

As the Mondoshawans return to Earth, they are ambushed by the shape-shifting Mangalores, hired by the industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg ( Gary Oldman) who was hired by the Great Evil itself to dispose of the element stones. President Lindberg ( Tom Lister, Jr.) is then informed of the history of the Great Evil and the weapon that can stop it by the current priest of the Mondoshawan key, Vito Cornelius ( Ian Holm). In the mid 23rd Century, the Great Evil appears in the form of a giant ball of black fire and destroys an Earth battleship.


The Mondoshawans promise to their human contact, a priest, that they will return with the Elements in time to stop the Great Evil, but an accident forces them to give their key to the temple's priest and instruct him to pass it on to future generations. The weapon consists of four stones, representing the four classical elements, and a sarcophagus that contains a Fifth Element in the form of a human, which combines the power of the other four elements into a "Divine Light" that can stop the Great Evil. In 1914, the extraterrestrials known as Mondoshawans arrive at an ancient Egyptian temple and collect the only weapon capable of defeating the Great Evil which appears every five thousand years.
