Let’s Watch, Retro Edition: Independence Day (1996)
Welcome to Earth.
This Week’s Film:
“Everyone’s trying to get out of Washington, and we’re the only schmucks trying to get in.”
What They Say This Movie Is About:
After a worldwide attack by a powerful extraterrestrial race, the people of Earth coalesce to launch a counterattack on July 4th, Independence Day in the United States.
What This Movie is Actually About:
The “Meanwhile …” guy from the original Justice League cartoon gets paid serious overtime from the constant scene changes, while Will Smith sasses off to an alien carcass. Oh, and one of the kids from Mrs. Doubtfire is here! Say hi to Lisa Jakub, everybody!
Why This Movie Is Actually Good:
It may be a long film, but it’s turn-your-brain-off-and-munch-popcorn action. You’ll feel a sense of solidarity. You’ll root for President Bill Pullman. You’ll feel like this is how we’d respond to an alien invasion, instead of the bored indifference we actually had. And the cast members are wildly varied for an action film — we’ve got Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Taxi’s Judd Hirsch, and even Mae Whitman is here as the President’s daughter! Say hi to Mae, everybody!
“Independence Day” was also the first film watched with two new additions to the group: Elizabeth and Henry! Yes, the man who brings you the Burnies every year signed on for this film.
Plot Points by Point, With the Gang:
Our movie begins on July 2nd, looking at the US flag on the moon. That’s right, that’s OUR moon, baby, nuts to your metric system! An alien spaceship flies past the moon, engulfing it in shadow.
Meanwhile, in the Pentagon, intel confirms something is by the moon and it’s over 500km in size, spitting out weird signals … so … not “nuts to your metric system”. Hollywood’s greatest President since the American Badass FDR, Bill Pullman (as President Whitmore) wakes up with his daughter Mae Whitman. He talks with his wife over the phone, who’s away in Los Angeles on First Lady business.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Jeff Goldblum plays chess against his movie dad, Judd Hirsch. Jeff wins, but the victory is cut short as he has to go to work at Compact Cable. Apparently one of the satellites responsible for Americans watching their precious tee-vee has crashed into the now-closer giant spaceship.
Meanwhile, in Imperial Valley California, the 90’s discount version of Chris Pratt is complaining to some kids about his vegetables growing like crap in this California desert. Down the road, drunk Randy Quaid (as Russ) is flying a crop dusting plane over the wrong field. Russ’ son Miguel tracks him down and is so disappointed in him.
Meanwhile, in space, the giant spaceship releases a bunch of smaller spaceships, which arrive in the atmosphere as giant flamey cloud thingies over numerous major cities across the planet.
Meanwhile, at Compact Cable, Jeff Goldblum intercepts a weird signal, and translates it into binary code. He heads up to the rooftop of the building to see a flamey cloud dissipate over NYC, revealing it’s a spaceship.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Will Smith (playing Steven) wakes up and notices his neighbors frantically packing up and leaving. He ignores numerous signs of anything being wrong until he heads outside and notices a giant spaceship in the sky.
Meanwhile, President Whitmore asks the American public to be cool, but no one in America is being cool right now. Jeff Goldblum sees the riots and fires and destruction firsthand in NYC as he tries to find his dad Judd Hirsch and get out of town.
Meanwhile, in California, Russ gets arrested for being drunk in public at a diner as hecklers egg him on. Miguel is even more disappointed in him. Seeing the alien ship in the sky, Miguel makes the call to get his siblings outta here. Russ and Miguel fight about where they’re going but stop fighting once Miguel’s little brother starts coughing. He’s terminally ill with something. Henry notices something about one of the hecklers.
Meanwhile, Steven reports to the Marine base for Marine duties, and it’s revealed that a) he’s dating a stripper named Jasmine, and b) he is planning on marrying Jasmine. No judgment here folks, because at While Rome Burns, we believe sex work is work.
Meanwhile, Jeff and Judd drove all the way to Washington, D.C. to track down a woman named Constance Levinson, who turns out is Jeff’s old flame and happens to work for President Whitmore. Apparently the three have a history, so Jeff and Judd are allowed inside the White House to explain Jeff’s findings with the binary code.
Meanwhile, a helicopter adorned with concert-style light panels launches in the air to send signals of peace to the spaceship. Spaceship don’t give a damn and pews the helicopter into dust.
All the spaceships charge their beeg lasers and fire upon the Earth. A montage of buildings blowing up and cars flipping commences and it’s cool af. The White House is blown up, the U.S. Capitol disintegrates, and cities everywhere are on fire as Air Force One just barely avoids the explosions. Jasmine and her boy flee their car into a tunnel, hiding in a maintenance room.
The day is now July 3rd.
Russ was abducted by aliens once, so he’s feeling validated right now. President Whitmore laments what they coulda woulda shoulda done. Tiffany and her son emerge from the tunnel to see a ruined Los Angeles.
Steven and some Marines counterattack the big alien ship in Los Angeles. They fire ze missiles at the ship to no effect, and the aliens are like “lol, here have a few dozen fighters”. A big dogfight ensues, killing everyone except for Will Smith, who has one alien pursue him in a canyon and does some slick maneuvering to get the alien to crash into the canyon wallside while trying to escape or something. The ship is badly damaged, and Will goes in to check it out, and sees an alien emerge from the door. He punches it and says that classic line, “Welcome to Earth”.
