Independence Day Review

hello worldwide web I'm D Shadow the internet personality of the best hair yeah I'm doing this review because the sequel is coming out this summer and the trailer looks really awesome but truth be told I have actually been meaning to do an independence day review for a while now except I always kept thinking to myself it it'll be best to do this on the 4th of July and then I would always end up scheduling huge seasonal specials All Summer Long oops Independence Day AKA ID 4 is a science fiction disaster film from 1996 written and directed by Roland Emerick whom at the time wasn't nearly as big a name having done six movies before breaking into the public eye with his first Hollywood production in 1992 universal Soldier and finally showing he can break the thing Studios really care about sales records with Stargate in 1994 which gave him all the cloud he needed to get the green light on another film Independence Day a movie that would go forth and break so many records that make so much money that his career wasn't ruined when he tanked Godzilla 2 years later interestingly enough Independence Day had very little at all to do with Independence Day outside of it taking place and being released around said date as pretty much Everyone Knows by now thanks to the $30 million marketing budget it's about an alien invasion using freaking gigantic spaceships that ominously hover over recognizable landmarks from around the world and blow them the [ __ ] up it's also like 2 and 1 half hours long so if we want to dig into the plot we better start now so let's take a look at Independence Day and see how it holds up 20 years later the film opens up with the Declaration of the date July 2nd meaning we can already figure out this will have a traditional three-act structure to it more ominously someone has vandalized the Apollo 11 Landing site removing the plaque from the lter leg and dumping it on some rocks not that the rest is left in pristine condition as a massive spacecraft goes by so enormous that it manages to transmit powerful vibrations despite the lack of an atmosphere always at the ready the guys it said he noticed the holy [ __ ] alien signal found light and take the listen to the [Music] signal oh [ __ ] it's just another Pulsar never mind as far as everyone else figures though this must be an intelligent signal of artificial origin so they wake up the team to collaborate and figure out where it's coming from despite the fact that the way SE works is they pick a direction and then listen so figuring out where should be the easy part it's coming from the Moon [Music] okay then who was [ __ ] around with the equipment what genius decided to point at the Moon listening for science of intelligent life I mean I know it worked out this time but still through the dumb luck of conveniently bad dish alignment they stumble on this though and we see as the information rolls in and climbs up the ranks revealing that the source of the signal is some massive object that is slowing down near the moon about a quarter the size of the Moon itself obviously this is so big figuratively and literally the president of the United States Thomas Whitmore played by everyone's favorite space pilot bill pman must know not any other country they're not important what is important is US establishing with constant Spano played by Margaret cin the nation thinks bman is a [ __ ] Whitmore seems less like the president and more like the orphan child Oliver asking please sir I'd like some more that's clever clever what what the [ __ ] are you no one the nation's in the [ __ ] of the president is perpetually stoned the call from the Department of Defense is enough to blow is Buzz though but we have to hurry up and introduce more characters because if there's one thing this movie has a [ __ ] ton of it's characters we've got our environmentalist computer genius David levenson played by Jeff Goldblum his Jewish father Julius played by Jud Hirsch and of course Dave's jittery boss Marty played by the highly recognizable Harvey fernstein we got static we got snow all kinds of distortions nobody knows what the hell are you doing there's a reason we have bins labeled recycle what the hell is going on my God in heaven every single can is a Coca-Cola can you mean to tell me that everyone in the world in this universe drinks nothing but Coca-Cola nothing but Coca-Cola always cocacola this is a really shitty bottle opener either way it appears Dave here works at a television Studio as tech support after he asks Marty if he's unplugged it and plugged it back in again he explains that the problems they're having with the satellites are as if they aren't even there anymore enough of that though let's get more characters you see these I got a whole goddamn crop full of these so what are your [ __ ] crops or stop using Gatorade for some reason this guy thinks the wilting is caused by infestation though and it's because the kid's father Russell case played by Randy Quaid hasn't been dusting his farm like he was supposed to Lucas's Farm's on the other side of town [Music] are you sure okay we're going to get back to the aliens anytime soon or do we need to learn about the intricate details of how this affects the local bakery if we do it's not quite yet as the aliens don't have time to wait for all the character introductions to get out of the way before they act 15 mile wide spacecraft separate from the mother ship and descend upon the planet below resulting in one hell of a sight and you know they really didn't use all that much CGI in this movie this effect was accomplished by dumping dirt in a bin of water and recording it and playing it back