ENCORE: Independence Day (1996)

Yalo, yes, it's your old pal Slim, but I'm doing a new intro before the intro. As I record this, it's July 3rd, 2025. It's a double intro. This episode you're about to listen to is from the year 2020. It's our very first year doing the show. Still finding our footing. The intro is a little bit different. My voice might be a little bit different.

But the spirit of the show remains the same. So keep that in mind. We thought it might be fun to re-release Independence Day on Independence Day as our nation essentially crumbles into dust. As we speak, if you're not outside barbecuing some hot dogs right now, maybe eating some pasta salad with your in-laws, maybe you didn't even want to go to the party.

but your partner wanted to go. So you're putting on a brave face, but you're pissed off and you're going to go hang out. You'll probably be on your phone making small talk with your relatives. We've all been there, you know? Sit back. Enjoy this episode. It's five years old. We've been doing this since 2020. That's a long time. We have a ton of episodes in our backlog.

When I was younger, I was pretty against re-releasing episodes just on pure principle. But how often do you, the listener, actually go back and listen to old episodes? Do you search our catalog to see if we've covered a movie? Honestly, it's not that easy in some podcast apps. So maybe we'll do this every year. Maybe we'll release this episode. I don't know.

Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum. Have you seen these videos of Will Smith and these new music videos that he's shooting? What's happening? Enjoy the episode. Enjoy your holiday. Hopefully you're relaxing. Peace and love. Peace and love. Peace and love. Hey, it's your old pal Slim, and this is a special edition. bonus Independence Day episode of 70mm. Finally, a podcast about movies. Each week, I'm joined by famous artist Danny Haas. Oh, my God. What? And writer-poet...

Protolexus. The way he put his tongue on the tip of that cigar. In this very special bonus episode, we're focusing on Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. Enjoy! If you don't watch this on 4th of July, are you even an American? Kick the tires and light the fires. I'm back. If you're not watching Independence Day on the day of release, unsubscribe from this podcast right now. That's what you need to do.

Don't go to that COVID-infested barbecue that you were invited to. No one's wearing masks. They're like high-fiving, touching utensils, sharing utensils, drinking from the same cup. It's over at that party. Don't go to it. They're finished. So we're talking about Independence Day. 19, what year is this? 96. Six. Roland Emmerich. Stargate. Will Smith. Ever heard of him? God. Fresh Prince.

Of Bel Air. Jeff Goldblum. Oh my God. Has he ever looked as good as he did in this movie? How about the tight fade that he had in this movie? Oh my God. Unbelievable. Also, how is he taller than Will Smith? One of my notes is, how about that strut Jeff Goldblum was doing at the end of this movie? In the desert. Oh, yeah. The desert strut is better than the strut from Armageddon.

Proto, do you have a prepared synopsis for this movie? I usually spring it on you in bonus episodes and you usually have a scrambling face on, but if not, it's okay. Independence Day, the epic that it is, is presented in three parts, beginning on July 2nd, where an alien species crosses over.

the moon and uh the first encounter the aliens the humans have with the aliens is that it scrambles their satellites and nobody can get a clear television picture everyone's going crazy um and we're introduced to a lot of the uh the the plot lines and a lot of different characters that start out separate. And then as the movie progresses, come together. As I was watching this, I forgot the scope of this movie. It really starts in a lot of different places. It's a five hour movie.

With six different main characters. But so you kind of see them all in different places, different parts of the country. And so July 2nd is really contact with... uh the aliens and then it moves in to and then we've when we find out their motive um that they're here to attack because they initiate attack jeff goldblum's character finds uh kind of realizes that warns the president

right as it's about to happen they're able to escape the white house before it explodes uh then july 3rd is the earth's counter-attack against the aliens that really fails because surprise the aliens have shields um aliens continue on their war path really to exterminate humanity that's their plan and humanity has to come up with a solution to stop them and then on july 4th

Our heroes have a plan. They find a weakness in the alien technology. They are able to give the aliens a cold and really thread the needle. in one of the most amazing ways humanity and human history that's ever been done and save the day, save the planet, save the species, and light the cigars at the end and celebrate. Fat lady, thanks. We're going to give them a cold. What'd you say? I mean, the strut. I want to come back to the strut at the end of the movie.

