“I have a feeling this is going to be a phenomenon. Not a movie. A phenomenon.” Tom Sherak, Twentieth Century Fox’s President of Domestic Distribution, stated. “Independence Day,” which made $817.4 million worldwide, proved him correct. Dean Devlin was a relatively unknown actor in 1990, having starred in only a few television episodes and films. Roland Emmerich was a German director who made a number of low-budget films such as “The Noah’s Ark Principle” and “Hollywood-Monster.”
Devlin and Emmerich met while filming Emmerich’s 1990 picture “Moon44,” and formed a collaboration and created their first film, “Universal Soldier,” together. The success of their second sequel, “Stargate,” cleared the stage for their alien invasion movie, which would go on to become worldwide.
Emmerich planned the aliens to arrive in 15-mile-wide vessels, with the invasion taking place in the planet’s most populous cities. However, the anticipated cost of producing 3000 visual effects for the film was $150000 per effect. Emmerich enlisted the support of an old film school acquaintance, Volker Engel, whose team of students arrived in Los Angeles and successfully reduced the cost of each VFX to $40,000. CGI and VFX are child’s play for today’s generation. The amazing effects of “Independence Day” in 1996, on the other hand, were certain to give everyone chills.
Now it is time to talk about the movie’s cast! What can be said when Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, and Margaret Colin star in the film? The list goes on and on. Each celebrity looked to be a perfect fit for their roles, as if no one else could have played them.
In Emmerich’s 2016 film “Independence Day Resurgence,” aliens returned to confront the human race twenty years after they failed to obliterate the human population while the entire world celebrated their Independence Day on July 4th. Earth, on the other hand, had not been sitting still for the past 20 years.
Sela Ward plays America’s first female President, who collaborated with extraterrestrial expert Jeff Goldblum to develop fighter ships to combat alien technology. However, as I previously stated, by 2016, audiences had grown accustomed to seeing serious, spectacular visual effects in a variety of films.
So, no matter how hard Emmerich tried, he could not replicate the nerve-wracking impact of the original film in the sequel. As a result, let us travel back in time to July 2, 1996, and remember the magical events of “Independence Day.”
Earth, take a good look. It could be your last Independence Day
A massive mothership approached Earth and sent out multiple battleships, each roughly fifteen miles wide in diameter, to occupy the planet’s major cities. People were bewildered by the advent of the new saucer-like thing above their towns, and life on Earth came to a halt for a while.
Despite being on leave, Captain Steven Hiller, a marine F/A-18 pilot located at MCAS El Toro, was asked to report for duty. Jasmine, his girlfriend, was upset by his departure since she had a horrible feeling about the aliens.
A concealed signal code was received by David Levinson, an MIT-trained satellite technician, among worldwide satellite communications. He decoded the signal, only to find the countdown time for the coordinated alien attack. David tried to contact his ex-wife, Constance Spano, who was the White House Communications Director under President Thomas Whitmore, but she was not ready to listen.
David and his father Julius Levinson drove all the way to Washington D.C. and somehow convinced Constance and alerted the President about the threat that loomed on the cities. When all communication from the Earth failed and the aliens destroyed the helicopters that were sent to communicate, the President ordered an immediate evacuation of the major cities.
As soon as the countdown stopped, the giant saucers started opening up and started firing destructive beams, causing widespread destruction and killing millions of people. The President, his closest personnel, David, and his father boarded Air Force One and just managed to escape the devastation as the White House, and the other buildings exploded.
Jasmine somehow managed to take shelter with her son and dog as the fire roared past them. I still remember the scene and the applause it received from the audience as the dog jumped past the fire into safety.
In the midst of all the chaos, how could anyone forget to introduce Russell Casse and his family? He was an alcoholic who had previously served as a fighter pilot. As the locals bullied him over the aliens’ sexual torture, he kept saying that he was abducted by aliens immediately after his military duty. After the colossal massacre, on 3rd July, the President decided to launch a counter-attack.
But the major challenge was that their warships, Mothership, and fighter vessels were protected by a shield that could not be penetrated by any weapon. The fighter pilots were easily defeated as a swarm of fighter vessels were released from the saucer warships and engaged in combat.
Steven, who was one of the fighter pilots of this mission, managed to crash land one of the alien fighter vessels. As Steven approached the vessel and opened the door, we got the first glimpse of the Harvester Alien, but Steven knocked it unconscious.
