History Film / IndependenceDay

* The alien mothership is specifically stated to be about 600 kilometers wide, with a mass one-quarter that of the moon. At that size, its' own gravity would commence to pulling it into a sphere shape. It doesn't matter what alien Unobtainium it's made of, gravity is going to win that fight. It would be an ''extremely'' slow process, but the warping and buckling of its' entire structure would be constant and inexorable.

* CheckAndMate

* OneBulletLeft

* PlausibleDeniability:

** After the U.S. attack on the alien ship hovering over Los Angeles, a large number of alien fighters are able to make a surprise attack on the U.S. Marine airbase at El Toro even though the base should have been able to see them approaching with its radar.

* RandomSmokingScene: Steve and David both take cigars along with them when they plan to defeat the aliens for once and for all. When it looks like their death is certain, they light up before completing their mission (Can't let a cigar go waste afterall). This seems to be standard for Steve and Jimmy (and the rest of the Black Knights) as they both take cigars along without any prior conversation and they both take waiting until "the fat lady sings" to smoke it very seriously. A box of cigars is being passed out during the briefing, so indeed it is expected for the Black Knight pilots to have a cigar with them on the flight and smoke it after a successful (and they ''are'' Marines so all are) missions. That's why when Steve needed the cigars before he and David left to go deliver the package, getting Julius' last two.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: When Steve first meets the President, they only shake hands. This is correct, as he's uncovered (not wearing headgear) and thus he's not required to salute.

* RockBeatsLaser:
** Played with as the aliens used Earth's satellite system to coordinate their attack, giving David a chance to study their signal system and turn their own trick back on them.
** A bit more direct at the climax of the film when [[spoiler:Russell makes his heroic sacrifice toward the aliens city busting laser with a Jet Fighter and missile causing the entire thing to backfire and blow the ship up.]]

* SaveSat: The sudden cut in the satellite communications network helps tip off the earthlings that the aliens are coming.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale:

** While played '''very''' [[http://www.ultimax.com/whitepapers/1996_3.html#12 straight for the most part (mainly with regards to how big the spaceships are)]], they acutally avert it at one point where, even after the force fields are disabled, the fighter planes can't do enough damage to actually threaten the spaceships, which makes sense considering they are 15 miles across and the humans are just using regular (non-nuclear) missiles.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere:
** The reaction of many people in the targeted cities is to get the hell out once the aliens arrive.

* SemperFi: Marines have a strong presence in the films cast. Steven Hiller is a cigar-chomping Marine Corps F-18 pilot. William Grey, the President's most trusted right-hand man throughout the film, is a Marine Corps General. Also, Grey is alluded to (if not outright referred to) as the President's former commander, which strongly suggests that President Whitmore is a Marine as well.

* ShoutOut:

** ShoutOutToShakespeare: Whitmore's famous speech was a reworked version of the King's St Crispin's Day Speech in ''Theatre/HenryV''.

* SpannerInTheWorks: The spacecraft that crash-landed in Roswell ends up saving mankind when the Harvesters finally arrive to attack the planet. Studying the attacker has allowed humanity to grasp a basic understanding of the aliens' technology, which allows them to create a backdoor into the mothership's computer systems and disable the shields. This buys the human race enough time to figure out how to destroy the city destroyers before they fire again.

* SuckingInLines: The Hammer when it's about to fire.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:

** Whitmore takes a shot with a missile as soon as the virus is uploaded to the mothership; the missile is yet again foiled by the force field. He takes a moment, then fires another, which finally breaches. The virus needed a few moments to take to the dozens of ships planetside, much like how transferring files over from one system to another, even on the same server, might be delayed to appear even after downloading is complete.

* SwissCheeseSecurity:

* TakingYouWithMe:

* TelevisionGeography:

* ThisIsGonnaSuck:

* ThoseTwoGuys:

* TooDumbToLive:
** The people that were waiting to the aliens in the rooftop of a building in UsefulNotes/LosAngeles. Including Tiffany, who promised Jasmine she wouldn't. At first, these people had no explicit reason to believe the aliens were hostile, so they were more optimistic than foolish. It's only when they ignored police loudspeakers urging them to evacuate that they became idiots.
** Also those "scientists" that were diagnosing the alien without any security nearby despite the fact that they knew the alien wanted to kill them.

* TooFastToStop:

* UniversalDriversLicense:

* VomitDiscretionShot:

* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: In one of many shout-outs to ''War of the Worlds'', a trio of helicopters attempt to make contact with the aliens through light glyphs. The aliens vaporize the helicopters without a second thought.

* WellDoneSonGuy: Before going onto his suicide mission, David's father lets him know that he is very proud of him..

