Yeah, absences.

Hi all,

If you'r reading this, I apologize.  Due to health problems and new jobs, I have been away for quite a while.  I now work with the non-profit organization Chronic Migraine Awareness, as well as the National Headache Foundation, so I've been extremely busy helping to get CMA off the ground.  I still work a day-to-day in the restaurant industry, but it is sometimes difficult to keep up with everything when you are feeling so badly and working so hard.  I have not been neglecting my Fifth Element hobby, however, so I can chat about some things I have been up to there.

Firstly, I made Leeloo's wig.  It turned out very well, and once I am finished nitpicking minor finishing details, I will post a picture.  I basically ordered a nice, neon orange wig off the internet, used a red permanent marker in different layers, and twisted and glued sections to get the dreads.  I also put in her braid, which is a detail some people forget or you sometimes don't see it in the film, especially later on when the dreads have kind of fallen out and Leeloo is looking weary.

Secondly, I am finishing a set of Multipass kits.  It took me a long time to get moving on them because the paint fumes are a migraine trigger for me, or if I am in a very bad attack, I cannot paint.  However, the past few days have been kind to me and so I have been hard at work on them, and I can say they should be done by this weekend, and I will post pics of these too.  These are not Munson kits, and I am not sure of the casting, but for references I stuck closer to the film outside of Leeloo's photo, which is very difficult to get a official film screenshot of.  The casting on these kits was not great, so I had to sand and sand and prime and prime some more.  They won't be as flashy and don't light up like the Munson kits do, but I think once they are put together and lacquered they will look great.  These kits run about $25 each.

Thirdly, I am putting together a kit of the temple key from the film.  It cost all of $10 to get this kit, but you have to be patient putting it together.  I don't advise doing what I did - gluing the key pieces straight onto the stem.  If you consider this kit, please be advised there are no grooves machined into the stem so you might want to carefully sand some grooves for yourself.  I was overeager but the almost-finished product is looking great.  Again, will post photos when it's finished.

Fourthly, I still intend on doing a side-by-side comparison of the film "Heavy Metal" with "The Fifth Element."  As you may or may not know, the artist Moebius was partly responsible for the film "Heavy Metal" as well as the magazine of the same name, and he also contributed heavily to the look and design of "The Fifth Element."  Sadly, he passed away earlier this year.

Fifth, I am still working on translating Meziere's art book on "The Fifth Element."

My Leeloo wig serves kind of a dual purpose - on October 17th I am going to have surgery to implant a neurostimulator in order to control my chronic migraines.  My head will be partially shaved for the surgery and I will have a very short haircut above that because my hair is very long and I don't want to deal with it while my head is healing.  To be straight, on the 17th I go in for a trial surgery and so my hair has already been cut short, and if the trial is successful I will be having the permanent put in sometime in November, so my head will be shaved then.  I thought it would be a lot of fun to just wander around with a Leeloo wig.  If it's not the right time, then I don't know what is.

Sorry for any delay in answering questions.  My blog email is not linked to my Android so I don't get notifications there.  I notice I get plenty of traffic to the blog but there are few comments, therefore, I rarely check into this email.  I'll try to be more studious in checking, however, please forgive my long moments of silence as I am working a lot and trying to balance life with bad health.  This blog is still going to be running as 5th is a major hobby of mine and I don't see that ending anytime soon.

A bit of an absence

Hi all! (those few of you who read, anyway)

Sorry I haven't gotten back to the blog.  I'm having some bad months here with my illnesses and working on other projects.  Currently in the works I have 2 multipass model kits being built, and one is for my fellow Fifth Element enthusiast Kim, who I have known for a few years online and even speak to on the phone once in a while.  (Hi Kim!  We need to chat soon!)