Elsewhere, Tiffany finds an abandoned truck and starts picking up anyone who’s still alive in L.A. Russ tends to his sick son and is desperate for a doctor. Jeff Goldblum is getting airsick on Air Force One, and his dad’s trying to hook him up with Constance. Upon learning that the aliens have taken out NORAD, Whitmore contemplates nuclear war, which Jeff protests. Arguing ensues until Judd Hirsch yells at the President and his staff for being incompetent not just in this term, but being an incompetent government going back forever. He asks how they don’t have any intel from the UFO they supposedly have at Area 51. Whitmore says that’s not true, and the Secretary of State says it actually is true … kinda.
Jasmine happens upon a crashed Presidential helicopter. The First Lady is trapped under some wreckage, still alive but hurt pretty badly. Meanwhile, Steven is cursing as he drags the alien’s body through the salt flats. A trailer convoy approaches him, including Russ and his family. He asks for a lift to a nearby military base that isn’t on any map.
That military base happens to be Area 51, where Air Force One just happens to be landing. Whitmore and the gang (Jeff and Judd included) head 24 floors beneath the earth’s surface to meet Dr. Oaken, the head research guy of alien stuff. Oaken reveals a giant hangar where they’ve been keeping a spaceship, the same kind the aliens have, since the 50’s. They’ve been trying to repair and reverse engineer it for decades but the ship was basically offline until just a day or so ago when the aliens arrived. Whitmore tells Jeff to share his findings about the alien signals with Oaken.
Just outside Area 51, Russ and Steven arrive and are let right in when they show the smelly alien carcass. Apparently it’s still alive, so Oaken has it rushed to a medical room for examination. Steven wants to head to El Toro to find Jasmine, who’s currently making small talk with the First Lady.
Oaken and the gang cut open the alien and as they’re looking around, the alien wakes up and kills everybody in the room and takes over Oaken’s body. Whitmore and his staff arrive just outside the room and talk with the alien through a glass window. Whitmore asks if they can negotiate a truce and the alien’s like “nah” and tries mind-melding with Whitmore, so his staff give the alien a kiss with 18 bullets to the face.
Whitmore, being mind-melded for a minute, reveals the aliens are like locusts and they’re here to devour everything. It’s enough to convince him to go all out with nuclear war.
Elsewhere, Jeff Goldblum starts drinking the night away as he’s convinced the world’s going to end in nuclear winter, and Steven steals a helicopter to go find Jasmine.
Some fighter jets are sent to deliver a nuke to an alien ship outside of Houston, Texas, but it doesn’t damage the ship at all. Steven finds Jasmine and the First Lady, and brings them back to Area 51. Unfortunately, First Lady is bleeding internally and dies.
It is now July 4th. The day of the name of the movie.
Jeff’s been drinking all night and tosses garbage cans and probably flips a table or two. Judd Hirsch finds him and is like “dangit son, get off the floor before you catch cold,” which gives Jeff an idea on how to do … something.
A few hours later, Jeff shares his “something” with everyone, revealing he cracked the code on how the alien force field works. He suggests that using the spaceship, they head up to the mother ship, inject a code that scrambles the force field, which will give Earth a few minutes to find a way to blow up the smaller ships. Steven volunteers to fly the ship and help Jeff. Oh, and the space ship will be armed with a nuke, so they can blow up the mother ship while they visit.
Whitmore agrees this is their best shot, and send Morse Code messages to every army around the world.
The military at Area 51 is pretty sparse, so they send an “all hands on deck” request for anyone with flying experience to take up a plane. Russ sobers up and volunteers.
Before Steven and Jeff head up to space, Steven throws on a suit real quick and races to Area 51’s chapel, where he and Jasmine exchange vows and get married.
After the wedding, President Whitmore rallies all the pilots and gives the entire base the finest, most American goddamned speech in cinematic, nay, American history. Everybody clapped, including and especially you.
Everyone gets in their respective planes, including Whitmore, who used to be a combat pilot. Steven and Jeff fly off into space and get sucked into the mother ship via tractor beam. There’s millions of aliens walking around in here, and they’re slowly brought to the center of the ship for maintenance. Once they’re docked, Jeff immediately uses his fine hacking skills to inject that virus.
Once the virus is uploaded, Whitmore fires a missile at a ship heading towards Area 51. The force field is still up, and before giving up he’s like “lemme try that one more time” and the missile connects. A huge fight takes place over Area 51 as a ton of tiny ships come out of the big ship to laser the crap out of the trailer convoy, and all the fighter pilots use up their missiles.
The big ship over Area 51 starts opening its laser cannon. Whitmore has one more missile but misses the cannon opening. Russ has a missile left but it’s jammed. Looking at a picture of his kids, Russ decides to crash his plane into the cannon itself. The crash sets off a chain reaction that blows up the entire ship. Miguel is finally proud of his dad. All of Earth’s military forces start attacking all the ships’ laser cannons.
Jeff and Steven are still up in the mothership, docked with no place to go. Figuring they’re screwed, they decide to launch the nuke and go down with the aliens. The launch of the nuke rocks the ship free, so they high-tail it out of the ship just in time to blow the whole thing to kingdom come.
Everyone around the world celebrates amidst the flaming wreckage of all the ships. Whitmore and Jasmine and Connie and Judd Hirsch all head outside to find Jeff and Steven walking away from the crashed space ship, and celebrate Independence Day fireworks while watching the mother ship debris burn up in the atmosphere.
The end!
Should You Watch This Film?
If you’ve never seen it, you owe it to yourself. It’s big-budget disaster with action and high stakes and has a solid cast to keep you interested.
Best Out of Context Riff of the Night:
