History Awesome / IndependenceDay

* The canyon chase. After his entire squadron is slaughtered in a failed counter-attack, Captain Hiller, his plane depleted of weaponry, leads a pursuing alien attacker into a chase through the Grand Canyon, maneuvering an F/A-18 through ''extremely'' tight openings at high speed while the alien attacker continuously tries to hit him with its weapons, no doubt growing increasingly frustrated at being unable to hit Hiller's plane. The chase finally ends when Hiller, his plane rapidly running out of fuel, deploys his braking parachute and detaches it right into the face of the pursuing attacker. Using that to his advantage, Hiller ejects while his plane flies right into a canyon wall. The parachute finally flies off the attacker, which is then greeted with the explosion of the plane and the rapidly approaching canyon wall. The alien pilot is barely able to pull up and clips the canyon wall, crashlanding not too far away.

--> '''General Grey:''' Get onto the wire with every squadron around the world, tell em out to bring those sons of ''bitches'' down

* A major shout-out to the Royal Air Force, the Armée de l'air, the Luftwaffe, the Israeli Defense Forces, the JASDF, the VVS, the [=KLu=], the RSAF, the People's Liberarion Army Air Force, the [=FiAF=], the Royal Canadian Air Force, and every other air force who managed to hold their ground against the attackers and take down the city destroyers.

* The canyon chase. After his entire squadron is slaughtered in a failed counter-attack, Captain Hiller, his plane depleted of weaponry, leads a pursuing alien attacker into a chase through the Grand Canyon, maneuvering an F/A-18 through ''extremely'' tight openings at high speed while the alien attacker continuously tries to hit him with it's weapons, no doubt growing increasingly frustrated at being unable to hit Hiller's plane. The chase finally ends when Hiller, his plane rapidly running out of fuel, deploys his braking parachute and detaches it right into the face of the pursuing attacker. Using that to his advantage, Hiller ejects while his plane flies right into a canyon wall. The parachute finally flies off the attacker, which is then greeted with the explosion of the plane and the rapidly approaching canyon wall. The alien pilot is barely able to pull up and clips the canyon wall, crashlanding not too far away.

* The dog outrunning the fireball.

** That entire sequence where they launch their attack; the two decide they aren't getting out of this alive, and light up the cigars before setting off the virus and the nuke one after another, standing up to smile and wave at the aliens for good measure, all while three alien attackers hover behind them. The kicker is that the alien controller had no idea what was going on when it saw them. The confused and shocked reaction to the Jolly Roger virus appearing on the screens just sells the whole moment. Then the nuclear missile flies out of its launcher and streaks towards the alien controller's booth and even though it has no mouth, the controller does the closest thing to screaming "shit!" it can as a nuke

** That entire sequence where they launch their attack; the two decide they aren't getting out of this alive, and light up the cigars before setting off the virus and the nuke one after another, standing up to smile and wave at the aliens for good measure. The kicker is that the alien had no idea what was going on when it saw them. The confused and shocked reaction to the Jolly Roger virus appearing on the screens just sells the whole moment.

** That entire scene is a Crowning Moment of Awesome; Whitmore is the first to launch a missile once the virus is planted , and when his missile impacts against the shield, the entire attack is called off and despair fills the control room. The entire attack force breaks off, but Whitmore instead accelerates towards the City Destroyer and launches another missile. The entire control room watches as the missile soars towards the saucer, passes the point where the shields should have stopped it...and impacts against the hull. What moments ago was sheer hopelessness is replaced with sheer jubilation and Whitmore's plane is rejoined by his squadron, who then proceed to absolutely ''unload'' on the City Destroyer with multiple missiles.

