Maybe my memory's faulty, but when the movie was first released on DVD, wasn't it declared that it was *never* going to be released in anything but a bare bones version?
Aaaahhh, the diva. Brilliant voice. A scene I regularly used as a demo. Superb choreography, cutting betwen Leelu's fight with the 'deep voices' and the diva's operatic performance.
Luc Besson produces huge hardcover coffe-table books covering the conception and making of each of his films. This is the main reason he wont put much, if any, in the way of suplementals on his DVDs and wont do commentaries. The books are very impressive but as far as I know have only been released in French.
The Fifth Element, by its nature, is a wealth of design and conception, so producing a better DVD with some suplemental material is not too much a suprise considering his stance up to now.
Pathe have announced that they are releasing the 2-disc special edition of The Fifith Element. The movie will boast DTS audio and an excellent collection of extra features including:
Special Effects audio commentary with Mark Stetson, Karen E. Goulekas, Bill Neil and Ron Gress Making of Documentary - Discovering the Fifth Element Special Effects Featurette - Imagining the Fifth Element The Art of the Fifth Element with Jean-Claude Mezieres Featurette An Audience with Diva Plavalaguna Featurette Elements of Style - Jean-Paul Gaultier Featurette Trailers & TV Spots Launching the Fifth Element – the Cannes Opening Night Party Storyboard and Production Notes The 6th Element Essay
The ZF-1. It's light. Handle's adjustable for easy carrying; good for righties and lefties. Breaks down into 4 parts, undetectable by x-ray; ideal for quick, discreet interventions. A word on firepower. Three thousand round clip with bursts of 3 to 300. With the Replay button it's even easier. One shot, and Replay sends every following shot to the same location. And to finish the job, all the Zorg oldies but goldies. Rocket launcher. Arrow launcher, with explodin' and poisonous gas heads. Very practical. Our famous net launcher. The ALWAYS efficient flame-thrower. My favorite. And for the Grand Finale, the all new Ice Cube System!
Mine arrived recently. A word on packaging. Outer slipcase is NOT MEANT TO BE OPENED FROM THE TOP OR BOTTOM, so don't force it! The outer slipcase splits across the center right through the taxi cab checker squares -- the rendering above does NOT show this, you'll just have to trust me on that. In other words, pull the top 50% of the box up and that top half slides off from the checkers on up, revealing...
...another sort of thin slipcase inside (mostly just there for aesthetic effect; it has another poster image on it) from which you can pull the Amaray case (which is clear plastic, regular single-width double, and whose cover looks basically the same as the video poster...I'd expected they'd have used a theatrical poster or something new, but, nope).
I'd also caution that the plastic shrinkwrap may also be affixed to the top and bottom of the package due to some glue leakage or something - in any case be extremely careful when removing the plastic wrap or you may take some of the package off with it.
Haven't watched it yet, but I will sometime. Been a long time coming. Had almost bought the German version until I heard of this one coming. I'll mostly be interested in whether the second disc, the extras, is a DVD-9 or a DVD-5.