I am currently working on bits and pieces of Meziere's book to translate.  I have some of it down and much more to go.  Sometime soon I will post pictures of my own fanart as well as the replica stones that I painted myself.  I'll also post pics of the multipass kits which are in a rough working stage.  I had to prime them and go back and trim excess pieces off, and now I am going to have to fill in some other areas.  It's slow going because some of the fumes trigger my conditions.  For those of you who read this blog, don't fret.  It's hard to gather information on The Fifth Element but I am working on expanding my source base, and there's still a lot of info in the books and magazines I currently have.

If anyone has any questions they'd like to submit, please feel free.  I will answer to the best of my abilities.

The Fifth Element in figure form! Part I

Contrary to popular belief, there is a set of officially licensed 5th Element figures, and they were released in 1999.  These were not action figures, however.  What they are called is feves, and they are a particular kind of tiny porcelain figure released for insertion into cakes during the Epiphany celebration every year in France on January 6th.  I own a set, pictured here:

As you can probably tell, they are very tiny in size, usually smaller than an inch in height, and Korben Dallas and Zorg are missing - not because I don't own them, but because Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman did not agree to disclose their images for use in figure form.  Why it would matter for something so tiny, I don't know.  The full set comes with Leeloo, Cornelius (or priest), the Diva, a stewardess, two police officers, a Mondoshawan Kommander, a Managalore, the Fhloston Paradise cruise ship, a taxi, and a police car, plus the title image.  They are stamped with a copyright by Gaumont and a date of 1997.  You can probably spot the minature Elemental stones behind them, and especially observant viewers will also see the Cannes' 5th Element Swatch watch.  The stones I made a long time ago out of sculpy, so they are not official.  The watch, however, is a product you can generally score on eBay, by either itself or in a special attendance set with the soundtrack and Cannes premiere ticket.

This particular feves set was a hot item back in 1999 when it was released.  I remember chasing it on eBay quite a few times when 5th Element merchandise was at its height of popularity and I could never get my hands on it because it was so expensive, up until a couple of years ago, that is.  I got the full set for a great price, but the problem is it's a very rare set to find.  My mother also wanted them (I get the sci-fi nerd genes from her), and it took me a good deal of searching but I finally found her one for sale only last month.  You can find individual pieces here and there, but a full set is almost impossible to find, and in most cases, will lead you to French collector sites and the like.

In 2002, N2 Toys (now dissolved?  I am looking for information I once had about what happened to them), had a lineup of  beautiful 5th Element action figures ready for release (a note - I am not the owner of these prototypes  - I wish I were!  These photos are also just a few that have made their way across the internet and are not copyrighted to me...if they are yours let me know so I can credit you or remove them):

Obviously, some of the prototypes don't match the others, but this can be forgiven.  According to Milla Jovovich's official site, these figures never saw release due to licensing problems, presumably, again, due to Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman's resistance to allowing their images to be used, as well as internal problems with N2 Toys.  However, with a Sirius Black action figure out, and the bust from Sideshow Toys, I think it's past time Bruce Willis got on board for licensing his image...I wanted these figures so badly I almost cried when I found out they weren't going to be released!  I collect action figures in general, so for me these were almost the Holy Grail of action figure collecting!  Speaking of Sideshow Toys, you can get 5th Element bobbleheads from them - a Mangalore, a police officer, and a Mondoshawan to be exact:  Fifth Element Bobbleheads.  The Mondoshawan is more like a statue than a bobblehead, however, and I just prefer to think of mine in that manner:  

As an aside, since my Mondoshawan is hanging out with my small collection of Terry Pratchett books, there is a Pratchett book titled The Fifth Elephant, in a title spoof of the film.  The book does not follow or spoof the film in any way, however, and is actually one of Pratchett's more serious novels.

