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INDEPENDENCE DAY (ID4)- (1996)
DIRECTOR:
Roland Emmerich.
STARRING:
Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid.
- Posted May 10, 2008
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Ah… the 1990s. What a glorious era. I’ve found myself (as I get older and become more depressed about how downwardly shit things have turned since the new millennium) reminiscing more and more about this beautiful decade of innocence, discovery and simplification. Hmmm… that ALMOST sounded like the summary of some type of romantic / airy fairy / weak “little girl lost and growing up” movie. Nevertheless, the 90’s had a lot to offer, be it music, film or fashion! Grunge was in, trendy was not, simpler ideas were being celebrated and body art rose by 1999 to be the king of “LOOK AT ME! I’M DIFFERENT!”.? I will take time out at any moment of my day to log onto YouTube and look up something from the 90s, to dream, remember and wonder. Unfortunately Independence Day is NOT one of those parts of the 90s I choose to cherish. Simply put, it’s patriotic American drivel and we all know it. Don’t be ashamed, in 1996 I was fooled too.
Independence Day is directed by Rolland Emmerich and stars big names like Will Smith (96 was a particularly good year for ol’ Will Smitty), Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid, the almighty Jeff Goldblum and the old Jewish guy from T.V. show “Numbers” (wow! this film HAD to be big). It had millions of dirty dollars injected into its collapsed veins. So naturally in the 90s a film of this size was going to invite itself to your house, have it’s way with your beloved partner, then nonchalantly find the best sofa in the living room, put its feet up on the coffee table and eat all the fucking chips in the house while watching itself on a huge 68cm cathode ray tube T.V. with a big chip crumb encrusted toothy smile. Son of a bitch, I never got over that.
I’m going to write an insanely quick summary of Independence Day’s story. Mostly for the youngsters out there who probably haven’t seen it and despite how old it makes me feel I do assume many younger teens out there haven’t seen Independence Day? Well done, but unfortunately for you most big Hollywood movies in the new millennium are just as dumb, hence your brain has not been saved any great injustice.
Independence Day is about Earth being invaded by evil aliens who like to blow up lots of shit despite their motivation for the invasion being to steal our natural resources. During said invasion they dump enough carbon waste into the atmosphere via their completely unnecessary destruction of every main city of Earth, that really, who the fuck would want the planet after all that, on top of all the damage we miserable humans have done to it. Nevertheless, they want it and they aint taking no for an answer.
Fortunately some American heroes wont take no for an answer either and they kick alien ass after numerous stupid plot developments like “getting the Cable T.V. technician, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), to hack into the aliens mother ship with an Apple Mac to send a virus to their database, thus lowering their force field defences”. Wow that shit is awesome, see what you younger teens are missing out on!? The problem is these days that shit wouldn’t fool ANYBODY now because everyone is so fucking computer savvy all they’re thinking is “how the fuck was your computer compatible with whatever the fuck the aliens are using? What software or connection did you use to send the virus to their computer? Even then how could a virus you create possibly be able to infect a foreign computer system? Do you KNOW the programming and code they’re running?”. You get the point – it’s stupid and only in the 90s could you pass that shit off!
Anyway, that pretty much sums up the story in no great detail. Take the cardboard cutout characters you find in any big blockbuster and insert them into this film and there you have it. Believe me I’m foaming at the mouth to go into detail about this movie, but if I did it would be ten pages of cynicism instead of 4 pages of cynicism. So there you have it – Independence Day’s story is really dumb! Then again it could’ve been like Signs… ew Signs – luckily M. Night Shyamalan had not reared his ugly head yet at this point.
This is a prime example of a movie that completely stupefies audiences across the world without them even knowing it during its initial release. Full of smarmy one liners, cheesy love lines, big explosions and neat little happy endings, bar the big the explosions it’s really just an episode of Full House.
Let’s explore a couple of scenes…
In the initial humans meet aliens dogfight between UFOs and fighter jets we are introduced to Captain Steve Hiller (Will Smith) who is one of the hot shots in his squadron. After his whole team is wiped out Steve and a remaining UFO get caught up in an intimate chase with each other through the canyons leading out to the desert. After some tricky maneuvers Steve manages to trick the UFO into crash landing and as does he in the process. Steve ejects and upon landing spots the crashed UFO. He opens the crashed alien spacecraft and is greeted by flopping tentacles and other alien madness. As the alien pops outside to apologise and possibly grab Steve’s insurance, Steve? punches him the face with a matching catch phrase that never caught on as much as they would’ve like, “Welcome to Earth!” *PUNCH!*. Yeah welcome to Earth, alien! I realise you’re here to kill us all just so you can have our natural resources but Earth is unfortunately full of egotistical macho steroid freaks like me who choose to kill each other (not another species) over stupid shit like coloured paper (that’s money for the slow ones) and pride and just generally for the hell of it sometimes. So yeah, welcome to Earth, it’s a great place, what’s left of it after us first generation locusts had our way with it.