Wanted to have sexual relations with Jeff Goldblum when I saw him strutting in the desert. I wasn't ready to throw myself on him. It was unreal. The way he put his tongue on the tip of that cigar. He loved it. He just saved the human race right there. It's a joke, but they saved the human race. They can write their own checks for the rest of their days in that moment.

Like, it's insane what they pulled off in hour five of Independence Day. Full disclosure, this movie, when I saw this in theaters... I was like ready to sign up for the military. This was like the greatest movie I've ever seen as a, I don't know, 14, 13 year old. 13 year old. Unbelievable. This was, I was like weeping into theater.

During all these scenes where people were dying, the president's wife died, sobbing. When they run up to them at the end of this movie, I'm sobbing. I couldn't get over how in love with this movie at the time when I came out. So Danny, that was the same with you? Oh, easily. One of the best movies. One of the best summers for me was to see this movie as a blockbuster. I mean, I don't even know what I've seen Will Smith in before this besides Fresh Prince. This is way before Men in Black.

Fame. No, it's only a year before Men in Black. Men in Black was 97. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, and this time period is like a nice sweet spot where everything hasn't been taken over by CG yet. They're still building miniatures. The miniature of that White House, everything they blow up in this movie is basically a miniature. It's just, it's, I love it so much. I love everyone in this movie. Will Smith's amazing.

Vivica's amazing. Mary McDonnell, I love her so much. She's my president from Battlestar. Will Smith, the god. Purdy, do you remember seeing this movie in theaters when it came out? I don't remember seeing it in theaters, but I've seen this movie so many. Many times. There's a few movies that my dad would always play because he loved to crank it up. The audio, put it on the big screen. So this was one of them.

terminators um also godzilla which also roland did as well we used to watch that all the time uh which makes sense this has totally that that vibe yeah This movie, I knew every scene in this movie. It all just like came back. I knew every line. I feel like I've seen this so, so many times.

Yeah. And I was, I was just laughing out loud as I was watching this and my wife was like, what are you doing? Like, what is going on? She had no idea, but I was just having such a good time. Like it just took me back. Yeah. To the good old days, the 90s, man. God. It's just unbelievable how good this movie was at the time. Me and Jonesy and Dale and the interview with the Podcast Vampire did War of the Worlds, and I had a problem with how the sun...

was ready to join the military at the alien invasion. And I had the exact opposite reaction in this movie. I was ready to get in one of those planes when I was sitting in the theater. Like, where is the local Navy sign-up sheet? at this strip mall get me on board immediately like the scene with Will Smith when he knocks down that one fighter the alien plane and he's walking over to it like

streaming down my face. You are emotional with Will Smith in that moment. And he is like, oh my God, what a Roland. Where you at? Where you at? It's like you're ready to fight with him. Like, Will, I'm here with you in the theater. Let's go do it. Let's kill this alien, son of a bitch. Also, the best thing is he punches it in the face. Right. Like he doesn't pull out a side pistol and shoot it like you would expect from the military. He sucker punches that son of a, in a face.

and knock some square out to where he can drag him across the desert for how long until he's picked up by those RVs. It's not only that. He punches it and then he sits down and lights the cigar. Yes. Like you just had the first encounter with an alien and you're just going to sit. Do you even know, Will, if you knocked it out? I guess you don't even care. Doesn't care. You're that confident. Welcome to Earth.

That's what I call a close encounter. Also, right after that, he waltzes into Area 51. Remember, the one soldier's like, this is a restricted area. And then Will Smith opens up his chute and shows him an alien. And then he's like, okay, right this way, sir. Like, that's the... clearance this like how do you even know if that's a real alien it could have just been a fake alien and he just lets will smith walton area 51 let me just say when i'm the president of the united states

I am Air Force wanting my ass to Area 51 day one on the job. And I'm looking at all the things. So much to love in this movie. The Bill Pullman. I don't think his voice hit over. two decibels in this entire film. I don't know what kind of restrained performance he was told to give, but man, young president in this movie, youngest president in any of these movies I can think of.

