cars rise up behind him. "Maybe it's two miles."
• Instant Mass: Just Add Water!: Leeloo pours a small amount of food pellets into a bowl, puts the bowl in a microwave-like device, closes the door, presses a button, and opens the door again, pulling out an entire roast chicken with all the trimmings. Forget faster-than-light travel; that is clearly the pinnacle of human achievement.
• Interscene Diegetic: The Diva's aria is heard continuously over shots of her singing and of a fight scene happening elsewhere at the same time.
• In the Future, We Still Have Roombas: The cleaning robots that instantly jump into action in Zorg's office.
• In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: When Leeloo is in the middle of her Heroic BSoD, she says of humanity: "Everything you make you use to destroy".
• Ironic Echo:
  • As Right-Arm calls Zorg to tell he couldn't prevent Korben from embarking, he replies "I am... a little... disappointed." (the conversation ends with Zorg triggering Right-Arm's public phone to explode). Later, after Zorg finds out the box with the rocks is empty, he returns screaming "I. AM. VERY. DISAPPOINTED!!"
  • When Zorg is preparing to show off the ZF-1 to Aknot, he mentions that "your time for revenge is at hand!" When Aknot survives the ZF-1 explosion and makes the plan to steal the stones to force Zorg to "negotiate," he quips that "revenge is truly at hand".
• Irony: Zorg's first attempt to get the stones is thwarted by Atnok and his men bringing him the empty case that had held the stones, since he asked for a case; Zorg blasts them for their stupidity. Later in the film Zorg steals what he believes to be a box holding the stones, but he makes the exact same mistake as Aknot and doesn't check to see that they're actually in there.
• Jewish Mother: Korben Dallas's overbearing mother seems to be one.
• Kill It with Ice: Zorg's demonstration of his latest BFG includes "the grand finale: the all-new Ice Cube System" as one of its options, though it only gets used on a test dummy.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: There's nary a personal-scale Energy Weapon in sight, just kickass ballistic weapons.
• Language of Love: Leeloo knows only The Divine Language, but learns English rapidly. The romance was already beginning to blossom from her big bada boom into Korben's cab.
• Layered Metropolis: New York is still in the Skyscraper City stage, but it's clearly evolving layers with its multiple above-ground walkways.
• Literal Surveillance Bug: One of Zorg's minions uses a cockroach fitted with a hilariously conspicuous transmitter to spy on the president. The roach also seems to have a brain implant that allows him some rudimentary control over it. The president eventually notices the bug and squashes it, causing painful feedback for the listener. (Note that this is a parodic exaggeration. Despite the film being set a few centuries in the future, in real life the technology already exists to do this trick more effectively.)
• Long List: General Munro's list of all the weapons and vehicles Korben (a former major) is qualified to use. General Munro tells him that the first reason he's been drafted for the world-saving mission is that "as part of The Elite Special Forces Unit of the Federated Army, you are an expert in the use of all weapons and spacecraft needed for this mission". Cue unrolling of the list. (Given what Korben ends up using- a bomb and maybe two guns, plus a small shuttle to transport a few people that knew what was going on- the rest of the list seems a bit optimistic. One can wonder, given actual events, how bad things would have to be to actually need all of the equipment.)
• Loser Buys Lunch: By the start of the film, so much bad news has fallen into Dallas's mailbox that he has lost interest in looking at anything new. Mr. Kim, however, is determined to be optimistic.
  Kim: Ah, that's bad luck. Grandfather say it not rain everyday. This is good news, guaranteed. I bet your lunch.
  Korben: Okay, you're on.
  Kim: Come on...
  [reads]
  Kim: You are fired! Oh...
  Korben: Well, at least I won lunch.
  Kim: Good philosophy. See good in bad. I like!
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Leeloo fights off a squad of Mangalores to retrieve a case of Applied Phlebotinum stones, only for Zorg to take it from her at gunpoint. Subverted when the case turns out to be empty; the stones are actually in the body of the Diva Plavalaguna, who takes a bullet during the shootout and reveals their location to Korben as she's dying.
• Magic Countdown: In the final moments of the movie, a scientist says that there is exactly one minute left before the planetoid representing the Evil strikes Earth. Then, it takes the heroes nearly two minutes to activate the Fifth Element and get the job done.
