Trivia

The hero (Bruce Willis) and the villain (Gary Oldman) never meet, nor do they communicate in any way.

The only phrases from Leeloo's alien language that are included in the captioning are "mlarta," "big ba-dah big boom," "akta," "seno akta gamat," "san agamat chay bet. Envolet," "danko," "domo danko," and "apipoulai." Everything else appears as Unknown Language or, after it's specified, the Divine Language.

When the Mondoshawan aliens appear in 1914 Egypt, the Professor, panicking, says, "A... A... Are you German?" In the German version he says "Sind Sie... hier von der Erde?" which roughly translates as "Are you from here... Earth?" 

Luc Besson wrote the original screenplay when he was in high school.

Korben's termination notice reads, in part, "Notice of termination of your contract, effective as of today. Due to violation of codes, HFGY56, 74HVB, 00JGHY, MNH356585, MCNH485757, 0478N - your engagement with this company finishes immediately. For, and on behalf of, ZORG." So it turns out Korben Dallas worked for Zorg when he drove his taxi, though this would have been implied anyway, as in the previous scene, Zorg gave the order for 1 million of his workers to be fired.

The parasites being disinfected from the landing gear of the airplane (bound for Fhloston Paradise) by a team in sealed suits are actually Boglins, the 1980s puppet toys. With them is a Bumble Ball, a battery-operated shaking and vibrating ball covered with rubber knobs.

Leeloo's full name is "Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat", as sourced by various media including Luc Besson's film diary (The Adventure and Discovery of a Film: The Story of The Fifth Element), a French promotional poster used in subways to advertise the film, and the video game manual. "Lekarariba" is a misspelling based in the script and thus transferred to the video subtitles as well. Leeloo speaks her "second" name with a hard "T" sound.

At the time, this was the most expensive production in Gaumont's history.

At US$80 million, the special-effects budget of the film was the highest of its time.

The language spoken by Leeloo was invented by director Luc Besson and further refined by Milla Jovovich. By the end of filming they were able to have full conversations in this language.

The explosion in the Fhloston main hall was the largest indoor explosion ever filmed. The resulting fire almost got beyond control.

Early in the film, Gary Oldman's character quotes Friedrich Nietzsche, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger." Oldman's costar, Bruce Willis, released a record album on Motown Records with that title in the 1980s. 11 years later, Heath Ledger said a variation of the famous line in The Dark Knight (also starring Gary Oldman).

This is one of two science-fiction movies featuring Ian Holm in which there is a character by the name of Dallas. The other one is Alien, which stars Tom Skerritt as Captain Dallas.

The actor playing the cop in the driver's seat waiting at the McDonald's restaurant (with "65 trillion served" written on it) is Mac McDonald.

Ruby Rhod was not the original name for Chris Tucker's character, it was Loc Rhod. The original name appears in the script and the movie novelization.

In the future New York City, Central Park is the same size as the real one and is in the same place - but 100 feet in the air.

Volumes of two manga series - "Sanctuary", by Ryoichi Ikegami and Sho Fumimura (Buronson), and "Adolf", by Osamu Tezuka - are briefly visible in Korben Dallas' apartment.

When the President tells Father Vito Cornelius he has "twenty seconds" to state his point, Vito talks for exactly twenty seconds.

At the time, it was the most expensive film ever produced outside of Hollywood.

Selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.

In most shots of Gary Oldman, there is a circle around his head. In fact, a circle in the middle of the frame is a near-constant motif in this film. Bruce Willis, on the other hand, is more often framed by a rectangle or doorway behind him.

According to the Ultimate Edition DVD, Prince and Lenny Kravitz were sources of inspiration for the part of Ruby Rhod.

In every New York visual effects scene with flying traffic there is a flying bus with the Digital Domain (the facility responsible for most of the VFX) internal reference, or shot name, stenciled on the roof of a bus. The instructions for the visual effects team were to include one bus with the shot name but then all other buses and traffic could have personal references including birthdays, initials, etc. The front marquee for a bus's destination and side billboards were customized by the artists at Digital Domain to reference, invisibly or subliminally, some personal stamp or message.

The flying traffic created by the visual effects team at Digital Domain allowed artists to create personalized license plates. Though never visible in the film, the state slogan printed on all license plates reads, "New York, The Fuck-You State."

The text scrolling across a Times Square theater marquee as Korben dives down through traffic is actually an excerpt from an e-mail dispute between several artists at Digital Domain. Other signs on digital and practical, miniature buildings contain similar in-jokes and references and the large cylindrical tanker truck that Korben's cab almost hits at the end of his decent is decorated with the logo of a Venice, California, pizza parlor that was a favorite of Digital Domain artists.

The people populating the roofs, decks and windows during the visual effects sequences in New York are actually the artists and employees at Digital Domain who worked on the film.

Bruce Willis ad-libbed the line, "Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English."

Zorg's monologue about destruction creating productivity is actually a classic economics fallacy exposed in "The Parable of the Broken Window" by economist Frederic Bastiat.

