Independence Day (film)

Template:Infobox Film Independence Day (also known as its promotional abbreviation ID4) is an Academy Award winning 1996 science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich. The film's main plot is about an attempted alien takeover of Earth and features several scenes of major landmarks being destroyed by the aliens, such as the White House, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles.

The film's success was partially credited to an extensive marketing campaign which began in the United States with a dramatic commercial during Super Bowl XXX. The movie was scheduled for release on Wednesday, July 3, 1996, but due to the high level of anticipation for the film, many theaters began showing it on the evening of July 2, the same day the action in the film begins. The movie's total gross was $816,969,268, the 15th highest gross for a movie all-time.

Taglines

• Don't make plans for August.
• "GET OFF OUR PLANET!"
• On July 2nd, they arrive. On July 3rd, they conquer. On July 4th, we fight back...and the real fireworks begin.
• The question of whether or not we are alone in the universe has been answered.
• We've always suspected we weren't alone. On July 4th, we'll wish we were.
• Welcome to Earth.
• THESE extraterrestrials don't want to phone home...They want OUR home.
• Oh I have got to get me one of these!
• Oh hell no, you did not just shoot that green shit at me.

Plot

The world is in shock on July 2 as an alien mothership, about one quarter the mass of the Moon and over 550 kilometers in diameter, enters orbit around the Earth. The mothership deploys several dozen smaller ships, each itself with a diameter of over fifteen miles, that then hover over many of the world's major cities. In the United States, the ships appear over Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. A TV shot also briefly shows ships over London, Paris, Moscow, Rome and Berlin. Later in the film it is shown that Sydney, Cairo, and Kenya had also been attacked, as well as the US Cities of Houston (nuked by the humans), Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, (NORAD).

Using advanced directed-energy weapons, the aliens destroy these cities, along with millions of people, and annihilate virtually every famous landmark in the world. Conventional missiles and even tactical nuclear weapons are useless against them, as the alien ships are shielded by impenetrable force fields. The President of the United States, a veteran fighter pilot of the First Gulf War, leads the human resistance from Area 51, where the military has kept an alien fighter spacecraft - identical to the ones used in the invasion - that crash-landed in 1947, to ultimate victory over the invading aliens. In a confrontation with an alien survivor from a recently-crashed fighter, the President learns that the aliens are essentially locusts, traveling from planet to planet and consuming its resources, making it clear that a peaceful resolution to the conflict is impossible.

The movie climaxes on July 4, as the humans use the captured alien fighter to infiltrate the mothership, insert a computer virus to disrupt the aliens' shields, and sneak a nuclear weapon aboard. The disruption of the shields opens a window of opportunity for humans to strike back and destroy the smaller alien ships and fighter craft. While aboard the mothership, the human pilots of the captured alien fighter discover that the aliens are assembling an army for a ground invasion.

During the counterattack, all the American fighters have shot their missiles when the primary weapon prepares to fire. Suddenly, Russell Casse, an American volunteer who is a crop duster, vietnam pilot veteran and an alien abductee, appears from nowhere stating he is armed with the one remaining missile. As he attempts to fire it, it jams on the launch rail. Russel realizes what he must do and after asking the ground control to "tell my children I love them very much," pilots his F/A-18C into an alien ship's primary weapon as it is about to fire, causing a chain reaction that destroys the ship. Task forces around the world use the same weak point to destroy the rest of the alien ships while the nuclear missile detonates and destroys the alien mothership, ultimately saving Earth.