Julius claimed that the government had been aware of the alien since the 1950s but had taken no safeguards. The President was unaware of the recovered spaceship in Area 51 in Roswell, New Mexico. While the President and his team arrived at Area 51 to investigate the aliens and the crashed vessel, the Secretary of Defense concurred on the matter.
Dr. Brackish Okun, the research team head, informed the President that they had been trying to repair the alien fighter vessel since then. Still, they couldn’t experiment with it as they were unable to imitate the advanced level of power used by the aliens. Only after the alien Mothership had entered the Earth’s orbit, the power of the fighter vessel had been turned on. Later Dr. Okun took them to the vault where the dead bodies of three aliens had been preserved. From several years’ research, scientists have discovered that they wear some sort of bio-mechanical suit, under which they have a body as fragile as human beings.
The aliens breathed oxygen, tolerant to heat and cold, just like humans, which was the probable cause of their interest in our planet. He added that though they had eyes and ears, there were no vocal cords and assumed they communicated with telepathy.
Steven arrived at Area 51 with the Harvester, who was unconscious. We could see the Harvester’s bio-mechanical suit covering and protecting their bodies as Dr. Okun took them into the lab. The aliens’ delicate nature necessitated the use of a bio-suit with arms, legs, and tentacles.
Soon the alien regained consciousness and started a rampage in the lab. It was then the audience got a full view of the alien. They were about three to four feet, grayish blue, quasi-humanoid, body and slender limbs with two digits. Their heads were enormous, and reflected eyes had no pupils. As everyone rushed towards the lab, they saw the alien had attached its tentacles around Dr. Okun’s neck and spoke in his voice.
They also communicated through telepathy, as the President realized that the Harvesters were like locusts, invading a series of planets and draining the natural resources out of them. As the President tried to negotiate peace between them, the alien refused and threatened to destroy the human race.
Meanwhile, Jasmine was able to obtain a truck and rescue all of the survivors, including Marilyn, the First Lady. Steven discovered them and brought them to Area 51, where Merilyn died. The President was forced to take the drastic decision of launching a nuclear attack on the alien warship, but to their horror, even the impact of a nuclear missile was negative.
All hopes for survival were gone when David finally came up with a plan. As his father warned him about catching a cold, David realized that he could infect the Mothership with a computer virus that would disable their protective shield for some time and make their warships vulnerable to missile attacks.
Steven volunteered to pilot the restored fighter vessel, go to the Mothership with David, and carry out the plan as soon as David proposed it. The US military contacted many countries to arrange a global counter-offensive against the aliens. General William Grey announced in public requesting people with flying experience to step forward and volunteer for this massive counter-attack.
Russell Casse also volunteered for this operation and told Captain William Grey, ”I won’t let you down!”. Steven and Jasmine tied the knot with David and Constance as witnesses as the two grew closer once again. The President gave a motivational speech at the dawn of 4th July to the fighter pilots joining the mass counter-attack, highlighting that humanity couldn’t be consumed by their petty differences anymore. This time on 4th July, they were fighting for their independence against annihilation and for their right to exist.
President Whitmore also joined the war since he had previously served as a fighter pilot and believed he belonged in the skies. The defensive shields were damaged once David released the virus, and human fighter pilots began firing missiles at the alien battleship. But even though the missiles started getting exhausted, enough damage couldn’t be inflicted on the alien warship, not to mention, thousands of alien fighter vessels were deployed to confront the humans.
Soon the saucer warship prepared to launch the destructive beam to destroy the base. Only Russell Casse had one missile left, which he was instructed to fire at the launching point of the alien warship. But unfortunately, Russel’s missile launcher malfunctioned, and he sacrificed his life by crashing his jet into the launching point of the alien warship, destroying it. Though the people of earth rejoiced, Russel’s children were shattered.
Meanwhile, David and Steven were trapped on the Mothership due to their inability to escape. They had no choice but to launch a missile and flee the Mothership in the nick of time before it exploded. They returned to Earth and reunited with their family as humanity rejoiced with their victory over the alien invasion.
The blockbuster film holds the record for the most miniature model work in a film, with the miniature of the White House being particularly impressive. The most iconic shot of the film was the explosion of the White House, which appeared in teasers, trailers, and VHS releases. The film won 35 prizes in total, including the Oscar for outstanding visual effects.
