Another movie released during the summer of 1996 is The Arrival, which starred Charlie Sheen and was vaguely similar to Independence Day with the notable exception of actually being good. If you haven’t seen it, you ought to.
Why do I hate ID4? Because I’ve seen less derivative things in advanced calculus class!
Nah, that strategy has been around for a while before ID4 - I’m thinking it began with Top Gun. Speilberg called this method of selling tickets the “sell it before they smell it” strategy.
I don’t know; I loved Armageddon but hated Independence Day, and I can’t figure out why. I think the actors were more appealing for me in Armageddon. WIll Smith didn’t have much to do in the way of acting, Bill Pullman/Paxton is always forgettable (or at least I’m always confusing him with Bill Paxton/Pullman), Jeff Goldblum does not belong in action movies, Judd Hirsch is just a poor man’s Jeff Goldblum (who does not belong in action movies), and the less said about Randy Quaid in that movie the better.
If by similar you mean they both have aliens in them, yes that’s true. But I’ve never been able to come up with any other similarities between the two even though people mention it all the time.
How dare you, suh! I’ll have you know Bill Pullman was Lonestar in Spaceballs! That’s at least as cool as one-third of a Han Solo, which is still pretty cool.
Sure, the plot was silly and over-the-top, but it was pure escapism and had great special effects. And Randy Quaid was fantastic in the movie!
It worked better, but it was nowhere near as fun. I took Independence Day to be a fun, brain-off, shoot-em up, blow-shit-up, alien movie. It was cheesy, it was campy, it was eye-rollingly dumb, but it was fun. I watch some of it when it replays on TV…The Day After Tomorrow was barely worth watching the first time.
TDAT was stupid (unsure about the -er), but it took itself more seriously–which just made it less fun, and more annoying to me.
I really admired it for the taking on the full scale of an alien invasion. They didn’t stage it up with radioed-in reports, or faux man-on-the-street shaky camcorder footage, they full-on showed massive alien ships and fighters invading the planet in some pretty damn iconic shots.
Now I usually fall on the side of *not *showing the thing and making the audience using its imagination, but in 1996 the special effects where finally good enough that it was possible to make it look pretty damn real. In that respect, Independence Day is the blockbuster opposite of Jaws. The less-than-stellar quality of Bruce, the mechanical shark, was a part of Spielberg’s decision not to show it for a good stretch of the film – meanwhile the audience used their imaginations, and the result was excellent. So I really kind of like Independence Day as sort of Six Million Dollar Man “we have the technology” type movie. I guess for a lot of people that’s Jurassic Park, but the scope and conflict were missing there in my opinion.
Really. Are you sure you know where Bob Metcalfe was born? 
There are some clever lines…I like the part where the guy goes " I’m not Jewish" and the Rabbi goes " That’s OK…nobody’s perfect."
I also love the bit where the President discovers that THERE IS an Area 51!
In the much darker Independence Day II, the spirit of international brotherhood and love lasts for several minutes before everyone realizes what crazy awesome weapons can be reverse engineered from the crashed ships. Humanity blasts itself back into the Stone Age. In the last scene, one more ship shows up, its commander crowing about how THIS had been their plan all along.
Will Smith is why people liked that movie. The dude is more likable than a basket of puppies.
The movie was cornball nonsense, but we got to see Will Smith beat up an alien and talk shit to it’s carcass as he dragged it across the desert. No movie where he says “You did NOT just shoot that green shit at ME!” could possibly be bad.
Nailed it.
I passionately hate ID4. It just felt totally by-the-numbers, and transparently so. Crass, cynical and jingoistic is how I’d describe it overall.
I didn’t like Independence Day, the plot was weak, the acting poor and the dialogue cheesy and overwrought - particularly Randy Quaid and his hammy lines (shudder). Add to that the abuse of science and basic technology principles is unforgiveable since it was the cornerstone of the entire ending.
All in all just a masterbatory “Amurkia! Fark yeah!” movie. I can see why it would be a huge success domestically.
Oppresed minority soldier: “The American are planning an attack”
Prince Charles clon: “Thank Gaad!!!”
It was crappy but I enjoyed it.
Translation for non-fans…
Middle Eastern Soldier: The Americans are planning an attack.
British Soldier: It’s about time. [Because we haven’t heard from them in a long time because Jeff Goldblum figured out the aliens are blocking our regular communications which the British don’t seem to know]
ID4 is much more well-crafted than people want to give it credit for. But anythnig that seems slightly off is labeled as crap because it’s a big, dumb action movie. But it’s the perfect big, dumb action movie. Up there with Die Hard.
Even Jurrasic Park?
Everyone likes to hate on Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay films. Mostly because they are big, loud, mindless, melodramatic spectacles that puts action and visually exciting scenes ahead of character or story…or reason. They also leave the door open for pedantic geeks to pick apart every aspect of the film.
A lot of them are very entertaining though.
Critically speaking, other directors like Steven Speilberg, James Cameron and either of the Scott brothers (Tony or Ridley) make much better effects driven films because they use story and character development to drive the plot.
I didn’t like the movie but I’ll give it two points.
First, the initial forty-five minutes aren’t bad. Up to the point where the aliens have blown up all the major cities on the planet it was decent at building mood. After that point the film goes off the rails.
Second, it wasn’t horribly shot. Certainly not like Michael Bay who never met a cut he didn’t like.