We’re all patiently waiting for Dune: Part Threeto blow our eyeballs off, which means there’s a desperate need for weird sci-fi movies that isn’t being fully satisfied. There’s always Star Wars, but everyone has seen Star Wars, so why not go a little ways off the beaten path? Why not check out Luc Besson’s bizarre 1997 cult classic The Fifth Element?
The sci-fi action film is streaming on Netflix, giving new generations a chance to experience the imaginative future world full of cab drivers, dramatic talk show hosts, and evil industrialists. Okay, that sounds a little dismissive, but the cabs fly, the talk show host works with an alien singer, and the evil industrialist is Gary Oldman in the kind of lovingly deranged performance that he used to give before everyone realized he’s actually a legitimately good actor. The Fifth Element currently has a 71 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 87 percent from users.
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What is ‘The Fifth Element’ About?
Zorg, played by actor Gary Oldman, at the bottom of a ramp, wearing a black pinstriped outfit with slick black hair and a soul patch in The Fifth Element.Image via Columbia Pictures
There’s a terrible evil thing out in space that will do bad things if left unchecked and returns every 5,000 years, with humanity and an alien race called the Mondoshawans uniting over a mysterious weapon that can hold off the evil. It consists of four stones featuring earth, air, fire, and water, along with a human-sized pod that contains the “fifth element.” Unfortunately, a spaceship carrying the “fifth element” is destroyed by the evil Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (Oldman).
Luckily, a severed hand is recovered from the wreckage, and the government is able to use sci-fi tech to reconstruct the person it belonged to: A woman called Leeloo, played by Milla Jovovich, who spends a lot of the movie completely baffled by what’s going on while wearing a bizarre outfit made of white straps. She ends up bumping into cab driver Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), and the two have to work together to save the world by figuring out what the heck this “fifth element” could possibly be.
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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
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Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
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🚀Star Wars
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01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
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02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
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03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
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04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
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05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
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06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
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07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
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08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
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Your Fate Has Been Calculated You’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
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The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
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The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
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Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
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Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
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A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
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The adventure eventually takes them to a big alien opera concert, and they meet the aforementioned talk show host, Ruby Rhod (played by Chris Tucker), which is a… memorable part of the movie! Oldman’s Zorg also shows off a fancy gun at one point that’s like five or six guns in one, and it’s a pretty cool physical prop. Speaking of, The Fifth Element has loads of prosthetics and practically created creatures, which was cool at the time and seems even more impressive these days.
The obvious effort that went into making The Fifth Element is a big part of its appeal, with the movie having a weird mythology and a weird future aesthetic that is fairly unique — at least among big-budget mainstream(ish) science fiction. It’s like, imagine if a cheesy Die Hardripoff were happening in David Lynch’s Dune, and then it was adapted into a cartoon and then adapted back into live-action. And then it all builds to an obvious thematic statement that is either ham-fisted or elegantly simplistic, depending on how you feel about it.
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