It also got nominated for best sound in the Oscar. It is heard that Music Director, David Arnold isolated himself in a Los Angeles hotel room for four months to stay away from the increasing marketing hype of the film. But from his hotel room, he could see helicopters carrying banners for the film, which made him even more stressed. Though the critics pointed out a lot of loopholes in the plot, I guess the audience didn’t care for it.
Even in 2010, the readers of Entertainment Weekly rated ”Independence Day” as the second most excellent summer movie for the last 20 years, lagging only behind ”Jurassic Park”. Both Will Smith and Bill Pullman underwent basic Air Force training for their roles. The film was given a private screening in the White House for President Bill Clinton and his family before being released in the United States on 2nd July 1996.
20 Years of Evolution – Independence Day: Resurgence
It had been twenty years since the extraterrestrial invasion. Former President Whitmore, on the other hand, had dreams about alien invasions. Whitmore’s daughter Patricia or Patty was a fighter pilot like her father but retired from the job to take care of her father, who had become disturbed from his previous experiences. She presently worked for the President, Elizabeth Lanford, and was a good friend of Dylan, son of Steven Hiller, who had died a few years back.
Earth Space Defense, or ESD, was established by the United Nations to build global defense and research against alien invasion, as well as serve as a warning system against future extraterrestrial dangers. Following Mankind’s victory over the alien invasion, the ruined cities were rebuilt, and peace reigned among the countries. The modern cities were also equipped with modern technology to tackle the further extraterrestrial threat. Apart from its headquarters in Area 51, ESD had set up its bases in Moon, Mars, Rhea, and satellites of Earth.
Then we met Patty’s fiancée, Jake Morrison, and his friend Charlie, as well as their supervisor, Captain Jiang Lao, who was stationed at the moon’s base camp. Captain Joshua Adams, who paid a visit to the enthralled aliens, was also introduced. But the aliens who had been immobile for the past 20 years had suddenly become activated. Was it indicating something?
Dikembe Umbutu, a warlord in the African state of Umbutu, had summoned David Levinson, the director of ESD, along with Floyd Rosenberg. He met Dr. Catherine Marceaux, a well-known psychologist who specializes in treating people who have suffered mental trauma as a result of the extraterrestrial invasion.
She was also researching people who had been in direct telepathic connection with the Harvesters. She was surprised to find that many victims had visions of an alien symbol consisting of a circle drawn through it. Both Levinson and Marceaux traveled to find a new kind of alien warship.
Levinson and Marceaux concluded that this ship was drilling through the core of the Earth. They also realized that the aliens had sent a distress signal to their own planet before the final defeat. Ubuntu, Whitmore, and Dr. Okun were telepathically connected to the aliens and had a vision of an unidentified spherical object.
A mysterious spherical spaceship was soon detected approaching the Earth. President Lanford, seeing it as another extraterrestrial attack, gave the order to destroy it, and the moon base camp did so, despite Levinson’s protests. Soon Jake arrived and took Levinson, Floyd, Umbutu, and Marceaux to the moon at the crash site of the spherical craft. They recovered a large container from the site.
Meanwhile, Dr. Brackish Okun awoke after a 20-year sleep and began drawing extraterrestrial symbols on his bedroom wall. A celebratory programme was held in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the triumph over the new alien vessel and the 20th anniversary of the alien invasion win.
Many veterans who participated in the first invasion attended, but as soon as Thomas Whitmore stood up for his speech, he warned everyone with his telepathic connection by saying, ”They’re coming back”. As Whitmore, Umbutu, and Okun realized, a huge Mothership, more than 3000 miles in diameter, approached the Earth and destroyed the moon base camp and other orbital defenses. Then it shifted over the North Atlantic Ocean while causing devastation and havoc in several countries.
Whitmore was trying to converse with an enthralled Harvester when it abruptly seized him with his tentacle and informed them that the Harvester Queen had arrived. As the alien attempted to remove its bio-mechanical suit, Umbutu murdered it. The infrared signal from the new Mothership was picked up by the military fighters, allowing them to spot the Alien Queen in her chamber.
