ID4 - The Independence Day Discussion Thread

No it absolutely positively was not in any way shape or form related to War of the Worlds. Not the book, not the original movie, or that crapfest of a remake.

No.

You have completely missed the SINGLE point that War of the Worlds was trying to make if you think that.

War of the Worlds is about man's arrogance and despite their technological advances they are unable to over come an invading alien race, however are "saved" by a tiny micro-organism.

ID4 is about man's success in using their own technology to over come an invading alien race.

See the difference ?

HGWells was making a point, while Will Smith et al were making an action movie.

 

I malkie.

 

The only truly great thing about this movie was David Arnold's 'career best' score. That was awesome . . . moving, emotional, but he really ripped out the stops on the action sequences. The End Titles all by themselves put this one in the upper echelons of film music.

 

Beyond the realm of possibility? Maybe.

Enjoyably action flick? Yes.

 

Agreed. Just pure entertainment, nothing more. Best thing is, it doesn't strive to be anything more.

True... *shrug*

 

I liked the fact that the allies of the world teamed up to defeat the alien invasion. Not unlike D Day, when the Germans were defeated.

 

Why is the answer to defeating the aliens always a nuclear attack? Don't they know that won't work?

 

Well yeah, they'll work if you shoot them in the face.

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Was ID4 mostly CG or model work?

 

That's an extremely well put together display of both model work and CG. ID4 definitely rates up there as one of the best FX movies of it's time.

Now-a-days, T.V. shows have better FX shots then movies.

 

I daresay it's one of the best special-effects movies of ALL time.
I know they wrote a special computer program to "randomize" the alien attack-fighters and the F/A-18 Hornets for all the dogfight scenes, so they didn't have to plot the course of each plane one at a time. It was revolutionary, and variants of the program have shown up in other movies, not to mention video games.

 

I really like the extra on the DVD which shows you all the TV announcer footage of the incoming alien invasion.

 

Holy carp, I never knew that.

And I'm a big Stargate fan, so this especially shocking.

 

It's not one of my favorite movies by any stretch of the means..but I do have a question.

So how exactly were the ships supposed to be destroyed? At the end...Robert Loggia tells the communications guy to get on the radio and tell everyone how to take them down.

?????

I mean....are they supposed to wait until the last second before the aliens use they're primary weapon and then fly a fighter up into it? That just makes no sense...

or am I missing something?

 

that's a good question. maybe they just have to concentrate all their weapons on that part of the ship even when it's closed and if they hit that part enought times then that'll bring the ship down without having to wait for the weapon to fire

 

Well, could be..I guess I'll go with that.

It has it's problems...but some parts are pretty good.

 

Every time I watch ID4, I can't help but think "RIPOFF"!

Anybody see "V" and "V:The Final Battle" in the 80's?

No?

Well, it starts with giant alien saucers appearing without warning and settling over the major cities of the world...

And they're not friendly!

 

^^^^ That was good stuff there. That was a big deal back then. I'm betting the budget on that was huge for the time. Those two mini-series were great. Series: pretty bad.

 

Let's not ever discuss "V: The series" again. It never happened!

 

i liked the opening where we see the moon and then the plaque from Apollo 11 and we ground start to shake and then the shadow gradually moving across the surface

 

I just bought the soundtrack from iTunes last night.

Great score.