History Film / IndependenceDay

Hell-bent on wiping humanity out and taking Earth for themselves, the vicious alien race turns a normal July day into a desperate fight for survival, with U.S. Marine pilot Steven Hiller (Creator/WillSmith), President Thomas Whitmore (Creator/BillPullman) and computer programmer David Levinson (Creator/JeffGoldblum) pulling together a {{plan}} to save the human race.

** Second, the "[[WaveMotionGun Hammer]]". This is a nice one: If you look at the L.A. destruction scene, you'll see that the beam turns into a chain-reaction/explosion the moment it hits solid matter, and just keeps going until there's no significant obstacle left. Therefore, the denser the target, the worse the explosion (like the Mothership from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer 3'', which was inspired by this movie), making it perfect for leveling cities. When [[spoiler:Russell]] crashed his plane into the generator, he did it at the very moment the beam started, and at the very "tip" of the gun, therefore setting off the chain reaction ''inside'' the alien's ship (which is likely to be just as densely packed as a city, if not more so).

** 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. In addition, the base is later shown to be in the desert. In reality, it was in a built-up area of Orange County.

** 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.

** The existence of naval forces is barely noted, and no mention is even made of the naval vessels themselves helping out where possible.

** No surface-to-air weapons are attempted, even after the ships wipe out the cities and mostly eliminate any possible collateral damage. Surface-to-air fire deflecting off the shields would let militaries know about the existence of a force field without having to risk pilots.

* 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).
** The novel clarifies that the Black Knight assault was meant as a probing strike in order to assess the ship's weaknesses, while the second wave would provide heavier firepower. However, the shields put a halt to that. This is actually indicated during the mission briefing, their commander says "You men will be the first wave of our counterattack..."

** 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''.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The President was a fighter pilot and leads a raid against one of the ships, though he doesn't get the final shot to take them down.

* NoEndorHolocaust: Dozens of ships that size hitting the ground would throw up enough dust to blot out the sun. And that's not even considering blowing up something as big as the mothership in Earth's orbit like that.\\
\\
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 [[ArtisticLicenseSpace 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.

->''"Didn't I promise you fireworks?"''

* WhamLine: When preparing for the final battle at Area 51, Connie asks Maj. Mitchell about the attack on the facility. He responds that the facility is buried deep in the mountain and should afford some protection. Connie responds, "What about the people outside?" Cue the OhCrap look on Mitchell's face.

* ThoseTwoGuys
** David Levinson and Captain Steven Hiller, neither are the most important person in any scene they are in, yet keep saving the day.
** The two USAF officers (one of whom is played by Raphael Sbarge) who work side-by-side from Air Force One to Area 51.

** Hiller uses his F/A-18's drogue chute to blind the alien attacker pursuing him into colliding with the canyon wall. Real F/A-18s don't have drogue chutes.

** 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.

* CaptainObvious: During the escape from the mothership, David makes an astute observation that the alien attackers are chasing them.

** Steve successfully performing a crash-landing in the attacker, especially considering that its main power system likely cut out moments after the mothership was destroyed.

* SpaceIsNoisy: We can hear the distinctive sound of the alien attacker's engine when Steve and David are spaceflying on their way to the alien mothership, as well as the nuclear explosion that obliterates said mothership in space, and even the shockwave from said explosion and the debris pieces from the mothership shaking up Hiller and David's attacker... although to be fair they were already in atmospheric re-entry when this happens.

** 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.

* SuperCellReception: The Area 51 scientists attach a radio transmitter to the bottom of the attacker so that they'll be notified once David uploads the virus. It's still able to transmit confirmation despite being deep inside the mothership, which clearly has a thick hull.

* GreatOffscreenWar: The vast majority of the invasion is referred to passing. When the Black Knights attack the Los Angeles City Destroyer, it's mentioned that attack squadrons near New York and Washington are also going into action. British, French, German, Russian, Israeli, and other forces join in the initial counterattack, but they're just as ineffective against the invaders. We also see British pilots discussing the situation in the Middle East, where Belgian, Israeli, Jordanian, and Iraqi fighters have grouped together, along with Russian and Japanese officers preparing for the July 4th counterattack.

* FaceDeathWithDignity: Steven Hiller and David Levinson know they're screwed when their attacker refuses to unlatch from the mothership, and the aliens decide to investigate. They decide to launch the nuke anyway, knowing full well that it will kill them, and finish their mission with a last smoke. Fortunately, launching the nuke dislodges the attacker, giving them enough time to escape before the mothership gets blown to kingdom come.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu
** The reaction to the guards in Area 51 when Steve shows the alien.
-->'''Steve:''' Okay. Come here. You want to see my clearance?\\
''[pulls back tarp to reveal the unconscious alien]''\\
'''Steve:''' Maybe I should just leave ''this'' with you.\\
'''Guard:''' ...let 'em pass!
** Julius has this reaction to finding out that David once punched the President.
-->'''Julius:''' You punched ''the President?''\\
'''David:''' He wasn't the President ''then''.

** A quick mention is made that President Whitmore is a former fighter pilot.

* ButIReadABookAboutIt: Steve basically says he can fly the ship because he's seen it fly. David does immediately point out that it's a bit unbelievable that Steve is capable of flying the spaceship, to which Steve retorts that David's virus plan sounds just as unlikely.

** 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?!?"

* 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.
** Regarding Jasmine's co-worker, Tiffany (Kiersten Warren), looks like Creator/ElizabethBerkley wasn't the only ''Series/{{Saved by the Bell|TheCollegeYears}}'' alum to [[Film/{{Showgirls}} later play a stripper]].

** David's Mac boots up with a picture of [[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey HAL-9000]] and the greeting [[NamesTheSame "Good Morning, Dave."]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''{{Film/Stargate}}''.

* TooFastToStop

** To ''Franchise/JurassicPark''; Creator/JeffGoldblum's character says, "Must go faster. Must go faster. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!" in the same way as he does in one scene in ''Jurassic Park''. Exactly the same way.