DILLON ON FILM

Independence Day: 30 Years On

Dated jingoistic nonsense, but Roland Emmerich’s alien invasion blockbuster has some incidental pleasures

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Warning: Contains spoilers

I was extremely excited to see Independence Day (1996) during the run-up to the original cinema release. The superb marketing, including this teaser trailer in which a massive flying saucer blows up the White House, had well and truly captivated my interest. I was curious to see how Stargate (1994) director Roland Emmerich and his co-writer Dean Devlin would handle a global alien invasion scenario. In addition, the advent of CGI meant huge vistas of epic destruction could now be far more effectively rendered onscreen. In short, Independence Day had a lot riding on it. Could it live up to the hype?

Short answer: No. Yes, the film was a box office smash (its much belated 2016 sequel failed to generate similar piles of cash), but the plot and overall tone left me disappointed. After a gripping opening act, things rapidly degenerate into pseudo-*Top Gun* (1986) jingoism. I don’t necessarily mind the America-centric narrative (complete with token Brit stereotypes and various other nods to other nations in a couple of brief scenes), but the flag-waving is all a bit much if you don’t hail from the land of the free and the home of the brave. Perhaps American cinema audiences found the speech made by US President Thomas J Witmore (Bill Pullman) at the end of Act Two stirringly patriotic, but at the cinema screenings I attended in the UK, it was greeted with sniggers.

In general, Brits aren’t big on flag-waving demonstrative patriotism, save for royal occasions or major sporting events. Yes, we’ve got a bit of a silly thing going on at the moment with various right-wing groups planting St George’s flags around the place, but I suspect that most Brits find this rather embarrassing. After all, the British hardly need to demonstrate such patriotic fervour, given that we don’t celebrate an independence day. If we did, who would we celebrate independence from? The Romans? Rather than flag-waving, I prefer being smug over things like our common-sense gun laws, the National Health Service (for all its flaws, we don’t get bankruptcy-inducing medical bills), and the fact that we don’t miss out half the letters in “doughnut”.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

All that said, I am a big fan of America at its best and think the world is a better place because of it. For that reason, I went along with the flag-waving as much as I could. However, the narrative and character deficiencies I found harder to deal with. Emmerich and Devlin are obviously paying tribute to the golden era of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Yet somehow, they failed to grasp that what made those films work were everyman characters in extraordinary circumstances: Humble electrician Roy Neary in *Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) or farm boy Luke Skywalker in [Star Wars](https://fanfare.pub/why-star-wars-is-the-best-summer-blockbuster-4b7c86f084fa)* (1977), for example. In contrast, none of the heroes here feels particularly ordinary.

The first act, in which the gigantic alien ships appear and loom menacingly over major cities, eliciting delusional comments (“I hope they bring back Elvis!”) from characters anticipating Close Encounters type wonder, is promising. It sets up the straightforwardly heroic leads: Fighter pilot Captain Steve Hiller (Will Smith), the aforementioned President Whitmore, who is also conveniently an ex-fighter pilot, and tech scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), ostensibly a nerd, but just as handsomely heroic as the other leads. In truth, Goldblum is simply playing this as another version of his character Dr Ian Malcolm from *Jurassic Park* (1993).

The initial attack is suitably impressive, even though some of the city-wide destruction images look a bit ropey these days, considering how far CGI has come. However, the White House detonation still looks great. Possibly because the VFX artists used a model. On the other hand, one of the most unconvincing shots involves a dog escaping the destruction. Naturally, one can’t expect a dog to die in a film like this.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

In contrast, household pets and animals in general are not safe in Tim Burton’s darkly hilarious, subversive alternative from the same year, Mars Attacks! (1996). I’ve always preferred this film because it is much funnier, with sharp satire skewering the mainstream militaristic messaging of Independence Day. In Burton’s alien invasion, gung-ho types, opportunist presidents, and silly scientists all die or end up as animal hybrids in evil experiments. By contrast, his heroes are misfits, social outcasts, nerdy teenagers, the elderly, and the marginalised. Or Las Vegas celebrities.

Back in Emmerich’s world, there’s a brief speculation that Hiller didn’t get his astronaut posting because his girlfriend, Jasmine (Vivica A Fox), is a stripper. I reckon Burton could have made much better use of her, and indeed the other underserved supporting female roles in the film: David’s ex, Constance (Margaret Colin), and First Lady Marilyn Whitmore (Mary McDonnell). He also would have made better use of the supporting cast with genuine personality, such as Brent Spiner’s eccentric Area 51 scientist, and David’s father, Julius (Judd Hirsch), easily my favourite character in the film. (“You punched the president?”)

Such incidental pleasures are what make revisiting Independence Day tolerable, despite the disappointment I always feel at the wasted narrative opportunity. For instance, it would have been much more interesting to see the aliens occupy the surface and start transforming it, directly after Act One. Steven Spielberg made a far more interesting alien invasion film a few years later, with his underrated take on War of the Worlds (2005), in which we see such a transformation. War of the Worlds is also bereft of the tourist landmark destruction porn so regularly trotted out in films of this sort, and free of unconvincing patriotic fervour. Rather than uniting with a plethora of flag-waving clichés, humans turn on one another, shooting each other over vehicles. Independence Day is a product of its time: the cosy 1990s, before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. In contrast, War of the Worlds reflects the anxieties and uncertainties that came afterwards.

Credit: 20th Century Fox

Then again, Independence Day also features the narrative fingerprints of the HG Wells classic. In that novel, the aliens prove ill-equipped to deal with Earth’s viruses. Here, the aliens are unable to deal with a computer virus when one gets uploaded to their mothership’s mainframe via a Windows laptop. It’s preposterous, but enjoyably silly, providing a daft but rousing conclusion. By this point, all hope for a more intriguing alien invasion has vanished, so it is best to go with it.

In summary, Independence Day has inevitably aged, but it still possesses a modicum of entertainment value, despite the flaws. Another element that might have contributed to my initial disappointment was the presence of this trailer, directly beforehand, for the cinematic rerelease of Star Wars. Most blockbuster films would feel disappointing after that (at that time, I’d not seen Star Wars on the big screen before, so I was extremely excited to finally tick that box from my cinematic bucket list). Yet with or without the Star Wars rerelease, Independence Day failed to reach the excitement levels generated by its exceptional teaser trailer. In the end, it was undone by another teaser trailer for the rerelease of a film that never disappoints.

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