Line #51 Headscratchers/TheFifthElement


1	!Per wiki policy, Administrivia/SpoilersOff applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.
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3	* How do you tell the difference between the wind and water stones? Is there a "this way up" indicator that I missed?
4	* Every 5000 years the evil returns and every 5000 years it has been stopped by the five elements, or there would be no life on Earth. When Leeloo defeats the evil, it is rendered as an inert moon orbiting the earth. So shouldn't there thousands of moons orbiting Earth if evil has showed up every 5000 years since life began? Cornelius himself said that wherever there is life, the evil brings death. Was the Earth's moon the result of evil's first appearance? It can't be, unless the Earth never had a moon in the 5th Element universe until 3000 BC.
5	** Earth isn't the only place that has life on it. Who says it goes to Earth specifically every 5000 years?
6	** Plus, the moon only formed when the evil got too close. Who's to say it hasn't been stopped far away enough that we don't see it?
7	** Not to mention 5,000 years per cycle is plenty long enough for advanced, space-faring species to find a way to propel it back into the far reaches of outer space, only for it to reawaken and - as seen in the film - come tearing back.
8	** Other planets have moons. It's possible in the past the 5th element was used quickly enough that the evil was stopped very far from earth and other planets. Maybe they were different sizes/fused into other planets. Maybe it took out the dinosaurs after one failure(or super super close call).
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10	* Why, when rebuilding Leeloo, do they stop at the skin, and force her to grow her own?
11	** The filmmakers probably figured a scene of a skinless woman having skin rolled onto her like pantyhose would be a little too squicky (a legitimate concern when you're relying partially on the sex appeal of your female lead to sell your movie). So they had to think of a reason to cover her up and then dramatically reveal her to the audience, and that's what they came up with.
12	** She had a tattoo on her wrist with the symbols of the other four elements. If her skin was regrown from scratch, how did that tattoo get replicated?
13	*** It's not a tattoo, it's a birthmark. Corben just thinks it's a tattoo because people don't generally have birthmarks that elaborate and obviously shaped like a design.
14	*** Also, the symbols were on the inside of her right wrist, which we can assume was still intact inside the armor glove.
15	** The uppermost layer of our epidermis is a protective barrier made from dead skin cells filled with keratin. They probably ''could'' provide Leeloo with that layer but it may be simpler to fast-forward a natural process. Mactilburgh may have over-simplified the description since Genral Munro probably doesn't know what the stratum corneum is.
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17	* Why does Zorg help Evil try to destroy Earth? Zorg lives on Earth. It makes no sense.
18	** What makes you think Evil told Zorg anything about destroying Earth? Listen to the dialog. Zorg talks about how his expenses have tripled. All Zorg knew is that Mr. Shadow wanted the stones and was probably promising some kind of power for them.
19	*** Or, indeed, just lots of money. Zorg will be intelligent enough to twig that Mr Shadow is probably a warlord, but all the evidence points to a war with the Mondoshawan. Nothing to do with Earth.
20	** Zorg may also think that the "destroy all life" thing is just an exaggeration. "Oh he couldn't possibly really destroy all life, no one could do ''that''!" We know the Evil could really do that because we're watching the movie and beings that know better are telling us so... Zorg probably just figures the Evil will really wreck a bunch of shit, while Zorg himself will live to rebuild the world with his ridiculous amount of money.
21	** Zorg may also have no choice in the matter. Because he's an evil man by nature, Evil may have some power to compel him to do its bidding.
22	** Evil's mannerisms puzzle me. "Am I disturbing you?" it's like if Shub-Niggurath politely asked for permission before raping your mind.
23	*** It's making pretensions of a business relationship with Zorg, so it can't just go "DO MY BIDDING, FLESH-SACK." Besides, it probably takes some sardonic joy in it, since it knows Zorg is scared spitless of it, and would thus have to make polite denials of wetting himself.
24	*** It's also probably mocking Zorg.
25	*** Who's to say Zorg cares about Earth? If he did believe the Evil would wipe out Earth, Zorg could take his money and simply retire to another inhabited world.
26	*** The Evil is never referred to as wiping out all life on Earth. The Evil is consistently referred to as wiping out ''all life''.
27	*** He does live in a time when interstellar travel is as easy as is to take a plane for us. He might just think he can easily escape Earth and live in another planet with his fortune.
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29	* The ZF-1 replay button. Why would you want to shoot in the same spot again? If there was someone there, you already shot them. If you missed, you'll just keep missing.
30	** Silly question. If a first shot hits but only wounds the target, you can sit back around a corner or behind cover in complete safety and squeeze the trigger until the target is dead.
31	** It might just be feature creep. As long as it looks impressive in a demonstration, it couldn't hurt sales.
32	*** This seems the most likely, especially compared with the other ludicrous features the gun has. Clearly the ZF-1 was meant to be showy, not a practical military weapon. Quite why the Mangalore, a so-called warrior race, were so enamored with such a stupid device speaks volumes about their common sense, really.