in slow motion superimposed on the background like that you know it's interesting to see how they accomplished [ __ ] like this before throw it in the computer was the answer for everything the arrival is so huge and overtly noticeable by all even a submarine in the Persian Gulf realizes it's not just their instruments [ __ ] up jez get me a ltic command on the line why you're in the Persian Gulf you you should be calling Central Command I'm trying to get fired as they realize by now some serious [ __ ] is going down President Whitmore makes the command decision to have the vice president and most important sounding people we never see go off to a miscellaneous safe location while he maintains his seat at the White House in face of danger he's not the only one taking this calmly as David has been spending his time cracking the coat on the weird signal we can filter it out but my calculations right it's going to be gone in like 7 hours anyway it's reducing itself every time it recycles So eventually it's going to disappear much like the Fine Brothers subscriber numbers the magical disappearing signal takes on an ominous quality though once David learns of the other events taking place in the neighborhood also there are a ton of other characters and Side characters here but [ __ ] it edit it for time [ __ ] besides I can skip ahead to the part where they reveal what's hidden behind the smoke a massive spaceship Flying Saucer classic design or as Roger Ebert put it lacking in imagination I'm sorry Roger the aliens didn't come to Earth to show off the spinner rims to you they came to park their GI [ __ ] normous ships over every major city in the world at least that's the concept as long as you accept there are only 36 major cities on the planet that sounds important at all but I know there's already angry comments being panned about the fact that to get here I skipped over the initial introduction of Will Smith's character Steven Hiller he's an Air Force pilot who dreams of joining NASA while boning his stripper girlfriend Jasmine Duo played by Viv Fox she also has got a son Dylan played by Ross Bagley oh yeah but that signal thing that's kind of important oh it's like in chess first a strategically position your pieces then when the timing's right you strike Dave Dave chess is a turn-based strategy game you're thinking of Starcraft or is that too on the nose after explaining to Marty countdowns in movies usually lead up to explosions what should just so happen but a state of the dumbfounded gawking address by President Whitmore this doesn't really tell us anything we don't already know but it does let us segue somewhat easier over to the Revelation that Connie coincidentally enough is David's ex and that gives him a chance to call her and warn the nation of the impending threat you are just being paranoid not paranoia the embedding is very subtle it's probably been overlooked if well she wants to be like that fine world can just be destroyed then oh [ __ ] I still need a place to live she's damn quick on that block button though meaning Dave has to go to DC as quickly as possible has a screaming me can easily enter the White House during an alien invasion thing is he's environmentally conscious so he doesn't have a gas guzzling pollution machine to do it with so he must rely on his slightly less wired father to drive him let's just get there as quickly as possible R huh you think we'll get to Washington and won't be there seriously Dev you keep talking to me like that and I'm turning this car around I've had it up to here with alien invasion don't got to deal with your [ __ ] too anyway we still have over an hour and a half of a movie to get through and [ __ ] tons of exposition of marginal importance so while all this is going on Will Smith returns to duty while he was supposed to be on leave but what's this A letter from NASA well he can't read it so why not have his inexplicably friendly buddy with no established family or relationships have the honors Jimmy Wilder played by Harry conik Jr we regret to inform you that despite your excellent Record Service I'm sorry man but he look on the bright side you've got something to Aspire to later in the movie I'm just a happy go-lucky friendly guy with no relationships outside of my friendship with you that'll end well no bother David makes it down to DC and through the use of some technobabble that doesn't make any sense and artifacts from deleted scenes manages to contact Connie and convince her to condone the collaboration with the commander-in-chief thus David gets to explain the signal and the alien plan let's say that you wanted to coordinate with spaceships on different sides of the earth I couldn't send a direct signal right well not by radio no but if they used a neut trino signal yeah they could but these are primitive aliens so primitive not only do they require satellites to bounce the signals off of but they didn't even bring their own to do it the clock is ticking you like the synchronized clock app but I made it myself and I'll admit the extra graphical touches were unnecessary but you know I had plenty of time on the way over so I just figured out a little pizazz with this Revelation President Whitmore calls for evacuation but it's too late the aliens are already giving their own response to the light show attempt at establishing Communications and people say I'm too harsh a Critic next thing you know the countdown has completed and across the world or at least the continental United States we get to see the ships open up and blast the uny little human spits sending forth an explosion so huge it annihilates everything around it for miles no wonder he didn't