Back to figures.  There is also this wretched beast to consider -  a knock-off Leeloo figure called "The Five Element", which is not an officially licensed figure either, and she can be quite costly:  Wild Work's The Five Element - Leeloo.  While I am wholly enthusiastic about this product because 1.  It's Leeloo in a figure form I don't have to make myself and 2.  A 5th Element Leeloo!  Finally!, on the whole it's a letdown when you think about it.  I actually think the face sculpt is fine - but I'd be painting it.  The suspenders are AWFUL, and they'd need a makeover.  I'd have to paint the pants - she didn't wear khakis and the black stripes aren't bold enough.  The hair needs to be dreadlocked.  The boots are cool looking, but they look nothing like the boots she wears in the film.  The articulation is pretty dreadful in and of itself - she is not looking so sexy.  The more I write about it the less enthusiastic I feel about this product as a whole...After dropping $100 on it to begin with, you'd probably drop another $100 on it to improve it...

At this point in time I am going to leave this post to its readers and allow them to soak up all of this stunning yet upsetting history of The Fifth Element in figure form.  It's my hope that someday the movie's cult status will somehow force someone's hand into making 5th action figures a reality.  I mean, I don't need Korben Dallas in an action figure, right?  Right?!  Eventually a Jareth Goblin King figure was produced (David Bowie's character from the 80's Jim Henson/George Lucas film Labyrinth for those uninitiated into the greatness of the Bowie - the other Supreme Being).  It just took about 20 years or so before it happened.  So, with The Fifth Element nearing 15 years old, I can hold out some hope.

Eventually I'll get to Part II of figures made for purchase, mainly statues and busts...Which are super green and have price ranges from the decent to pricey.

"The Fifth Element" in Print

There are three official books pertaining to The Fifth Element in print.  Two of these books are rare, and in this post I hope to address these books and give fans an idea of what they are all about, as well as post some images for you.  Please keep in mind my scanner is too small for the two rarer books, which are coffee table sized tomes, so, I have photographs instead.

The first book is the one most commonly found, and it is The Fifth Element, A Novel by Terry Bisson.  This is the novelization of the film, but depending on your tastes, it's either a good thing or it's terrible:

In the "it's good" case, the novel is written from the 1995 draft of the script, which showcases Ruby Rhod in his former ego, Loc Rhod.  There are also scenes which were not present in the film as well as some more clarification on the relationship between the Diva and Leeloo, though not what you might think.  Leeloo, apparently, also has more "power" which we are not shown in the film.  There are also snippets of the Divine Language, and that pesky "Lekarariba" spelling of Leeloo's 2nd name that makes me crazy.

In the "it's terrible" case, the writing is, at best, something you'd probably expect from a somewhat decent fan-fiction - written by a 4th grader.  Also, it's written from the 1995 draft of the script, which radically defers from the film in some points, as I mentioned above, especially somewhat near the end of the book.  It is easy reading, however - if it's the film you're after, you're not going to get it here except in spurts.  The 1995 screenplay is available to view online, but it's the only draft I have seen available whatsoever on the web.

Personally I enjoy it if only for some of the story changes.  I'm not saying I prefer those differences over the film - not at all - just that I think it's neat to read what could have been.

I won't, however, spoil the details of the novelization if you're interested in reading it.  You can find here:  The Fifth Element, a Novel.  Prices are pretty decent, but I kind of wrinkled my nose at one seller offering it for $91 in "collectible" condition.

The second book is The Adventure and Discovery of a Film:  The Story of The Fifth Element, by Luc Besson.  This book is difficult to come by, but it is still available here in used and new copies (expensive in either format):  The Story of The Fifth Element

This book is Luc Besson's production diary from the of the film.  It ranges from explanations of Besson's earliest incarnation of Leeloo (a 2,000 years-old "sand girl" from the beach of Fhloston!  Who lays eggs every 400 years or so and with whom our hero, Zaltman Bleros, falls crazy in love with!), to short interviews with the designers and artists of the film, among them, costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, production designer Dan Weil, and artists Mezieres and Moebius, who are well-established comics creators in and of themselves. Also included in this book are plenty of prop pictures, artworks, poster variations, and perhaps the most fascinating of all, "Leeloo's Glossary," the hundreds-words long dictionary to "the Divine Language."  Besson reports in his diary that Milla Jovovich learned her lines in English first, before transposing them to the Divine Language.

