[prhn]

I'm just here to share my love for this film. I'm a big movie fan. I've been watching the Fifth Element since high school, and I've only grown to appreciate it more and more as a film as I get older.

It's so full of life, creativity, color, humor, and themes we can all relate to (purpose, love, loss, etc).

This is peek Bruce Willis, and the movie is filled with other exceptional actors including Gary Oldman and Ian Holm. Milla Jovovich is extremely entertaining to watch as a sort fish-out-of-water, and I know Chris Tucker's character here isn't for everyone but in my opinion it's right on-brand for the film. Cracks me up every time for decades.

Mostly the effects have aged really well. That's generally thanks to heavy use of practical effects, as this article highlights.

I often get sad that this is becoming a lost art. Great filmmakers with big budgets are still doing this type of practical effects work (Nolan [Interstellar], Villeneuve [Dune]), but I think eventually it will be lost in time.

[pavel_lishin]

I cannot imagine anyone but Chris Tucker playing Ruby Rhod. He's one of the best parts of the film.

[BoiledCabbage]

> Chris Tucker's character here isn't for everyone

Yeah this comment to me is incredibly surprising. Chris Tucker played an absolutely incredible character in that movie. So creative, so well executed, so memorable.

He was up there with Bruce Willis as top two in that film.

Such a brilliant movie - and definitely feels like a lost art.

[stephen_cagle]

I'm blown away by the idea of not using Chris Tucker for Ruby Rhod. It is like imagining anyone but Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. They are basically perfect castings.

[NoSalt]

You green?

[xnx]

Super green

[chasd00]

yes, so many good moments, "btw, i have a recording of her talented voice" haha

[stiiv]

Agreed -- it's a wonderful film, and deserves a special place right up there with Star Wars and Harryhausen for its practical effects.

While the article mentions Moebius, I think this level of praise still merits an extra Incal callout, even if it just serves as a recommendation to those who want more of this stuff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incal

[andruby]

I must have watched it at least 8 times, and only on the 9th time did I pause and realize that in this movie the hero and villain never meet. Willis and Oldman almost cross at the elevator but never actually meet.

[dylan604]

> I often get sad that this is becoming a lost art. Great filmmakers with big budgets are still doing this type of practical effects work (Nolan [Interstellar], Villeneuve [Dune]), but I think eventually it will be lost in time.

Another one of the things that I appreciated from George Miller with Mad Max: Fury Road. There's definitely CG used, but so much of the stunts were real and not SpiderMan level nonsense.

[beloch]

In the recent Mad Max films, Miller used CG for compositing, but insisted that all the action be real. There are no CG people jumping bikes over 16-wheelers. CG was only used to get rid of safety equipment, change the sky, etc.. The results feel viscerally real.

[dylan604]

Guitar dude's exploding rig was definitely CG. Don't kid yourself that it was limited to what you stated. Yes, the stunts were real humans, but it also had CG elements

[halestock]

Do you mean the flamethrower guitar? That was real.

[dylan604]

I'm talking about the end of the flamethrower guy when the rig wrecks. There's a bunch of debris that flies around including the steering wheel that perfectly comes at camera spinning exactly times so the center wipes the frame. That sequence has lots of CG

[rcxdude]

This has tended to be significantly overblown recently with a huge amount of 'no CGI' advertising coming from studios, which often verges into utter BS. There's an incredible amount of CG at every level of modern productions, regardless of how much stuntwork and practical effects were done as well. (this video series has a good breakdown on it, which has included studios releasing doctored 'behind the scenes' footage! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo ).

That's not to say that doing these things is pointless or unimpressive, but it's often used to denigrate and minimize the work of a lot of already quite underappreciated artists.

[juancn]

I got the 4K BD disk to watch with my kids a couple months ago and it has aged really well, particularly the special effects.

It's a wonderful movie, definitely one of my favorites.

[NoSalt]

What do you mean "Chris Tucker's character here isn't for everyone"?!?!? I absolutely LOVE Ruby! You green???

[steve1977]

The cast is just perfect IMHO. Super green! ;

Also one of my all time favorites.

[lotsofpulp]

I thought slightly less of the casting for Fifth Element after I learned about the "Born Sexy Yesterday" thing in conjunction with Luc Besson's personal life. Same with Leon.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thpEyEwi80

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Besson#Personal_life

While I enjoyed watching the movies, I feel like I would have to point out this dynamic if I were to show the movie to my kids.

[steve1977]

Hmm, I mean that "thing" appears to be the opinion of one guy on YouTube. Which he is entitled to of course, but I don't necessarily agree.

Especially considering he's using Leeloo as "the most quintessential example" but then also "emphasizes that the Born Sexy Yesterday trope intensifies the dynamic by positioning women as submissive rather than equal partners", which is clearly not really the case here.