Escape in time if he was heading towards the explosion don't worry though it's just highly recognizable landmarks and countless lives of innocent people being wiped out look on the bright side if you're cute and fuzzy thermodynamics ain't got [ __ ] on plot armor thus begins act two and now that the intentions of the Invaders are clear Will Smith heads in for a Counterattack along with his Squadron ready to kick all the alien asses resulting in the next big Revelation the aliens have force field Shield techa thing ofama jigs it it's it's kind of like in Halo except they actually work longer than 2 seconds before the squad has a chance to search for a weak point the city Destroyer opens up erupting with hundreds of fighter ships equipped with their own Shields of [ __ ] you whom tear through the human Fighters like they aren't even there pretty much everyone is K killed except for Will Smith of course and his good friend Jimmy oh wait no Jimmy what are you doing JY did you believe the critics complain that the plotting characters were cliche and predictable not defeated yet Smith takes the chase down into Beggar's Grand Canyon but can't outmaneuver the alien technology however utilizing the breaking shoot they added for the [ __ ] of it as they don't actually come on F18 Jets he gets the aliens to forget about the giant rock wall right in front of them damaging their craft and causing the battle to spill out onto the [Music] desert Welcome To Earth revealing the creatures to the audience at about the halfway point which is you a pretty standard in a lot of monster movies but considering the halfway point is over an hour into the film it's like wow fortunately before everything went to [ __ ] the president David and Julius managed to to escape on Air Force 1 they spend some time discussing how [ __ ] the human race is before Julius points the blame squarely at government in action and knowledge they had citing the Roswell incident and all the secrets held at Area 51 for half a century there have never been any spacecraft recovered by our government take my word for it there's no Area 51 and there's no recovered spaceship that's not entirely accurate what which part it's clearly the fact that there is objectively in Area 51 we don't know what's in it so it's like alien technology not alien technology can't confirm or deny that [ __ ] but the fact that the location exists is you know true but this is Hollywood so of course it's all true rumor has that the movie was actually going to have scenes filmed at actual military bases but emer's refusal to Omit Area 51 meant they were on their own with this one whatever the case may be we are introduced to the eccentric Dr Okun played by Brett Spiner possibly best known for his role as data in Star Trek the Next Generation Well well guess you'd like to see the big tamale huh the whole enchilada the taco supreme oh God I'm hungry turns out not only did they recover a crashed spaceship but mother of all coincidences it happened to be the same ones that are invading Now problem is the aliens use a proprietary charging port so the researchers couldn't figure out too much on how it worked up until the latest encounter when everything just turned on independently the last 24 hours have been really exciting exciting people are dying out there I don't think exciting is a word i' choose to describe it okay it makes me horny go back to exciting quickly enough the tour moves on to the three specimens turns out the big hulky alien with tentacles is just an exoskeleton and the actual creature is smaller weaker but very intelligent perhaps even capable of communicating via ESP just too bad they don't have a fresh specimen to experiment on until Will Smith shows up of course along with a convoy of refugees fleeing the giant death ships this provides Okun with a new toy to poke around with and see how it works problem is it just so happens to be still working it's even worse than we could have possibly imagine they're genocidal space cicas the creature decides to make a director's cut of alien autopsy killing the [ __ ] out of the doctors but taking control of Oken directly so that he may communicate with the others what is it you want us to do die okay okay okay I I get where you're coming from here but um I we work on a little compromise uh some broken bones and bloody noses uh will that work for you soon after the thing psychically [ __ ] with the president before everyone else just shoots the [ __ ] turns out Whitmore had a psychomantis moment thanks to that and knows what they're after the creatures go from planet to planet and consume everything before heading out in search of more victims more food you you see invoking mass extinction on an Interstellar level is kind of like Pringles once you pop you just can't stop with this knowledge the president makes the call to Nuke the [ __ ] out of here much to David's dismay as even if that does work the result of all Nations fighting the aliens off with nukes would pretty much [ __ ] the planet anyway but it's not like that's going to happen as when they score a direct hit on a city Destroyer wouldn't you know it they still have those shield things and therefore the nuke did [ __ ] all but dump a bunch of radiation on our own people at this point David is livid and liquored madly rambling about the virtues of self-destruction Cu maybe if we screw this planet up enough they won't want it anymore that's like licking your candy bar to make sure it doesn't get stolen by ants however this is the turning point in the war Julius tells David to get up before he catches cold from the cold floor which is not how it works but somehow puts the idea in