* YouHaveToBelieveMe:

** A more classic example comes when Russell is arrested for dropping leaflets from his plane, saying the aliens are going to kill them all even as he's hauled into a police car.

* KneelBeforeFrodo: At the end of the film, both President Whitmore and General Grey salute Steve after they destroy the mothership. Correct military protocol has the subordinate salute first until it's returned by the superior. Instead, both a general and the commander-in-chief recognize Steve for his extraordinary accomplishment.
** It should be noted that this is actually correct for the situation, as what they had done was well above and beyond the call of duty, and Steven, being a US Marine, would've been awarded the Medal of Honor for such an action. At which point, it doesn't matter what your rank is, it is customary in the US military that anyone with a Medal of Honor is saluted ahead of anyone else.

* MassOhCrap: When the Destroyer's "hammer" starts to activate, the people on the LA rooftop stare with increasing amount of alarm/horror. Presumably, even through their optimism they recognized that couldn't possibly be anything other than a weapon.
** And of course, the reactions of the people in the streets once the weapon fires.

* MonumentalDamage:

** The targeted buildings such as the Empire State Building and the White House is actually justified. They are located in or near the center of large cities, which the aliens target in order to kill as many humans in their first wave as possible. The White House is doubly justified, given that its the seat of the US Government, and therefore a prime target.

* MoodWhiplash:

* MoreDakka:

* TheMothership: The big ship, obviously. It looks almost like a moon had been sawed in half.
* TheMountainsOfIllinois:

* NerdsAreSexy:

* NewscasterCameo:

* NoPeripheralVision: Captain Steven Hiller, a U.S. Marine pilot whose job depends on having excellent vision, steps outside to get the paper, looks left and right and above and [[FailedASpotCheck only notices a gigantic 15-mile-wide, black saucer hovering over Los Angeles when he looks]] ''[[FailedASpotCheck directly at it]]?''

* NoSell: The aliens' force fields are effectively impenetrable as far as earth's defensive forces are concerned. At one point, they shrug off a direct nuclear attack. They seem to hardly notice counterattacks- until, that is, their shields are disabled, and then things start going the other way.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome:

* OhCrap: Due to this being a DisasterMovie, this reaction is ''very'' common throughout the film. It's easier to say that someone reacts this way every few minutes.
** Most notable of all comes during the climax, when [[spoiler:the alien controller in the mothership hangar realizes a nuke is about to go off five feet in front of his face]].

* OminousFloatingSpaceship: You'd better believe it.

* OneBulletLeft:

* OneLastSmoke: Trapped on the mothership and realizing there's no way they'll get out alive, Steve and David decide to light up their "victory dance" cigars and launch the nuke. However, launching it ends up releasing the dock mechanism, allowing them to make a beeline for the main entrance.

* OutrunTheFireball:
** Air Force One does it during the first attack.

* PlanetSpaceship: The alien mothership was estimated to be several hundred kilometers in diameter, or nearly a quarter the size of Earth's (''very'' large) moon.

* PreAsskickingOneLiner:

* ProductPlacement:

** First happens when they nuke the aliern ship over Houston and everyone rejoices [[MoodWhiplash until the visual kicks in]].

* AttackItsWeakPoint: The destroyer ships' primary (city killing) weapons -- if you can get through the forcefield, at least.

* DeadGuyPuppet: The captured alien pilot at {{Area 51}} uses [[spoiler:Okun]]'s body to talk to the president.

* DeathByCameo:

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:

* DisconnectedByDeath: The Air Force goes out to recon the alien ships. The pilot is so horrified by the sight of the fireball as the ship enters the atmosphere that he doesn't pull up and away in time. Back at the White House, the military officer bangs fruitlessly on the phone button before he realizes that the connection was lost because the recon plane was.

* DroppedInSpeechClip: As the film opens we see the Apollo 11 landing site and hear the recording of Neil Armstrong reading the plaque commemorating the first landing on the moon right before the Mothership passes overhead.

* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: It takes a simple computer [[Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds virus]] (and, a large nuclear warhead) to take down spaceships 1/4th the size of the moon and kill millions of aliens. Gotta love that universal Operating System!

* EveryCarIsAPinto:

* EveryHelicopterIsAHuey: Though most of the aircraft used are period -- and setting-appropriate, a Huey ''still'' shows up to escort the doomed S-64 Skycrane "[[IComeInPeace Welcome Wagon]]". It explodes moments later.
* EveryoneKnowsMorse: Except aliens although they break the code pretty quick: first thing they did after the message was to send a WaveMotionGun to Area 51. Then again, they don't even need to read the message to deduce that a sudden rise in communications from a previously silent location means the enemy has activated a backup command center.

