ID4. Fine.
This movie had the single stupidest alien invaders I have ever had the misfortune of seeing… the Trade Federation from the Star Wars prequels were smarter than these things. And they got their asses kicked by President Lone Star, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and The Fly.
Honestly, I don't understand why Fox has such a boner for this movie. They play it every couple of months. But, why, why, why does the guy who made this keep getting work? ID4 sucked, Godzilla sucked, and I heard nothing good about Day After Tomorrow.
I was prepared to make a rather lengthy post outlining the flaws in this movie, but have instead stumbled upon a much more amusing list.
Things That I Never Knew Before
By Dean Kanipe Area 51 Research Center
While viewing the film Independence Day, it became apparent that I was remarkably uninformed about several things related to Area 51, aliens, military operations, and America in general. Below is a quick list of a few important things I learned from the film that I never knew before, and a few lessons that were inferred from the plot. I wish to thank the creators of ID4 for making these facts much clearer to me.
[hide]
1. Aliens like to blow up significant land marks first. Apparently the best way to destroy a city is to position your "Death Ray" over the most recognizable building.
2. All pro-UFO people are morons who dance atop the building directly under the Death Ray.
3. If alien "Destroyers" come to your city to blast it into oblivion, leave BEFORE they fire the Death Ray.
4. If alien "Destroyers" come to your city to blast it into oblivion and you are caught in traffic at the last minute, make sure that you are travelling with a dog and a small child. The Law of Averages says you'll survive the Death Ray.
5. If alien "Destroyers" come to your city to blast it into oblivion and you are caught in traffic at the last minute, make sure that you are NOT a raspy-voiced homosexual cable TV executive. The Law of Averages says you'll get waxed by the Death Ray.
6. Stripping is a lucrative profession that allows one to "Pay the bills," "take care of one's boy," and own a nice house in a middle class subdivision.
7. Strippers got moxie. When the going gets tough, they can drive California Highway Department utility vehicles, collect refugees and use their extensive survival skills to provide food and comfort to survivors.
8. NASA sends out rejection letters, just like Harvard.
9. Area 51 is an "Assault Base".
10. . A fleet of RVs can travel across the Nevada Test Site in line-abreast formation without the need of roads, thanks to the immense expanses of Salt Flats and the lack of impeding mountains.
11. Area 51 has a big chain-link fence around it, and the guards at the gate wear black combat fatigues with white metal helmets in 120 degree heat.
12. Any bonehead with an RV can get to Area 51 by driving across the Salt Flat to the gate and flashing a captured alien to the guard.
13. Standard operating procedure for the Air Force is to cluster all vehicles, aircraft, and ground personnel on a 200 meter section of tarmac in the middle of an Alien Invasion.
14. The F-18 is the sole fighter in use by all branches of the service, including Marines and Air Force.
15. From the assault scenes on the Alien "Destroyers', it appears that the F-18 must have had a 1000 unit production run.
16. Both F-18s and B-2s must close to within 10 km of a target 20 km across before engaging with both air-to-air missiles and aerial launched nuclear cruise missiles.
17. People too drunk to walk can still fly crop dusters and F-18s.
18. Any bonehead with rudimentary aviation experience can be taught to pilot an F-18 in 5 hours.
19. Any bonehead with F-18 flight experience can learn to pilot an Alien fighter in 5 minutes.
20. Aliens with anatomy that includes tentacles and clawed feet use flight yokes just like ours.
21. Aliens are wimps, even the ones in "Bio-Mechanical" armor. They have glass jaws and can be taken out with a punch by Will Smith. (He has had a lot of practice on photographers, though.)
22. Aliens are stupid. When one of their fighters approaches the carrier, they don't bother to communicate with the pilot.