Get the secretary of defense on the phone right now. Golly. How did the aliens get there so fast with no one seeing them? Even if you look into space? I feel like a week ago you would have been able to see those aliens, right? Like you can see the moon. Yeah. They don't really explain if like they just came out of hyperspace, you know, right then. And that's where the movie starts. They're at the moon.

Yeah. Yeah. Who cares? It really does. I mean, there's a lot about this. It doesn't matter. I remember, I think I saw, I saw independence day resurgence. And when I saw that, I think with that, there's like a spoilers. There's like an even. bigger ship that comes in that takes over like the continent. It's like the size of like the United States or something ridiculous like that. And I,

I can't remember where I read this, but it was saying something that if a ship of that size were to come in the atmosphere, there'd be so much pressure that everything underneath of it would just be completely scorched. So like these giant ships that are like breaching the atmosphere. All those cities would have just been fried to begin with. None of this makes any sense. Also, that was something that annoyed me so much. Will Smith had this amazing career here. Obviously, he's like an icon.

And he was still making movies around the time Resurgence came out. They couldn't have gotten Goldblum and Will Smith to come back and just have this amazing, fun action movie to topple this one? How did they not make that work?

Wasn't it even written by the director of the first one? Same director. Goldblum came back. Oh, he directed it as well? Yeah, Roland. Pullman came back. He had that grizzled beard. I didn't watch it. I think I did watch it, but I don't remember anything about it except for the beard. Jeff's dad was in it again. Really? He's on a sailboat. That's all I remember from the movie. Let's talk about Randy Quaid is a total character in this movie.

Cousin Eddie again. He literally plays Cousin Eddie. On top of that, how about his son looking like a Keanu Reeves knockoff in his entire movie? Did he just come out of a school for creating Keanu Reeves stunt doubles? These kids wanting to lose their virginity the whole time too. Horny ass daughter Dude That scene at the end Where they're like I don't want to die a virgin I don't want to die a virgin And the boy's like Yeah

I don't want to die a virgin either. And that's the scene? Then it just cuts away. What is going on? This movie is almost three hours long. Roland, you don't think it could have cut a little bit of this out? I think the scene where the aliens arrive and everyone is reacting, like everyone in Wall Street, that's like a 90-minute scene.

of just people seeing the ship arrive, getting in traffic, getting out of their car, that idiot cop who just stops in the middle of traffic. None of that makes any sense to me, but it's so long. Well, the ships are in the clouds for half the movie. Whether it's like, what is it? What is it? And it just shows like these billowing clouds.

It's like, where are they? You know, you're in like, like hours and hours are going by and nothing's coming through the atmosphere. That was, yeah, that was another one of those things that didn't make any sense. Like no one saw those clouds coming. You can't. hide these ships for that long. Nobody knew that the aliens were even there until they finally just showed up. Also, how is the president, he even references this, how are you not evacuating these cities immediately?

What are you thinking? Right? That should be step one. Everyone get the F out of here. They don't even do that until, uh, we got there. Jeff Goldblum's like, uh, uh, uh, the, the count, it's, it's a countdown. Time's up. He tells them they're using the satellites. It takes this rando to figure out that the satellites have been hacked. No one could figure that out ahead of time? That these alien ships are going to vaporize you? Idiot. President. You should resign immediately.

Well, they have that great shot where she's like, yeah, no need to panic. Everyone should stay at their homes. And if you are going to leave, do it in an orderly manner. And then it cuts to like everyone rioting in the streets trying to get out of the city. Which is going to happen. Yeah. So it like makes no sense to say like stay in your homes. Yeah. Bad news. A character I love is Jeff's coworker. Oh, his. David. David. David.

David, what do I do? Maybe one of the most noticeable voices in the history of movies, Harvey Fierstein. Yeah, in cinema. Absolutely. God, what an actor. David! They realize they need, I think, pilots. And Randy Quaid's a drunk and he suits up. His character says that he's been abducted by aliens and no one believed him for years. Did you catch when they showed that photo of him?