33	** Or, an ambush. You happen to know a busload of enemy are about to come from a certain spot (through a doorway, for example) and they'll be packed in rather tight. Fire one round at the area you want to point your Dakka towards, then hunker down behind cover, wait until they show up, and spray away like a madman, filling the air with lead, without ever exposing yourself to enemy fire.
34	** Also, that feature would be very useful for covering fire, without the shooter doing the covering having to aim the same spot all the time or even expose oneself to return fire. And maybe there are options to spread the bullets around the same spot to cover more effectively.
35	*** Covering/suppressing fire is a lot more effective if each round is fired with the intent of killing the guy you're suppressing. Sure, the first round over their heads makes them duck, but soon they're going to recognize that your bullets aren't that close (as lampshaded in ''Film/TheExpendables'' franchise), and pop up to shoot at you again. If you're shooting to kill, they either die or figure out in a hurry that they need to stay ''well'' behind cover--far enough that they can't shoot back--if they don't want to die.
36	*** Yeah, that's kind of the idea of cover fire. Cover fire isn't to ''hit'' anyone, it's to keep the enemy's head down and away from a good firing position. So, if you've got enemies trying to come through a doorway, and you've got every bullet you fire going through that doorway, then it's ''very'' good at cover fire. Alternatively, if you shoot and kill someone who's manning a machinegun nest, that's now a machinegun nest that the enemy cannot use because the next poor sap that tries to fire it is going to get a hail of bullets for his trouble, without ever getting a shot at you.
37	*** Cover fire is to get them to keep their heads down. Not to make them avoid a specific spot. It would still work if they don't realize they're all hitting the same spot, but again, the bullets glow.
38	** First shot could paint the target so that no matter where they move or you aim, all ammo goes where you want it. No real wasted shots.
39	*** The gun can clearly be used on hardened targets as well. One bullet might not stop, say, a jeep, but a couple hundred right into the engine block would.
40	** In Desert Storm a tactic used by F117 bombers hitting Iraq's hardened bunkers was to drop a bomb onto the roof of the bunker which would open a hole in the roof, then a second bomb would be dropped through the crater to destroy the contents of the bunker. This kind of accuracy was only possible through the use of laser guided smart bombs.
41	*** You might be able to market this as a feature that lets you more reliable defeat a moving armored/hardened target. It's still a lot more tacticool than tactical.
42	** ''VideoGame/ResistanceFallOfMan'' has a gun with exactly this feature, and it is ''awesome'', though granted the enemy are quite hard to kill anyway.
43	** There's also the consideration that the Replay Button sends every following shot towards the same location, but it doesn't mean the following shots avoid anything in their course. Think about this. You're hitting a moving target. Shoot it once in the leg or arm, and then, even though all bullets go towards the arm, the body can turn in various ways in it's attempt to flee causing bullets to enter through other areas of the body JUST to get to the point on the arm. Also consider this strategy: you're facing down a room full of guys with minimal cover. Shoot once into the wall behind them and then send a flurry of flying bullets from behind cover hitting random targets as all bullets make their way to that spot while giving you perfect cover! It's not entirely impractical depending on how you choose to use it. The reason no Mangalores were hit was because the shot wasn't in their direction, hence the bullets avoided them and turned around, but anyone in front of the dummy would've been swiss cheese! The advantage of a curving bullet can sometimes be more useful than a straight shooter.
44	** How about the fact that you could shoot at an avenue of approach or a piece of key terrain from the safety of cover? It seems like a feature I would want to have in a weapon.
45	** Keep in mind the Mangalores are terrorists. How useful would it be to have a tracking device that you could shoot, implant, or hide on say, the podium of a politician's speech and then fire on with guaranteed success?
46	** And presumably, if you ''miss'' the target, you don't activate Replay until you manage to get off a better shot. If the target drops, just deactivate Replay again until you've hit somebody else.
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48	* Speaking of the ZF-1, what was Zorg's plan to explain how these aliens obtained prototypes of his brand new gun? He never expects the Mangalores "revolution" to amount to much, even going as far as to call them "hopeless." Granted, it seems that Zorg has a lot of influence in the government, but even influence wouldn't save you from a treason charge once the military/police discovered that you had been ''arming aliens with weapons that are superior'' to the ones ''you sell to the military''. If the plan had come off as Zorg expected, the Mangalores would be happily shooting up the galaxy with weapons that '''Zorg''' clearly gave them, so what was the endgame there? Not even the ridiculous amount of money that Mr. Shadow seemed to have promised would make this action make sense. What good is money if you can't really spend it anywhere?
49	** Taking into account the red button, I guess he never intended to let them get away with the guns and was going to blow them up as soon as he gets what he needs from them.
50	** Considering the Mangalores shot down the Mondoshawan with a pair of "unregistered warships" they borrowed from Zorg, it's pretty clear he's quite good at covering his tracks. The weapons may have been already reported as "stolen", or have a fabricated paper trail that implicates a third party with supplying the Mangalores with these weapons.