The scene where David realizes he can send a virus to the mother ship and shut down their defences is, in this day and age, fucking hilarious. As soon as they realize they have the answer, it’s like bam! We cut to scenes of the American military drones using good old fashioned Morse code and tapping out to all the other countries (who I guess also didn’t have their Morse code “machine things” destroyed in the attack) how to take down these evil “alien-bastards-who-are-just-trying-to-survive-by-killing-another-species-as-humans-would” mother fuckers for good. Naturally we have a nice little part where it’s the British military and one of the chiefs walks in, “It’s the Americans! They’ve found a way to break through the force field!”. To which another head honcho replies in relief, “well, it’s about damned time!”. Yeah, because every other government and military force throughout the world is a pile of shit and all we do when aliens attack is wait for the US and John fucking Mclane to come up with a resolution and then to be told what to do. Well done US army - here’s another fantastic effort you did – remember the unnecessary Iraq war that dragged on and dragged on until it finally was declared over (??), well done for that too! While we’re on the topic of war, has anybody noticed how fucking hilarious it is that President Whitmore in this movie is an ex-fighter pilot and helps with the alien attack. It’s like George Bush Jr. sat and watched this film in his mid 40’s (I assume?) and thought (imagine little amazed boy voice), “Wow! When I’m President I’m gonna be just like Bill Pullman. Charming, brave, charismatic & full of great speeches!”. Funny thing is he left out the one thing Bush Jr. and Bill Pullman have in common towards being president – they were both FAKE Presidents! (bah-doom-tss!)
In particular I love the ending where they’ve finally destroyed the mother ship (I hate having to type OR say those two fucking words together) and I’m not talking on Earth terms. I’m talking big ears Steve Hiller (Will Smith) and big ears David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) whilst infiltrating the mother ship to upload the virus they literally nearly died being trapped INSIDE the mother ship BARELY escaping from such an extraordinary situation. But there they are, crash landed on the desert now, enjoying a cigar. I bet they’re woofing those cigars down just like your standard cigarette due to the stress of Captain Steve Hiller even being able to land the fucking UFO they infiltrated the mother ship with, being it was his FIRST time flying it after simply “observing other UFOs during the initial invasion” (did I mention he also out flew other aliens in other UFOs who most probably fly these fucking things EVERY DAY of their life? Oh well).
Anyway, they made it back safe and sound. There’s no trauma, there’s no injuries, there’s no “HOLY SHIT I WAS JUST IN A HUGE FUCKING SPACESHIP THAT NEARLY BLEW UP WHILE WE WERE IN IT!”. There’s just family and friends coming to greet them, Steve Hiller telling his boy “didn’t I promise you fireworks” while pointing at the destroyed spacecraft, David admitting he doesn’t mind smoking cigars now (maybe he’s suppressing his near death trauma so much this was the first step to a suicidal smoking and alcohol binging problem?) and finally we have the President, shit he’s just a fucking hero because he flew some jets to help hundreds of other pilots save the world. Is anybody going to bring up that RANDY QUAID IS FUCKING DEAD (people who haven’t seen it – he died flying his jet kamikaze style into the “nervous system” of one of the ships)!? Oh also David has his ex-woman, Constance (the president’s assistant btw, how awkward for David to be smoking a cigar, you don’t know where that things been you dirty bastard!?) back now because she loves him again because he helped saved the world too. Should I intervene on you two love birds and remind you once all the drama and glory is dead you will still have the SAME personality and career clashes as you did last time!? *clonks their heads together*
Nope, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that the developed world has been completely destroyed. It doesn’t matter that all that is left now is survival of the fittest. It doesn’t matter that the world will eventually collapse into a post-apocalyptic cannibalism society (well are you telling me any edible meat sources survived such blasts? Oh, oh wait, no they just attacked CITIES didn’t they, how convenient – stupid aliens) *scratch cannibalism* of death and everyone is out for number one. It doesn’t matter, because the things that weren’t humans are dead, the men get to look cool, the women get to clutch at the side of their cool men and forever there will be happiness… *cues to shot of six months later where David is looking miserable back in his cable T.V. office job yelling on the phone to Constance, “I TOLD YOU WHEN WE GOT BACK TOGETHER THINGS WERE GOING TO BE DIFFERENT YOU BITCH!!!... Oh… OH! YOU WANT THE HOUSE!? YOU’LL BE LUCKY IF THERE’S EVEN A HOUSE LEFT WHEN I’M DONE WITH IT!!! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! I’M GOING TO KILL MYSELF! I’M GOING TO BLOW THAT FUCKING HOUSE UP!!!... YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME! I SAVED THE WORLD!! I SAVED THE FUCKING WORLD!! I WAS A HEEEERRRROOOOOO!!!”. Then we have a huge rubber stamp come down over the scene that reads “REALITY” and it fades to the end with the same twinkling music that plays on the crashed spaceship in the original ending.
If there was any positives to give a movie that offers nothing in the way of thought it would be the initial feel of it. Upon the first viewing it gives the viewer a sense of pride in humanity. But unfortunately over indulgence in American tripe waters that down eventually until your left with a bad taste of New York vendor hotdogs in your mouth.
The special effects, cinematography and I guess with what they’ve had to work with, the acting are all reasonably good efforts. The special effects for their time were something to be seen to be believed. They certainly did blow you away and I think in the run of things this is how this movie managed to fool us all into thinking it’s worth watching, eventually owning and even cherishing. Fortunately that has all worn off and I’m pretty there’s a minority of us that still hold this film dear to us, well I hope so anyway.
If you were too young for this and haven’t seen it, well shit, why are you on my site – it’s full of foul language and negative attitudes – but you SHOULD see it. Just to say you have I guess. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. I would say less damage to your brain would be done if you stood in front of a microwave zapping full bore with the door open.
With a sense of over-indulged patriotism, I give this movie:
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1.5 OUT OF 5 JAGER-BABIES.
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