It was the exceptionally hot summer of 1996 (What am I saying? They're all exceptionally hot in Alabama) that gigantic saucers descended on our cities and blocked out the sun. Why '96? Because it takes a bit more than a decade for such a large fleet to travel from a TV miniseries to the big screen. It's simple math. But somewhere along the way the lizards in human skin who quietly conquered us in V were replaced by the lizard/Gray hybrids of Independence Day.
Recently, in the exceptionally hot Tokyo summer of 2000, I decided to have another look at the movie that had previously blasted my neck muscles as I watched it from the front row of a jam-packed theater. What I found was verification of my memories of a really exciting film.
If you've read parts 3 and 4 of my article "Life As We Don't Know It," then you already know some of the qualms I have with this movie. But as I also said in that article, I am perfectly capable of suspending disbelief to enjoy a good flick. So here I'll tell you what I like about ID4 and why if for some reason you've never seen it you definitely should.
If my chronological memory serves me correctly, Independence Day was the first in a new batch of doomsday movies that were popular at the end of the '90s. This batch included Deep Impact and Armageddon. They were all directed with a similar foreboding style that moved the story along with dramatic elements and action sequences. (Deep Impact a little less so.)
From the opening sequence of ID4 in which the mother ship drifts past the moon, casting an ominous shadow on the American flag, to Randy Quaid's suicidal flight into the heart of the Area 51 death saucer, Independence Day keeps the adrenaline going.
The use of time in the movie—the countdown to destruction discovered by Jeff Goldblum, the sharp division of the story into days, the 30-second escape run from the mother ship at the end of the film—is brilliantly crafted to maintain a frantic pace.
The extraordinarily unlikely way in which the saucers position themselves above our most beloved landmarks and then pulverize them, along with that girl from Saved by the Bell: The College Years, made for one of the most memorable moments in recent cinematic memory. (But wouldn't Elizabeth Berkley have been a better Saved by the Bell choice for a stripper?)
And of course you can't talk about Independence Day without talking about Big Willie. This was Will Smith's real breakthrough role that made him the
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