wasitgood4u said:

LOL @ your sig. Flight of the Conchords, right? I forgot about that song. "You're the most beautiful girl in the whole wide room".

Sorry, I know that's off topic. Carry on...

xpertluva said:

First time poster here, I've been reading my eyes off of the org for a couple of months now. I'm in my late 30s so got to live through the glory days of Prince-- jamming to his biggest hits at the skating rink every Friday night

To the topic at hand

I saw the 5th Element in the theater while in college. IMO all you lovely ppl are off base about the Prince connection to Tucker's character..

The cane? the annoying repetitious spastic speaking style? The daffy duck high pitched voice? The diva personality? The music that accompanied his on-air stuff (terrible synth horns, plastic beats, werewolf howl)? That WAYYYY over the top media presenter character didn't remind my at all of Prince..

But I'd love to see Prince in that role. There were a ton of cameos in that movie (musicians, models).. Prince in the role would have been in the same spirit as the other cameos, but the best of all by far.

thx185 said:

I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or not - all the characteristics you quote could be applied, parody style, to Prince! They seem to be more reason to think that it is a caricature of Prince (or, at least, influenced). And seeing as Chris Tucker himself said he based it on Prince, its fairly safe to assume that he was drawn upon as inspiration.

I'm also not sure as to whether Prince himself would have been a good choice to play that role. We don't have enough evidence of him being a successful comedy actor and he probably would have played it with the same sort of overt pouting and preening as seen in Under The Cherry Moon.

Welcome to the org - but please try and use more considered language if you can. Phrases like "repetitious spastic speaking style" are somewhat offensive and not required

Mindflux said:

say what? Who's offended? Chris Tucker?

BorisFishpaw said:

"The Incal" was Alejandro Jodorowsky's masterpiece comic book (and a lost animated film), sadly ripped off into "The Fifth Element" by Luc Besson.

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a surrealist filmmaker from Chile that became a instant legend when his film "El TOPO" hit the New York underground scene back in the 70's, "EL TOPO" was the first midnight movie, later on Jodorowsky made "The Holly Mountain" with a score by Don Cherry.

Some of his fans were John Lennon and Sly and the family stone, he say that he loved his meeting with Sly Stone because it was a extravagant experience.

Last year Erykah Badu commented this in her France gig:

"I admired only two persons, Elvis Presley and Alejandro Jodorowsky." Badu invited him to the stage.

Jodorowsky is one of my main inspirations and I think is so cool to find some weird (distant) Prince connections...oh yeah, there are more P connections to this surreal master.

Prince and movies?
Eh...Not so much...

thisbediscream said:

Oh yeah, I remember the story about Prince being offered the part of Ruby (Chris Tucker's role). Luc Besson was a Prince fan and supposedly it was his idea but producers weren't going for it. I thought Mila had spoken on this in an interview back then. Conceptually it seems like Prince would be a perfect fit but I don't think he'd be as outlandish and funny as Chris was; Prince would have brought a different mood to the film somehow.

Chris seemed to me to be portraying a combination of Prince (with his effect on the ladies) and Rick James (the whole entourage thing) with a little gentile MJ thrown in (scenes where he appears to be scared and fragile). Actually, Chris didn't like the part because originally; he thought it was to over the top and effeminate.

It's a great flick and I love it. I can't envision anybody else playing that part but Chris.