* FacePalm:

* FailedASpotCheck: Steve and Jasmine are awakened by Dylan, and think the rumbling is an earthquake. When he turns on the television and Emergency Broadcast is on, Steve still thinks it's the quake. he goes out to get the morning paper. He begins to read it until he notices that the neighbors, ''all of them'' are packing. Only when a helicopter flies overhead and he watches its flight path does he realize it's flying toward one of the invading ships. Doubled down as Jasmine then brings Steve a cup of coffee, but she's watching it so she doesn't spill, and then looks at him, and doesn't notice the spaceship until she looks to see what ''he's'' staring at.

* FireForgedFriends:

* FiveRoundsRapid: An initial assault with conventional weapons ends in a massacre as the DeflectorShield prevents their weapons from piercing the ships. However, once the forcefields are dealt with, they are susceptible to conventional weapons in their weak spot.

* {{Foreshadowing}}:

* GeniusBurnout: Played with, David is an MIT graduate and works for a cable company diagnosing network issues. For the average person with those credentials that is a perfectly fine job but it's clear David is much more talented than he lets on and not particularly ambitious, with a couple jokes about how he is just a cable repairman. He gets drawn into the main plot because he managed to crack the alien signal before he really understood what it was.

* GodzillaThreshold:

* GuiltFreeExterminationWar: The aliens, in keeping with their HordeOfAlienLocusts nature, have no issues wiping out entire cities full of people. [[spoiler:Humanity has no issues returning the favor for the alien mother ship.]] The US President actually does probe for peace even after they destroy every major city on Earth, with an alien that had just slaughtered a team of scientists no less; the response was a MindRape that would have killed him if the alien wasn't shot, and it showed him that their entire civilization is based upon this, moving from one world to another, wiping out the natives, using up all the resources, and then moving on to the next planet to repeat.

* HateSink: Secretary of Defense Nimziki is a complete jerkwad. To begin with, he had some knowledge that aliens existed way in advance (thanks to [[RoswellThatEndsWell the Roswell crash]]) and he refused to tell the President anything about it even as aliens were settling over Earth's cities ''and had started to wipe them out'' for the sake of mainining PlausibleDeniability. He also [[{{Warhawk}} constantly advocates the use of]] [[NukeEm nuclear weapons]] to the point that once it's proven that the City Destroyer shields can NoSell a direct hit with a nuke, he says that they should just try with ''more'' nukes. Finally [[CommanderContrarian he is the only one who deems David's plan as too crazy to work]] and tries to convince President Whitmore to not support it by exploiting the memory of his wife, ''who had been deceased for only a few hours at the most''. [[RageBreakingPoint This one costs Nimziki dearly]] as Whitmore decides to fire him right then and there.

* HemisphereBias: Anything South of the Equator isn't worth concern. Though we get to see crashed [=UFOs=] in Sydney and right against Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. There's even a news report with the subtitle "Southern Hemisphere Unaffected" under a map showing where the city killers are appearing (do note that the Southern Hemisphere is home to one of the ten biggest cities in the world - São Paulo, in Brazil -- so in the context it's a wonder that the aliens have passed it up). Possibly justified, in that the aliens initially seem to be targeting the Earth's major military and industrial nation-states. It's also possible that at the time of that news report, no confirmed sightings had taken place in the Southern Hemisphere. Possibly a later report may have featured cities such as Sao Paulo, Buenos Aries or Johannesburg.

*** Fitting, as Brazil started to rise to great market prominence and prestige in aviation and aerospace industries in the late '80s, and has pretty-much gained market-supremacy in regional commercial airliner sales.
* HeroicBSOD:

* HeroicSacrifice: Godspeed, [[spoiler:Mr. Casse.]]
** Subverted with [[spoiler:Steve and David]] as noted in Face Death with Dignity above.
* HeroStoleMyBike: Steve steals a helicopter go to El Toro.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard:

* HollywoodTactics: The jets sent to fight the aliens that had just wiped out some major cities are kind of underarmed... (the nukes being employed only as a last resort is justified, at least)

* HopelessWar: The events of July 3rd quickly shape up as this. The morning counterattack is an utter failure due to the aliens' shields. They destroy an additional 36 cities, and are poised to destroy all remaining cities within a day and a half. In the evening, Whitmore learns that the aliens will not settle for anything less than mankind's extermination and orders a nuclear strike, which fails. As the aliens destroy the third wave of cities, Whitmore realizes that humanity is truly lost.

* IGotYouCovered: At the end of the film, the President and MissionControl order the rest of the fleet to cover Russell since he has the only missile left.