Characters

• President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman): United States President throughout the movie, Whitmore is a former fighter pilot who served in the Persian Gulf War. Although his approval rating has fallen recently, he wins back the public thanks to his leadership of the resistance against the alien invaders.
• Captain Steven “Steve” Hiller, USMC (Will Smith): A U.S. Marine Corps F/A-18C pilot from VMFA-314, Hiller is the only person able to bring an extraterrestrial aircraft down in the failed first wave of the human counterattack (albeit by tricking it into crashing into a wall). Hiller's ambition is to join NASA, and his dream to fly into space comes true when he flies the captured alien spaceship from Area 51 up to destroy the mothership.
• David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum): Employee of New York-based Compact Cable, Levinson is an MIT-educated chess enthusiast who discovers the aliens' plans to attack after stumbling upon their hidden satellite signal, and later suggests the idea of infecting the mothership with a computer virus in order to deactivate the shields protecting the alien craft.
• Julius Levinson (Judd Hirsch): Jewish immigrant and widowed father of David Levinson.
• Constance Spano (Margaret Colin): White House Communications Director and David's ex-wife; she divorced David because of his lack of ambition, but they reconcile at the end after his plan saves the planet.
• First Lady Marilyn Whitmore (Mary McDonnell): President Whitmore's wife who was fatally injured while fleeing the destruction of Los Angeles and later died of internal bleeding.
• Jasmine Dubrow (Vivica A. Fox): Exotic dancer, Steve's girlfriend, and eventually his wife; the two marry shortly before he goes to destroy the mothership.
• Russell Casse (Randy Quaid): Vietnam War veteran pilot and crop duster, claims to have been formerly abducted by aliens. He was ridiculed because of this. Although his eldest son does not think he is a very good father, when Casse sacrifices himself taking out the alien ship over Area 51 (by crashing his F/A-18 into the ship's primary weapon) he becomes a hero. It is suggested that he could be an alcoholic, by the fact that he is drinking from a flask after spraying the wrong field at the start of the film.
• General William Grey, USMC (Robert Loggia): Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Albert Nimziki (James Rebhorn): Formerly a CIA officer and the current Secretary of Defense. He was fired near the end of the movie when President Whitmore had had enough with him. Later seen during the war scenes when he stuck around at Area 51, praying with Julius.
• Marty Gilbert (Harvey Fierstein): David's flamboyant boss. He is killed during the destruction of New York City, when a car blown into the air by the explosion lands on his car, with him in it.
• Major Mitchell, USAF (Adam Baldwin): Chief of Security at Area 51.
• Dr. Brackish Okun (Brent Spiner): Chief scientist at Area 51. While examining the alien that Hiller captured, it regains consciousness and kills all the other scientists in the medical facility, leaving Okun in its mental captivity. The alien then uses Okun as a mouthpiece when Whitmore attempts to communicate and negotiate a truce. Okun is killed as a result of the alien's telepathy.
• Miguel Casse (James Duval): Russell Casse's stepson.
• Alicia Casse (Lisa Jakub): Russell's daughter.
• Troy Casse (Giuseppe Andrews): Russell's youngest son; he suffers from an unspecified illness and must be treated at Area 51.
• Captain Jimmy Wilder, USMC (Harry Connick, Jr.) Steve's friend and fellow Marine pilot from VMFA-314. He was shot down while attacking one of the city destroyers.
• Aliens (Gary A. Hecker and Frank Welker): These consumer aliens are the primary villains of the movie.

Novels

Author Stephen Molstad wrote a tie-in novel to help promote the film shortly before its release in the summer of 1996. The novel goes into further detail on the characters, situations and overall concept that many later felt the film lacked.

Following the success of the film, a prequel novel entitled Independence Day: Silent Zone was written by Molstad in February of 1998. The novel is set in the late 1960s and early 1970s and details the early career of Dr. Brackish Okun. The novel goes into much detail on the aliens' technology and goes into even further detail of the crash at Roswell, New Mexico. Okun discovers that a second craft crashed in a part of Mexico nicknamed the "Silent Zone". Future Secretary of Defense Albert Nimziki has a small role in the novel as the director of the CIA. The novel ends with Nimziki shredding a report by Okun on the possibility of aliens one day visiting Earth.

Molstad wrote a third novel, Independence Day: War in the Desert in July of 1999. The novel is both a midquel and sequel to the film. Set in Saudi Arabia on July 3, Capt. Reg Cummins of the RAF and many of his fellow pilots lead a successful attack on one of the many "city destroyers". The novel mainly deals with Reg and his pilots fighting a ground war with aliens that survived the destruction of their ship, whom the characters infiltrated earlier in the novel to dispose of any survivors. The novel also goes into detail of the aliens' psychic abilities, their use of ground vehicles, their hand-held weapons, and also contains a subplot of a blooming relationship between Reg and the Saudi king's daughter. Reg and Colonel Thompson are the only characters from the film to be featured in this novel (they being the two British pilots briefly seen receiving the Morse Code message), however, President Whitmore is mentioned.

