"In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day! "
- President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) delivers an historic address in Independence Day (1996).
Independence
Day (1996)
remains one of the big “event” movies of the 1990s, a sci-fi blockbuster of
monumental, almost unimaginable proportions.
The crowd-pleasing film successfully tapped into the decade’s unending fascination
with aliens and UFOs (The X-Files, for example) and significantly augmented that interest too, resulting in a slew of further alien films and TV programs from Dark
Skies (1996) to Men in Black (1997).
As
an inside-the-industry cautionary tale, Independence Day also represented
the (unfortunate) cementing of the Emmerich/Devlin blockbuster “formula” -- a revival of 1970s disaster film tropes. This format would meet its Waterloo in 1998’s Godzilla, but nonetheless continues right into this decade with films such as the dreadful 2012 (2010).
Of
all the Emmerich genre fare, I’m most fond of 1994’s Stargate,
as it seems to strike the right balance between spectacle and intelligence. After that film’s release, the scales in further efforts kept
tipping towards spectacle and away from brains, and so the ensuing films suffer mightily for the imbalance.
That
established, I was certainly part of the enthusiastic audience for Independence
Day upon its summer release, and I still remember how great the film
looked on the big screen. A recent
re-watch confirms how terrific the miniature effects remain. The scenes of awesome alien saucers lumbering
to position over major world cities -- though
obviously reminiscent of Kenneth Johnson’s
V (1984) -- remain downright staggering.
What
ages Independence
Day most significantly, instead, is the pervasive shtick and the
schmaltzy, sentimentality-drenched characters. At every step of the way during its narrative, Independence Day punctures
its end-of-the-world majesty and gravitas with low humor and over-the-top sentimentality,
qualities which today render the whole affair close to camp.
Science
fiction fans, of course, experienced conniption fits over Independence Day’s
unlikely finale: a third act which sees an Earth-produced computer virus
successfully uploaded to an alien computer aboard a mother-ship, thus giving
humans the opportunity to strike back…on July 4th, no less.
The
movie doesn’t pay even lip service to the idea that aliens from another solar
system might have developed anti-virus software (!), let alone computer systems
totally incompatible with our 20th century Earth technology.
Given
how badly things go for Earth in the first hour of Independence Day, it’s
difficult to countenance the film’s final veer into outright fantasy as every
heroic campaign – with split-second
timing – comes together perfectly.
Despite
my misgivings about the film’s humor, sentimentality, and narrative resolution, however, I still find the grave, apocalyptic, anxiety-provoking tone of Independence
Day’s first hour worthwhile, especially the President’s grim choice to
deploy nuclear weapons in an American city to drive off the aliens.
It
would be absolutely foolish to deny, too, that some of Independence Day’s
imagery has become iconic in the annals of cinema history.
We all remember that portentous shot of hovering saucer pulping the White House for
instance. Thus -- even while criticizing this over-sized beast -- I've got to give the Devil his due for getting matters right on a
visual terms
In
terms of theme, Independence Day works overtime to remind all of us that although
we are separated by oceans and other Earthly partitions, we are all nonetheless citizens of the
same planet. It’s a laudable message in
an age of hyper-partisanship to be certain, even if delivered with little
nuance or subtlety. This through-line in
the film is consistently and well-conveyed, both in terms of incident and in
the make-up of the diverse dramatis
personae. Who would have imagined our precious Earth could be saved by a war veteran, a drunk crop-duster, a Jewish cable repairman and an African-American fighter pilot?
Movie
critics were understandably divided on Independence Day. At The
New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote:
“Guess what: "Independence
Day" lives up to expectations in a rush of gleeful, audience-friendly
exhilaration, with inspiring notions of bravery that depart nicely from the
macho cynicism of this movie season. Its innocence and enthusiasm are so
welcome that this new spin on "Star
Wars" is likely to wreak worldwide box-office havoc, the kind that
will make the space aliens' onscreen antics look like small change.”
Writing
for The Washington Post, Rita Kempley
opined:
“"Independence Day" is primarily a $70 million kid's
toy, a star-spangled excess of Roman candles and commando games designed to
draw repeat business from 9- to 12-year-old boys. Little girls won't find any
role models among the barnstormers, though a plucky exotic dancer is featured
among the heroines. Even with the end of the world in sight, she shakes her
booty. It's for her kid. No, really. Maybe
the moviemakers' mission was to boldly go where everyone in Hollywood has gone
before: the bank.”