23. Aliens are even more stupid. They pursue their targets into canyons walls and closing blast doors.
24. Aliens are unbelievably stupid. While unarmed and unarmored, they do things to piss off people with hand guns.
25. Aliens are just too stupid for words to express. An alien air traffic controller can look at a fighter that has been human-modified for 20 minutes and is only 50 feet away and not notice the welded-on missile rack until the missile is fired through his work station.
26. Aliens are remarkably inarticulate. All they can say is, "Release me," "No peace," and "Die!"
27. If you're President and your administration is faltering, an Alien Invasion might be a good way to boost your ratings in the polls.
28. If you're President and your administration is faltering, manage to work into every other sentence the fact that you "flew in the Persian Gulf." No need to specify what branch of service.
29. If you're President and your administration is faltering and an Alien Invasion occurs, relocate the V.P., the Cabinet, and the Joint Chiefs to one centralized location so that the Aliens can take them all out with one shot. You can always blame the problems of the past on them after victory is achieved.
30. The President's Press secretary keeps her cell phone listed in the phone book "in case of emergencies."
31. If your father abandons his Jewish beliefs after the death of your mother, always carry around a Torah and a Yarmulke. Aliens might attack and offer him a chance to renew his faith.
32. If aliens abduct you and effectively destroy your life by making you the laughing stock of the community, never fear. When their "Destroyers" come, you will be vindicated to those who mocked your tale.
33. If aliens abduct you and do unspeakable things to you, you can have revenge upon them by flying an F-18 into their Death Ray.
34. If aliens abduct you and do unspeakable things to you and you have revenge upon them by flying an F-18 into their Death Ray, you will obtain redemption and your children will be proud of you.
35. The best way to win back a former wife is to be very annoying, look perpetually vexed, and keep wearing your wedding ring for 4 years after the divorce.
36. In 10 hours, one man with a Macintosh Laptop can code a virus in C++ that will take down a completely alien computer system.
37. Even though the Mac isn't compatible with most other Earthly operating systems, it can interface with an alien computer.
38. Alien network security is nonexistent.
39. Rather than attacking a planet when they first encounter it (i.e., 1940s), aliens wait until the planet has developed just enough technology to possibly defend itself.
40. Scientists at Area 51 are a bit touched in the head, and "Don't get out much."
41. There's no need to post armed guards in a room where four puny humans operate on an eight-foot tall alien with multiple tentacles.
42. An old man that drives slower than a booger in a jar of honey can make it from New York to Washington D.C. in five hours, despite traffic so thick that you can walk on it. Whereas in the same five hours a cable boss that's on a caffeine high only makes it one block past the Empire State Building.
43. Despite being a "contamination-free" zone, the military will let your dad's cigar-smoking dirty old ass just waltz right into the Area 51 lab.
44. Aliens are so bloody clueless that after the first of their giant death ships is destroyed when somebody flies a plane into its death ray, they decide to keep exposing their death rays on every other ship on the planet so they can get destroyed too.
45. When a fifteen mile wide ship floating right above you is destroyed, it won't fall on you. It'll drift a hundred miles or so to the side so it can fall down without giving you a headache.
46. Aliens can't make up their mind if they're wimps or tough. They stay unconscious for hours after getting punched by some loud mouthed jackass, but upon waking up they can effortlessly kill multiple people and take about four hundred bullets to the chest before they go down.
47. When an entire city is being blown up, just hide in a closet. Closets are portals to, uh, some other plane of existence or something, and nobody can be hurt inside one.
48. A prerequisite to taking part in the fight against marauding aliens is that you be incredibly annoying, so much so that somebody watching your efforts will probably be rooting for the aliens.
49. If the end of the world is near the Secret Service will let the President fly an F-18 near Alien Death Ray
50. The World Trade Center survived the alien attack better than it survived 9/11.[/hide]
@Darkstorm:
Just noticed this.
Streamline dub was great, even with the translation problems. I actually ending up buying it on DVD twice because the first release had a new dub.
Great, great film.
They released the Streamline version to dvd? I may have to buy that… again.