Criticism

The political overtones of the film were widely criticized by foreign reviewers; Movie Review UK described the film as "A mish-mash of elements from a wide variety of alien invasion movies and gung-ho American jingoism". Pullman's pre-battle speech, in which he states that victory in the coming war would see the entire world henceforth describe July 4th as its "independence day", was described as the "the most jaw-droppingly pompous soliloquy ever delivered in a mainstream Hollywood movie" in a BBCi review.

Radio spin-off

In August 1996, BBC Radio 1 broadcast the 1-hour play Independence Day UK, produced by Dirk Maggs, a spin-off depicting the alien invasion from a British perspective.

DVD versions

• The theatrical version of the movie was 2 hours, 25 minutes in length. A Special Edition, released on DVD, contains an additional nine minutes of footage. Much of the reincorporated material involves the Casse family. For example, it reveals that Troy is chronically ill (in the theatrical cut, he just throws up along the way), and receives treatment in the Area 51 infirmary upon arrival. Also, the Special Edition featured a DTS 5.1 track that was used in theaters. The DTS track is considered by many DVD critics and enthusiasts as far superior to the Dolby Digital 5.1 track, which was a reference track for LaserDisc.

Trivia

• After Will Smith's character reaches Area 51 he asks to return to El Toro Airbase, the same Airbase that the Northrup flying wing took off from in the 1953 version of The War of the Worlds.
• In an alternate ending scene, Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) was originally denied service in the U.S.-led worldwide aerial counterattack force, so he flew his unarmed biplane with a missile attached to it, knowing he was going to kill himself in the process of taking out one of the alien space destroyers. The scene was dropped and later revised: in the new version of this scene, Casse joins the U.S.-led worldwide aerial counterattack force and flies an F/A-18 jet fighter plane instead of his biplane, and later makes the decision to destroy the alien space destroyer on a suicide run after his firing mechanism jams. According to the director's commentary, the original scene “lost some of the realism of the film” and the revised sequence “gave the character a choice to sacrifice himself or not.” This scene is available as an extra on the Special Edition DVD, and featured in the junior novelization of the film.
• The first line of Pullman's exhortation in the climactic speech is paraphrased from the 1951 poem Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas.
• The studio did not want the film to use the title Independence Day, but Bill Pullman ad-libbed the final line in his speech to include the title.
• When David Levinson opens his laptop computer, it greets him with the message "Good morning, Dave", and an image of the visual receptor plate of the semi-sentient HAL 9000 computer as it appeared in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
• The man in the Los Angeles office building that is destroyed in the first alien attack is played by Volker Engel, the movie's visual effects supervisor.
• In the original script, the President leads a wing of ten F-15E and twenty F-111 fighters, along with newly-recruited pilots in different aircraft ranging from MiG (Mikoyan-Gurevich) to experimental aircraft, against the alien destroyer.
• When Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith escape the mothership, Goldblum uses the line "Must go faster," which he also voiced in Jurassic Park when his character was in the back of a Jeep fleeing a Tyrannosaurus rex.
• The recon vehicle used to observe the Houston nuclear strike is a real-world vehicle, the M93A1 NBCRS, nicknamed the Fox. This vehicle is purposely designed to survive and protect its crew in nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare zones and was a logical choice for the recon mission, being well-protected from EMP (electromagnetic pulse) effects.
• The song playing in the SETI lab is REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)".
• The twin fighter jets parked outside the Russian outpost during the Morse Code sequence are Mig-31 Foxhounds.
• The rescue boom fire engine that is seen flipping through the air during the destruction of the cities was actually a toy measuring only 27 inches in length.
• On the Saturday following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Fox television network had planned to air this film but due to its content aired Mrs. Doubtfire instead.

