Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Fifth Element (1997) - Luc Besson | Houselights #259

Transcript

The Fifth Element (1997) - Luc Besson | Houselights #259 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Houselights, our director discussion show here on
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: the Nerd Party Network. This week, we're continuing our look
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: at the works of Luke Baisson of the nineteen nineties
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: with his most ambitious film to date, The Fifth Element,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: set in the twenty third century, with flying cars, supreme beings,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: and outrageous wardrobes. At every turn, we return from some
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: of Bissan's favorites, both cast and crew, but you'd never
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: know what's coming around the next corner armed with those
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: special weapons. I'm your host this evening, Priest of the
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Five Elements, Darren Moser, and I'm joined by my friends
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: the super Green podcaster He's Hot Hot, Tristan Ruby Riddell,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: and President of the Federated Territories John Mills. I'm very
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: excited to accept these tickets to the Flush in Paradise
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: as we discuss The Fifth Element.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I'm so flattered. I'm so flattered to be compared to
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: tiny Zeus Lister. You have no idea a star of
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: one of my favorite films of all time, Friday, So
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: thank you very much for that.
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: Right off the bat, I want to talk about Tom
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: Lister Junior. So I mean, how often does a man
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: who looks like that and sounds like that gets to
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: be in a role like this?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Oh? Kind The problem is.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: That it takes a movie like this and a director
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: like this to have the freedom to say, you know what,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: it doesn't need to be you know, I don't need
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: to like you reverse this and not even reverse but
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: like Gary Oldman, I see him as you know, a
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: more traditional director is like Gary Oldman is going to
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: be our president, and will some unknown is the bad
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: guy or something like that. But yeah, I mean a
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: pro wrestler cast as the president, you know what. Honestly,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: it beat idiocracy to the punch. So you know, here
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: you go, way to go, fifth element predicting the future
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: better than anybody else.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Oh man, Yeah, the future of the past this movie,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: you know, I I know we normally start with first
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: time we saw something, but this is such a pitch
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: perfect cast. I just want to go through the cast.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I want to go through all the main roles and
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: just how they nail it because you started us off right.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, Gary Oldman, you know, he's he's Baptist, he's
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: he's got more you know, names than any villain, you know,
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: strung together, and he's literally chewing the scenery out of
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the side of his mouth in this movie. I saw
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: a small interview that he did where he's talking about
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the Fifth Element, and apparently he was also recently directing
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: something and Batist kind of helped tim. So this was
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: kind of a I owe you one, you know, but
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: you could tell he's having a good time. He can't.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I couldn't see him saying he wasn't enjoying himself.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Oh no, you look at Oldman in this movie, and
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: this is a guy like Oldman in The Professional is
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: part of that. We referenced it last week. It's like
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: he got Dracula and you got you know, he's in
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: True Romance's Drexel and you got the Professional. And this
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: feels like a guy who's on the other side of
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: the breakthrough line where he suddenly like, I'm able to
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: show up and have a good time just having fun
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: on the set. I think the energy that Oldman brings
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: to this movie is so supremely confident that it makes
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: up for a lot of other shortcomings that the movie
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: might have. I have so much fun watching Oldman in
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: this and I have since the first viewing that it's
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: like it's just you know, it's infectious, Like you can't
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: help but have a good time watching him have a
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: good time.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, from what I've read and I you know, of
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: course there's so many different sources and who knows who's right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: But I think it was less he didn't have a
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: good time making the film. But I don't think he
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: actually liked the movie where he felt like it was
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: too corny and he was too over the top and
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: everything like that, even though that's what Bissan wanted, because
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: like years later, like like after they made it, he
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: said he's like he's like, yeah, I was just doing
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: you know, Luke of Favor. And then like years later
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: when it became a cult classic and beloved and everything
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: like that, he said he's like he's like, yep, the
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: world is weird.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: But that's the thing is like I think what he
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: doesn't realize is it's freeing for him as an actor.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Like if you go into something, I imagine you go
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: into something and sometimes whatever your profession is, if you
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: go in and you're like, you know, like it takes
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: so much stress off of you because you don't care.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: In a sense, I think that lack of caring quote unquote,
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: that lack like recognizing from the beginning that this is
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: not your Awards season performance. I think right helps oldman,
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: you know, detach from some of the heavier process he
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: might have brought to it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: Maybe that's what I'm picking up on.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: No, it makes me think of like like Tom Cruise
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: and Tropic Thunder, like an out of left field role
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: that's a singular performance. But you could tell they're having
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: a good time. Let's talk about Ian Holme. Ian Holme,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: my gosh, you want to talk about like, you know,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: just the virtue of acting. He's but he's playing this flustered,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: out of his league character. He's not the leading man,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: he's not the like he's trying to hold it together.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: And it's just like a comedy duo of you know,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: him and his and David His, I guess pupil whatever
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: religious connection they have, but yeah, yeah, apprentice. But it's
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: just every time I love that they have this priest
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: figure that has been carrying the torch. And you know
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that there's hundreds of other priests between the one we
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: saw in you know, nineteen fourteen and the twenty third century.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: But and it's you know, you can tell that the
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: world has gotten bigger and the and they're you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: little tiny corner of the religious landscape, but they still
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: have a seat at the table. And he's still He's like,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: I have to raise my hand to talk to the
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: president because right now is the moment I've been waiting for.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: But this is a fun again. I'm gonna say fun
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: performance for like everybody, but you know you can tell
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: that it works. I like him.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna actually jump ahead there,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to say the person that and you know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: trusting your point about old man, I still defend like
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: maybe just he was divorced from care and so that's
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: what frees him up or something like that. But the
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: person who I never get the sense is having fun,
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: if I'm dead serious, is Willis. And I don't know