51	* Leelo has a weeping breakdown upon learning about war from the encyclopedia. Given that she was reading in alphabetical order, what happened when she read the listings for anthrax, bomb, cancer, decimation, execution, fratricide, genocide, holocaust, inquisition, jihad, etc?
52	** She didn't just stumble on the entry for War. She ''deliberately'' typed out "WAR". This implies that she had some idea of it already; but seeing all of it condensed together like that is more of what put her into HeroicBSOD territory.
53	*** That's my idea as well. She sems to be learning the general meaning of all the words in the vocabulary, but only goes beyond that for certain topics she's interested in for some reason (like with the martial arts).
54	*** Probably also the realisation that in 5,000 years humanity hadn't changed one bit.
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56	* It struck me that the flying restaurant boat guy has a really lousy business model. He's one guy who delivers food by flying his entire restaurant from place to place and sticking around long enough to make smalltalk with his customers. Realistically, he wouldn't be able to serve enough customers to keep his business going.
57	** It might be that Korben is a favorite customer, and that's why he stuck around, or why he was right there in the first place. He might've been finishing up a run on the entire apartment building and stopped to chat with his last customer before heading off. Or he might spend some days anchored to a busy intersection. You see him for all of five minutes, hardly enough to see his whole business model.
58	** Given the layout of Korben's apartment, it is entirely possible that Mr. Kim lives in his restaurant.
59	** It depends on how much he charges each customer, doesn't it?
60	*** Although it hardly seems like Korben would be eating from an expensive restaurant given his implied current financial situation. I find it more likely that the old man just really enjoys what he does, is barely getting by financially, and really doesn't care. Or he's actually retired, and just does this for something to do.
61	*** Especially since he doesn't mind at all not being paid for lunch.
62	** Maybe it's what he's doing with his retirement. Maybe he's got a bunch of those things going around so it doesn't matter if they stop for awhile to make food, they're all making money. Maybe he was on his own lunch break. Maybe he's got some implant that lets him work 23 hours a day so he doesn't have to worry about wasting thirty minutes per stop. There's plenty of possible explanations, assume your favorite and don't worry about it.
63	** The business model works best when you think of him as a delivery driver that cooks the food on the way to the destination. He hung around while Korben ate lunch either because they're buddies, and/or he hadn't gotten any more calls for deliveries yet.
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65	* Alright, so 99% of this movie just runs joyfully on the MST3KMantra. I'm fine with that! But the dual point that I just cannot wrap my head around is A) how on earth Plavalaguna ingested those stones in the first place, and B) how on earth she was planning to get them out again, if she hadn't been fatally shot. Can her species unhinge their jaws? What gives?
66	** She was a RubberForeheadAlien. Humanoids have two holes that go straight into their bodies. In a female's case, there's three(depending on definition).
67	*** Or, y'know, surgery. FUTURE surgery
68	*** Or her body is artificial and thus can be cut up without any harm.
69	*** Which raises the question of why she died when shot.
70	*** Because the bullet hit some vital part that ''couldn't'' be cut up without any harm.
71	*** Or maybe the stones were in her womb-equivalent and she was supposed to birth the stones if she hadn't been shot.
72	* Flying cars: This just bugs in whatever I see in in. What would be practical purpose of flying vehicles manned and owned by average people in a densely populated urban area? Especially when people jump off of a building could cause a multi-vehicle pileup (plane crash?) destroying both air cars AND buildings.
73	** In this case, it just seems to be that kind of dangerous future. Anywhere you go, someone might have some kind of deadly future machinegun and kill you. The shuttles are infested with alien cling-ons.. That's why the police are so rabid. The cleaning robots in Zorg's office looked pretty unsafe too.
74	** I think mainly because there's no other way to get around the city. You could build a city in such a way, but it's much too late for that now, they'd have to reconstruct Manhattan from the ground up. But look at the establishing shot of NYC and just how much has been added to the city in terms of height. It's probably far from perfect, but then tens of thousands of people die every year from ground car crashes and it's a sacrifice we make without thinking twice. No reason that a perceived/actual necessity should be so different.
75	** Cars are already ridiculously dangerous and we use them constantly. The literal fact of how many people cars kill is only staggering in that it's not higher. Humans will always trade danger for convenience, and cars that could fly would be extremely convenient.
76	** Not to mention the dense smog that's seemingly engulfed the lower portion of the city, that Korben uses to escape the Police. Flying cars are, considering the tech level present, likely more efficient and "safer" than trying to purify the smog; it may not even be normal smoke, but a lethal bi-product constantly billowing out of whatever futuristic machinery powers the city.
77	* Why exactly did Korben lose his job? It seems to me there were three possible ways. Zorg's henchman suggests they lay off employees from the cab companies, so there's that. A second possibility is that the Colonel who offers Korben the mission had him fired as an incentive to take the mission. That's why he knew about it so fast and brought it up. Korben even seems a little skeptical about it. Finally, it makes sense that Korben would lose his job once it became known that he'd used up the last point on his driver's license.