Errors in continuity

• An object with one quarter the mass of the Moon, parked in geostationary orbit, would create tidal forces 25 times greater than the moon, causing earthquakes, flooding of coastal areas, and volcanic eruptions (although presumably, the invaders discovered a way to negate the gravitational pull of their ships, making it possible for them to be constructed in the first place).
• In the beginning of the film, when the mothership is shown heading over the Moon towards Earth, it appears to be flying no more than 50 feet from the surface. Later, when Hiller and Levinson fly towards the mothership in the alien fighter, large projections are seen at the bottom of the mother ship. If it was moving that close to the moon, the projections should have damaged the moon but it is possible that the projections could have been lowered later on by the aliens.
• Most nuclear weapons do not have a blast radius large enough to destroy even one of the alien destroyers, let alone a ship 1/4 the size of the moon. (Presumably, however, the initiation of a nuclear explosion inside the alien ship would have consumed alien power generators inside the ship and thus caused a chain reaction similar to the destruction of the city-destroyer ships when their primary weapon was damaged.)
• When the destroyer arrives over Washington, D.C, the shadow it creates is going northwards, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol Building. In the next shot, the White House is shown with the shadow going over it from the lawn, even though the lawn is west of the Washington Monument, and the destroyer's shadow had passed the White House already. The shadow should have gone from the East Wing of the White House to the West Wing.
• The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, is shown with the shadow of the destroyer covering it from the bottom of the pedestal going upwards, yet the Lincoln Memorial is facing the National Mall, opposite the destroyers direction, which is going towards the Capital Building.
• The Empire State Building was moved to the center of Fifth Avenue. The producers of the film have stated that this was done on purpose to provide the audience a better view of the building's explosion.
• The explosion wave in Washington, DC, was seen chasing Air Force One. The runways at Andrews Air Force Base, where Air Force One is parked in Washington, all run north-to-south. The fireball caused by the explosion originating from the White House would not have directly chased the plane, and likely would have enveloped it, since the plane would not be moving away from it as fast as it would have been if the runways were oriented northwest-to-southeast.
• The Air Force One depicted in the movie had Pratt and Whitney JT9D Engines while the real aircraft has the newer General Electric CF6-80 Engines with new cowlings. In addition, the antenna configuration of the aircraft depicted in the movie does not match that of either of the VC-25 Presidential transports.
• Captain Hiller deploys a parachute to block the alien’s view of the canyon wall, but the F/A-18 has no such parachute.
• At one point, Hiller says the launch control for a small nuclear missile is "Just like the AMRAAM control panel on the Stealth." No stealth aircraft operating at the time of "Independence Day" was armed with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, discounting the prototype for the F-22A, the YF-22. The F-22A Raptor was the first stealthy aircraft to carry AIM-120, and was not fielded until 2005. Neither the YF-22 nor the F-22A appears in "ID4."
• A B-2 bomber is shown deploying a nuclear missile from close range against the destroyer over Houston. In reality the B-2 would have launched the cruise missile from beyond the horizon, as it is not fast or maneuverable enough to escape the blast from any closer.
• During the second air combat with the aliens, the President's fighter fires five missiles, more than the four it is shown several times having. The President fires one missile at the destroyer to test its shields, another to confirm the shields are down and another at the destroyer. He then fires one missile at an alien fighter and one at the destroyers beam weapon.
• AMRAAM missiles cannot jam; the rocket motor on the missile is far too strong for the missile to stay on its launch rail. However, an AMRAAM may abort due to an internally-detected malfunction during the prelaunch sequence prior to rocket motor ignition and remain on the rail. (Because Casse was an amateur pilot pressed into service, he could have misspoke when he said it 'jammed.')
• Hiller and Levinson have only 30 seconds to escape the mothership before it explodes, however, their escape lasts roughly 90 Seconds. However, it is possible that some of the footage of their escape- such as their conversations inside the alien ship- took place at the same time in 'real life', thus making the time scale less inaccurate.
• During the climax of the first fighter jet/alien fighter ship battle, Hiller travels from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon and eventually to the vicinity of Area 51 in a matter of minutes.
• Throughout the air combat scenes, the loadouts on all the aircraft are inconsistent, sometimes showing more missiles than indicated by dialog or graphics, changing numbers and position between scenes or showing missiles in different locations between closeups, MFD graphics and wide shots.
• Prior to the final battle sequence, all of the pilots are seen putting on their face masks, which would only be necessary for high altitude flight (above about 14,000 feet), yet prior to this they are flying level and immediately after they perform a break turn and descend. (Facemasks also contain the microphones for the aircraft radios, not wearing the masks would make communication among the different aircraft or between the aircraft and the fighter controllers on the ground impossible.)
• When this movie came out, El Toro was no longer used by the Marine Corps as a base. The closest active Marine bases to Los Angeles would either be Camp Pendleton or TwentyNine Palms. The fighter squadron depicted by the movie, VMFA-314 (the Black Knights) had transferred from El Toro to Miramar. Also, the movie depicts El Toro as being in the middle of the Mojave Desert when in reality, it is located in heavily populated Orange County.
• When Jasmine brings survivors from Los Angeles to the remains of El Toro, one of the survivors mentions that this was the first time he used the subway. At the time, the Red Line only went to MacArthur Park. The sign on a fence on El Toro also said "Restricted Area", but it was on the wrong side. It was on the inside of the base, when it should have been on the outside.
• During the final battle with the destroyer, an Area 51 controller says all missiles were fired, however later, several jets can clearly be seen with missiles on their racks flying away from the destroyer. Arguments against say however that the controller was perhaps making a generalisation based on his own opinions. The fighters that did have missiles could have been caught up in fighting and unable to assist.
• When the B-2 attacks the destroyer over Houston, Texas, even though the city was presumably destroyed, lights can seen shining in the streets.
• When Hiller is dragging the alien in the parachute, the sky changes from overcast to clear between close-ups and wide shots.
• When the news reports come in from Russia, the title at the bottom of the screen mentions it is a Soviet news channel. However, the Soviet Union had already collapsed by this point in history.
• During the run by Hiller and his wingman, the speed of his wingman's plane is shown to be Mach 2.5. An F/A-18 Hornet can only achieve a speed of Mach 1.8 at altitude, and at the level they were flying, it would be much closer to Mach 1.
• Just before the air battle near the end of the film, the royal air force picks up a message in morse code. in the background you see an F-16 Fighting falcon. In real life, the Royal Air Force do not use F-16s. It is possible, however, since this scene was later in the move, when most of the military's materiel had been destroyed, that these were mothballed planes that had been hastily reactivated. The F-16 may also have belonged to another air force before the war, and may have been taken over by the RAF due to the collapse of the nation originally operating the plane.