* InstantExpert:

* IronicEcho:

** That's from their misunderstanding of and disdain for his job (and possibly due to David thinking they wouldn't understand the true technical details). David is most likely Network Operations or something even more technical, and a literal rocket scientist, who can control the satellites that bring in the signal for cable television.

* JumpScare: Only two, but they're memorable ones:

** It should be noted that this is actually correct for the situation, as what they had done was well above and beyond the call of duty, and Steven, being a US Marine, would've been awarded the Medal of Honor for such an action. At which point, it doesn't matter what your rank is, it is customary in the US Military that anyone with a Medal of Honor is saluted ahead of anyone else.

** While played '''very''' [[http://www.ultimax.com/whitepapers/1996_3.html#12 straight for the most part (mainly with regards to how big the spaceships are)]], they acutally avert it at one point where, even after the forcefields are disabled, the fighter planes can't do enough damage to actually threaten the spaceships, which makes sense considering they are 15 miles across and the humans are just using regular (non-nuclear) missiles.
* SchizoTech: For the aliens. They have the space travel, laser beams, indestructible forcefields... but their computer security technology is so primitive a guy with a laptop can hack it; they didn't even ''[[GenreBlindness think]]'' about the possibility of a security breach, even though they were [[HoistByHisOwnPetard interfacing]] with the Earth's satellite network. It wouldn't be the first time an alien race of invaders had some technological deficiency that lead to them being defeated (it goes all the way back to ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'') but this one is particularly egregious.

* TrojanHorse: The alien fighter that crashed in Roswell (and the Area 51 scientists repurposed for humans to pilot) is used to invade the mothership (where David will shut down the forcefields and Steve will fire a nuke to destroy the thing from within).

* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene:

* ActorAllusion: If you think Creator/JeffGoldblum's "must go faster, must go faster" line [[spoiler:as David and Steve are escaping the alien mothership]] sounds familiar, it's because they used the dialogue loop from ''Film/JurassicPark'' when Goldblum says the same line.

* AlternateHistory: Since the ARG for the [[Film/IndependenceDayResurgence sequel]] dates the first film as "The War of 1996" it's retroactively been made this.
* AlwaysKnowAPilot:

** Notably, the Independence Day UK radio play had the British Military specifically refer to this trope after they manage to deal a decisive blow to the aliens in their part of the world.

* AndMissionControlRejoiced:
** First happens when they nuke the destroyer ship and everyone rejoices [[MoodWhiplash until the visual kicks in]].

* AngerBornOfWorry: Steve and Jasmine have a fight before he leaves for the army base - after Steve demands to know why she's "acting like this", she incredulously goes to the window, pulls back the curtains and gestures to the giant spaceship hovering outside.

* ApocalypseHow: The aliens' ultimate goal as PlanetLooters who devour every last natural resource on a planet before moving on means that if they win, they'll likely bring a ApocalypseHow/Class5-[[ApocalypseHow/Class6 6]]. According to [[Film/IndependenceDayResurgence the sequel]] where the aliens have a new EvilPlan, it'd probably even reach a ApocalypseHow/ClassX once they were done with the Earth and ready to move on. [[spoiler:The aliens are defeated in the end, but humanity still suffers a ApocalypseHow/Class1 with most major cities around the world destroyed and human civilization at first left in a diminished state]].
* ArbitrarySkepticism:

* ArcWords:

* ArtisticLicense:

** Television:

* ArtisticLicenseGeography:

** When David is explaining the countdown to Marty, he points to a TV with a map showing the arrival of alien ships. One of them is listed as being over Bombay, which changed its name to Mumbai in 1995. Before that, a reporter states that a ship has arrived over the capital of India, which is actually New Delhi. However, similar to how one of the ships is listed as being over "Germany" instead of Berlin, this could be an in-universe mistake at the network, which is trying to cover an alien invasion. Also, according to the War of 1996 site for [[Film/IndependenceDayResurgence the sequel]], both Bombay and Delhi were targeted on the same day (along with Calcutta/Kolkata), which would partially explain it if both ships were over their targets.
* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety:
** At one point a marine receives orders while pointing his pistol at his superior ''with his finger on the trigger''.

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary:

* ArtisticLicensePhysics:

** A spaceship a ''quarter the size of the moon'' would be enough to pull it out of orbit.

* AsYouKnow:

* AttackItsWeakPoint: The ship's cores -- if you can get through the forcefield at least.

* BilingualBonus:

* BlackAndWhiteMorality: The Earthlings defend their home planet against the evil, heartless galactic locusts from outer space.