• Match Cut: Twice.
  • The first cuts from the hieroglyphics in the temple to an instrument display on the Federation battleship, featuring the same three-planet readout.
  • The second dissolves from Zorg's office, with his window becoming the Dark Planet.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Leeloo and Korben, due to the former being at least 4000 years old. And at the same time less than 2 days.
• MegaCorp: Zorg is the CEO of an eponymous one, which employs so many people that he can apparently slow the economy down at will by laying off a million workers at once.
• Mickey Mousing: The scene where the Diva is singing an opera while Leeloo is kicking some ass against aliens. Leeloo's moves, and the action in general, are timed to the music.
• Missed Him by That Much: Zorg and Korben's group miss each other by a literal second when the former is trying to retrieve the stones and the latter are trying to escape the soon-to-be-destroyed hotel. Bonus points for this actually being the moment where Korben and Zorg, the main protagonist and the main antagonist, are closest to each other in the entire movie.
• Mistaken for Gay: When some of Zorg's Mooks come to kidnap Cornelius, he momentarily thinks they've come to get married by him.
• Mobile Kiosk: An amusing flying Chinese restaurant/boat.
• Mocking Music: A comedic sting of sorts recurs through the film, first appearing during the "little red button" scene.
• Mood Whiplash: All in the space of a single opera song, we go from aching melancholy, to a fight scene overlaid with much more intense music... and then suddenly Leeloo is in mortal danger, the Diva gets shot and all Hell breaks loose.
• More Dakka: The ZF-1. Which has a minigun, a flamethrower, rockets and liquid nitrogen.
• Neck Lift: At the end of their first time meeting, Korben Dallas lifts Ruby Rhod by the neck and presses him against a wall to make him shut up.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The teaser trailers made it seem that it would be a science-fiction horror mystery thriller film in the vein of The Thing and of course Event Horizon, or some kind of serious modern alien invasion film in vein of Independence Day. When the film was released, it turned out to be nothing but another humorous action flick in a similar way to the Die Hard series (in which Bruce Willis also starred) and of course Demolition Man, but with a bit of violence toned-down.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Cornelius could have saved everyone a lot of trouble by standing idly by and letting Zorg choke to death on the cherry. But of course, that would have meant compromising his principles.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: Not that either one is aware of their involvement in the plot, but Zorg winds up firing a million Taxi Drivers from his employ; one of whom was Korben Dallas.
• Nipple and Dimed: Leeloo's are clearly visible from the side for about a second after she's been rebuilt, right before the doctor has "thermal bandages" put on her.
• Nothing Can Save Us Now: "We're never gonna make it". Cue a clever action that does lead to them being saved.
• Not With the Safety On, You Won't: Dallas helpfully tells someone trying to rob him that the gun isn't loaded, and even gives him time to push what he claims is the "loading" button, turning the safety on.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: Cornelius is pouring out his heart to the glass-cleaning bartender at the airport who's revealed to be a robot unable to empathize or give advice.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Zorg has one when he opens up the case that allegedly contains the stones, only to discover that it's empty. He does this again later when he opens another case, and discovers that it too is empty.
  • When Korben shoots the Mangalore leader, one of the mooks throws his hand up into a near-Facepalm, knowing they're screwed.
  • The ticket-taker for the commuter space flight to Fhloston gets a visual one as well, when the security scan at her window reveals the two people trying to claim Korben's tickets are Mangalores.
  • Vito has one when he and Rudy discover Zorg's bomb onboard Fhloston Paradise. Rudy tries to tell him it can't be a a bomb as the ship has a detector for that. Cue the alarms going off.
  • Zorg has a major one when he returns to deactivate the aforementioned bomb before a dying Mangalore activates his own bomb and blows up the ship with Zorg still on it''.
• One Nation Under Copyright: There's a legitimately elected government that has power, but it's also implied that Zorg's business empire runs everything and employs almost everyone. Early in the movie an underling informs Zorg that "the Council" has asked him to fire 500,000 employees to slow down the economy. Zorg fires 1 million employees instead (incidentally including Korben), For the Evulz.
• One Riot, One Ranger: Korben Dallas is sent to retrieve the elemental stones, rather than, say, intercepting the Diva with the Navy and avoiding the whole public-place hand-off thing. The movie Handwaves this with the President saying he wants the operation to be as discreet as possible.