This time, David confirmed that the Harvesters followed the hive theory, and according to that, if the Queen is killed, her massive army could be immobilized. Hence, the President commanded a combat strike on the Mothership. But the fighter pilots faced massive counter-attacks from the Mothership and the newly designed alien fighter vessels and were trapped within the Mothership, as only Dylan, Jake, Charlie, and fellow ESD lieutenant Rain Lao survived.
The newly arrived Mothership started boring the Earth’s molten core for fuel, which will eventually destroy the planet’s magnetic field and atmosphere. The alien fighters eventually attacked the President’s bunker in the Colorado Mountains, killing her and most of her officers. After the tragic death of the President, Captain Joshua Adams quickly became the next President.
In the midst of the chaos, Julius Levinson was rescued by four children, and subsequently, Julius rescued some schoolchildren who had been abandoned by their bus driver. Julius loaded all of the kids onto the bus and drove them to safety. Meanwhile, Brackish extracted a large white sphere of artificial intelligence from the container they had recovered from the moon.
It suddenly got activated when Floyd touched it. The Sphere told them that the Harvesters had destroyed their planet and civilization by extracting the core of the planet. The Harvesters had been destroying countless other planets in the same way. They used the molten core to refuel their ships and advance their technology. The Sphere said that they had tried to fight them for thousands of years but failed, but it holds the key to superior technology to build weapons that can destroy the Harvesters.
There is a hidden planet where refugees are taught to build such weapons. But the Sphere was afraid that the Harvester Queen would detect her presence as soon as she had been turned on. The Sphere had the purpose of rescuing the humans from the wrath of the Harvesters, but the mission failed as humans destroyed the actual rescue vessel.
A scheme was devised to entice the Queen by recreating the Sphere’s signal in a remote location where she could be destroyed with a cold fusion bomb. Patty’s father assumed command of the attack before she could volunteer to lead it, flying and blowing the bombs in front of her while Levinson blocked her spacecraft.
The significant difference between an average Harvester warrior and their Queen was that she was protected by her own shield, like their fighter vessels. Hence, unless her shield was down, she could not be killed. Soon the Queen emerged with her full might, and her first target of the attack was the school bus with the kids, driven by David.
But, before the Queen could assault the bus, she was stopped by Patty, who used her shield to keep her safe from all of the gunfire. Patty used her abilities to ultimately demolish her shields. The combined attacks of Dylan, Rain, Jake, and Charles caught the angry Queen off guard before she could maul her. Suddenly the Harvester soldiers managed to locate the exact position of the Sphere.
Soon the Queen diverted all her attention towards acquiring the Sphere as it imposed more threat to her than human beings. With her telepathic powers, she managed to create an encircling shield with all the fighter vessels, as she devastated Area 51.
She broke all the defenses and grabbed the Sphere, but the ESD pilots, with great effort, broke the Queen’s barrier by erecting a fire wall. They began firing at the Queen from behind, inflicting deadly wounds on her and causing her bio-mechanical suit to be entirely destroyed. The Queen died, while her fighters without the Queen were disarrayed. The drilling operation of the Mothership came to a halt, and once again, the Earth was saved from yet another alien invasion.
Except for Will Smith, many of the first film’s actors, such as Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, and Brent Spiner, returned in the sequel alongside a fantastic cast of newcomers, including Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, Jessie Usher, and William Fichtner. Volker Engel and producer Marc Weigert from Uncharted Territory, LLC handled the visual effects for Independence Day: Resurgence, just as they did for the prequel.
With the advancement in CGI, the visual effects could easily be generated instead of depending on miniature models used in the prequel. Scanline VFX was responsible for handling the effects of Mothership landing and destruction of different cities, while Weta Digital designed the aliens and the final climactic battle scene.
The film grossed $ 389.7 million against a budget of $165 million. The film was not close enough to generating the same impact as its prequel as it had nothing unique to offer. There were many characters in the movie, but there was no depth in the characters, and many definitely didn’t give it their best shot. There is no question about the making of the film, which was nearly perfect, and that’s what makes it a thrilling watch.
Dean Devlin had previously expressed interest in developing a “Independence 3” sequel. However, following the poor reception of the second film, the notion of a third sequel has been shelved for the time being. Who knows if they change their minds! As for the first film, I don’t remember how many times I have watched the movie, with the same set of emotions running through me every time, and I really don’t mind watching it many times in the future.