78	** I'd say it's probably a combination of the first and third. It's implied that his firing is a result of Zorg getting rid of staff from his subsidiary companies, and since the process is certainly automated (how many was it? One million?), the computer probably was programmed to fire the "worst" employees. It checks his license, and bam. As for the Colonel, he probably only noticed as he was doing a background check on Korben for the mission (and the fact that he was unemployed may have contributed to them choosing him). It's the future, his information was probably updated the moment he was fired.
79	** He was fired "Due to violation of codes: [=HFGY56, 74HVB, 00JGHY, MHN356585, MCNH465757, D476N=]" ([[http://www.yourprops.com/Korben-Dallas-Termination-Notice-other-replicas-movie-props-Fifth-Element--The--5th---1997--prop-44433.html Termination Notice]])
80	* The Mondoshawan that gets stuck in the temple in the prologue. Why can't they just open the door again and get him out once his hand gets stuck in it? Why do his compatriots leave without so much as a second glance behind?
81	** Because those massive, several foot thick doors '''crushed''' him.
82	*** So what happens when future archaeologists find an alien figure stuck in there? It definitely wasn't there later.
83	*** Well, at some point between that scene and the "present", the Mondoshawan make explicit contact with Earth.
84	*** For the record, the doors seem to have crushed his hand at best (with the implication that the doors will fully close if given enough time).
85	** I didn't think that Mondo was left behind; I thought he was outside the room and the Priest was inside. The Mondo stuck his hand through with the key, the Priest grabbed the key and the Mondo pulled his hand out and left with the others. Meanwhile the Priest opens the door from the ''inside'' and runs out just as the Mondos take off.
86	*** ...Did you watch the movie? That's very clearly not at all what happened.
87	** What happened with the dead Mondoshawan was probably that only he had the key that could open the temple, and when he was shot he was running short on time, so he decided to sacrifice himself by giving the key to the priest. When the other Mondoshawans left, the priest opened the gate and pulled the dead Mondoshawan away with the help of his disciple, in order to bury him.
88	** But why didn't the others turn to check on the key-holder? They could have killed/knocked out Billy as they did with the Professor, and they had particular incentive to do this since Billy might have killed the priest and prevented important knowledge from being passed on.
89	*** They were worried about how long they were leaving their massive spaceship visible to the primitive Earthlings. Remember, the whole reason they're taking the Fifth Element and the Stones away is, effectively, they're worried that human armies readying for war will find them. They don't want to give humans any more reason to come running over and start poking around the temple.
90	** The Mondoshawans seemed to be running short on time from the outset, hence the speedy extraction of the stones and the sarcophagus. They probably had their own communication line with their trapped comrade to go on without them.
91	* Ruby Rhod complains that Korben isn't a good interviewee because he only answers with simple yeses and nos. But the questions he's asking are yes or no questions. What did he expect? Not to mention how difficult it must be to understand Ruby talking so fast. Which brings me to wonder how Ruby's a successful talk show host in the first place.
92	** It wasn't just his yes/no answers, but his uninspired delivery of them. So long as he sounded like he was bored and hungover it wouldn't have mattered how interesting his answers were, they'd have made for lousy radio.
93	** Speaking as someone who does interviews, it's entirely possible, and even expected, that a "yes or no" question will be answered in a much more elaborate manner. Technically, "Did you enjoy the trip?" for example, is a yes or no question, but it'd be reasonable to expect the answer to be more along the lines of, "Yeah, the service was great, and I really loved the scenery from my window seat."
94	*** I was taught to avoid delivering yes and no questions since while you're expected to get a better answer, if you give someone the opportunity to answer in one word, they will likely take it. Granted, Korben was a really boring guest.
95	** It's more likely that Ruby is such a huge star that he's used to people nervously babbling around him, judging by the flight attendant's reaction. Not to mention the nervous reaction of being on a show that popular would cause rambling answers, thus giving Ruby something to play off of.
96	** It seems more like he's more annoyed by the fact that Korben doesn't ''care'' about the interview or even seem to ''know'' who he is. Ruby comes across as one of those divas that are so used to dealing with sycophants, that they're totally unprepared when they meet someone like Korben, who simply doesn't give a shit about catering to their whims.
97	*** To be fair, Korben only won a contest attached to Ruby's show. So under normal circumstances you'd think the winner would be familiar with Ruby and excited to be on this vacation. Why else enter the contest?
98	* Truly I hate to ask, as I'm sure I missed something, but what gender is Ruby Rhod in-universe? Are we actually supposed to take Ruby as a female or as simply a male who cross-dresses to an extraordinary degree?
99	** Ruby ''Rhod'' is identified as "he" at least once (by one of the flight attendants, I think) and he isn't crossdressing - thats simply what happens if you tell Jean-Paul Gaultier to create an over the top costume for a character without regard for sanity, usefullness or common sense.