Honestly, I can see both sides of
the critical equation in this case. Independence Day is such dumb fun, and
yet fun nonetheless.
“A
toast...to the end of the world.”
The people of planet Earth watch with anxiety and wonder as
three-dozen alien saucers descend from orbital space to take up positions over
cities around the globe. President
Whitmore (Bill Pullman), a former jet pilot in Desert Storm, advises calm, but new information from genius cable repair man David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum)
suggests the alien ships have initiated a countdown and are preparing a
coordinated attack.
As the countdown ends, Levinson’s suspicions are confirmed,
and the alien ships destroy Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York and other
population hubs. President Whitmore survives the attack on the Oval Office and escapes by Air Force One. He
promptly orders a retaliatory strike. Pilot, top-gun, and would-be astronaut Steven Hiller
(Will Smith) downs an alien ship during battle, and captures one of the fearsome
aliens for study. The rest of the fight, however,
is a rout, and the U.S. jets are unable to penetrate alien shields. Humanity stands upon the edge of extinction.
The President visits the secret military base at Area 51, and learns there that scientists there have been experimenting with an alien ship for close to
fifty years. When Hiller arrives, the
President attempts to communicate with Hiller's captured alien, but finds the being
implacably hostile. The aliens, he soon
learns, are like locusts. They travel
from solar system to solar system using up planetary systems and then moving on…leaving only carnage and waste in their wake.
After nuclear weapons prove ineffective against the aliens, President Whitmore is at a loss how to save the planet, or the human race. But David comes through again. He believes he can take the captured alien
ship at Area 51 to the mother-ship and upload a computer virus there, thus bringing
down alien shields…at least for a few minutes.
When Steven volunteers to fly that risky mission, it’s up to the President
himself to coordinate and lead a huge aerial attack against the alien saucers, both in
America, and world-wide…
“It's a fine line between standing behind a
principle and hiding behind one. You can tolerate a little compromise, if
you're actually managing to get something accomplished.”
For a film about such a terrifying topic – an alien
invasion – Independence Day frequently plays thing...light. At least a half-dozen major supporting
characters in the film are defined by their shtick. Judd Hirsch plays a
nagging Jewish Dad, Julius Levinson, and his lines and delivery are pure
Borscht Belt ham-bone. Harvey Fierstein plays another kitschy
character, Marty, who hams it up and makes jokes about his therapist and his
(presumably overbearing...) mother. Harry
Connick Jr. portrays a cocksure pilot who provides the film at least one dopey gay joke.
But the worst character is likely Randy Quaid’s
Russell Casse, a drunken crop-duster (and alien abductee) who joins the air
battle against the aliens during the film's denouement. Quaid’s dialogue is so incredibly dreadful
that it has become the stuff of legend and MST3K fodder. “I picked the wrong day to stop drinking,” springs immediately to mind.
Among all these actors hamming it up and
stealing time, Brent Spiner likely fares the best as aging ex-hippie and scientist Dr.
Okun. Spiner comes off as weird and
eccentric, but not so dreadfully hammy that you want to turn away from the screen in
shame for watching. His last scene -- played with alien tentacles pressing against his larynx -- is also genuinely
unsettling.
Why do I have a problem with the film's pervasive moments of low
humor? Well, Independence Day already boasts Jeff
Goldblum and Will Smith continually cracking wise in leading roles. Their dialogue is dreadful too, from "Welcome to Earth" to "Now that's what I call a close encounter!" Given all this material from our leads, do we really need Judd Hirsch, Harvey
Fierstein, Harry Connick Jr., Randy Quaid and even Brent Spiner dishing out lame one liners too? The ubiquitous nature of these
characters makes Independence Day, at times, resemble an overblown sitcom. Maybe if the material were stronger, these characters would not seem so objectionable. I guess what I'm saying, is that these moments are rarely actually funny.
Another weak character is Secretary of Defense
Nimzicki (James Rebhorn), a man who in one scene advises the full scale nuking of
many American cities, but in a later scene argues against a “risky” maneuver
to attack the alien mother-ship and upload the virus. His objections to the (ultimately) successful
plan make no sense, and aren’t consistent with the “war hawk” image he projects in the
film all along; a guy who advises going to Def-Con 2 before the President has made
his final decision. Instead, Nimzicki is contradictory simply so the audience can boo at him, and the President can
dress him down…thus appearing tough and resolute.