Besson reveals he began writing this story in 1975, but it's obvious from his words that it went through several incarnations before it began production in 1991 and was prepared before Warner Brothers, who were hesitant to take the film on because of its scope and proposed budget and lack of a big action hero name attached, despite early interest from Bruce Willis.  They then courted Mel Gibson, who finally declined the project.  Eventually the film was put aside, and Columbia Studios took on Besson's new film Leon:  The Professional.  With this success under their hat, they were happy to take on The Fifth Element in 1995 - and Bruce Willis was ready to take the film on as was Gary Oldman - script unseen at that.  However, Besson would see thousands of girls before choosing Milla Jovovich for the role of the Supreme Being.

Like Luc Besson's other film diaries, this book is also available in French and as an added aside, there is a "variant" cover edition which came with the special edition VHS cassette set.  The difference between my edition and the variant cover is that some of the images of the characters on the front cover are switched around.  To my knowledge, this is the only one of his film diaries to also be published in English, because of the film's nature of bridging the gap between French cinema and Hollywoood extravagances.

The third, and also rare book is Valerian: Les Extras De Mezieres tome 2:  Mon Cinquieme Element Decours Pour Le Film Du Luc Besson, by Jean-Claude Mezieres.  This titles translates to The Extras of Mezieres Volume 2:  My Fifth Element Sets for the film by Luc Besson. 

It is written entirely in French and while I have translated some of it, I haven't gotten around to all of it yet.  I can tell you that the unseen-in-the-film ship which transport's Leeloo's hand to the Nucleo-lab was designed and called "Eliot," and that Zaltman Belros was supposed to live with his father in Brooklyn, if my reading and translations are serving me correctly at this time.  The book contains production pieces of artwork for the ships and atmospheres of the film, and showcases some of Meziere's Valerian comic designs which were used in some of the scenes during the trip to Fhloston Paradise.

You can find this book for sale here:  Mon Cinquieme Element

The Soundtrack - and Possibly a Book!

For this post I am going to tackle to subject of the soundtrack.  There are, to my knowledge, possibly 5 different versions of the score/soundtrack floating around out there:

1.  The Fifth Element, May 1997, 26 tracks.  This was the widespread commercially available score sold after the film's release.
2.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2 discs, 2000, Columbia Records?).  Disc 1: 41 tracks; Disc 2, 26 tracks.
3.  The Fifth Element Isolated Score from the Japanese DVD release (Nippon Victor, R2 NTSC).  52 tracks.
4.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Score (cues seamed together from the Isolated Score and subsequently packaged with other mysterious cues such as trailer music).  This version seems only available as a download.  "disc 1":  46 tracks; "disc 2":  25 tracks.
5.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Score, 10th Anniversary, 50 tracks.

Some notes to keep in mind:  I call it the Isolated Score because there is no other name for it - many DVDs come with their soundtracks available to listen to directly from the DVD or Blu-Ray nowadays.  To my knowledge there is no official name for this because it is intended as a DVD-listening experience only.

The Complete Score is referred to as such because that is how it came into my hands, funnily enough, through eBay around the year 2000.  I will address this further below.

I can only attest to the validity of the commercial score and the 10th Anniversary version, though I do now own 4 of these versions and I have been doing some cross-referencing of the Isolated Score and the Complete Score (#4).  The Complete Score is a bootleg, compiled using the Isolated Score as well as music from the original film teaser trailer (running at 1:35), which is from Moby's album Everything is Wrong.  The track on that album is "First Cool Hive."

There are also a couple of tracks on the Complete Score for which I do not have a source nor a composer.  I am almost certain that Eric Serra did not compose the tracks "Absolute Evil" and "Egypt" (not to be confused with the other soundtracks' "Egypt 1914" tracks immediately at the beginning) but I can't say that with any certainty given the legitimate soundtracks' extremely diverse musical nature.

As to the 2-disc set released in 2000, The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Movie Soundtrack, I can only report what I was told in the Wikipedia discussion panel on the film.  I do not know a source for this version and I have not been successful in tracking it down, whether in an independent search or by catalog.  It's possible that this was a very limited release, but again, I can't say for certain.