100	*** Creator/ChrisTucker did an amazing job with this, though.
101	*** On the Podcast/RiffTrax, Michael J Nelson sums it up as "That's so gay that it circles back around and becomes heterosexual again."
102	** Ruby Rhod's a guy. And he's not cross-dressing either: his clothes (and mannerisms) appear very feminine but that seems to be the fashion of the future -- look at the similarly-dressed Baby Ray, who is apparently a famous actor and chick magnet.
103	** Rhod was primarily based on Prince (at least, classic 1980s Prince), hence his personality and clothes.
104	* Why are there 2D borders in space? And why weren't there any patrols?
105	** While it's probably stretching it a bit, maybe there is another row beyond visual range, since the glowing things might have a huge range. This does mean you have to ignore how the ship was waiting patiently on the same axial plain as the beacons though.
106	** Ships and airplanes can go a lot of places, but they're only supposed to enter foreign countries through prescribed ports. The "border" was kind of like that. Friendly craft coming into human territory need to stop at the border and request permission to enter. If you don't go in and out the prescribed way, you're violating our space.
107	* Is no one concerned that a second moon is going to cause havok with the tides and tectonics? Granted, it's better than being blown up, but still...
108	** If they can invent FTL starships, I daresay they can tow an object roughly the size of the moon out of Earth orbit. Or blow it to smithereens.
109	*** Wouldn't the chunks of broken moon raining down on Earth cause an even ''worse'' holocaust?
110	*** Again, if they have the tech and the know-how to build FTL starships, they can handle it without destroying the Earth.
111	*** I think the system would adapt after a brief period of some slightly muddled tides. We don't know how dense it is, but it's only 1200 miles in diameter, that's a bit over third as wide as the moon, less than a 12th of its volume.
112	*** Yeah, "only" 1200 miles in diameter, but if you listen to the dialog is parked so close to earth that parts of it would be ''inside the planet's atmosphere''. The tidal forces and gravitational pull that moon would be exerting would be ''tremendous'', assuming it could maintain that orbit and not come crashing down ''in the first place''. [[ArtisticLicensePhysics You fail physics forever]].
113	*** I assume that since the planet is a concentration of pure evil and thus has no mass or gravity that would adversely affect the Earth.
114	*** In either case, considering that "low orbit" is ~150 miles above sea level and anything below that would eventually smash into earth (also the fact that it stops dead in it's tracks. . . in space) one is left to assume that there is clearly an other-worldly force behind this that our mere human brains cannot understand. Basically I just always assumed it's not governed by our universe's laws of physics (even after being "frozen").
115	*** And also, don't everyone lives in a Jetson-like future with the cities in the sky or at least much higher than sea level? It's possible that the tidal waves and other effects are not that damaging, unless there's still some people living in the surfice (that judging by the pollution I doubt it).
116	* When Zorg leaves the resort ship the first time, he sets up a timebomb to kill everyone once he's safely away. Then he finds out that the case he stole doesn't actually have the stones in it. So he goes back to the ship, finds the bomb, and deactivates it at basically the last second. Then one of the Mangalore warriors reactivates it, killing Zorg and everyone else on the ship. Here's my question: why does ''the Mangalore'' have a control to detonate ''Zorg's'' bomb. How does that work?
117	** It's been a while, but as I remember it Zorg plants a bomb and then returns and de-activates his own bomb. The Mangalore activates ''their'' bomb which they brought on because they're terrorists.
118	*** This is correct... Zorg's bomb was the tiny iBomb on the wall that he drops the card into to disarm. The Mangalore however, carried a bomb in to avenge themselves should the mission go bad.
119	* Why would the most evil thing in the universe specifically target an InsignificantLittleBluePlanet at the edge of the galaxy?
120	** Because it holds the weapon specifically designed to destroy it. Note how it doesn't move at all until it looks like the weapon's actually going to be activated. Earth wasn't its ''primary'' target, otherwise it would've just gone straight there unimpeded and just wiped it out. It only targets Earth when the planet has basically put a gun to its head.
121	** As Cornelius explains in the beginning, if the "Great Evil" takes the place of the fifth element, it will spread death throughout the universe. Essentially the great weapon to be used against it is also a very tempting target for it.
122	* Considering that the Earth is ''turning'' and also ''orbiting the Sun'' how come the beam was able to ''actually'' '''hit''' the Evil Planet? The Evil wouldn't be that dumb to precisely follow Earth's motion just to be ''perfectly aligned'' with the ''only thing which can defeat it''.
123	** See "if the 'Great Evil' takes the place of the fifth element": it's presumably in place above the spot so it could do a straight-drop dive into the temple. Just its luck Leelo was already there.
124	*** Also, given the nature of the Fifth Element, it is not inconceivable that the beam was specifically designed to hit the Evil Planet, wherever that is at the moment (and the beam itself might be of the nature that hits ONLY evil, whatever else is on its way). The reason why Evil happened to be directly above has been explained... above.