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: if that's because he's supposed to be bringing that energy,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: but he really feels like the guy that's like I'm
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: anchoring this thing. And I'm not saying that as a negative.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: I like his performances, Corbyn Dallas, but I'm saying I
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: never get the sense of fun that you're talking I
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: get the sense of fun from me and home. I
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: get it from Gary Oldman, I even get it from
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Mila Jevovich. I get it from so many other people
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: in this movie. But Willis feels serious, and I don't
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: know how you guys feel, but that's probably something that
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: helps ground it enough to make the fun more accessible.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I wouldn't go so far
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: as to say that he's not having fun because I
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: noticed something's in this viewing of his performance when he's
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: talking to his friend on the phone about you know,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: the girl that I met today, Like he's actually kind
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: of flexing some emotion right there. And it's not just
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: action star run, you know. I mean, it doesn't help
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: that I watched Diehard like two nights ago, but I
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: will say I liked his performance in this as the
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: everyman or you know, or the everyman special trained mission
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: operative that got.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: Pulled into the everyman green Beret you know, you know.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, the everyman Green Beret. Yeah. But I think
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: you're right, John, I think he has to be the
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: one that kind of acknowledges the absurdity of what's around him,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: because that's the lifeline we of the audiences are given,
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: because we have to kind of leak latch onto somebody
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: because everybody is off the walls in this movie.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: I still think it's crazy that this movie came out
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: in ninety seven and which is the you know, the
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: year of the special editions and everything like that. I mean,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: do you guys think this like contributed to the success?
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Like do you think that everybody in this movie, like
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Darian to your point, you're seeing people have fun and
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: stuff like that, Like, do you think that like everybody
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: was approaching this as like, oh, this could be the
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: next Star Wars because you look at all of the
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: makeup and the aliens and the effects and everything like that.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: It do you think they're they're picking up on some
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: sort of vibe.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: No, I think it begins and ends when you read that.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Bason like started writing this when he was like sixteen,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Like this is the passion project, this is the I
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: have this story in my mind that I have to
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: get out and Leon tied me up where I have
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: the clout to play that card. And we've seen this
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: many times with many other directors where they have the
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: maybe not a blank check, but they have a you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: a card to play to get their passion project and
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I think everyone was along for the ride, not because
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: they saw it as the next big thing, but they
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: saw the passion of like, it's going to be unique,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: it's going to be bisan and it is. But and
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: you know, whether you agree with the story or the everything,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I think there's something that draws I'm highly overgeneralizing in
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: the statement, but I think there's something that draws you
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: towards the work of an artist that is passionate about
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: a story, whether or not it's your thing, being able
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: to be a part of someone's you know, opus or
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: someone's you know, grand vision. And I think that is
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: more of what's rubbing off on everybody down the chain.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: Okay, that's fair, that's fair.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I now it's I would say if I
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: had to pick one person who wasn't necessarily having fun,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: I would think it was a Mela because may again,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: maybe her character but it or maybe it's the language connection,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: but she's not There's a lot happening to her. There's
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: not a lot of agency in her character of choosing
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: to do things. She's very much along for the ride
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: in this world. What what do you does that do?
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm off base Tristan or how does
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: how did you view her formula?
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: Yojovich wasn't having fun because her character didn't have a
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: lot of agency. Is that what you're saying?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: It's maybe not in so many words, but it's the
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: performance didn't resonate on the same frequency for me. And
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying for good or for bad. I'm just
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: saying it was a different vibe.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I disagree with that one. I feel like
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: I feel like when I see her performance, I see
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: her heavily invested in it. I think you have I know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: I hate it when people say this, but I feel
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: like it's it's kind of a fearless performance where she
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: threw herself into it one hundred percent. Like from the
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: moment that they do that weird kind of flash activation
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: of her heart and we see her do that contortion
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: where she's basically standing on her head, you know, taking
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: her first breath. I get right from immediately the audience
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: gets that this is going to be a physical role,
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: that this is going to be intense, and just from
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: you know, like from her breaking her you know, breaking
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: the glass with her hand and slamming the general and
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: then jumping straight through the wall. And then diving into traffic.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: I just absolutely love this character of Leelu, and I
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: think Yevovich really brought everything into it because I started
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: researching a little bit more in the language. And so
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: apparently she developed the language with Luke Bassong and they
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: develop it together, and yeah, the Divine language, and they
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: came up with like four hundred words words or something
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: not like, you know, they didn't develop the entire language.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: They just developed what they needed. But apparently they got
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: so good at it. They practiced it so much that
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: they could have short little conversations between the two of
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: them in the Divine language. And so even though it
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: sounds a little random, it is actually based in some
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: sort of phonetic system. And it actually got to the
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: point where she was putting herself. Yovovich was putting herself
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: in the role so intensely that she was getting bruises
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: constantly all over her body. And it got to the
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: point where Willis went up to her and said, listen,
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: you got to cool it down. This is all fake.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: Don't bust your head over it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah you know that way it sounds like that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Well, no, the thing is that sounds a lot like
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: the infamous possibly apocryphal story from The Marathon Man where
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: you know, you know, he said to Hoffman, He's like, my,
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: dear boy, you should try acting.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: It's so much easier.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: But you know, I'm going to side with Tristan on
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: this because I like, I didn't know who e Mili
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Davovitch was before this movie, but immediately afterward, like everybody
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: took notice of her. Everybody's like, oh, what's she going
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: to be in next? Like this movie made her a star?