• Opera Means Drama: The famous "Diva Dance" scene shows Korben enjoying the operatic performance of Diva Plavalaguna undercover, all while Zorg is preparing to board the ship with the Managlores to kill her for the stones. After the initial aria, Plavalaguna jumps into the more pop-opera drop, which coincides with Zorg and the Manglalores reaching her dressing room. Leeloo, who is hiding in the dressing room, springs into action and fights the Mangalores as Plavalaguna sings the second part of the opera.
• Orchestra Hit Techno Battle: A fight between Leeloo and the Mangalores choreographed to the techno portion of the Diva's aria.
• Our Graphics Will Suck in the Future: The graphical display on the Federation battleship is very rudimentary considering it's from the 23rd century.
• Outrun the Fireball: Korben pushes Zorg's ship to its limit to outrun the massive explosion that annihilates the Phloston cruise ship.
• Overly Long Scream: Ruby Rhod is prone to these when things get hectic. The biggest explosion in the film is accompanied by one. He even stops halfway through to draw some ragged breaths before going right back to screaming his lungs out.
• Pillar of Light: At the film's climax, once the five elements are activated, a pillar of light fires through Leeloo's mouth, stopping the Great Evil and turning it into a moon.
• Police State: The Federated Territories, or at the very least New York, are like this. "This is not an exercise. This is a police control". You have to live with that in your own home, to say nothing of the spaceport. The police are extremely well-armed and can put hundreds of holes in your vehicle just based on suspicion of you being a car thief. On the other hand, anyone is permitted to purchase and own at least a dozen fully-automatic weapons. Or at least such things are permitted for washed-up ex-soldiers who are now extremely reckless cab drivers. And extremely dumb muggers.
• Poor Communication Kills: The unspoken theme of the movie - in the absence of love, there is only dysfunction and death.
  • From the very start; The Priest in Egypt does a miserable job of placating Billy, leading to a Mondoshawan getting trapped/crushed in the temple.
  • Or almost does, in this next case; When Leeloo escapes, the police seem to arbitrarily take over and no one informs them of who or what Leeloo is. They even lose sight of this halfway through and just start shooting at the car she's in because they've deemed the occupant a car thief. "We made this chick in a lab, she's kinda important, retrieve her alive and unharmed" would have been a simple enough order to give.
  • The government, Dallas, and the Priesthood are all on exactly the same side with the same honorable goal of saving the world for the same reason — but spend half the movie working against each other for the sake of Rule of Drama and Rule of Funny.
  • One would assume that this weapon and evil etc. would have been explained to the government of Earth once it reached an interstellar technological level and became aware of the existence of the Mondoshawan race (assumed because when asking for entry into our space, they are permitted in without a single "who/what?"), and not when it is imminent.
  • Even Zorg and his ilk are not immune, with the Managalores' overly literal interpretation of his orders to retrieve the case (and only the case) leading to a blood feud with Zorg and yet one more gambit on the pile.
• Potty Emergency: The idiot with the nice hat who tries to mug Korben, in addition to his nervousness and possible drug issues, is acting like he desperately needs to take a piss. Korben notices and comments, "Been here long?"
• The Power of Love: The fifth element only ignites when Korben declares his love for Leeloo and kisses her. Luc Besson tried to claim it's actually sex.
• Prefers the True Form: Zorg meets a group of Mangalores disguised as humans and insists on seeing their real faces.
  Zorg: Is that you? What an ugly face! It doesn't suit you. Take it off. (The Mangalores shed their human forms, revealed as brutish creatures.) That's better. Never be ashamed of who you are. You're warriors. Be proud!
• Primordial Tongue: The "Divine Language" that Leeloo speaks is apparently universal enough that she can learn English just from a few hours of exposure.
• Professional Butt-Kisser: Ruby Rhod's entourage.
• Proud Warrior Race: The Mangalores try to be this, but are hampered by being dumb as rocks. In practice, they're Lawful Stupid thugs who refuse to shoot an unarmed Korben immediately after he gunned down several of their men. Zorg even discusses his dislike of the trope with Right Arm.
  Zorg: I don't like warriors. Too narrow-minded, and they fight for hopeless causes: Honor. [Scoffs] Honor's killed millions of people, hasn't saved a single one. But, I tell you what I do like though: A killer. A dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical, and thorough. Now, a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun. [Cut to Mangalores screwing around with their new guns, where one sees the button, presses it, and blows them all up]
• Psychic Nosebleed: Happens twice — first to General Staedart, the commander of a battleship before Mr. Shadow destroys it, and then to Zorg when Mr. Shadow calls him on the phone. Oddly, the bleeding always starts somewhere at or above the hairline, raising the question as to just where exactly they are bleeding from. Rather than blood it appears to be some kind of black ichor; Zorg wipes his forehead after the phone call, and the fluid is thick and oily in appearance. The Commentary confirms it was Hershey’s Chocolate.
• Punny Name: The big beefy female soldier with the Leia buns is called "Major Iceborg".
• Race Against the Clock: The main characters have 48 hours before the Great Evil clashes against the Earth. Zorg also gives such an ultimatum to one of his underlings, and the President is even stricter, often stating a firm "You have twenty seconds to" explain/complete/whatever it is he's telling you to do.
  Cornelius: You have 48 hours. That's the length of time it needs to adapt itself to our living conditions.
  President: And then?
  Cornelius: And then it will be too late.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Leeloo's DNA has over 200,000 "memo strands," as opposed to a normal human's 40. Early in the movie, a probe is reported to malfunction and read minus five thousand degrees, which brings up the point of how that is measured (since it would be far below absolute zero).
• Reality Has No Subtitles: The language that Leeloo speaks when she is first brought back is sub-titled "Unknown Language". When she speaks it to Father Cornelius, he can understand it, but not speak it directly. When Korben Dallas asks him what language it is, he replies a divine one. Thereafter, Leeloo's speech is subtitled "Divine Language".
• Reality Is Unrealistic: The Diva's song was designed to be literally impossible for a human to sing, with notes and sudden pitch-shifts far outside the human vocal range...until someone pulled it off.
• Repeat to Confirm: There is a bridge officer whose job is to relay orders from the captain to the helmsman, who is only a few feet away but behind an apparently pointless sheath of transparent material. The computer repeats the order too, so the exchange goes like this:
  Captain: Helm to 108.
  Computer: Helm to 108.
  Officer: [into sheath] HELM, 108!
  Helmsman: [turning wheel] Helm to 108.
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Both played straight with Plava Laguna and averted with the Mondoshawans. The Mangalores subvert it, in that they appear to be inspired by Star Trek-type humanoid aliens but have high-tech animatronic complete facial prosthetics that make them seem very authentic.
• Rule of Fun: The movie is an intentionally over-the-top, off-the-wall pop epic, cheerfully embracing every sci-fi staple it can get its hands on and running with it, which is why things such as the passage of time fall into the "don't think about it too much" category. It makes a lot more sense when you realize that the script was literally written by Luc Besson when he was twelve years old, with exactly the priorities in mind which that would imply.
• Scenery Censor:
  • Naked Leeloo in a tube, before her "bandages" get applied. Her fully nude body is actually visible in the background in several brief shots, which is rare for a PG-13 film.
  • A reoccurring gag involves Leeloo changing in front of the other characters, who immediately avert their gaze and block her naked body from the camera.
• Schizo Tech: As this site points out, the technology level in this movie is all over the place. On the one hand, space travel is common and inexpensive, to the extent that contact with aliens is an everyday occurrence, flying cars are everywhere, and even presumably cheap apartments like Korben's have instant food microwaves. On the other hand, Korben still gets his mail in paper letters rather than email, one of Zorg's minions calls him from a payphone, Korben still uses matches to light his cigarettes, and perhaps most humorously implausible of all, Ruby Rhod- a super-popular megastar celebrity- hosts a radio show. That has instantaneous galactic coverage.
• Schmuck Bait:
  • The little red button on the ZF-1 is a powerful self-destruct, as a hapless Mangalore discovers through What Does This Button Do? Lampshaded.