Like from the war or whatever. One of the worst Photoshop's I've ever seen. Oh my God. I mean, what was Photoshop like even 1996 at that point? They could have done a little bit better. I was in NAMM. And I've been a crap duster pretty much ever since. Vivek A. Fox is in this. Plays an exotic dancer. Totally forgot about that subplot.

There's literally no woman in this movie that does anything remotely helpful to the cause. It's always a man. Can you imagine if Will Smith's character was played by a woman? This would have been earth shattering 1996. It's just like, there's like, I mean, the first lady dies. Vivica Fox, you know, she, the dog is rescued.

They really could have redone some of the script for modern day at this point. Maybe Resurgence did, I don't remember, but not kind to women. Yeah, the president's wife dying, that was gut-wrenching. still holds up with a daughter goes in and then he has that conversation afterwards. Like, you know, is mommy sleeping now? I cried. I cried rewatching that scene again on the floor. I was trying to hide my eyes from Amanda.

That scene holds up. I didn't want to get, are you crying during independence day? I didn't want to get that. Still holds up. Still holds up. Oh, so Jeff Goldblum is. What does he do at that newspaper? Is he the computer guy? No one knows. Like, what is his job? I thought he was like the editor-in-chief. I don't know. That's what I thought at first, but I don't think so. Yeah, he's something with like the network.

So the one point I wanted to get to is they're trying to figure out what's going on with his satellites. He's using this laptop. When I was a kid, all I ever wanted was a laptop. Laptop was like the height of technology. I thought if I could get a laptop, I could do anything. That is the coolest thing ever. And man, the laptop he had, it's been replaced by like cell phones now, I guess, like the luxury of having a internet connected device. But I loved that laptop he was using.

Yeah, this movie nails all the stupid tropes of someone working on a laptop. Yeah. And we're in. Yeah. They're on the Hylian spaceship. Let me connect to their network with my laptop. Duct tape to my lap. I mean, the idea of him feeding a virus to the alien mothership. I mean, in 1996, maybe that flew. Maybe. But now it's like, what virus are you feeding the mothership?

that is going to hack their systems. There's a shot where they show the IT guy in the mothership. Did you catch that scene where it's just like them standing in front of a bunch of TVs? I tried to pause that scene to see what the hell that shot was. It was so bizarre, but they're using monitors. that are like SD monitors in this alien spaceship. I was laughing like, they're so advanced, but they're still using like 480 PCRTs in this alien mothership. Get off of it.

I love when they finally hacked the ship and it's that animated gif of the laughing skull. Like, got him. Be sure to send this GIF with the virus. Son, what file did you send to them? I sent them the... laughing skull crossbones file dad I love the scene of them though in that cockpit at the end just smoking cigars that whole escape scene is so good Harvey fires yeah I have Harvey as like one of the most recognizable voices ever time's up

Jeff Goldblum sees that there's a countdown from the satellites and they're escaping before they get vaporized. They barely make it out and they're on the Air Force One and Jeff's like, time's up. In that moment, would you really say time's up? I'd be like, oh shit, it's coming. I love that. When all the aliens start.

hitting all the cities with the lasers. Man, I think that still looks great. The explosions in that are loud and look great and the the the cars flipping over as like the explosion comes forward yeah babe looks awesome I just love it the making of stuff is unreal I don't know if you guys have watched any of it

I'm not kidding. Everything that blows up in this movie was a model. They did such an incredible job. So they wanted the explosion to look real, the fire, so they wanted to use real fire. But the problem with doing that kind of... The fire doesn't go out like it does in the film. Fire, when it explodes, it rises up. So they built...

the whole New York city flat and then they turned it on its side and then exploded straight up the street, like vertically and then film looking down. It was unreal watching them do it. Even came and talk about, I mean that. The model of the White House is like 14 feet wide. It took them months to build. It was like a $50,000 model. And the guys talking about it was like, usually we build three things if we're blowing something up. They literally only built one. They didn't have time to build.

because it costs so much. So watching them blow this up was incredible. You guys got to watch the behind the scenes of this stuff. The model's huge and the detail in it is unreal. So it's still, yeah, it still looks great. The miniature stuff. Yeah. They kind of bummed that like, I guess it's just a lost art, you know, actually building that stuff by hand and blowing it up. Cause it still looks amazing. I'm not, you know, who knows what.