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: And I think with very good reason. And I think
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: it's to the points that Tristan's talking about where it's like,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I get what you're saying, Like I think you know
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: she is. It's it's a different The difference between I
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: see between like her and Willis is Willis is the
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: quote unquote every man. He's a little more grounded, he's
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: a little more you know, a little less fun than
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: everybody else because he has to be. But I see
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Javovic like on the other end of it, she's so
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: far in on the fund scale that like she's lost
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: herself a little bit, and so like she's in a sense.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things that makes the movie
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: work as well as it does is they're pairing. The
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: energy that they bring is so well balanced between the
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: two of them that that's why I think it never
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: it never feels too far one way or the other, uh,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: even when the ending gets very messy, uh and I
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: mean extremely messy, uh, to the point where, yeah, anyway,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: we'll get to that part. But you know, I think
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: that what's interesting as well is that they're a drift
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: in this ocean of design work that is just off
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: the charts, crazy insane, limitless imagination sort of stuff. And
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: it's right on the cusp of the the whole digital
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: revolution stuff. It's post Jurassic Park but pre Star Wars
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: prequel sort of stuff. It's yeah, it's but I mean,
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: like the environments are still heavily model laden, the creatures are.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: Still tons of miniatures, tons of models, yeah, absolutely.
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: And lots of uh.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: And they're using computers to composite, but like the creatures
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: are all you know, latex and and animatronic and stuff
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: like that. Does this movie benefit from the fact that
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: it's a couple of years too early from what would
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: have happened to it?
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: Oh? Absolutely, post nineteen ninety.
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: Nine, I think absolutely, Like so much of this I
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: feel like so much of the special effects hold up
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: because you have so much in camera, you have so
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: much model work and miniatures, and like, yeah, you have
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: some CGI compositing with you know, when when they're doing
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: the taxi chases and you know, in New York and
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: everything like that, and you can really tell, like you
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: can tell that it's CGI mixed with miniatures, but you
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: don't mind it because it's so frenetic and colorful and fun.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: You know, like once they get into space, it's a
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: little less obvious. But when they're mixing and matching CGI
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: and real it becomes a little more obvious. Like I said, uh,
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: but it's funny that you bring up the prequels, you know,
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety nine, the animatronics within the bad guys,
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: I can't remember their names, the you know, like the
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: the main bad guys, like the Monolith guys who all
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: look the same. The animatronics that went into their ears
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: and their lips and everything like that were repurposed for
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: the Nemodians and the prequels in just Pantom Menace, And
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: you can and once you once you realize that, you're
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: just like, oh my god, yeah, like you can really yeah,
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: you can tell similarities of the movement.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you really can't see some good things about that. Yeah,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the like there's the scene where there's the lead bad guy.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, we got to look up the name
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of these aliens. But there there's the lead and then
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: there's like his lieutenants behind him, and then there's like
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: crew behind him, and the background ones they have like
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: the little sunglasses, which is a great way of you know,
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: not having to do the eye makeup for every single prosthetic.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And you can feel like the background ones like they
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: don't even move their mouths. They just kind of like,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: you know, josh around, and the middle ones can kind
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: of move their mouths a little, and the four round
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: ones like its ears and eyes and everything, which is
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: obviously makes sense. No, I think you nailed it in
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Mangalore's that's right.
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: I just let it that.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: This movie. I love that it's a ninety seven movie.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: This movie would not have been the same two years
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: earlier or two years later, like it was. Things are
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: changing so quickly. And I will go out to say
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: it also is because of the still limits that you
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: had in your shot choice. I'll give an example. You know,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: this movie does such a good job of establishing the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: world in a very conventional way. So when we're at
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Bruce Willis's apartment, we're introduced to it by walking down
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: the hallway, by the cops showing up, by the doors opening,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: by the windows. It's not here's a CG track shot
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: through a cig you know, cityscape. That's an impossible camera
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: shot we could never achieve, and we're going to fly
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: through the window into is like that would have taken
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: me out of it. I'm like, no, No, I see
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: the hallway because I'm a human and that's how I
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: see buildings. There's hallways and stairways and cockpits. So that moment,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and then that's multiplied everywhere all the types of shot.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying he doesn't have grand vistas or grand things,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: but the if he had to choose a shot, it's
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: almost always a practical in the set. The sets are
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: on the screen, the money is there. You see it everywhere.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: So I love that.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I well, I think it's also something where with the
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: world building, it has a very futurama flavor to it.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: You're wearing in a large way it's a dystopia, but
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: you realize that even in a dystopia, people are going
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: to be living the way we do, which is like
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: people two hundred years ago would see the way we
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: live and they'd be horrified. And then we go forward
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: a couple hundred years and this is probably you know,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: close to the sort of the vibe that people.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Would have and everything.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: And in a sense I remember being horrified back in
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: the nineties of like, oh, well, well, look at the
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: way they regulate the cigarettes, and look at how small
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: the apartments are, and look at how filthy everything, and
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah blah. But everybody's just living like
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: people don't. This isn't that typical sort of navel gazing
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: science fiction dystopia, which is you know again it's the
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: Futurama thing where it's like it's kind of hell on Earth,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: but it's just people living.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they don't see it that way. This is
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: just life to them.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: And I think that's really to the credit of the
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: movie is that it never you know, it's never that
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: sort of thing where like somebody like almost wigs at
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the cameras like what a crazy dystopian future we live in?