    Zorg: Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: If a planetary body the size of "Mr. Shadow" got as close to Earth as it does in the film, it would have caused catastrophic damage to the planet just through its gravity and the resulting tidal forces without even needing to impact the surface (remember, even as weak as its gravity is and as far as it is from Earth, the moon causes quite a bit of distortion to Earth's surface). And that's ignoring the fact that at the distance stated, the remains of Shadow would have actually already been partially inside Earth's atmosphere! Unless they took efforts to get rid of it, it would absolutely have hit Earth anyway, just a lot slower than it had been going at first.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As the Dark Planet approaches the battleship at the beginning, while General Staedert, his captain, and the technicians are just staring at it, you can see some officers heading for the exit.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Mangalore mercenaries successfully manage to muscle Zorg into providing them with a crate of his newest multipurpose infantry weapon. However, Zorg judiciously neglects to inform them about what the red button on the side of the gun does...
  Zorg: "I hate warriors, too narrow-minded! I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun..."
• Self-Plagiarism: Alejandro Jodorowsky and Mœbius sued Luc Besson claiming that the movie plagiarized their comic, The Incal. The case was thrown out due to Mœbius having worked on the movie as a concept artist.
• Shaped Like Itself: "Sleep regulators, which will regulate your sleep".
• Shapeshifting Failure: The Mangalore who tries to steal Korben's ticket shows strain while trying to keep human shape, even before the scanner detects him as non-human.
• Shout-Out:
  • Korben Dallas' unusual first name has to be a reference to Heavy Metal artist Richard Corben, given the many other references to European science-fiction comic books found in the film.
  • There are several to Star Wars: the ships of Earth's military fleet look like bloated Star Destroyers, Major Iceborg (who was meant to pose as Korben's wife) has Princess Leia's A New Hope hairstyle only cranked up to eleven, Vito Cornelius appears shortly after sporting a brown cloak like Ben Kenobi, and at the temple in Egypt Ruby Rhod holds a neon light stick tightly like a Jedi Knight holding a lightsaber.
• Sighted Guns Are Low-Tech: Aside from the scope on the rifle the mugger points at Korben, few of the guns in the film even have iron sights. This is Justified with the ZF-1, which fires homing bullets.
• Skyscraper City: Manhattan is so high it seems bottomless. We barely get to see its ground, except when Korben escapes the police. In one shot of the spaceport we see why: the Hudson and East rivers have been completely drained◊, leaving Liberty Island (et al) high and dry.
• Sleeper Starship: The shuttle to the space cruiser puts all of its passengers into 'hypersleep' just before takeoff, even though the trip takes just a few hours.
• Smart Gun: The ZF-1 is packed with features, including "Replay", which sends every bullet to the designated target no matter which direction the gun is actually pointing.
• Soldier vs. Warrior: Zorg expresses his disdain for the Mangalores and their brutish unrefined warrior code. He expresses his love for a true killer; unfortunately that happens to be exactly what Korben Dallas is.
  Zorg: I don't like warriors. Too narrow-minded, no subtlety. And worse, they fight for hopeless causes. Honor? Ha! Honor's killed millions of people, it hasn't saved a single one. I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold-blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
• Space Clothes: The film has a plethora of clothing made out of plastic and rubber.
• Space Fighter: Fighters make a brief appearance, shooting down the friendly alien ship carrying the MacGuffin Super-Person protagonist. Korben's first conversation with Finger implies that flying space fighters was among his duties in the army.
• Space Sailing: All we see of Fhloston Paradise is an enormous flying luxury liner, which hugs the planet's surface during the day to drop off passengers at beaches, and ascends to the upper atmosphere at night to facilitate better views.
• Stalling the Sip: In the opening scene, a concerned priest at an Egypt temple tries to poison the archaeologist to prevent him from discovering the secret of the Fifth Element. The archaeologist lifts the cup of poisoned water three times but always stops and eventually decides that they should toast with grappa instead.
• Starship Luxurious: The Fhloston Paradise, which is designed to be a luxury line in space. Its interior is a combination of a five-star hotel and the Sydney Opera House. It also works as a low-altitude airship so patrons can visit the beach. Sadly, though not surprisingly, it gets blown up at the climax of the film.
• Stealth Pun: The cop at the McDonald's Drive-Thru is played by Mac McDonald.
• Stolen MacGuffin Reveal: Twice Zorg discovers the box that was supposed to have the stones is empty, in the first cutting to Leeloo explaining where they went, and in the latter to Diva revealing to Korben that they're in her body.
• Stripperiffic:
  • The uniforms worn by the stewardesses, and McDonald's waitresses.
  • Zorg's male guards get in on the act, with tiny biker shorts.
  • The woman a Mangalore disguises as in the airport. She is wearing a see-through plastic skirt, over fishnet hose and a thong. In public. She fits right in.
• Stupid Crooks: Aside from wearing a picture of Korben's hallway on his head, the mugger who holds Korben up has no idea what he's doing, and Korben easily and peacefully disarms him and stores the gun among many other previously appropriated weapons, even amusedly complimenting him on his "hat".
• Swiss-Army Weapon: The ZF-1 is every gun imaginable combined into one big thing.
• Technology Porn: Leeloo's reconstruction. Could also be considered a pun.
• Tempting Fate:
  • After General Staedert fires at the evil sphere, the President asks, "Did you destroy it?" to which Staedert replies "I'm about to, sir." Actually, it's the other way around.
  • General Munro is told the glass Leeloo is behind is unbreakable. She punches her hand through it and slam-dunks him.
  • Korben, as he's funneled into the VIP lounge to appear on Ruby Rhod's radio show.
    Korben: [to flight attendant fangirl] Yes, I'm sure you're very excited, but I'm on my vacation, and I don't want to be bothered. I'd like to remain anonymous.
    [cue massive fanfare, followed by Ruby Rhod sliding into the scene wearing a mic/headset]
    Ruby Rhod: KORBEN DALLAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!! Here he is, the one and only winner of the Gemini Croquette contest!
  • Later, when Cornelius and Ruby Rhod find the bomb left by Zorg...
    Cornelius: It's a — it's a — it's a — it's a — it's a — it's a...
    Ruby Rhod: No no no no no no. 'Cuz if it was a bomb, the alarms would go off 'cuz all these hotels have bomb detectors, right?
    [the alarms go off]
  • On the other hand, in his opening scene Korben wishes for one perfect woman. He gets her.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Korben gets a second-hand case of this during the police control, when his neighbor opts to flip the police off and shout "SMOKE YOU!" instead of cooperating. Korben visibly winces when he hears it, and mutters "wrong answer" just before the gunshot.
• Time Bomb: There is one in the hotel room. The heroes do take a moment to decide whether or not they can disarm it, then decide to just run away from the thing. The villain who set it up does disarm it with five seconds on the timer. Then one of the aliens he pissed off earlier arms his own — starting with a five-second timer. Presumably just so that anyone who saw it when it was activated would have time to soil themselves before they died.
• Title Drop: The archaeologist in the opening scene mentions a "Fifth Element" needed for the ritual.
• Trash of the Titans: The airport has a mountain ridge of trash running through it due to the janitorial staff being on strike.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: The movie as a whole doesn't pay a lot of attention to the logical progression of time. When the 23nd century sequences begin, it's said that the "Evil" will arrive in only 48 hours, yet far more than 24 hours worth of activities take place (not the least of which is the recovery of Leeloo's remains) before Korben Dallas is assigned to go to Fhloston Paradise several hours after it is mentioned that the Diva will be performing "in four hours". Yet Fhloston is located in another solar system, so to travel there requires the passengers to be put to sleep for an unknown length of time, and it's later indicated that the actual concert takes place about a day after the flight. Oh, and we also have to factor in the flight back to Egypt and getting to the chamber. Did I mention all of this is supposed to have taken place in less than 48 hours?
• Troperiffic: It's all there: Mysterious Waif, Sissy Villain glowing with cartoon villainy, Ultra-manly man Action Hero played by Bruce Willis, Rubber-Forehead Aliens, hovercar chases, Waif-Fu, the Ultimate Evil, and the world being saved through The Power of Love.^note well, Word of God says sex, but close enough This movie is a lovingly prepared four-course meal of cheesy sci-fi tropes. And it makes sense to know Luc Besson started to write this as a teenager reading lots of sci-fi comics. invoked
• Trophy Violence: After the military rigs the contest so that Korben can go to the resort and get the sacred stones, Father Cornelius tries to talk him into handing over the tickets. After the cops interrupt him, Korben brings Cornelius and Leloo out of hiding. While Korben is distracted, Cornelius grabs a bronze trophy, knocks him out and takes the tickets.
• True Love's Kiss: At the end, Korben's kiss gives Leeloo the strength to activate her Fifth-Element power needed to destroy the Dark Planet.
• Two Scenes, One Dialogue: Twice. Both times used to hilarious effect.
  Zorg: ...This case... is empty!
  [cut to Leeloo laughing]
  Cornelius: What do you mean, "empty"?
  [cut back to Zorg with the empty case]
  Zorg: Empty — the opposite of full. This CASE IS SUPPOSED TO BE FULL! Anyone care to explain?!
  [cut to Leeloo explaining]
  Cornelius: We're saved.
  [cut to Zorg]
  Zorg: I'm screwed.
• United Space of America: The movie has the President of the Federated Territories, of which Earth, specifically New York, appears to be merely the capital city. This is possibly meant to reference the United Nations. According to the novelization, this Federation's predecessor IS the U.S.
• Universal Driver's License: At one point, it's explained that Korben's training and experience in his former military unit qualifies him in the operation of a list of vehicles that extends to several pages.
• Unknown Rival:
  • Korben and Zorg never meet or even know about each other and that they're competing for the same goal. They come within feet of one another on an elevator landing and Zorg just keeps on walking because, again, he doesn't even know Korben exists. Korben doesn't know Zorg is behind the Mangalores' activities or that he's working for Mr. Shadow. For that matter, Korben knows nothing of Mr. Shadow — only that it's an encroaching threat. Also, Zorg has no idea that Korben stopped the Mangalores on the cruise ship or that he's helping Leeloo. Zorg doesn't even know who Leeloo is when he tries to kill her, not even knowing that if he had succeeded, he would have no need for the stones. Only Cornelius has met Zorg and then only briefly on screen. The most direct harm that Zorg ever does to Korben in the film is to fire him from Zorg Industries... via a form letter... that Zorg didn't even write himself... or send himself.
  • In the novelization, they do run into each other, and Korben proceeds to beat the shit out of him for "hurting his wife" after Zorg finds out he ran out of bullets (all 3,000 of them).
• Updated Re-release: This movie has been re-released more than once because it is great for showing off new high-end TVs. It's nearly always kept prominently displayed as a result.
• Vicious Cycle: An evil planet that comes to life every five thousand years attempts to collide with the Earth, causing a chain reaction that would destroy all life in the universe. This can only be prevented by the use of an ancient superweapon and, in the film, The Power of Love. The shot at the end when we see how close the planet got to colliding with Earth also has our eerily similarly-sized moon lingering in view as well, implying that its origins were from a previous time this happened (and that it was also a very close call) (The novelisation confirms that the Moon is the remains of a previous evil planet).
• Victory Sex: At the end of the film, the President of The Federation can't congratulate Korben Dallas and Leeloo on saving Earth because... they're busy. They need... five more minutes.
• Visual Pun:
  • The cops that come to arrest Korben's obnoxious neighbor, mistaking him for Korben, literally "bag him."
  • One of Zorg's minions spies on the Federation President with a cockroach that's been fitted with a transmitter. They're bugging the conversation.
• The Voice:
  • Korben Dallas's mother is heard but never seen.
  • Finger, Korben's boss at the cab company. He doesn't seem unreasonable on the phone, but Dallas seems genuinely worried about crossing him.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Mangalores can shape-shift to impersonate humans, right down to changing their physique. However, it's implied it is a very difficult feat to perform. Aknot re-uses the same form throughout the movie and only ever speaks in the Mangalores' distinctive, gravelly voice. Another struggles to even keep the shape-shift under control, visibly grimacing while his eyes bulge and forehead shifts between human and Mangalore, and when he speaks he cannot disguise his voice. Later a Mangalore impersonates a human voice and claims to be room service, but doesn't even attempt to hide their appearance. The only Mangalore that manages to nail both appearance and voice is the woman at the airport, and even she drops back to her Mangalore voice the moment she's out of earshot.