I mean, when they started using CGI for this stuff, it still looked dated early on, but it still looks great. How about Harry DeConnick Jr. in this movie? I was glad he died. It's so annoying. But he had a lame death, too. You're supposed to be this amazing pilot and you just flake out and just get destroyed instantly. I loved how they think the missiles are going to work on these ships right off the bat.

You don't anticipate any kind of shields up. You're just going to shoot some mini missiles of these things and it's going to be over. Can we wake up a little bit? You seen any science fiction, anything? Although I do, like you were saying something like you wanted to sign up for the air force immediately.

when they're in the fighter pilots and they're calling out the, the launching the missiles, man, I just remember thinking that was so cool. Just box two. Oh, it's firing it off. And then the whole Will Smith. dogfight scene where he's escaping through the canyon. God, so good. Independence Day is my A New Hope. Jesus Christ. I don't know why you do this. Yeah, some of the fighter...

plane stuff is great. But then at the end, when, um, the, I forget the character's name, but the crop duster, when he's flying his jet up into the spaceship, he's literally going like five miles an hour. It's so slow. And it makes no sense at all. Like a lot of that stuff at the end doesn't look that good. Like things are moving so slow, like they're floating. It just looks bad. I love that Pullman.

He's a former pilot, and then he suits up to do battle. I love that. I love that. What's the term that's pro-military? Is it jingoism? That's just like overtly pro-military. What did you just say? Googling it right now. Yeah, someone Googled it. Going at the intern to confirm that that's a real word.

Jingoism. Extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy. How are you saying that? Jingoism. So it is a real word. Jingoism. I feel vindicated. Vindicated that MOV from Dash. I think this word should be banned. I am selfish. I am wrong. Thank you. But at the end of this movie, it's almost like it's an ad for the military. Like...

patriotism by force of the military. I did start to feel a little bit ill at the end of this movie because everyone's wearing military garb and they're like, yeah, we just genocided an entire alien race. Like, we did it. Like, I felt like, ew. I felt icky in this movie. I actually hate Brett Spiner's character in this movie.

He's so wasted. Disgusting. I was like, oh, he's the mad scientist who knows everything, but he really knows nothing. It's disgusting. I love that. Such an idiot. So stupid. And that scene where they get all killed by the alien and that. It so reminded me of Spider-Man 2, the Doc Ock scene where he just comes alive and he's got his tentacles and he's just attacking. It seems like it's filmed the exact same way.

That scene scared me as a kid. That was pretty creepy. The tentacles. Whipping around and then using his voice through his... That was cool. Choking him. I love that. Open the door. Get him out of there. No, wait. And it's like twitching around his neck. So gross. Soldier, is his glass bulletproof? No, sir.

Adam Baldwin. If it's not bulletproof, why didn't the alien just shove his face through that glass? You know, he could have just been murdered everybody in that murder. He could have just threw him right through the glass. I love them talking about like NORAD has been vaporized.

which includes like the vice president and like all the, you know, the entire cabinet is just dead. I love that like these cities, this is like the preeminent blockbuster for destruction movies. Like so many movies have come after this. where cities are just annihilated. I think Roland Emmerich has built a career on making those exact movies. Right, yeah. But it was interesting to see kind of like the first one that I remember anyway.

Oh, yeah. One of my notes was imagine a woman as a lead character here or anywhere in this movie. Yeah. You really feel that at the end where, you know, Will and Jeff come out of the plane and then both of their. Their significant others are riding in the Jeep, fawning over them. Oh, our heroes. It's like, ooh. I mean, we were fawning. Yeah, we all were. I was throwing clothes. I was on that jet. Wearing that adult onesie. Do people look around in a jet while they're flying like they do?