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: Huh, Like it's just there.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: It's just life well, and I know Bisanas has gone
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: on record on saying he wanted to be a bright
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: and vibrant. Look, he didn't want to be like you know,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: Blade Runner and there's fog everywhere and you and you're
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: hiding the scale in the in the mire. It's like, no,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: it looks it's a bright sunny day. Look, there's a
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: McDonald's sign that's the size of a skyscraper, you know,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and it's and it works.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: And the in the ballroom battle like at the end,
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: you know, like post opera, it's fully lit, really bright,
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: really colorful. You know, you know exactly what's going on.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: Nothing he's being hidden in the shadows, which is very appreciated,
• 21:39
  Speaker 5: especially in the nineties.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, post eighties. He's not cheating.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: He's like, this is I mean, he's given a ninety
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: million dollar budget, which you know, let me tell you kids,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: back when I was growing up, ninety million dollars was
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: a large budget for a movie, even post Titanic. But like,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: that's the thing. It's like, he's given ninety million dollars
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and it's not it's not the you know a lot
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: of times, like the dystopian sci fi stuff, they're using
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: the fog and the mist and the rain and the
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: darkness to hide that they only had twenty dollars to
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: build the set. This is a guy who gets the
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: money and he's like, oh cool, I'm going to show
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: it all. So like he it's to his credit that
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: he doesn't fall into the trap of feeling that he
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: has to show a world the way that people are
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: expecting it to be shown in the future.
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: And also, if we're going to be talking about production design,
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: cinematography and spectacle and world building, we have to talk
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: about the costume design.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, holy crap. The costume.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: Jean Paul Gutier hue an icon in the fashion industry.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: It's like not just in costumes in this right.
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: Like something insane like that. And like there was one
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: I think in one scene there was there was like
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: eight hundred extras, all with unique costumes, and as they
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: were coming in to sit down into the opera house,
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: he was checking them individually personally and refining and doing
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: what he needed to do. And for those of you
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: who don't know, John Paul Gutier is a huge French
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: fashion designer, but world renowned, world known, has a huge
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: impact for decades and decades on the fashion industry is
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: probably most widely known for the Madonna Cone dress and
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: Cone bra, and so it was just absolutely genius to
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: bring him on for this because during this during this time,
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: this is not why he was genius, but during this time,
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: I was really getting into fashion. And I'm not just
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: talking about like dressing differently. I'm talking about like learning
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: more about fashion designers, learning more about fashion. And as
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: I was watching this, I started recognizing all these models
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: that he brought in as extras, and you're just like
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: seeing all these familiar faces, but only if familiar if
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: you are into the fashion scene. And it was just
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: really funny. It brought that French feel to it, and
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: it just really brought an edge to it that most
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: movies don't have.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: So the girl that the first date that I told
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: you about for the Professional, I'm pretty sure we had
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: broken up by this point in tumultuous relationship what are
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: you going to do? And but we were still friends.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: And I remember her referring to it after we all
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: saw The Fifth Element, and she said that it was
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: a Jean Paul Gotier fashion show. Like she was so
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: dismissive of the movie because she was like, this is
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: just a fashion show.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: What are you talking about?
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I know that was so dismissive, and but he
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: did have a fashion show after the movie came out.
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: Of course, why wouldn't he, Why wouldn't you? Yeah, well,
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: costumes are amazing.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: And but that's the thing is, you know, we're talking
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: about budget, we're talking about production design. This movie on
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: a The best credit I could give it is the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: fact that it it does not feel like a low
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: budget movie, but it feels like it's hitting the limit
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: of the nineties of what you can do without spending
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: like ridiculous money. But they're putting it on the screen.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: I keep thinking back to the trendsit Terminal when they're
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: you know, everyone's Corbyn Dallas and they're trying to check
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: out and they kind of almost poke at it, where
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, sorry about the you know, the garbage
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: men are on strike, which is why this entire wall
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: is garbage. And I'm like, is that the reason? Or
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: is it we just can't build out the other half
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of the set, so we're gonna do Like, but I
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: buy it. I feel like it's just another layer of
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: being in this world. And you know, there's everywhere, there's
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: people in the background. Like you look at the actual cast,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: it's not a giant cast, like there's a lot of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: main people, but there's so much in the background everywhere,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: and it's and it's adds to the layers. Like this
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: does such a good job. You feel like it's lived in.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: You feel like it's a real world that functions, But
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: it doesn't go super deep. Like we see the president
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: maybe in two locations in the entire movie, like his office,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: you know, suite and at the end where he's heading
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: to the you know, the decon chamber. But I don't
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: need to see the president everywhere. I don't need to
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: see all of that. Everyone is in their own little silos.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Many characters don't ever actually spend screen time together.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I I think that that. What's really interesting is
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: how much this does feel like a comic book, especially
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: considering there were comic book people that got a little
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: salty about.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: What definitely storyboarded like well to the degree.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: There were there were some comic people who were kind
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: of like, hey, hey, hey, Bisan, Yeah, like you read
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: my stuff.