125	* Dallas's apartment had a bunch of stuff that folded into the walls. It wouldn't take up any more apartment space if it was attached to the room directly and it would make the floor plan much simpler. Why did they build it that way?
126	** Probably because the room is literally the size of a decent closet. Plus it's really difficult to make a floor plan simpler than "compartments/bed/etc. on one side, empty space on the other".
127	** Never mind the stuff going into the walls, where does the fridge go?
128	*** Down into the floor, just like we see on the screen. It's not as impossible as it sounds. If the apartment building is designed so the position of the fridge/shower in each apartment alternates with every floor, then it could work. That's not to say it's a good design, though. It wouldn't save any more space than just putting the fridge and the shower in the same room.
129	*** Shouldn't this be under Fridge Logic?
130	*** The shower telescopes into itself. Leeloo has to duck, then crouch, because the ceiling isn't moving. The bed saves space by folding up underneath some shelves. There's a faucet on the floor of the shower, implying you could stop it halfway and use it as the sink. The only real issue is the fridge going into the floor would waste a lot of space, unless you assume that there's either a large void space between floors already (maybe required by the structural elements or infrastructure of a building that size), or that [[RuleOfFunny he shares a fridge with his downstairs neighbor]][[note]]Not as far-fetched as it would seem. In the 1940s my parents lived in apartment that shared its refrigerator with the neighbor on the other side of the wall. The part for food was separate but the freezer box (about big enough to hold two ice trays) was shared.[[/note]].
131	** If you check the shots outside Dallas' apartment when the Police Control happens, the corridor has a higher ceiling than the apartment, suggesting more space between the residential areas on floors for stuff to fold in to. Probably not the most efficient bit of architecture (which is fitting, given everything else in the film) but does explain away this issue.
132	** Going with how overcrowded the earth seems to be, it's probably easier and less costly to make buildings way, WAY more vertically. Land lots probably cost a fortune and every inch counts, so they cram as many people in one floor, and fold everthing in whatever space is needed between floors. The visuals in the movie support this, as it seemed that every building was a huge skyscraper.
133	* ''What'', exactly, is the black slime that oozes from the foreheads of General Staedert and Zorg? It's not described in the script. It ''is'' described (both times) in Terry Bisson's {{Novelization}} of the film, but, annoyingly, Bisson doesn't say what if anything it signifies. Clearly, it has some connection to being in direct proximity to the Dark Planet, even if in Zorg's case it was only the thing's ''voice'', but what is it and what does it mean?
134	** I always assumed it was ''supposed'' to be blood but they had some kind of catastrophic SpecialEffectsFailure.
135	*** I, too, thought it was blood. Hematohidrosis is a very rare condition in which an individual sweats blood. It may occur in an individual who is suffering from extreme levels of stress. The conversation between Zorg and Mr. Shadow was very intense for Zorg.
136	** I thought it was some kind of gel or hair dye that got runny when you started sweating.
137	** It's the evil inside a person being drawn out through "contact" with the dark planet--an evil "ectoplasm" if you will. It also appears on General Staedert's forehead when he's freaking out and about to be gobbled up by the planet.
138	** Personally I always thought of it as a sort of liquid fear... the body's instinctive reaction to being in contact with anti-life. It's not like anything we know and it's not explainable because outside of contact with the ultimate evil, it doesn't happen.
139	* Why did the aliens kill the professor at the start of the movie? What was the point? They were removing the stones which were the only things in the place worth guarding and if they hadn't killed him the professor would have been left with an incredible story and zero evidence. Heck there was never any reason for anyone to kill the professor. Why would the priest care if he saw the information inscribed in the wall? He would have just assumed it was another funny ancient myth and nothing more.
140	** Who said they killed the professor? That's what the one jumpy guy with the gun ''thought'' happened, but more likely they just knocked him out.
141	*** The priest certainly acted as though they had and he had been doing his best to kill that professor mere minutes earlier.
142	*** True, but the priest didn't have any other options. The Mondoshowan might have some magic telepathy power to make the professor fall asleep. Of course to the assistant it certainly ''looked'' like the aliens killed him, so it makes sense that he would pull a gun.
143	*** Alright, but even assuming they sedated him and the priest just acted as though he had been killed that still leaves the question of ''why'' they needed him dead or unconscious. Their stated goal was to move the stones and they accomplished that. They never hinted that there was anything special about the chamber or they would have taken some step to make sure that humans couldn't discover the chamber. Without that key the aliens used there is no reason to believe that the professor could have discovered the stones. There was no reason the priest couldn't have just let him look at the ancient inscriptions, leave for the night, and have the aliens show up then to take the stones and get out before anyone interfered. The professor was either murdered or nearly murdered for no good reason.
144	*** The priest, pretty clearly, thought that the temple and its purpose had to be kept secret. The professor was clearly going to just keep on digging and studying until he found something. The priest didn't know that the professor was never going to get into the tomb, so in his mind, the only way to stop him was to arrange an accident where the professor drinks some bad water.