Or for example a scene early on where Korben tries to kiss her, to which she reacts with a gun to his head and says "never without my permission". Doesn't really sound very innocent or without agency to me.

I get the point of the analysis and it's certainly not completely wrong, but it seems to be a bit far-fetched and incoherent to be honest.

[ryandrake]

That's a pretty wild take, but ok. I think you really have to be digging deep and "looking for trouble" to take issue with a fun and relatively wholesome movie like Fifth Element.

[ChoGGi]

Not to mention them getting together for the Fifth Element led to the Joan of Arc movie they did together afterwards (or at least contributed).

[joquarky]

Let's just cancel everything.

[stronglikedan]

> I'm just here to share my love for this film.

I love it too, and the best part is, I had not heard of it until my buddy dragged me to the theater to see it. I was completely blown away, and have watched it dozens of times over the years. I had the same experience when my mom took me to see the Matrix. I didn't watch much TV back then and didn't keep up with movie previews.

[Cthulhu_]

> but I think eventually it will be lost in time.

I don't believe it to be honest; model making and painting remains a popular hobby for millions of people, the only question is whether filmmakers will want to use it.

And recently, especially in e.g. Star Wars franchise entries, they have gone towards using models / sets again instead of just using CGI for everything.

[hypercube33]

CGI has amazing and always given me a wonderful advance for film making as a cinefile but I absolutely do not like how it replaced everything in movies for a while. Absolutely slop seeing actors in a green room trying to act through scenes and sfx puke we get instead of better directing, practical effects and magic of movies.

I agree that now we are finding our way back to a balance of using everything together to tell stories and I'm personally here for it.

[detourdog]

I was flipping channels in a hotel and I assume the Peter Jackson hobbit/Lord of the Rings were on. The scene I watched was some sort of interior castle scene and it looked really bad. I felt like it was very flat and cardboardy and filmed on VHS.

[0x3f]

But I wonder at what point digital effects become 'good enough' in some sense that they never look aged beyond the containing film. At some point surely there's no more perceptible 'resolution' to be had.

[peacebeard]

In practice digital effects haven’t approached being convincing the way practical effects do. In many cases, especially when used liberally, digital effects still clock as amazing digital effects rather than reality. It can be enjoyable but I don’t see what would move forward other than recognizing cgi isnt the best solution for everything.

[CyberDildonics]

This is not true, you just don't notice the vast majority of effects. You sit down to watch a summer blockbuster, there are 1000 shots that have been altered, pretty much anything that isn't two people talking in a room.

The advertising tries to tell you "we did everything practical!", it's always a lie and you believe it.

[ghusbands]

True, but that’s using “effects” in a broader sense than people seem to mean here. The discussion seems to be about the visible effects the audience experiences as effects, and whether those age well, not invisible digital cleanup, compositing, or set extension.

[CyberDildonics]

It's not true either way. Very little is actually practical, it's just that when something looks good people think it is practical because they want to believe that.

Marketing feeds into this and tells people movies were done all practical or made "heavy use of practical effects" and it's just lies.

This is 5 part series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo

Even before this people were saying stuff like mad max was done "almost all practical" because they saw behind the scenes stuff of flipping a few cars even though the movie is wall to wall digital effects. Sometimes the elaborate "practical effects" don't even move right and are used for reference and completely replaced.

[peacebeard]

This comment doesn't respond to what I actually said. I said that heavy-handed CGI tends to read as CGI. You responded by "informing" me that more nuanced CGI is commonplace. Everybody knows that.

[CyberDildonics]

That's not at all what you said in your first comment, this is a total back pedal.

Let's forget for a second that "heavy handed cgi" is tautological because it wouldn't look "heavy handed" if it looked real, and forgetting that some things like energy beams have no analogue in real life so are obviously effects.

You said "digital effects haven’t approached being convincing the way practical effects do" and the truth is this isn't true at all, you just don't know that you're seeing digital effects and you think you're looking at photography or something practical.

[peacebeard]

Not sure if you're misreading what I wrote or arguing in bad faith, but either way I'm done here.

[ChoGGi]

The one scene I dislike in this movie is Korben lying on the bed taking to Spider about his ex.

It always just seemed out of place to me. Exclude that one scene and it's perfect as far as I'm concerned.

[chasd00]

i don't remember that, was that when he was talking to the food truck guy? heh "last time i checked my msgs one was from my wife saying she was leaving me, the next msg was from my lawyer saying he was leaving.. with my wife." lol so many great lines.

[bobmarleybiceps]

literally watched it last night and was struck by how much "personality" it has.

[chasd00]

hah whenever i see a Stay Clear sign i whisper to myself, "i'm trying". Oldman did an amazing job btw, i really enjoyed every scene he was in, "you saved my life, so i'll spare yours".

[iancmceachern]

Came here to say the same