Also floating on the web is a picture of the Complete Score from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of The Fifth Element.  On this picture is Leeloo's reconstruction in the Nucleolab  imposed over a sandy background with buildings and the planetary alignment symbols.  To my knowledge this is not official either - possibly just a fan made piece of art to accompany the download of the Isolated Score plus its "second disc."

Some facts about these soundtracks:

1.  The European version of the commercial version includes an "interactive track" which linked back to the 1997 version of the film's website.  It is still available via The Fifth Element with Bonus Interactive Feature on Amazon, though the page does not list the feature.  Here's a picture of my copy with sticker still somewhat intact:

2.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Score, 10th Anniversary includes the track "Diva Aria Coda" by Inva-Mula Tchako, who sang "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "The Diva Dance" as the character the Diva Plavalaguna.  This may have been the music from which they selected the notes to arrange into parts of "The Diva Dance."  It also includes the track "Police Chase," aka, "Alech Taadi", sans the sound effects of the Isolated Score.
3.  All of these soundtracks (that I own, anyway) feature "Little Light of Love" by R.X.R.A (Eric Serra, commonly being mistaken for Peter Gabriel here), but in varying lengths.  One of them runs at 7 minutes long!  The Isolated Score, however, does not have this track.
4.  It's not Milla Jovovich singing on "Little Light of Love," it's an Israeli artist called Nourith Sibony.
5.  The infamous "taxicab chase scene" music is the track "Alech Taadi" by artist Cheb Khaled, and is from his album N'Ssi N'Ssi, which you can find here:  N'Ssi N'Ssi on Amazon
6.  There is no soundtrack where you can get Ruby's other rap overlaid with vocals, that I am aware of. "And to my left, Baby Ray, star of stage and screen!  But he's not going to get much out of this concert because he's stone deaf!"
7.  There is an official 3-track CD of Diva Dance remixes available, recently made available as a Japanese import.  These tracks are done by The Shooshoo's, and are titled:  "Radio Cosmos Mix," "Bubble Duck Mix", and "Astrobus Mix."  You can generally find it on eBay, but be prepared to pay a good price for it.
8.  "The Diva Dance" segment of the film was mixed using Inva-Mula's voice, it was just digitally rearranged in order to achieve the arrangement heard in the final track, possibly from "Diva Aria Coda".  So yes, what you hear is truly a human voice throughout the song, but the individual notes were digitally rearranged.
9.  That's not Bruce Willis' voice heard during the track "Ruby's Rap."  It's Leon:  The Professional's star Jean Reno!  He's credited on the CD.

Are you confused yet?

And to effectively end this post, I am considering writing an "unofficial" guidebook to The Fifth Element, instead of pursuing a website.  I haven't made my mind up yet.  I guess it all depends on how lazy I feel like being in the future!

Also, a huge thanks to the individual who helped me with the Isolated Score.  It drove me fantastically nuts for over 10 years trying to figure out the mystery of the source for The Complete Score "2 disc" bootleg, and now I know!  So I can't thank him enough for all of his help!

Leeloo's Name

For today's post I would like to tackle Leeloo's name.  Her entire name.


Long before I had ever seen her name in actual print, I could say it.  And I learned by continually watching the scene in the film where she and Korben have their nervous introductions, with Leeloo aiming a gun to Korben, offended that he'd kissed her without her permission.  Eventually I had it down, but spelling it was another task entirely.  The official film site from 1997 spelled her name as such:

Well, I could get behind that, as that's what I heard too.  A "T" sound in Lekatariba.  Then some sites started popping up, claiming it was Lekarariba.  I never did agree with that contention, however, because I could hear the "T" sound and the flow was more appropriate.


It wasn't until I'd landed a copy of the video game (which has an excellent remix of The Diva Dance, by the way, over an intro movie), that I noted the gaming manual listed her name spelling as Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat.  Well, that actually looked official!


Some more digging led to the discovery of an early script draft, which also spelled Leeloo's name with Lekarariba.  Soon after this discovery, if you're still following me, that is, I came upon and bought a copy of Luc Besson's film diary.  On the last page of this book was a poster of Leeloo leaping off the building after escaping the Nucleolab, and underneath that photo in bold print was her name, as such:  Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat, shown here:

This image is one I have scanned from my book, so it's cut off a little as the book itself is too large for my scanner.  I do, however, own the poster as well and it's huge, about 4x6' - meant to be displayed where its size can be handled.  I've heard it called the French Metro poster too.  The caption next to this poster in the book is "a post-release promotional poster."  Not to also mention, Luc Besson himself spelled her name the same way in his diary, albeit with slightly different syllable emphasis:  Leeloominai Lekatariba Lamin-atchai Ekbat Desebat.

So where did Lekarariba come from, and how did it become transposed as an official spelling?  I don't think we'll ever truly know, however it's also used this way in the film subtitles as well as the novelization of the film, which was also written based off of that earlier draft.  In this draft and novel as well, Ruby Rhod isn't Ruby yet, he's Loc Rhod.  I guess we're lucky Korben Dallas didn't remain as Zaltman Bleros, either, as the initial title of The Fifth Element was Zaltman Bleros and the Fifth Man.

Official Trivia:

leeloo min aï is translated in the Divine Language as "precious stones."

Other trivia with fun connotations (2) and some with no back-up sources at all (1):

(1) Luc Besson said in a radio interview that "The first part means the light, the second one is her family name, the third one is her dynasty and the last one means she is the 17-th."  I had heard a long time ago that part of her name, particularly the last part, was an honorific.  

(2) Oddly enough, other than leeloo min aï, no other parts of her name are translated in the published Divine Language glossary, though over at T. Leah Fehr's Divine Language site, she has researched and come up with a pretty awesome educated guess about the meaning of Leeloo's entire name!  Please see here:  What's in a Name?

With all this stated, I think it's safe to assume that "Lekatariba" is the correct spelling of Leeloo's second name, and "Lekarariba" simply being transposed wrong at some point down the line.  If anyone has any information they would like to add, please feel free leave a comment!  Comments are moderated, and I have another writing gig as an advocate for chronic migraine sufferers, as well as an income-generating job, so don't fret if your comments don't show immediately.

Apipoulaï!

...And welcome to my The Fifth Element blog!  Here I hope to archive posts and information about the film.  I am currently working on a website that is private at the moment, so I can work out the kinks and figure out what it's going to take to get an archive built.  So, for the time being, I'll be posting here partly for my own amusement, and partly to get a sense of what I'd like to include on my site.

For now I'll introduce myself.  I've been a fan of the film since it came out in May of 1997, and I collect items from the film, including obscure memorabilia, some props/replicas, model kits, books, clothing, soundtrack versions, etc.  Some of the ideas and facts I'll be contributing to my sites come from Luc Besson's published film diary, titled The Adventure and Discovery of a Film:  The Story of the Fifth Element, Jean-Claude Meziere's Mon Cinquieme Element:  Decor Pour Le Film De Luc Besson (My Fifth Element Sets from the film by Luc Besson), and the only publicly available draft of the script upon which the novelization was built, and from which some of the film's subtitles were inappropriately transliterated (hint:  Leeloo's full name, the misspelling of which really bothers me...but that's my problem and not yours!  Unless you'd really like to get it right.)


I'll also be tackling obscure trivia sometimes.  I think the most often questioned piece of trivia I have come across is just what, exactly, is it that is running down Zorg's head whenever he communicates with Mister Shadow?  I'll get to that later!

However, for the time being I'll leave you with an interesting bit written by Luc Besson on what the Fifth Element is, exactly:  

"The film, for me, was something far more intimate, centered on this fifth element, which represents life, love and art.  A sort of model, reflection or mirror, a way of exploring how to live better with others and with oneself.  In peace."