* BlatantLies: Steve [[HeroStoleMyBike takes a helicopter without asking]] to go to El Toro. A marine turns a weapon on him and tells him to get out. Steve says he [[YouWouldntShootMe doubts the other man really wants to shoot him]]. Marine lowers his weapon and Steve offers him a paper-thin excuse:

* BlownAcrossTheRoom: When the captured alien breaks loose in the Area 51 laboratory, several guards open fire on it through a glass window. When the bullets hit the alien it's blown backward across the laboratory.

* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece:

* BreakingBadNewsGently: [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] when President Whitmore can't bear to tell his daughter about her mom's death. She then breaks the bad news gently ''to herself'' by sadly asking, [[BigSleep "Is Mommy sleeping?"]] The President quietly responds, "Yeah," and hugs her.
** This was the scene that actually got Creator/MaeWhitman the role. She auditioned, then asked if Patricia knew her mom was dead or actually believed she was sleeping. When told that she knew but didn't want to admit it, Whitman said she would have done the scene differently in that case and asked to do it again.

* BuryYourGays: Marty, a character who acts stereotypically gay (although his actual sexuality is never confirmed in the movie) dies when his car is hit by another thrown by an explosion.

* CassandraTruth:

* CelebrityParadox:

* CerebusCallback: Early on in the film, when the President talks to his wife on the phone she affectionately calls him a liar whenever he tells BlatantLies. [[spoiler:She uses the same response when he tells her that the doctors said she would be okay, as she lies dying in the hospital.]]
* CheckAndMate:

* ChekhovsGun:

* ChekhovsHobby:

* CivilizationDestroyer: Apart from deliberately destroying the headquarters of government and religious places on Earth, no civilization would be left after all resources are looted (specially if those include oil, water and maybe even oxygen).

* ContrivedCoincidence:

* RadarIsUseless: An [[PlanetSpaceship alien mothership nearly as big as the Moon]] isn't noticed by deep space radar until, in astronomical units, it is within spitting distance of Earth.

** Notably, the Independence Day UK radio play had the British Military specifically refer to this trope after they manage to deal a decisive blow to the Aliens in their part of the world.

** Connie and Julius both mention that David, a capable electronics' engineer, settled with merely being employed by a cable company. Care to guess who not only discovered the Aliens' hidden attack signal, while working at said cable company, but also [[spoiler: devised a way to sabotage the alien ships' computer systems?]]

* PlanarShockwave: The explosion of the Alien Mothership spreads horizontally on the screen, eventually engulfing the camera. Might have looked like a Praxis Shockwave from another angle.

** Steve and David fly a 50-year old captured Alien spacefighter to the Alien mothership in orbit. The mothership allows the craft to land without attempting to contact the crew on board or determine what mission they were returning from. They also don't send anyone to meet with the crew once it docks.

* PreMortemOneLiner: Courtesy of Russell Casse, [[spoiler:before proceeding to shove his F/A-18 up the alien ship's ass and completely ''annihilate'' it in a glorious (and, for him, quite satisfying) HeroicSacrifice.]]
-->'''Russell:''' "Hello, boys! ''I'M'' '''''BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!'''''

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: When an article in the paper compares the president to [[Literature/OliverTwist Oliver]], he only thinks that the comparison is clever. In the extended cut, Connie tells him that he's been voted in the Orange County Dispatch as one of the ten sexiest men of the year, which he remarks is "accomplishing something."

* RadarIsUseless:
** An [[PlanetSpaceship alien mothership nearly as big as the Moon]] isn't noticed by deep space radar until, in astronomical units, it is within spitting distance of Earth.
** Later, after the U.S. attack on the alien ship hovering over Los Angeles, a large number of alien fighters are able to make a surprise attack on the U.S. Marine airbase at El Toro even though the base should have been able to see them approaching with its radar.

** Russell Casse, [[spoiler:before he proceeds to shove his F/A-18 up the alien ship's ass and completely ''annihilate'' it in a glorious (and, for him, quite satisfying) HeroicSacrifice.]]
-->'''Russell:''' "Hello, boys! ''I'M'' '''''BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!'''''
** The President moments prior: "All right, boys, let's give Mr. Casse some cover. '''''GENTLEMEN! [[GatlingGood LET'S PLOW]] [[MoreDakka THE ROAD!]]'''''"

** That's from their misunderstanding of and disdain for his job (and possibly due to David thinking they wouldn't understand the true technical details). David is most likely Network Operations or something even more technical, and a literal rocket scientist, who can control the satellites that bring in the signal for cable television. This is an example of SocietyMarchesOn, as in modern times, people with this skill set earn lots of money and perform a role that is more easily understood at a glance.

* MamaBear: When Jasmine sees the explosion coming, she grabs her son leaves her dog and runs. She doesn't stop running until she gets somewhere safe, at which point she stays there and calls for her dog. She may love her dog, but she isn't going to risk her life or her son's life for it.

