The Fifth Element

Like Mr. Shadow itself, The Fifth Element was something of an anomaly when it hit theaters in 1997 - a $90 million sci-fi spectacular that wasn't based on a pre-existing property.

While that's technically true, there were some French comic book publishers who felt like Luc Besson's film crossed the line between homage and outright theft. We trace the project's origins to determine if there's any merit to those claims, see how well the movie holds up two decades later, and examine the myriad of reasons there was never a sequel.

Topics include: how comics like Valerian and The Incal helped set the template for the look of this (and many other movies), why ditching the ex-military angle for Korben would really help clean up the first act, our initial reactions to Gary Oldman's performance and some confusion over what exactly his endgame here is, the realization that Leeloo really only has one big scene, the "born sexy yesterday trope", and much more!

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