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: There was a there were long influences and homages a plenty.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: Well, he is a French film director. So homages have
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: their place. But yeah, that's definitely, you know. But what's
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: fascinating is I had no idea until you know, read
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: a little bit before you know, recording. I had no
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: idea back then or even until recently, that there were
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: lawsuits around it. Like there was certain stuff where like,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: you know, we looked at it, We're like, that looks
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: like a mobious panel, you know, and stuff like that.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: But like, I had no idea that there were such
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: you know, claims levied against it as like hey, this
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: is my comic, you took my idea, or that you're
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: the cab design is mine sort of stuff.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, even Jordowski suit him, and it was I think
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: there was two major lawsuits that went up until two
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: thousand and four, and they were dismissed because the judge said, yeah,
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: he took some things, but they were too little of
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: things and too few to to to basically constitute a ripoff.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: So it was the judge basically saying, yeah, he did it,
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: but he did it in a legal way.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: But I mean that that's the thing is like we're
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: all a product of our influences, right, That's how it
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: takes form and everything like that. So in a sense
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: it's like, well, you know, I kind of side with
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: the judge where it's like, okay, that cab obviously was
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: influenced from but it's not identical to so you know,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: am I going to get and the.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Plot is not the same. Like, but if you as
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: no one else allowed to have a Cabby from a
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: futuristic New York be your main character. Like again, we're
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: drifting down copyright law, which is of course those fun topic.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: Hey world, but.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Listen, in the age of AI, it's all moot anyway,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: So who cares?
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Right? Ah this?
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go, making it topical for you the audience.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Well, like I said at the beginning, we're returning to
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: too many familiar Bisan collaborators. Music again by Eric Sarah,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: and again I think it's one of his best as
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: far as from the ones we've seen leading up to this.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: This I think someone put a percentage of like over
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: ninety percent of this movie has some sort of music
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: in the background, like it is constantly playing, and it's
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: different types, like they're fueling up the you know, the plane,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and there's like reggae hip hop music playing. And then
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: now we're over here and then now we're switched to
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: like Hawaiian music as they're getting off, and it's just
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: almost jarring because it's you're changing the radio station every
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: two seconds, but it works. It adds to the colorful
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: vibrancy of this world.
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: I absolutely loved this score. I bought this soundtrack on
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: CD when I was a kid, and it was one
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: of the first couple of cents Like it was one
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: of the first few soundtracks that I bought as a kid.
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: And no joke, one of the first CDs I ever
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: bought was GoldenEye and this one, and I had no
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: idea until after I bought them that it was done
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: by the same person. And I love that there's even
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: the Golden Eye bell sound in this, like if you
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: if you listen closely, you can hear the like that
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: you hear all the time throughout GoldenEye. It was like
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: Eric Sarah's calling guard. Yeah, that is the GoldenEye sound.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: To me, that like metallic almost robocopy and sound.
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: I see.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: I guess I I don't have Golden Eyes score in
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: my brain. So like you guys, this is the second
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: week in a row where you're like, oh, yeah, I
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: hear GoldenEye in this, and I'm like, okay, Like, well,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, maybe I'm just like Johnny Denzaw on this one, but.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: Like, no, it's not like there was way more like
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: a golden Yeah, yeah, okay, there was way more GoldenEye
• 30:59
  Speaker 5: in on than there is in Fifth Element. But he
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: did like have a few cues that kind of harken
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: back like it was kind of like kind of a synthyiness.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of like William Williams celebration theme. Like
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: you're like, oh, am I watching the pod race? Am
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: I watching the end of a Quiddit's match? We don't know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: it's the same thing. Mmm.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Okay, that's fair.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: So all right, a little a little bit of a
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Horner vibe too, I guess, Yeah, certain certain stuff lifted,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: which is not a which is not a dig. It's
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: just you know, composed.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah when Horn, Yeah, Horner, you know you reuse certain
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: certain for themselves, yes, yeah, absolutely.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: Like you listen to Thomas Newman, you're just like, oh
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: my god, this is a Thomas Newman score. Like there's
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: a reason why these people get hired because they like
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: what they've done before.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, now, Okay, so this movie is a
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: is a tad long for a ninety seven movie. It's
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: a little over two hours two hours six but it's
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: got a lot to cover. There's a lot of kind
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of parallel stories. We're jumping around a bunch, like we're
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: following our main characters, but often we're spending time, you know,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: navigating this D and D table of story plot as
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: we jump around. You know, sometimes we're in the villain's lair.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Sometimes we're in the president's council. Sometimes we're trying to
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: sneak onto an airplane. You know. Tristan, you're often you know,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: giving a honed tuning to the length of a movie,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: and that's often coupled with editing and pace. With what
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: we get with the fifth element, do you feel like
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: there's a time when it kind of starts to lag
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: or is it constantly re upping the plot you know
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: as we go, Like it's fairly cohesive, but it is
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: a lot I.
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm really interested in and I'm gonna give my opinion,
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: but I'm really interested in what John has to say,
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: especially about the ending when it comes to editing, because
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: with me, I feel like there's really only one time
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: when I felt it drag, when I was kind of like, Okay,
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: let's let's get back, let's get back to it, let's
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: let's get moving.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: S when.