** When Jasmine sees the explosion coming, she grabs her son leaves her dog and runs. She doesn't stop running until she gets somewhere safe, at which point she stays there and calls for her dog. She may love her dog, but she isn't going to risk her life or her son's life for it.

* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: The beginning of July 3 on Air Force One. See HeroicBSOD.

** His wife does no better, and doesn't even have the excuse of tripping on something as soon as she gets out of the house.

The novelization mitigates a bit by putting the Moon between the Earth and the mothership. This makes sense if you consider that something that big would have to have a huge angular velocity to maintain Low Earth Orbit. However, the movie shows an enormous amount of debris racing the delivery fighter back into the atmosphere, and later burning as "fireworks" overhead. If it was actually out beyond the [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy moon]] when it detonated, the number, implied velocity (a good chunk of the ''speed of light'') and size of those fragments would have been a rather incredible bombardment all on their own.

* ArtisticLicense: This is a Roland Emmerich film, so a lot of it is to be expected.
** [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy Astronomy]]:
*** The Apollo 11 landing site. The American flag was actually blown over by the lunar module ascent (later missions would place the flag farther away); moreover, by now, the flag is all white due to the cosmic rays. In addition, the "We came in peace for all mankind" plaque was placed at the foot of the LEM rather than the nearby soil. The trivia commentary on the anniversary edition had some fun with this, pointing out that this scene is inaccurate "...unless...[[{{Lunarians}} someone else]] moved it..."
*** SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: An entity as massive as the alien mothership (said to be 1/4th the size of the moon) would be easily detectable for ''months'' prior to approach and visible with the ''naked eye'' long before it entered Earth's orbit (for example, Saturn's moon of Tethys, which is less than 1% the mass of the Moon, was discovered in 1684 and can be seen with a regular backyard telescope). It definitely strains belief nobody noticed an object that size ''within Earth's orbit''.
** Dates: Repeat mention is made to suggest that this takes place over a weekend. July 2 to July 4, 1996 was in the middle of the week.
** [[ArtisticLicenseGeography Geography]]:
*** In the Middle East, one of the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships RAF]] pilots says they may have reinforcements hiding in the "Golan Strait." The Golan ''Heights'' are actually a hilly region between Israel and Syria.
*** Imperial Valley and Los Angeles are some 200 miles away from each other. While it can be explained that the ship passed over the Gulf of California on its way to LA, it definitely wouldn't have been visible from the trailer park after stopping over the city.
*** Two ships are stated to be off the East Coast of the United States, headed for Washington, DC and New York. However, the DC ship arrives over Washington from the wrong direction if it were coming from the coast, which is east of the Capitol Building.
*** Area 51's map, which is tracking the alien ships, is missing the U.K. from Europe.
*** There are no salt flats within driving distance of Area 51 (the scenes were shot in Utah; Area 51 itself is in a regular desert in Nevada).
*** The letter Steve gets from NASA has the address "El Toro, CA 50055." The zip code 50055 is actually for Collins, Iowa. Prior to its closure, the zip code for El Toro was 92609.
*** When David is explaining the countdown to Marty, he points to a TV with a map showing the arrival of alien ships. One of them is listed as being over Bombay, which changed its name to Mumbai in 1995. Before that, a reporter states that a ship has arrived over the capital of India, which is actually New Delhi. However, similar to how one of the ships is listed as being over "Germany" instead of Berlin, this could be an in-universe mistake at the network, which is trying to cover an alien invasion. Also, according to the War of 1996 site for [[Film/IndependenceDayResurgence the sequel]], both Bombay and Delhi were targeted on the same day (along with Calcutta/Kolkata), which would partially explain it if both ships were over their targets.
*** When people come out to celebrate the destruction of the City Destroyers, it is simultaneously daylight at Area 51, Cairo, and Sydney. It should at the very least be night in Australia.
** [[ArtisticLicenseGunSafety Gun Safety]]:
*** At one point a marine receives orders while pointing his pistol at his superior ''with his finger on the trigger''.
*** David Levinson asking Major Mitchell to fire a bullet at the alien spaceship. Has the man never heard of gun safety? The bullet ricochets dangerously around the room containing what's left of the American administration and the only scientists on Earth with knowledge of the aliens' technology. He's a scientist with either little or no knowledge of guns, and he probably assumed that the bullet would just flatten against the shields instead of ricocheting, which is still a stupidly dangerous risk to take; but Mitchell as a military man should have known better. Steve at least ''does'' chew David out over it "What the HELL are you doing?!?"
** [[ArtisticLicenseMilitary Military]]:
*** Air Force One is shown being escorted by two F-15C Eagles and a US Navy F-14 Tomcat during its flight from Washington, D.C. Given the nature of the situation, and the fact that several cities have just been destroyed by alien invaders, Air Force One (carrying the President) would merit a ''much'' larger escort of fighters.
*** President Whitmore's F/A-18 is explicitly shown to be equipped with four missiles (two underwing and two on the wingtips) yet fires five. He fires one underwing missile to test the shield, another underwing to confirm the shields are down, then a wingtip missile afterwards. He additionally fires another wingtip missile at an alien attacker, and a fifth wingtip mounted missile at the City Destroyer's cannon opening, somehow firing ''two'' missiles from the same hardpoint.
*** "FOX TWO" is a radio call for an infrared-guided air to air missile (for US fighters at the time, an AIM-9L/M Sidewinder). Yet the missile fired is either an active-radar-homing AMRAAM (which would be FOX 3) or semi-active-radar-homing Sparrow (which would be FOX 1). The nuclear missile shots, being mounted in Harpoon air-to-surface missiles, would be called as "BULLDOG."
