[grenoire]

I love this movie so much it's _unreal_. What an experience, every single time.

And each time I see an article like this, I simply marvel at the immense love for art and life it has. What an incredibly talented crew, what product of mastery and care.

[sixtyj]

He continued with Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

The Fifth Element has similar cinematic feeling as the first Blade Runner.

And now it is clear. There is the same person behind it :)

[Cthulhu_]

Valerian missed the mark; I'm sure it's got great designs (although I also believe it's mostly CGI), but the story of the movie is disjointed (which is a risk when trying to merge multiple storylines into one) and the actors are lifeless.

[throwa356262]

I really liked Valerian. The story was fine and I expected Cara to be crap but she was actually fine.

I did however very much hated Dane DeHaan's annoying voice.

[vidarh]

I've grown to like Valerian over rewatches, but unfortunately it suffers from Besson being a massive Valerian fanboy and trying to stuff everything he possibly could into it... I think he'd have done far better if he'd gotten a more limited budget, or had to produce three of them for the cost of the one he did...

[sixtyj]

Impossible job as Valérian and Laureline has 22 volumes :)

[vidarh]

I know, hence why I think he should have gotten a smaller budget so that he was forced to try to contain himself to one story. Then maybe it'd have done well enough for a sequel as well... It feels like he got into it thinking he had this one shot so he better see how many things he could put in it, and as a result ensured he got only one shot...

[nntwozz]

The Fifth Element and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets are widely considered to share a thematic and stylistic universe, with similar aesthetic influences. There are shared elements (ha!) and aesthetics, with Valerian even featuring a shop called "Korbens" as an easter egg to The Fifth Element.

Unfortunately the movie doesn't do it for me, the 90s were a better time.

Once CGI became good storytelling and creativity took a backseat in Hollywood.

[sixtyj]

Perfect CGI and no-grain 4K (?) flattened the feeling.

[simonh]

Valerian was fun, but I really don't think it held together. Great set piece scenes though.

[metalman]

waterworld

[Joel_Mckay]

Adam Savage covered the Mondoshawan props on his channel last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf5dPrmBvwE

It was a fun film, but Chris Tucker broke the pacing too many times for a general audience. Even now on rottentomatoes his role still distracts focus from the character arcs.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fifth_element

Was a cult classic for sure, but nowhere near Blade Runner as a film. =3

[NoSalt]

I cannot disagree enough. Chris Tucker's Ruby is just what this film needs. With everybody else wearing their "this is serious" face, Ruby being Ruby is a great bit of levity that really adds to this film.

[Joel_Mckay]

What made the plot unique was Korben and Zorg never actually directly met one another in their on-screen struggles. Most never notice such details as a traditional Bouffon character often blinds viewers to subtly, and thus some lose the story arc in the chaos. It is just a poor production gamble to place Rudy, Jar Jar Binks, or most Jim Carrey characters in a genre outside absurdist slapstick comedy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouffon

Blade Runner had its own issues, but was a better film done with far less. =3

[cubefox]

I think the film would have been better (though perhaps less successful) if Besson had toned down the occasionally exaggerated tomfoolery, like Chris Tucker's character, or the spaceship Evil (the orb described in the article) which felt almost like a SciFi parody taken out of the movie Spaceballs.

The pacing, the great costumes and set design by Moebius, the actors Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich, and the unusual ideas (like the alien opera singer) were all more than enough to carry the movie.

[smackeyacky]

My counterpoint to this is that something that threatened to be a standard space opera had the delightful juxtaposition of Ruby Rhod and the opera singer. The initial appearance of Ruby Rhod really jolted my attention the first time I saw this movie. It’s weird but it works for me

[Joel_Mckay]

Most "space opera" folks recognize, are just a close scene-by-scene copy of a classic foreign film title.

"The Hidden Fortress" (Akira Kurosawa, 1960)

https://archive.org/details/the-hidden-fortress

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hidden_Fortress

Luc Besson and Patrice Ledoux structured The Fifth Element plot very differently due to their culture. Perhaps one may also find something unique in the classics for your own enjoyment, or continue to choose to be upset with mundane facts. Goodbye =3