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: It's after they leave the the the cruise ship and
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: they're on their way back to Earth and Bruce Willis
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: and Jovovich are having a conversation and then like she
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: like she starts researching war or something like that. I'm
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: not saying I don't like that scene. I do like
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: that scene, but it kind of it kind of halts
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: the progression a little bit, like it like we needed
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: a moment to breathe. The audience did need a moment
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: to breathe, but I feel like we had that moment
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: to breathe when Willis had that conversation with the president
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: on the phone, and then like we kind of gear
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: back up when we get to Egypt. But it felt
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: a little out of place when she had that scene
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: in that moment in the computer. So that was really
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: only the time that I felt like it lagged. But overall,
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: I loved the editing in this movie because at times
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: it could be called gimmicky and a little bit kind
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: of older in style, because like they would have the
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: the back and forth between you know, like you see
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: Leelu talking to Cornelius about where the stones really are,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: and at the same time Zorg is realizing that the
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: that the stones aren't there, and so they're cutting back
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: and forth and they're responding to each other without knowing it,
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: and it's a very gimmicky thing to do, but I
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: was very entertained with it. And the action scenes I
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: think were absolutely perfect with how they were cut because
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: nothing was nothing was hidden, nothing was you know, nothing
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: was obscured by editing. You knew exactly what was going on.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: They had longer takes, longer cuts in order to show
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: you the fighting, to show you the impact, and it's
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: just something that I very much appreciated, like even the
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: inner cutting. That was one thing that was really nice
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: about Fifth Helmant is like, as we go through it,
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: we intercut with good guy bad guy footage where it's
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: never just like, oh, we're here now, and then we're
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: here and then we're here, like we're going back and forth,
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: back and forth, sometimes within the moment. And even with
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: the Diva scene, which is one of my favorite scenes
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: in all of movie history, you have Leelu fighting and
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: it's so cartoony and epic, but I don't care. But
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: when the diva throws her hands out and then you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: puts her head down, Leelu does the same exact thing
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: for absolutely no reason other than it's freaking awesome.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't like, since the first time I saw this,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: I saw this several times in the movie theater, and
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: since the first time I saw this first and foremost,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: that scene I remember that scene just absolutely was breath taking.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: How much I enjoyed the opera fight scene, the intercutting
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: on that, like that was just one of those things
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: that was like, Wow, this is one of those moments
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: where you're like, this is what film can do. I
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: think that the movie is engrossing. From the first time
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: I saw it, the movie is absolutely engrossing. And Tristan
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: and I agree with you. When she starts looking at
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: like the library film stuff, you know, when they're flying back,
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: it just feels like it just grinds to a halt
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: because Bisan is like, oh right, uh, okay, we got
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: to get to the point of.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Like the message in the message, and of course we
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: hang up on the nuclear blast. It's like, okay, it's
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: very heavy handed.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: But it would have been so much better to have
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: had a scene where like she sort of retrospectively looks
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: back and she's like, I killed all of those people,
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. And then that spurs her on to
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: dig a little bit more and you know what, you know,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: because the whole theme is supposed to be like what
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: is the point of fighting for all of this?
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: If this is just what we're going to do with life?
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: And then you know, oh, because it's love, it just
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't get there organically. Like the ending really just feels
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: like it was just we got a bunch of footage
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, it almost feels like because Darren
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: you mentioned it's two hours and six minutes, the ending
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: almost feels like it's going along. And then they were like,
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: oh oh no, we oh we got tim all right,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: go go go go, go, go go go.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: After fifty seven minutes, we actually have ten minutes. So
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: let's get this done really quick.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: Let's go everybody.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: James Cameron isn't going to make a three and a
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: half hour, two billion dollar block bus for another couple
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: of decades, you know, we got to get this wrapped
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: up now.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, tell us about your your points on
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the edit ending John or is it just the pacing.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's not just the pacing.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: It's so it's so shoe horned in where it's like
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: you're going along, Wow, look, you know Leelu's is super
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: human and they're fighting to save the world and everything's
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: going on and we've got the president, we got all
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: this great action going on, and then it's like end
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: life is terrible and it's like, wait, what this is
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: completely not like the vibe I got from this movie
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: up to this point. Like there's there's almost this sense
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: of that, you know, they got to this point and
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: realized they had to have a point, and it it
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: creates this weird dissonance for me where it's like it's
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: all about fun and bright colors and excitement, and you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: I'll read into it what I want to. It's a
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: blank canvas thematically, Okay, great, we're saying this theme and
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: that theme and I can make it all work. And
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: then at the end it's like, but I have to
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: tell you something to think about something, And I'm like,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: oh uh, it's sure, okay, fair point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: I get it. But it just doesn't it doesn't it
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: doesn't feel earned in some sense. And I think that
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: what I was saying earlier about how like Willis and
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Yvovich have like this nice balance in their energy.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: What they do not have at the ending is chemistry.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: There is absolutely no chemistry.
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: True. I don't want to admit it, but it's true.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: I really liked their stuff in the cab. I really
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: liked early stuff is really good. Yeah, yeah, just like
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: the Beatles. Uh No, it's like I really liked their
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: stuff in the cab. I really liked when she dropped
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: her off at Cornelius's place, that whole stuff, like the
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: moment that he kisses her. I shouldn't have done that.
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't have done that. It's an amazing reveal and
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: such a it's just such a cool moment. But it's
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: it's it's true. You're you're You're not wrong, John, Like
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: I feel like they I feel like they matched in
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: the beginning, middle, but towards the end, I feel like
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: that chemistry was mainly from direction in the script and
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: not so much from the natural give and take of
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: two actors. And it kind of showed its ass at
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: the end.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Well. And I think it's like what you said, John,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: where plot wise. Once the war switch is flipped, she
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: becomes like a prop, like she's not even interacting really,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: and she's getting carried around, and like I would have
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: loved to have seen, you know, maybe Bruce gets like really
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: injured and he can't fly the plane and so she's
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: got to fly it. But she's also gonna learn about
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: war at the same time. And now she's conflicted, but
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: she's still got to fly the plane. And they said, like,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: I just wanted the character to be alive for the
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: last act, like she had been through the entire movie,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and it was It all came down to the tiny
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: speech that Corbin gives her to flip the switch and
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: activate the element. Like I think, yeah, if they're gonna
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: go heavy handed message, you know, big air quotes at
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: the end, it has to be some sort of journey
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: they're both on instead of oh he said the magic
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: word at the end, and now we win because they're
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: already playing. They're still playing for laughs. I love the
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: figure out the Stones part. It's because it's like because
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: you don't know how it works, and and then you
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: know it goes to ruby one.
• 41:40
  Speaker 5: Come on, man, I got no fire, no fire, And
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: it's just I gotta get the broken one. We need
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: to talk about Chris Tucker. Oh, we have not talked
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: about Chris Tucker. Right, You're right, we do need to
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: How did we skip that?
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: I I am not exaggerating, and I don't care if
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: you guys or the listeners make fun of me. I
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: think Ruby Rod and Chris Tucker's performance and portrayal of
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: Ruby Rod is one of the finest in cinematic history.
• 42:09
  Speaker 5: I have enjoyed him since nineteen ninety seven and I
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: will continue to smile ear to ear at everything he says.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: He was perfect for this role and made it his own,
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: and I this movie is one of the most quotable
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: movies every sad and specifically in my life. Like I
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: quote this movie probably weekly, like every single time I
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: eat chicken, I say Chican good and whenever, like I like,
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: just the other day, I gave my sister some cash
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: to buy a Christmas present from my mom, and she's like,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: give me the cash. You know, it's just you know
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: this was you know, like Darren, you forgot to ask
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: if this was a Riddell family favorite at the top.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Of the should have known, I should have known? Can
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: you ask the question, please can you please so, Tristan,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I'm I really don't know where it's gonna go with
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: this answer.
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: Is this a Redell family favorite? No, it's not a
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: Redell family favorite. This is the Riddell family favorite.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, number one on the list.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: This is number one on the list. This is when
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: all four of us watched it over and over and
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: over again. Like I actually started getting a little verklemped
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: while watching this today because it made me think about
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: my dad. And my dad loved this movie. He loved
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: everything about it. He didn't fast forward as saying that's
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: not true. He did fast forward one thing, like the
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: when Ruby is going after the Stewardess, Like yeah, he
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: fast forwards that, But everything else was. It was was
• 43:44
  Speaker 5: so much fun to watch together, and we would all
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: quote it constantly and just we will text each other still,
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: we send each other gifts. It's just this is this agreed.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: It's still great. You know, It's just Chris Tucker. Originally
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: this was offered to Prince. Okay, I can see that,
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: and Prince I agree with.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: It, but I could see there's there's two stories as
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: to why Prince turned it down.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: One said it was just scheduling conflict because he was
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: touring at the time, which is most likely. And the
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: second one was where he thought that the the costumes
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: were too outlandish, which is insane.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: No, Prince never thought that.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: There's never rejected that one out That one is rejected
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: out of hand.
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: There's not a chance of that now.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: Zero chance that. Prince, Now you thought that anything would
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: be too outlandish.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: No, there's not, there's not even not even.
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: John, how did you feel about Ruby Rod?
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: Oh? I, Ruby Rod, are you kidding? Like seriously, ruby Rod.
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: I remember being in the theater in the first showing.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Talk about a crowd pleaser character. I mean, the crowd
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: was with it, like we were all laughing and clapping
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: for Ruby Rod, like we we were on his side
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: immediately after we got over the shock of his introduction,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: because like that introduction scene, I remember, the whole audience
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: just had this You got this energy from the audience
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: of like, what the hell is happening right now? And
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: then once we settled in with it, we were like, oh,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: this is on purpose, fantastic, and we were just laughing
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: and clapping and people were actually quoting him coming out.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: I can't tell you talk about like quoting and everything
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: like that. Years years afterwards, this is it. That was
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: just what my friends did to each other when we
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: wanted the other person to shut up.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think, you know. Just it's a perfect scene,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: his introduction because it is so dialed to eleven. But
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: then the instant he goes on commercial break and the
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: facade drops a bit and you're like, oh, he like
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: he's acting out loudest, but he actually cares. He actually
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: wants to do a good performance, and he cares what
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: people think. He's got his yes men, you know who
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: are like, oh, so green, super green, you know, it's
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the best. Like I don't listen to you because I
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: know you're just yes man, and it's just and then
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: he steps back and you're like, oh my gosh, I
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: need I need like small doses, but every dose. I've
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: got a cherist of this character.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: When when later when he's screaming at the top of
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: his lungs.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Just the movie.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but the whole audience is just in stitches. I remember,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: the whole audience is laughing till our sides hurt.
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, I think my dad's
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: favorite line, and I'm gonna bleep myself. But my dad's
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: favorite line was like when Corbyn is getting the stones
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: out of the out of the d and Ruby is
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: looking over over the ledge. He's like, oh come on,
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: man one's coming, Oh two's coming. Oh shit, Covin three
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: is coming up the way. It's the line. And then
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: when he when he's when he's holding the gun on
• 47:07
  Speaker 5: the Menngelore and it's right up there with Oh man,
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: I think I shot.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: Mark, Yes, it is right up there with it. You're
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: absolutely right right, And.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Like you were talking about the inner cutting Tristan like
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: again that whole action sequence because and again I don't
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: know why it works, but because you have this radio
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: broadcast in the middle, you can cut to deadpan shot
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: of the president going, I wonder how he got that,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: you know, learned to negotiating like that, and it's funny,
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: and then laugh lands because I understand that they're over
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: in here. And then we have you know, Zorg also
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: trying to do his things like and then everything starts
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: to come together, you know in this sequence. Uh yeah,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: it's an incredible third act sequence.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: The action.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Oh but yeah, Ruby, Ruby Rod, I think we were
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: just saving him for this round of conversation.
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: It's true because we were saving him for the last Ruby.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: Really definitely worth focusing on Ruby Rod because again, you know,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: I talked about how Euvovich I had no idea who
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: she was. She became a star after this. This is
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: unquestionably Chris Tucker existed before this film. Chris Tucker did
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: work before this film, but after this film, Chris Tucker
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: was Chris Tucker and the guy that was like, oh
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: yeah from Fifth Element, like he was that guy. This
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: movie absolutely altered the trajectory of his professional career.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Well, and the next year he did Rush Hour ninety eight.
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I was that was that was going to be
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: my question. I was like, yeah, what, I'm sure this
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: got him rush Hour.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: So he did Rush Hour, he did well. He did
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Jackie Brown, he did Money Talks, Fifth Element and Jackie
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Brown in ninety seven. He was a very busy lord,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: busy man. And then after that three ninety eighth, one
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: and seven, Rush Hour one, two and three. So he
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: became he joined to the found the right pairing with
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Jackie Chan and just kept kept the train of rolling.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Oh well, gosh, I mean, there's more to say, but
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: there's also not more to say, because we could have
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: a whole nother hour on this, maybe fifty seven minutes.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just let's just go go to final ratings.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna start, you know, no surprise, I'm giving it
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: a five. It is such a fun film. It is
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: fun to watch with people. It's fun to quote. I'll say.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: The one thing is I did try on one of
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: the times when my wife was like, hey, whatever you
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: want to watch, and I'm like, oh, I need to
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: savor this moment anything I want to watch. And I
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: tried to introduce it to fifth Element and we didn't
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: make it through. It was not connecting. And it's okay.
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: They can let you down on every so all there
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: and it's okay, no.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: But I'm just saying, like I get that because from
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: an outside view, if this is like your first viewing,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: not like it is a very scatter shot, like what
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: is going on? And if you can't get hooked, I
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: can understand that it is one aspect you have to
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: go all in on this movie or it is not.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: Going to click.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: And that's okay, yep, yeah, but you know that it
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I love it's.
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: Like a boz Lhermann film where he's so crazy in
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: the in the first ten or fifteen minutes that if
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: you can get past that, then you're on board. But
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: if you can't, then you're not going to like the
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: movie exactly.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's many films that have that intro where if
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: you can't get over that either suspension of disbelief, and
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I think that is one of the strengths of this
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: is we've talked about the inner cutting of the separate stories,
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: but if if you're more used to a very linear
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: I'm following one character and they're going here and there,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: that is not so much this movie. This movie is
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: like a play and they're like, oh, yeah, don't forget
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: that person that's over there, and they're still over there,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: and they're gonna somehow know what's happening, and we're gonna
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: talk about them for two seconds and we're back and yeah.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: But five five stars. It's super green, super green. Hut,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: it's tristed. Give us your final thoughts and rating of
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: this Riddell family favorite.
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: I would be shunned from the family if I gave
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: this anything less than five stars. I freaking love this movie.
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: I think this is a near perfect movie. I mean
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: that literally, it's so fantastic, from the casting to the performances,
• 51:41
  Speaker 5: to the direction, to the editing, to the production design,
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: costume design, special effects. This is such an enjoyable film.
• 51:49
  Speaker 5: This is it's this, like like John, like you said,
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: like the Divis section, it reminds you what film is
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: all about. It's about enveloping you in its arms and
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: entertaining you and making you feel like you're a part
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: of the world and just grinning ear to ear like
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: an idiot because you're having such a good time. That
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: is this movie.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: This is.
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: This has to be one of my favorite movies of
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: all time. And I've seen it so many times and
• 52:15
  Speaker 5: I will continue to quote it until my dying day.
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: Five stars, five Supergreens.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Super Green, Supergreen. All right, we no more biz, John,
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Time to give us your your opinion.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: Well, first and foremost, I want to say, this is
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: a movie that desperately needs to be re released. Whether
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: it's if they if they had one of those Fathom
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: event things where we're like the Fifth Elements coming out.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: I'm for every member of my family.
• 52:40
  Speaker 5: I go to think they did didn't they they did
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: something for the time.
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: Fifth darn it, Well I wasn't. I didn't see it
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: or whatever.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was in twenty seventeen. They did something.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: They need to release this every year in the movie
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: theater twenty seven so that you can bring people to
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: the movie theater. Hey listen ninety seven with the special editions.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: We got the fiftieth anniversary coming up, right, what better
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: year to re release it than in another Star Wars year?
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: Give me a break, perfectly times up. But I would
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: drag every family member to go see it in the
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: movie theater. None of them has seen it but me. Well,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: actually I think the missus has, but I don't think
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: she really dug it as much as I do. This
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: is a movie where my love for it overcomes its
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: flaws because that ending is a It is a mess, guys.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: It is a real mess, and there's no way to
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: fix it. It's just it is what it is. But
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: there is so much goodwill about the rest of it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: This is one of those movies where you can easily
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: get shawshanked, where like if cable TV were still a thing,
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: and I'm like walking through the room in fifth elements on,
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well there it goes. The next two hours, Okay,
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: I'm just sitting here for this, so yeah, five stars,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: done and done. Even though Joey hated it back when
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: it came out in ninety seven, I.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Don't even care Joey. Sorry. Oh yeah, wow. Well this was,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: like I said, super fun. We could talk a whole
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: nother hour and fifty seven minutes about this if we
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: really wanted to, but we got one more in our
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: take on Luke beassan of the nineteen nineties. Next week
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: we have The Messenger, the story of Joan of Arc.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Here on Houselights, Join the Revolution, Join the ned Party,