*** In 1996, US Space Command was located at Peterson Air Force Base, near NORAD, not the Pentagon. In addition, the script and novel list Marine General Grey as being head of Space Command, even though all American space operations at the time were coordinated by the US Air Force.
*** A piece of wreckage at Area51 bears the shield of the Tactical Air Command, which had become the Air Combat Command in 1992. The Air Combat Command, however, inherited its shield from TAC, with only the text on the scroll at the bottom of the shield having changed.
*** El Toro has F-14 Tomcats and F-16 Fighting Falcons on the flight line. Although the Navy does have F-16s, they're used as wargame aggressors. Possibly justified due to a joint operation being conducted for the counter-strike.
*** All of the planes launching from Area51, an Air Force installation, are Navy and Marine Corps ones: F-14s, F/A-18s, and even A/V-8 Harriers.
*** Multiple cases in [[spoiler: Jimmy's]] death. He attempts to make a high-speed turn when he and Steve were presumably supersonic, which disorients him long enough for an alien fighter to get a clear shot. Except a) no Marine pilot would do that, as they would know exactly what would happen when they bank at that speed even with a G-suit (and Steve even tells him he can't bank at that speed), b) no fighter pilot ''period'' would then proceed to ''[[TooDumbToLive unhook their oxygen mask to try to get a clear breath of air]]''. The O2 masks fighter pilots wear aren't just there to look cool, they supply varying amounts of oxygen so that a pilot undergoing high G-forces won't pass out.
*** USS ''Georgia'' notifies Atlantic Command of the ship over Iraq. Since 1983, the Middle East is under the theater area of authority for Central Command.
*** Whitmore addressees the army officer who announces the approach of the City Destroyers as a "commander." That is not an army rank and the officer is actually a colonel.
*** Protocol stipulates that Marine One's rotors are not activated until the President is aboard and the doors are secured. Of course, given the rather extreme nature of the emergency, it's probable that Whitmore ordered them to get ready for takeoff as soon as possible.
*** The correct name of Area 51 is Groom Lake, which is what military personnel refer to it as. "Area 51" was assigned to it in CIA classified documents.
*** The fighter that Whitmore flies during the final battle should have had the call sign "Air Force One," as it refers not just to the Boeing VC-25 that serves as the President's official transport but any US Air Force plane that the President happens to be on. Of course, using his squadron's call sign symbolically indicates that he is putting himself in the line of fire with all the other volunteers.
*** Steve steals a helicopter to go look for survivors in LA, particularly his girlfriend. By any and all accounts would be a court martial offense, but given the AlienInvasion going on and finding the President's wife in the process [[HeroInsurance no mention is made of the infraction]]. It's acknowledged when he takes the helicopter, an opposing soldier pulls his gun on him, but when Steve sincerely questions his commitment, the soldier acquiesced.
** [[ArtisticLicensePhysics Physics]]:
*** The Capitol Building's iconic dome is shown disintegrating as if it were made of stone. The dome is actually made of wrought-iron, and it wouldn't disintegrate like a stone structure.
*** The gravitational pull of both the attack ships and the mothership would be enormous just from their presence in orbit, with earthquakes and tidal waves around the world. The only acknowledgement of this is a low level earthquake as a destroyer settles over Los Angeles, but being it is California [[ApatheticCitizens Steve and Jasmine shrug it off]].
*** In fact, according to the LawOfInverseRecoil, just having a ship that size hovering above a city would flatten it like a pancake, since the force pushing the spaceship up would need an equal amount of force pushing ''down''.
*** A spaceship a ''quarter the size of the moon'' would be enough to pull it out of orbit.
*** If the destroyers arriving over their target cities caused low level earthquakes, Washington, D.C. and New York should have suffered structural damage as neither city has buildings rated for earthquakes, unlike Los Angeles.
*** The less said of the [[AdvancingWallOfDoom advancing wall of fire]] [[OutrunTheFireball (moving at walking speed)]] that goes on through the tunnel without entering the room Jasmine is hidden, the better. The Novelization adds to the scene and [[AllThereInTheManual attempts to explain it]]: A grating was in the room, and the firewall caused a vacuum effect, drawing air from the tunnel below with enough force to make them grab onto it to keep from getting sucked/blown back into the tunnel, but also kept [[ConvectionSchmonvection the heat of the fire wall from roasting them alive]].
*** The destroyer over Sydney, Australia is shown to have plowed into the ground at a near 90 degree angle. In order for it to have impacted as such, it would have to have been hovering at an extremely high altitude and would have kicked up a significant amount of debris and dust from a ship of its mass crashing into the ground.
*** Let's just say that multiple city-sized ships suddenly crashing to the ground should have caused ''much'' more trouble than they did, especially the ones that were nuked.
** [[ArtisticLicenseReligion Religion]]: The prayer that Julius gives at the end is actually supposed to be given while standing.
** [[ArtisticLicenseShips Ships]]: Multiple with the submarine USS ''Georgia'', which reports on the alien ship coming in over Iraq.
*** The real ''Georgia'' is an ''Ohio''-class ballistic missile submarine. The submarine shown is a ''Los Angeles''-class attack submarine.
*** No submarine would be surfaced while operating in enemy waters. In fact, the Persian Gulf is only ninety meters at its deepest point, nowhere near deep enough for a US submarine to operate. It should be noted that the featured ship was originally scripted to be an aircraft carrier.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: While played '''very''' [[http://www.ultimax.com/whitepapers/1996_3.html#12 straight for the most part (mainly with regards to how big the spaceships are)]], they acutally avert it at one point where, even after the forcefields are disabled, the fighter planes can't do enough damage to actually threaten the spaceships, which makes sense considering they are 15 miles across and the humans are just using regular (non-nuclear) missiles.