• Wall of Weapons: After disarming the thief in the beginning of the film, Korben takes his gun and deposits it in a storage container that lowers down from the ceiling, which is filled with various guns haphazardly chucked into it, the implication being that Korben has done this dance many times before.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The Federated Territories, the Mondoshawans, their priests and Dallas are all fighting for the common goal to stop the Big Bad from destroying all life, but half the movie's conflict is them working against each other. The Mondoshawans distrusted mankind and kept the elemental stones necessary to stop the Evil out of their reach. The government is trying to contain Mr. Shadow in any way they can, but they ignore the Mondoshawan high priest's advice. Leeloo, who is also the weapon created to stop Evil becomes a fugitive after being revived by the government, escaping their facility, crashing into Dallas' cab, which also makes him pursued as an accomplice. The priests themselves also distrust Dallas, thinking he is a nobody who got dragged into a mess he can't possibly understand, despite him being a former soldier who was reactivated to find the stones by his superiors from The Federation.
• We Only Have One Chance: With the Great Evil imminently bearing down on Earth in the climax, the main characters are in a remote temple, activating the only weapon that can stop it. The activation is revealed to need a source of each element. Blowing is all it takes for Wind (though the realization about this is accidental), dust makes up for Earth, and sweat provides Water. But they still need a Fire source. Korben has a matchbox with one match... Even then, the fifth element (Leeloo) has to do her part as well afterwards.
• We Will All Fly in the Future: As typical of the genre, especially for 90s sci-fi blockbuster, cars in the world of The Fifth Element are airborne hovercraft that travel miles above the ground. Korben's flying taxi was even the centerpiece of a lot of the film's marketing material, believe it or not.
• What Does This Button Do?: When the case Zorg hired the Mangalores to bring him is empty, Zorg reneges on the deal of giving them four crates of the new ZF-1, however, when Aknot insists on compensation for risking their lives to bring him the case, Zorg orders that they be given one crate, "for the cause". Outside the meeting he tells his assistant:
  Zorg: I like killer. A real dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold-blooded. Clean. Methodical. Thorough. A killer, when he picked up the ZF-1, would've immediately asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
  [As the other Mangalores play around with their ZF-1s, Aknot curiously notices the red button and presses it, resulting in the self-destruct mechanism going off]
• When the Planets Align: The archeologist in the opening scene explains that the Eternal Recurrence occurs when three specific planets are in eclipse.
• Where's the Kaboom?: In the climax when the countdown for the Dark Planet to hit Earth reaches zero, the President braces and awaits the explosion only to be surprised when it doesn't happen.
• Wolf Whistle: When Ruby Rhod sees the sexy stewardess he intends on wooing, the background music of his radio show turns into a wolf howling.
• World of Bad Cops: The police are practically owned by Zorg and do his bidding from a mere phone call. Despite this, they never manage to do anything more than get in the way and die.
• World of Ham: Vito, the military, the President, Zorg, and Ruby Rhod (who seems to be able to induce hamminess in people who are talking about him and people he is talking to).
• Writers Cannot Do Math: In the 1914 prologue, the Mondoshawan's claim that they'll return the stones and the Fifth Element in three hundred years in time to protect the Earth from the Great Evil. And yet, the year it shows up is 2263, as opposed to 2214. Perhaps a Mondoshawan year is a little longer than an Earth's year? (Or maybe they were just rounding down.)
• Xeno Nucleic Acid: Leeloo's DNA is briefly shown containing numerous helices compacted together. A scientist also comments that she has 200,000 "memo groups" compared with the 40 of humans,^note  Or in the French version, 200 billions to the humans' four which is pure technobabble. These are supposed to be signs of Leeloo being a genetically engineered perfect being.
• You Have Failed Me: Used by Zorg on the poor underling who failed to impersonate Dallas.
  Right-Arm: Sorry, sir, this will never happen again.
  Zorg: I know.
  [BOOM!]
• Your Reward Is Your Life: After Zorg gives a speech to Father Cornelius as to how The Evil(/"Mister Shadow") slamming into Earth will mean jobs for the workers reconstructing the planet, he takes a drink with a cherry in it and starts choking on it. Cornelius points out that all his power means nothing if he chokes to death on a cherry, then slaps Zorg on the back, causing him to spit it out. When Zorg throws him out of his office:
  Zorg: You saved my life, so in return I'll spare yours. For now.
  Cornelius: You're a monster, Zorg.
  Zorg: I know. I know... [signals his flunkies to escort Cornelius out of the building]