145	*** The temple is also clearly important... you can't just set up the stones and the Fifth Element in anyone's living room, apparently. They were probably worried that if it was discovered, it would be at best destroyed (hacked at trying to figure it out, or pieced out and sent to some British museum), at worst some warmongering despot might actually figure out how to do something with it.
146	** They didn't. They just made him fall asleep.
147	** I thought he just fainted from the shock of making the discovery of a lifetime. He ''might'' have had a heart attack and Billy considered that murder, but it could go either way.
148	** No, there was clearly a scene of two Mondoshawans nodding at each other with one of them glowing their eyes to knock out the priest.
149	* What is that plastic thing on Zorg's head?
150	** It seems to be an accessory akin to the fascinator. It's also part of the uniforms of Zorg's muscly goons (excepting Right Arm).
151	** It's obviously a fashion accessory, probably to keep Zorg's comb-over neat and in place.
152	** From his limp (always accompanied by clank as if he had artificial leg) it's clear that he experienced some serious trauma in the past. I always assumed that the plastic thing is some sort of protection for his broken skull. That would also explain why he bleeds while having talk with Mr. Shadow - he becomes nervous, have high blood pressure and blood comes from the injured portion of his head.
153	* So why are the police after Leeloo, anyway? If the President believes Cornelius about the stones, can't he tell the police to let her go? For that matter, what did she do? She broke out of the nuclear lab place after the general tried to keep her in the tube, which is...anti-kidnapping? And why did Korben hide Cornelius (who the police never connected to Leeloo) from the police during the raid? Is having guests over during a surprise raid illegal?
154	** It appears that the police were told to find a woman that escaped the lab, but weren't given any details as to who she was or why she needs to be caught. The President is also quite insistent that the government will take care of the problem, and they don''t need further help from Cornelius (even if they did, how would he know that Leloo would end up in Cornelius' care). Additionally, the police weren't after Leloo in the raid on Korben's apartment building, they were there because Right Arm had framed Korben for Uranium Smuggling.
155	* This may be a dumb question, but did the Diva have any connection to Leeloo? Numerous times during her number, we cut to Leeloo kicking ass, then when she dies, Leeloo begins to sob. Korben also pulls the stones from the Diva. Was it ever specified if the two were connected?
156	** Seeing how Leeloo was literally created a few days ago, I'd say no. Diva was just working with the Mondoshawans.
157	** The novelization explains the crying/etc. in more detail. The Diva is telepathic, and she's in contact with her people and Leeloo during that sequence. It's why she reacts in such a way when her people are shot up. It's explained/implied that Leeloo is getting some telepathic 'boosting' from the Diva.
158	** I think Leeloo was having a breakdown because she had just come out of the stressful situation of a psycho shooting at her while she tried to crawl through a vent out of the zone of fire. The situation calmed down, giving her ample time to sob quietly.
159	* Why did Korben's cab have an ID blocker anyway?
160	** One gets the impression that Finger's not entirely on the up-and-up in all his dealings, and could very well boost cars or run a chop-shop on the side of the cab company. Korben's car may very well ''be'' stolen, even if Korben himself doesn't know it.
161	** Or, we can just take it as foreshadowing that Korben is more than just a run of the mill cabbie; he's an ex-special forces cabbie. The tech to block an ID scanner could very well be military grade.
162	** It didn't, he'd just seconds ago smashed the part of his cab that the cops interface with to get his ID because it was really annoying him.
163	* A better question might be "Why do the police open fire on a supposed car thief?" Aren't they just going to destroy the stolen car and put the people it might crash into at risk?
164	** Cars can be fixed. Besides, to the police, one car might be a small price to pay to stop a car thief from stealing dozens of others.
165	** Also, New York City cops are not generally known for their discretion with their firearms.
166	* Also, why did Korben's car have an attack detector (not a collision detector, specifically an attack detector)? Is this a hint at a VERY violent future that has this as a standard feature, or is it just Korben being a smidgen paranoid?
167	* How did the Diva reasonably expect Leeloo and the priests to get to Fhloston Paradise? The only reason she got there was that the galactic government rigged the contest to get Korben there while not even factoring Leeloo into their plans. Why didn't the Diva send a private invitation to the priest instead of him having to clobber Korben over the head and steal the tickets?
168	** Leeloo came to Earth on a ship full of aliens, the same aliens that gave the Diva the stones to begin with. Had the ship not been shot down their next stop would likely have been to meet with the Diva to get the stones. There's no indication the news of the ship being destroyed made it off Earth so no changes were made for the plan.
169	* Now that the Ultimate Evil has been destroyed, what happens in the next 5,000 years? Is Leeloo supposed to be sealed back in the sarcophagus we saw in the beginning for another 5,000 years, or watch Korben Dallas grow old and die while she continues to exist? Or will they live Happily Ever After and the Mondoshawans clone her to create the next Supreme Being?