** That entire scene is a Crowning Moment of Awesome; Whitmore is the first to launch a missile once the virus is planted , and when his missile impacts against the shield, the entire attack is called off and despair fills the control room. The entire attack force breaks off, but Whitmore instead accelerates towards the City Destroyer and launches another missile. The entire control room watches as the missile soars towards the saucer, passes the shields impact point...and impacts against the hull. What moments ago was sheer hopelessness is replaced with sheer jubilation and Whitmore's plane is rejoined by his squadron, who then proceed to absolutely ''unload'' on the City Destroyer with multiple missiles.

* The ''immense'' catharsis of watching the aliens city-destroyer cannon, that had destroyed so many landmarks and cities worldwide, disintegrate itself and ultimately destroy the entire saucer.

** The ''immense'' catharsis of watching the aliens city-destroyer cannon, that had destroyed so many landmarks and cities worldwide, disintegrate itself and ultimately destroy the entire saucer.

* Will Smith's character again, when he flashes the VSign, shouts "[[PreMortemOneLiner Peace!]]" and rams the nuke into the alien mothership's hangar control room.

* In the special edition, Julius gets distracted when David shows him a database of phonebooks, when the police start directed traffic into the empty southbound lane. Fortunately, Julius is able to evade the desperate motorists and makes it safely into DC.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1854.JPG]]
[[caption-width-right:350:President Whitmore gives the greatest [[RousingSpeech speech]] of all time.]]

** Made even better in the sequel, because it ''stuck''.

* [[spoiler:"Awesome" is still the best word that can describe the scene where people are trying to [[OutrunTheFireball outrun the ginormous fireballs]] created by the alien ships. The audience in theaters were screaming for the people to escape. When the sequence ended with the screen's abrupt switch to black immediately followed by the date showing up with the imposing doom sound, the audience in a number of theaters cheered, a true compliment in how the film had gripped them to the edge of their seats.]]

* A small one for Whitmore: when David demonstrates [[spoiler: the virus]], Major Mitchell's first shot hits the shield and bounces all around the hangar, causing everyone to duck for cover...except [[NervesOfSteel Whitmore,]] who just stands there calmly watching the demonstration.

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[RousingSpeech Good morning...]]"]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/id4_white_house.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The entire reason people went to see ''[=ID4=]''.]]

* Let's just face it. this alien invasion movie was and still is a CrowningMomentofAwesome for Creator/RolandEmmerich, the actors, and the film itself; not to mention ''every'' TV channel aired it mostly every month. ''ESPECIALLY'' the Visual Effects, '''HOLY freakin' SHIT!'''

** The part when the aliens blew up the cities was absolutely mind-blowing, jaw-dropping, and amazing.
** The White House Destruction ''is'' the movie's trope! Literally.

* In addition to his epic speech, Whitmore deserves another mention for the "release me" scene. He looks one of the invaders directly in the eye and tries to probe for peace, all without flinching or a hint of fear in his voice.

* A small one for Whitmore: when David demonstrates [[spoiler: the virus]], Major Mitchell's first shot hits the shield and bounces all around the hanger, causing everyone to duck for cover...except [[NervesOfSteel Whitmore,]] who just stands there calmly watching the demonstration.

* All of humanity uniting against the Alien invaders. In the course of 48 hours they throw away ''centuries'' worth of bad blood and disagreements for the sake of one thing, survival.

* The dog outrunning the fireball.

* A major shout-out to the Royal Air Force, the Luftwaffe, the Armée de l'air, the IDF, the JASDF, the VVS, the [=KLu=], the RSAF, the PLAAF, the [=FiAF=], the RCAF, and every other air force who managed to hold their ground against the attackers and take down the city destroyers.

'''General Grey:''' Get onto the wire with every squadron around the world, tell em out to bring those sons of ''bitches'' down

'''General Grey:''' Get onto the wire with every squadron around the world, tell em out to bring those sons of ''bitches'' down

* A small one for Whitmore: when David demonstrates [[spoiler: the virus]], Major Mitchell's first shot hits the shield and bounces all around the hanger, causing everyone to duck for cover...except [[NervesOfSteel Whitmore,]] who just stands there calmly watching the demonstration.