The Fifth Element (1997) – Egyptian Temple

[RobertMuldoon]

A nice hodgepodge of hieroglyphs. Looks like they mixed Gardiner N2 with a snake. The boats with deities and the inversed figures remind me of the pool of the drowned/ people floating in nun in the book of gates and the book of caverns.

Yeh they kind of swapped out the lightning (or whatever that is meant to be) with a modified I14/15 turned 90 degrees. I like the idea of that, I think it looks cool on screen and the fact it's coming out of a 'sky' symbol is a fun feature for people who know hieroglyphs!

 

[Wonder Knight]

I've been working on my slide deck for my talk, more on that later, but as a part I needed a good image of the register the professor is studying. Annoyingly you never see it in full in the film, you just see him tracing sections with his brush and the camera pans down it.

There are a few replicas people have made, but none of them is completely accurate:
View attachment 1434206 View attachment 1434207 View attachment 1434208 View attachment 1434209

So, I’ve been poring over the references and watching and re-watching the temple scene, and I think I have the definitive version of the register showing the great evil. This is a bit scrappy, I used a photo of a replica and then messed about in Photoshop to add in the bits they were missing, I will make a better version but for now here it is:

View attachment 1434210

From an Egyptology standpoint it’s quite interesting that the snake is coming down out of the hieroglyph for ‘sky’. The dead people aren’t the Egyptian symbol for dead, they’re actually the rejoicing person (with arms in the air) turned upside down. The snake itself is very similar to one of the snake hieroglyphs, but rotated 90 degrees to descend from the sky. The eyes and the smaller curly snakes, and the top symbol representing the alignment of the planets, are complete fabrications by the art department.

Hi Robert great job .
However, I am not convinced of the interpretation you have of the bottom of the cartridge. Do you have sources for this? When we play with the image in Photoshop, it seems rather that there are three symbols, more in the center (maybe snakes or something else?). The result is very vague and my suggestions are based on traces. After that I don't know if the accuracy of the drawing is important to you, or if you focus only on the symbolism, but I think the proportions of the main snake are not exact.

 

[RobertMuldoon]

Hi Robert great job .
However, I am not convinced of the interpretation you have of the bottom of the cartridge. Do you have sources for this? When we play with the image in Photoshop, it seems rather that there are three symbols, more in the center (maybe snakes or something else?). The result is very vague and my suggestions are based on traces. After that I don't know if the accuracy of the drawing is important to you, or if you focus only on the symbolism, but I think the proportions of the main snake are not exact.View attachment 1434353

I really love this sort of collaborative work on the RPF!

You can see a curly snake in this screenshot from the orange section, you can also see something in the blue section which is in line down from the green curly snake:

Given the symmetry in the rest of the register, I think the two symbols on the same level in the orange section are likely to be the same snake. Squinting at your screenshot; could he bottom symbol be a person (the right way up)? Symbolically that would then have the curly snakes either side of the dead peple, and maybe the bottom most figure would be the great evil in its human form?

Do you have the time index for your screenshot?

 

[Wonder Knight]

I did not note the time but it is when the priest brings the poisoned water.
Super reference !! I didn't think that we could still see the wall afterwards, indeed we can see the snake well .... But this is strange compared to the shadows that we see on the other camera shot. I'll watch a little more if I understand better

 

[RobertMuldoon]

Big news to follow later on this week (hopefully), but in the mean-time here's the product of a bit of vectoring:

 

[Jintosh]

Hilariously, seeing the Big empty space in your post and knowing the editor doesn't normally allow big empty spaces, I clicked in the open space and saw the sky snake. I don't know why it looks white on white until I click on it and then see white on grey. But invisible snakes are cool !

 

[RobertMuldoon]

Hilariously, seeing the Big empty space in your post and knowing the editor doesn't normally allow big empty spaces, I clicked in the open space and saw the sky snake. I don't know why it looks white on white until I click on it and then see white on grey. But invisible snakes are cool !

It's a white on transparent PNG, so if you have light mode on I guess you cant see it in the post but opening the PNG separately renders a grey background.

I forget everyone doesn't use dark mode

Here are black on transparent versions:

 

[joberg]

Looking good.

 

[Wonder Knight]

such a tease , now we want to know , i come every day to check if you put some news

 

[RobertMuldoon]

such a tease , now we want to know , i come every day to check if you put some news

Yeh I've been checking my inbox for the all clear to talk about it, so I know how you feel!

I just posted this new thread in the 'Entertainment and Movie Talk' forum: https://www.therpf.com/forums/threads/do-ancient-egyptians-dream-of-electric-sheep.339811/

This thread is essentially my research thread for my presentation at that symposium, so thank you for everyone's help! The lineup of speakers looks amazing, I'm really excited to hear the different talks - especially the keynote from Stuart Tyson Smith!

 

[RobertMuldoon]

Now back on track for this research thread....

When the Leeloo sarcophagus is taken out of the temple you see a bizarre cartouche on one of the columns:

I dont know of any kings who had a lunar symbol in their name.

I did find what I think is the base reference though, still at Karnak there are columns with Senwosret I's cartouche:

For some reason the art department have added a lunar disk to the top, a lion head to the bottom, and put it in the same elaborate cartouche as the Ramesses II ones.

Not sure if it's any use to anyone else, but I needed it, so here's a couple of versions of this cartouche:

 

[RobertMuldoon]

I already said that the colonnade was based on Karnak's hypostyle hall, but what I noticed when I was looking at one of the close up shots is that the art department altered a star into an inverted ankh (by joining two points with a curve):

Since the ankh is the symbol for life, and I think most people know that even if they're not Egytologists, I wonder if inverting it makes it a symbol for death? The temple already has lots of hieroglyphic warnings about the great evil coming and killing everyone and everything, so perhaps this was meant to be another example of that.

 

[Jintosh]

Since the ankh is the symbol for life, and I think most people know that even if they're not Egytologists, I wonder if inverting it makes it a symbol for death? The temple already has lots of hieroglyphic warnings about the great evil coming and killing everyone and everything, so perhaps this was meant to be another example of that.

A cross for Good, an upside down cross for Evil ? Yep, seen that. Same idea. Good catch.

 

[RobertMuldoon]

A cross for Good, an upside down cross for Evil ? Yep, seen that. Same idea. Good catch.

That's very true, that idea is a staple of horror films so I guess here the art department borrowed and adapted the idea. It's a nice little detail that I hadn't noticed until I was poring over the screenshots - I wonder what other little details are hidden away!

 

[Jintosh]

That's very true, that idea is a staple of horror films so I guess here the art department borrowed and adapted the idea. It's a nice little detail that I hadn't noticed until I was poring over the screenshots - I wonder what other little details are hidden away!

Here's what he meant when the Mondoshawan dies and says "time not important, only life is important."