While I have real disdain for much of the
writing and characterization in Independence Day, I do feel that the film's visuals often still shock, and often still carry real emotional resonance.
One shot, set on July 3rd, reveals the Statue of Liberty toppled, face
down in the harbor...a massive saucer hovering low in the sky. Colored in autumnal browns, this is a terrifying composition of American culture annihilated. It’s tough indeed to compete with the amazing Statue
of Liberty imagery of Planet of the Apes, yet this moment in Independence Day remains quite upsetting. The film is also anxiety-provoking in the way it reveals American military might crushed before a more
technologically-advanced enemy. The
battle sequences, the nuclear option, and other heavy moments are all deeply scary because one realizes that if America can’t save the world…the world ain’t
getting saved. Indeed, Independence Day
plays up the alien threat so successfully in terms of spectacular visuals and special
effects that there’s almost no way the scripted, climactic victory can ring true. It’s like we’ve slipped into an alternate movie
or something.
The first half of Independence Day is
undeniably the strongest, as alien saucers push through storm and cloud fronts,
and emerge over our cities, casting dark shadows upon bewildered and amazed
populations. These moments continue to
impress, and pack an almost visceral gut punch.
We’ve all wondered if, one day, we’ll wake up to something like this imagery…a
new dawn in which we learn definitively we are no longer alone. As much as I deride Independence Day’s silly
humor and bad dialogue, I have no quibbles whatsoever with the way that these
scenes of “arrival” are vetted. As I
said in my introduction, many of these scenes still carry a staggering punch.
From its first shots to its final ones, Independence
Day also makes an interesting point about mankind being unified by a threat
from the outside. The film opens with
imagery of a plaque on the moon which reads “We came in peace for all mankind.” That’s a wonderful thought, the movie seems
to suggest, but then the filmmakers set up a paradigm by which that hopeful expression of common cause is tested. Suddenly, all mankind must work together to
defeat the alien threat, putting competition and petty differences aside. This idea is expressed through scenes set in
Iraq, the location of America’s most recent war (Gulf War I). There, in the desert, British and Iraqi soldiers join the
battle against the mother ships. The implication of such scenes is that mankind is indeed capable of working together.
The same idea is presented in the film in the (positive) character of President Whitmore. Before
the alien crisis, he is viewed not as a warrior, but as a “wimp.” He can’t even get his Crime Bill passed by a
hostile Congress. Whitmore laments that “it’s
just not simple, anymore” and that people don’t seem to understand that
compromise is the only path towards moving everyone ahead, together. He then works with the nations of the world to
defeat the aliens, and in the process transforms an American holiday into an Earth
holiday. Again, the message implicit in Independence Day is that we can
apply ourselves to solve big problems, not just alien
invasions. Why can’t we all band
together to keep our neighbors and our neighbors' children from starving?
Or to eliminate poverty? Once we
acknowledge our common humanity, petty partisan differences shouldn’t really
matter, should they?
In this sense, Independence Day -- set in part
on July 4th -- acknowledges a new, evolved brand of patriotism. It is a patriotism not merely to party or to
one nation, but to all of humanity. As a
fan of Star Trek and a person who believes we can achieve great things if we
sometimes accept compromise, I appreciate the film’s ultimate message of hope about human nature. This consistently-applied theme almost
mollifies my concerns about the film’s ridiculous and ill-conceived conclusion,
and the surfeit of characters who spew cliché after cliché, bad joke after bad
joke. Almost, but not quite. Still, I know I'm spitting in the wind against an 800 million dollar blockbuster, a veritable entertainment machine.
So am I a hopeless sentimental for recognizing Independence
Day’s entertainment and social value, even amidst so many stupid groaners and
moments of cynical, calculated humor?
Or, like Randy Quaid's character...did I just pick the wrong day to stop
drinking?
Isaiah reveals that his parents died in the cave where the minerals were recovered, and now
he fears both it and the crystal. Understanding this, the
villagers make peace with Isaiah and welcome him into the family. Jonah, meanwhile, arranges for the cave with
the dangerous minerals to be permanently sealed.