Luc Besson, an admitted comic book fan, had two famous French comic book artists in mind for the film's visual style when he started writing the movie in high school. Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières. Both artists have long-standing comic book series in France. Moebius is best known for "Blueberry" and the (French) Magazine and (US) movie Heavy Metal. Mézières is best known for the "Valerian" series. Both series are still in production today. Moebius and Mezieres, who attended art school together but had never collaborated on a project until The Fifth Element, started renderings for the film in the early '90s and are responsible for the majority of the over all look of the film, including the vehicles, spacecrafts, buildings, human characters and aliens. However, only Giraud is credited, and even then he wasn't even granted a premium when the movie was eventually produced.

As Korben and Leeloo approach an intersection in his cab the camera whips forward to reveal to the audience that six police cars are waiting for him ahead. In the far background, behind the police cars, is a chase between a police car and a long black car complete with muzzle flashes to represent gun fire between the two cars. Ever an eye for detail, Luc Besson noticed the embellishment the first time the visual effects shot was reviewed, thought that it was funny and it remains in the final film.

Part of the song that the Diva sings is from the opera "Lucia Di Lammermoor", and very often goes by the title "The Mad Song", as it is sung by Lucia just after she murders Arturo (whom she was forced to marry) on their wedding day - Lucia is hallucinating that she has married the man she really loves; Edgardo, her brother's nemesis.

Triangles feature frequently in the film. They appear on the Egyptian ruins, on the displays of the planet alignment, and in the missile formation fired from the cruiser. Also, the stones are triangular prisms.

The Zorg Industries ZF-1 Pod Weapons System was actually based upon an AKSU-74 compact assault rifle.

When filming began, the production decided to dye Milla Jovovich's hair from its natural brown color to her character's signature orange color. However, due to the fact that her hair had to be re-dyed regularly to maintain the bright color, Milla's hair quickly became too damaged and broken to withstand the dye. Eventually a wig was created to match the color and style of Leeloo's hair, and was used for the remainder of the production.

Plavalaguna, Diva's name, is actually composed of two words: Plava and Laguna. "Plava" in Serbian, Croatian, Montenigrin, Macedonian and Bosnian language means Blue (feminine, masculine would be "plav"). "Laguna" in same languages means lagoon, though Laguna is used in English as well as in Laguna Beach, California. So her name is Blue Lagoon. ('Mila Jovovic' also played Lilli in Return to the Blue Lagoon.)

When composer Eric Serra showed soprano Inva Mula (who dubs the voice of the Diva) the sheet music for the Diva Dance, she reportedly smiled and relayed to him that some of the notes written were not humanly possible to achieve because the human voice cannot change notes that fast. Hence, she performed the notes in isolation - one by one, as opposed to consecutively singing them all together and they digitized the notes to fit the music. There are a few moments when you can hear the differences in the vocal tones of The Diva's voice.

WILHELM SCREAM: Heard when Zorg blows up Right Arm at the airport and when Leeloo tosses two Mangalores out of the Diva's room.

All but one of the Mondoshawan suits were destroyed after production. The surviving suit now belongs to Nick Dudman.

Nick Dudman's creature crew created a group of spindly, long-nosed alien garbage collectors that never made it to the final film. In the scenes at the spaceport, there's a huge pile of garbage which has gone uncollected because the garbage collectors are on strike (as explained in some dialogue). These creatures would have been seen amidst the garbage, holding sandwich board signs reading "On strike" if they had made it to the final cut.

While cartoonist Jean-Claude Mézières isn't directly credited in the movie, he is indeed the confirmed author of most sets, as his album "The Extras of Mezieres v.2: My Fifth Element Sets for the Film by Luc Besson" (Les Extras De Mezieres n.2: Mon cinquième élément decours pour le film du Luc Besson) was published at the same time the movie came out in France, reusing the movie's logo on the cover. Similarly, at the time the movie was being shot, Christin and Mézières published 'Les cercles du pouvoir' which contained a hovercraft taxi (which led Luc Besson to rewrite the movie's opening scenes) and a caricature of Besson.

Cartoonist Jean-Claude Mézières of 'My Fifth Element' also says that Luc Besson approached him for ideas, telling him: "I want to make a movie based on your visuals. But I am ready to pay you for the work." The nuance is because there has long been a controversy that many elements in the Star Wars series (several aliens, Darth Vader's costume, Leia's golden bikini, Han Solo's carbonite) were lifted almost unmodified out of Valerian (in particular 'L'Empire des Mille Planètes', published in 1971) - of which George Lucas is known to own several original editions, as seen during interviews in his study.

Many of the Mangalores aboard the Fhloston Paradise can be seen wearing "combat goggles". This was a practical solution to hide the actors' eyes (which were visible through the masks) and save money on makeup (contact lenses and coloring around the eyes).

The makeup contraption David gives Leeloo is black and bears the iconic Chanel CC logo. Milla Jovovich has appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel.