PT "The Fifth Element" and the Star Wars Prequels

I'm sure I can't be the first person to mention this, but...

Just watched Fifth Element last night, first time in quite a few years. And boy oh boy, did that movie put Star Wars in the brain. Particularly one scene early in the film, a chase scene involving flying cars and a sprawling future New York, left me in disbelief. Not just because it's a great sequence (It is- and the effects hold up amazingly for a 17 year old movie) but because the scene is miraculously similar to the Coruscant chase scene in AOTC.

I'm not just talking about the vague concept of a "flying car chase scene" either. I'm talking about specific images repeated in each film. Criss-Crossing, multi layered streams of traffic, a character jumping down, arms spread, free falling through the lanes, a car diving downward as the camera cuts to a POV shot, dodging cars mid-plunge. It's all absurdly familiar. Considering that Fifth Element was released 5 years prior to AOTC, I have to think this is more than mere coincidence. Perhaps this was another one of George's homages?

I'm also posting this thread to see if anyone else has discovered other, more general SW connections in The Fifth Element. When I was watching it, I couldn't stop feeling like the film was a weird, French predecessor to the Prequel trilogy.

 

Ah, the Fifth Element, one of my favorite films from the late 90's.

I really like it and still do and the sometimes silly things and great visuals appealed to me a lot.

The film is influenced by, among other things, by the Comic albums "Valérian and Laureline " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valérian_and_Laureline.
One the creators worked as production designer or something like that for this film. I was a fan of those albums from when I was a kid and this film is as close to a live action version of them. The flying Taxi cabs are from one album called "The Circles of Power." They also had a chase, a huge city etc.

As for it influencing Star Wars, I have read that Doug Chiang read the Comic and kept some albums in his library.

The scene in AotC is similar, it is possible Lucas was inspired by the film.

Other Star Wars parallels I can think of, the Good vs Evil aspect, a return of an ancient Evil. But these are only rather vague similarities.

The Evil prefers to work through others and not involve itself directly, kind of similar to Sidious, who works behind the scenes. The Evil uses a merchant to do it's bidding, kind of like the TF, this merchant also deals in weapons, again kind of like the TF. Again these are not very specific things and again quite vauge.

One last similarity, again a stretch, the character Chris Tucker plays got blasted by some critics and viewers.
Sort of similar to how Jar Jar got blasted. So in both films, the comic-relief sidekick got a lot of complaints.
I didn't mind Tucker and with Jar Jar, the biggest problem I had was that I could not understand what he was saying for about half the movie.

But in all, a good movie and it really surprised me the first time I saw it. It was nothing at all what I thought it would be.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

Since master Lucas reused those scenes, it must be a homage, right? I'll throw the terms "rip-off" and "uninspired" into the mix.

 

From the first time I watched AotC I've always been reminded of The Fifth Element. And I've always preferred 5th's chase scene.

 

"THE FIFTH ELEMENT" is not the first sci-fi film to use a similar scene. Which only makes me wonder if both Lucas and the makers of "THE FIFTH ELEMENT" were either "inspired" or "ripped off" an earlier film.

I can only wonder how many scenes from the OT movies that were "homages" or "rip offs" from earlier movies. Or is Lucas the only filmmaker guilty of "ripping off", due to his current unpopularity with certain fans.

 

ha ha.

 

Rip off. Thems fightin words.

 

AOTC's chase sequence also bears some similarities to imagery featured in another 1990s dystopic flick: Danny Cannon's "Judge Dredd", released in 1995, and thus slightly predating Luc Besson's picture. The Dredd picture also has a plot (spoilers) that amounts to a feud between "brothers", involving a cloning conspiracy.

Equally, Star Wars seems to have contributed something to the look of "The Fifth Element", particularly with regard to the iconic opera scene (can you say "Twi'lek"?). "The Fifth Element" also seems like a trashier offshoot of Frank Herbert's literary sci-fi masterwork "Dune", not unlike Lucas' mythological space opus.

In order to really understand the makeup of Star Wars, you have to understand that it's a syncretic work of art, drawing from an array of sources and weaving them into something close to a cinematic eidetic memory. Something that is both art and a little beyond art.

This site is rather neat:

http://www.moongadget.com/origins/

 

It wasn't a rip-off. At most, it was an homage. Attack of the Clones as a whole is a massive homage to another filmmaker, Ridley Scott, and quite overtly so. I don't think Lucas was trying to pull one over on anybody.

 

I was thinking of not only "BLADE RUNNER", but also "METROPOLIS" and even a bit of "BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART II".

 

"CORBIN DALLAS MULTIPASS!"

"She knows it a multipass . . . ."

 

You (and everyone else getting worked up about this) do realize that's what the OP was saying as well, right?

I think it's a stretch, though. People trying to do visually interesting things with a flying car chase will gravitate to some similar things.

 

I've said in another thread that I hope the Star Wars sequels have a similar spirit to The Fifth Element. I know a lot of people want dark, mature Star Wars movies, but let's not forget that these movies are funny too. I think something like TFE had the perfect balance of compelling and thrilling story with lots of funny moments. The scene in Zorg's office where he's choking on the cherry is one of my all time favorites. Poignant yet amusing. That's what I want the ST to be.

 

Call me crazy but I think Metropolis had more to do with it than anything else. Although I'm sure Lucas and company have seen TFE and all the other future city derivatives.

 

An honest and understandable comparison, but ultimately a tad oversimplified.

Lucas’ idea for Coruscant goes all the way back to Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept illustrations; galaxies only know what flights of fancy set-pieces therein he had entertained over the years leading up to the Prequels. Lucas might not have been the first filmmaker to render a flying car chase through a future (or futuristic) skyline, but the very cinematic language of the 'virtuoso piloting pursuit' sequence belongs to him, with WWII aerial combat footage and the 1955 The Dam Busters being the only real prior examples worthy of direct comparison. There would be no The Fifth Element flying taxicab chase (and possibly no The Fifth Element, period) without the labyrinthine of motion-control artistry first achieved by Lucas and his ILM wizards years earlier in the Original Trilogy. To put it another way, when first seeing The Fifth Element in theaters, during the cab chase I distinctly remember thinking, "Oh, this like Blade Runner souped-up Star Wars style. Neat!"

No doubt Lucas saw The Fifth Element, saw how fun those sequences were and wanted to get in on the action with his own films, but it was Lucas who more or less invented said action to begin with. In my opinion, nothing yet equals the Episode II speeder chase; nothing outside other Star Wars films, anyways. It’s bigger and more sprawled out, more dynamic with changing settings and heroic stunt work, more visually dazzling with exotic, luminescent color schemes and more innately symphonic in sound design. And nobody out-edits George.

 

Yes, but other people in the thread were saying it was a rip-off.

 

Ahem...Trantor

 

That's why I think it's a bummer that the final battle couldn't take place on Coruscant in Return of the Jedi. The concepts were there already. The execution would've been a challenge back in 82, but Blade Runner managed to pull off a similar set piece nicely. It would've been revamped in 97 anyways. But I'm rambling...

 

exactly...