David's head of how he could defeat the alien Army of course that just makes me wonder how the [ __ ] he didn't think of this earlier as hacking is what he does does and he already decoded the alien signals from before but either way thanks to David's computer Wizardry they managed to take down the shield of the captured spaceship how did you do that I gave it a cold this is sort of a reference to or reimagining of War of the Worlds a thing that pushed the Martian Army back was the diseases they had no immunity against which makes me wonder how we didn't also get diseases from the marians but you that that's a different story to complain about the planets where David had take the ship into space find the mother ship and upload the virus because clearly this species hasn't figured out how to password protect their Wi-Fi yet Will Smith will help him fly there and once the virus runs it will disable the shields of every single alien ship across the planet transmitted via the satellite signal they had used earlier at that point the entire world will coordinate a strike against the Invaders and maybe just maybe win the day the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holid day as if that's what you were going for it really might have helped if you had had brought up that other countries even existed some time before now I mean so many characters in this movie so many interwoven black threads and none of them are from anywhere other than New York or La speaking of all those interwoven plot threads and characters yeah they're pretty much all here at Area 51 yeah the movie does explain it adequately but that's the thing about doing a weekly review show you have to finish it sometime within the week and holy [ __ ] that would take a lot of time to expose it kind of like the reason why this movie is 2 and a half hours long either way the guys make it to the mother and hack the system ridiculously easily allowing the virus to be uploaded this has the desired effect of dropping all the alien Shields allowing the remaining forces to do some real damage however pelting the 15 M wide ships with firecrackers isn't killing them as fast as we'd like but when they open the big ass Laser cannon our fellas remember what they learned all those hours playing [Music] EDF that is a negative impact that is an N negative impact spare the part about homing missiles being really [ __ ] at actually hitting anything you want don't worry though Russell thanks to his flight experience is also in the fight and still has a missile to spare except of course it won't launch resulting in him just ramming the [ __ ] in the genocide gun successfully attacking their weak point for massive damage soon enough the word is spread all over the world about how to bring down the city destroyers preferably without suicide while the guys up in the Mother Ship take their opportunity to fire the nuke they brought up there and get the ever loving [ __ ] out of there therefore happy ending the world is in Ruins pretty much all infrastructure damage Beyond repair and now there's massive hunks of burning metal littering the world but hey the aliens are dead and this is the perfect opportunity to repopulate the earth I think that might not actually be the angle they meant to go with them I guess we'll find out when Resurgence comes out but anyway that was Independence Day and it's cliche it's simple it's not pretentious at all and it's a [ __ ] ton of fun despite how long it honestly is I feel feel that doesn't detract from it at all it made it a pain in the ass to squeeze into a Target window of 20-ish minutes but when watching the movie it doesn't feel that long it's a film that really utilizes its running time and keeps things interesting not to say I think all the different points brought in were completely necessary yes they added to it but a lot could be shaved off here and there without losing all that much family drama extra friends so many things work pretty well to flesh out the world but don't really do too much to contribute to the plot at all of course the plot was complex enough that I did not do it justice in this Abridged explanation of what it's about I can already feel the complaints about the points I skipped over and while I personally think especially with the angle to give at the end of the world unifying against an alien threat such a complex buildup could have been populated with characters who actually are from places other than New York and La that doesn't mean it wasn't fun to see that's pretty much how I feel about this movie as a whole it's simple cliche predictable and non-stop entertainment if you think movies must be poetic in some way it might disappoint but only if you feel that beyond the basic human experience of Joy it's it's not aristocratic Oscar bait but it isn't trying to be it's trying to be a fun ride Independence Day accomplishes this with flying colors scoring a solid four nukes right at the alien's ass out of five I think a five is reserved more for a movie that makes me feel like I don't know I've experienced something special some think that this does easily qualify for them but to me not quite thank you all for watching I been D Shadow and remember always Coca-Cola and I really don't like [Music] Coke [Music] [Applause] [Music] n I could have been at a barbecue but I ain't mad okay where the hell's my check

Channel: Decker Shado

Views: 138,843

Keywords: Decker Shado, Independence Day, Independance Day, ID4, movie review, science fiction, disaster movie, roland emmerich, sci fi, aliens, flying saucer, invasion, review, review (media genre)

Id: _GsOfFoFwvM

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2016