** David does this when he has his epiphany regarding given the alien ships a computer virus, apparently feeling stupid he hadn't thought of it earlier.

* FacePalm: Both Whitmore and Grey do this when Julius begins ranting about Area 51.

The film also spawned two tie-in novels: ''[[Literature/IndependenceDay Independence Day: Silent Zone]]'', which is about Okun's work to study their technology before the invasion, and ''[[Literature/IndependenceDay Independence Day: War in the Desert]]'', which follows the RAF pilots seen in the film as they battle alien survivors in the Middle East. In anticipation of the sequel, both books were rereleased, along with the original novelization, as part of the ''Independence Day Omnibus'', which is available as an eBook.

* HateSink: Secretary of Defense Nimziki is a complete jerkwad. To begin with, he had some knowledge that aliens existed way in advance (thanks to [[RoswellThatEndsWell the Roswell crash]]) and he refused to tell the President anything about it even as aliens were settling over Earth's cities ''and had started to wipe them out'' for the sake of mainining PlausibleDeniability. He also [[{{Warhawk}} constantly advocates the use of]] [[NukeEm nuclear weapons]] to the point that once it's proven that the City Destroyer shields can NoSell a direct hit with a nuke, he says that they should just try with ''more'' nukes. Finally [[CommanderContrarian he is the only one who deems David's plan as too crazy to work]] and tries to convince President Whitmore to not support it by exploting the memory of his wife, ''who had been deceased for only a few hours at the most''. [[RageBreakingPoint This one costs Nimziki dearly]] as Whitmore decides to fire him right then and there.

* ReEntryScare: An inversion of the usual subject of this trope, as the alien ships are protected from atmospheric entry by their force fields. Instead, the scouting plane that was attempting to break through the cloud generated around the ships by their entry ends up colliding with the surrounding RingOfFire, destroying it.

* ReCut: An extended cut of the film is often included with the original film. It's mostly bit and pieces, longer versions of the same scenes. Much of it clarifies Russell Casse and his family, revealing he was Miguel's step-father, his wife died from an unspecified illness and his actual son Troy was also ill (remnants of that, implied to be car sickness, remained in the theatrical cut). There is also further explanation of the virus, as David is shown the cockpit of the crashed ship and reveals that their basic computer programming is similar to the signal David cracked.

* RuleOfCool

** When Jasmine and Dyllan emerge from the tunnels in LA, the palm trees are just about the only thing still standing, just to let you know ''yes'' this was LA.