Like, would you be like angling your neck around flying a plane? It just seems like a waste of time. Don't they have rear view mirrors inside or something? I don't think so. Like on the inside? Like, can't you do like one of those like... you know, angled mirrors. It's like a circle, like a, like a wide, like a wide angle that just shows you what's around you. It just seems like a, like you're, what did Tom do in Top Gun, Matt? Can we talk about Top Gun?

It's a topic for a different podcast, but I'm just saying, it just feels like a waste of effort to turn your entire head while you're flying 400 miles an hour in a jet. That's all. Anyone flying a jet, leave us a voicemail. Write us an email. Let me know how it's done. If you've flown a jet, please. If you've ever flown a jet. They get in there. Randy Quaid caricatures it up, flies into that thing, and saves the day. Everything explodes.

How many lives were lost just by the ships falling down after they explode? All of them. Billions. It had to be billions. Well, even the idea that the... When he's deciding to do the nuke and it's like, oh, you know, civilian casualties won't be that bad. I mean, making that choice to like set off a nuke in your own country. Yeah. Over New York City. Yeah, that's a pretty big moment.

I made fun of the Photoshop earlier, but this also includes a green screen that rivals Batman 1989 at the end of that movie where they're looking at the flaming wreckage in the desert. What is going on there? Is this the first ever use of green screen in film? I mean, it's terrible. Didn't I promise you fireworks? Yeah, oh God. That was an ugh. Just the debris just falling.

endlessly from the sky. No one's worried about that. There's got to be radioactivity in those things. Those cities are going to be a wasteland for the rest of everyone's natural life. You can't get in there. What's power on those ships? Also a classic plot with this of that the...

an American has figured out the weakness of the aliens. And it cuts to like all of them, like spreading the message to all the other militaries throughout the world. Oh, there's Americans. They got a plan. I love that. Didn't they show like Pakistan? Right next to Israel. Yeah, they did. I was like, well, if anything is going to bring us together, it's aliens, I guess. I think he has like a montage like that in every one of his movies. The healing power of death.

It's like a recurring theme in his films. But yeah, this viewing felt way longer than I remember. I mean, it's like, it's literally two and a half hours. Should definitely not be the case. But three and a half stars, at least for me, which I realize is very similar to my The Shining rating, which is probably a very strange thing to say, but I love this movie.

This could be a four-star, five-star rating for me, much like The Fast and the Furious was. But yeah, love this movie. For me, it's a four-star movie. It's not perfect. And I know it's two enough hours, but I couldn't imagine. what scene I would cut from this movie. They're all great. The presidential speech is classic. It's so good. I love this movie. Yeah, four stars. I could watch it every year. It never gets old.

Yeah, I love this movie too. I have a ton of fun with it. It did feel long. I think I sent a message to you guys letting you know it was two and a half hours because I did not remember it being that long. I give it three stars. Um, yeah, it's a ton of fun. I love it. The end. All I know is if aliens invade us, this is how I want them to do it. I know they walk among us now, but I don't want this a rival business. I want a full frontal attack.

From these aliens. I want these massive ships. Are we meeting in Orlando to ready up with Danny as we go to battle? I have my bunker ready, guys. Excuse me? Danny wants four billion a day. There you have it. Independence Day, it's probably playing right now on Saturday, whatever day this is you're listening to it. This is going to be our regular release for the upcoming week, so no official release on Monday.

But hopefully this brought just a piece of joy into your afternoon. You know, it's probably 100 degrees outside. You don't want to do anything except sit in and turn the volume up to 80 because you can't hear Bill Pullman say anything. thanks everyone for listening we'll see you next week goodbye 78mm is a VHS Village production and produced by Dale underscore A. Sponsored by Half Double Design. Original artwork provided by Danny Haas. Spiritual guidance provided by Protolexis.

This episode was mixed and edited by me, Slim. Special thanks to the good people at Letterboxd and for a chance to win a pro Letterboxd account, share the show and tag us on social media at 70mmpod. Goodbye.