170	** It's possible that all the previous times the Fifth Element was used, it only damaged the Evil and sent it running, specifically because Leeloo had never had a proper connection outside of brief periods of being used as a weapon. Because she learned the power of love and whatnot, the Evil might actually be 100% kaput this time, so she's fine to live a normal person life.
171	** My interpretation was that just like Evil comes back every 5,000 years, so does the Fifth Element. Leeloo lives out her life with Korben and then dies, the body is given to the Mondoshawans (or maybe the government) and then they wait. 5,000 years later Evil is reformed, the good guys reform the Fifth Element. Maybe she still looks like Leeloo, maybe she looks like someone else. She has her memories of the last time she did this (or gets them back) and does it all over again.
172	** Given that Leeloo has an ''absurdly'' stable and redundant genome, and the theme that the Fifth Element is actually reproduction and the spread of life, it's possible that Leeloo was originally supposed to simply have children. Her genes would persist across countless generations, and eventually almost any human would have her as a common ancestor, and could stand within the weapon and defeat Evil. It's a far more reliable solution than betting on a single supreme being not being killed in a starship crash; but given the age of the universe, the plan may have been lost along the way and the Mondoshawans were just another leg of a long relay of species caretaking the Weapon and the Elements.
173	* How did the Mangalores know to look for Korben? We know why the priest, the military, and Zorg (via the Police Control) separately sought him out, but what about the Mangalores?
174	** That Korben had won the contest was broadcast publicly on the radio. That's why they ''all'' were there.
175	*** Zorg and Right Arm knew where the stones were, from spying on the President. Leeloo and Cornelius knew, also, as Leeloo always knew. Both groups knew they needed to get to Fhloston. However, it's never shown that the Mangalores knew there was anything of value on Fhloston when they abducted "Korben", unless they were also spying, but that would require the subtlety that Zorg implied they lacked.
176	** Despite Zorg implying that the Mangalores lacked subtlety, they seem capable of being subtle and withholding violence when needed. Aknot infiltrated Fhloston Paradise and posed as part of the wait staff without raising suspicion. Most likely the Mangalores had spies listening in Zorg and decided to try replacing Dallas.
177	* How did they clean the stones so fast? They were covered in blood when taken out of the Diva's body, but minutes later, they are completely clean and dry. Even if they had a magical future cleaning device, the characters were probably too preoccupied by the firefight to clean them.
178	** The stones had blood on them when they came out of the Diva and when they were placed in the sack that Korben gave to Ruby. But in the 20 minutes of said sack being carried through a war zone, onto the ship, and being removed by Vito Cornelius, most of the blood either dried or was absorbed into the fabric of the sack. After that, Vito Cornelius could have washed off the dried blood with the first aid supplies on the ship (which Korben used to patch up Leeloo) or rinsed them off in the sink if he felt it was appropriate. The trip to Earth took nearly two hours, which is plenty of time for someone who isn't driving the ship to tidy them up.
179	* Why did Zorg need to have Right Arm to fake Korben's identity in order to get a man onboard Fhloston Paradise? A man as obscenely rich as him could easily afford to buy his way in, yet later he pretends to have engine problems in order to be allowed onboard.
180	** It's mentioned earlier that because of all the interplanetary dignitaries and galactic celebrities that security is extremely heavy and the hotel is completely full.
181	* What happened to the glove Leeloo was wearing? Her body was literally formed around it and then it's gone.
182	** When her body is first formed, she's still wearing it. Presumably, she just took her hand out of it when she got up.
183	** The glove is actually present inside the reconstruction chamber in every shot. A viewer just may not have noticed it because... well, ''Milla Jovovich''.
184	* It's great that Mr. Shadow was stopped but at only 60 miles above Earth it would seriously screw up the Earth's gravity, tidal patterns, etc.
185	** That assumes it obeys the laws of physics as we know it. The dead planet was an eldritch abomination that was impossible to study when it didn't want to be studied, grew stronger when attacked, caused black ooze to trickle from mortal foreheads, and got defeated by a love-powered beam weapon. Maybe the Light of Creation neutralized its destructive ability to the point that it can't even destroy the Earth passively via tidal forces anymore.
186	** The tech level in the setting is advanced enough that interstellar travel is commonplace, if not outright trivial. Arguably, removing such an object from earth's orbit may not be impossible.
187	* What happened to all the exotic functions of the ZF-1? When Zorg battles Leeloo, he just uses it like a plain, twentieth-century machine gun.
188	** AwesomeButImpractical: Zorg was only dealing with security guards and an unarmed Leeloo, all the extra functions would either be dangerous to him like the flamethrower and rocketlauncher, or useless like the net and poisonous darts.
189	* Why did the science guy put Korben and Leeloo into a "reactor" at the end of the film? Were they trying to harness the Power of Love or something?
190	** Regenerative reactor. They were pretty battered by the end.

Context Headscratchers / TheFifthElement