References in culture

• In the Stargate SG-1 television episode Politics, Daniel Jackson responds to an unrealistic statement by Senator Kinsey by sarcastically saying We'll just upload a virus into their mothership. This is a reference to the film Independence Day, which was written and directed by the same duo that wrote/directed the Stargate film.
• In the game Metal Slug 2 and Metal Slug X, when the final boss ship is defeated, it prepares to fire another final blast, when a plane piloted by a soldier flies into it, destroying the ship, alluding to the climactic scene in the film.
• In the film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, when Dr. Evil is threatening the U.S. with his "LASER" and the president doesn't believe him, Dr. Evil says, "Fire the LASER!" and he shows them a clip of a laser destroying the White House. The President screams and cowers in fear, believing it was real and yells out, "Damage Report, Damage Report!!!" only to realize he's still alive, when Dr. Evil says, "Actually, that was just a clip from the film Independence Day....But in real life it would be a lot like that. Yeah, scary."
• Serial killer Aileen Wuornos referred to Independence Day with her last words before she was executed by lethal injection. Her final words were:

I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the Rock and I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mothership and all. I'll be back.

• The Katina level of the video game Star Fox 64 is a homage to the climactic battle scene of the movie, featuring squadrons of friendly aircraft dogfighting swarms of alien ships beneath a giant saucer-shaped mothership.
• In the Invader Zim episode "Future Dib," Dib tries to upload a virus onto the alien, Zim's, computer with the comment, "I hope the Irkens just happen to use the same operating system I have."
• In the Computer Game Supreme Commander one of the super units, the CZAR, for the faction The Aeon Illuminate bears more than a passing resemblance to the Alien Destroyer depicted in Independence Day
• In the episode of South Park called "Cancelled," an alien message in binary code is intercepted by a character who bears a resemblance to Jeff Goldblum's character, and is named "Jeff." When it is discovered that Earth is just an alien reality TV show, and that humans have become aware of it, the network executives move to "cancel" (destroy) Earth via a massive ship resembling a wrecking ball. To combat this, "Jeff" suggests that he sends a virus to the ship's computer (an homage to the way the aliens were defeated in the movie), but this is regarded as a stupid idea by Chef, and is eventually unnecessary when the boys convince the network heads not to cancel "Earth."

See also

• Independence Day UK

External links

• Independence Day on sciflicks.com
• test
• Link to Bill Pullman's Speech in Text and Audio (americanrhetoric.com)

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