History Film / IndependenceDay

* ViewerFriendlyInterface: Whenever the Air Force launches missiles against the destroyer ships, we see them as little symbols moving across a monitor screen.

* MassOhCrap

** Played with when it comes to Steve flying the alien spacecraft. He is a combat pilot who always dreamed of being an astronaut and had close-range first-hand experience on how the alien spacecraft maneuver. But still none of that really explains how he would know how to fly the spacecraft.

** 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. Mitchell at least checks with the president, and doesn't fire until given the okay, and Steve chews David out over it with a, "What the HELL are you doing?!?"

* SmallRoleBigImpact: David's father Julius is fairly substantial in terms of screentime, as he spends much of the film by David's side, but he doesn't do a whole lot in terms of the real decision making characters. Yet he ends up assisting in many of the things that ended up saving the day: he drove David to Washington DC, was the one to bring up the ConspiracyTheory of {{Area 51}} that lead to the discovery it was real and gave David a EurekaMoment on infecting the alien ships with a virus.

* PassingJudgment: Hiler and his best friend are discussing brown-nosing in a locker room. His best friend is on one knee when Smith drops the engagement ring he was going to give his girlfriend. Just as the best friend holds it up to give it back, someone else on their squad passes by, makes an "I didn't see anything" gesture, and leaves.

* UniversalChaplain: During the climax, David's father Julius is leading a prayer from the Torah as the aliens prepare to obliterate Area 51. The former Secretary of Defense walks up to join them, but mentions he isn't Jewish. Julius looks up, remarks "Eh, nobody's perfect", then invites him into the circle.

** Also those "scientists" that were removing the captured alien's suit without any security nearby despite the fact that they knew the alien wanted to kill them.

[[caption-width-right:329:''[[TagLine On July 3rd, we'll wish we were.]]'']]

[[caption-width-right:329:Welcome to Earth.]]

''Independence Day'' is a 1996 movie by Creator/RolandEmmerich, known in its promotional material as ''[=ID4=]''. At its core, it is an archetypical SummerBlockbuster, boasting an AllStarCast of familiar character types, StuffBlowingUp, fighter jets dogfighting alien craft, {{Rousing Speech}}es, {{Area 51}}, and an otherwise fairly by-the-book AlienInvasion premise with overt influence from well-known sources like ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds''.

A sequel entitled ''Film/IndependenceDayResurgence'' was released on June 24, 2016. [[http://io9.com/literally-everyone-except-will-smith-is-returning-for-i-1698883233 Almost all of the main cast, including Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum returned to reprise their roles,]] but Will Smith [[http://perezhilton.com/2015-03-24-independence-day-2-vivica-a-fox-cast-reprising-role-will-smith-wife-jasmine-dubrow#.VTR_5pOJLYg did not.]]

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 re-released, along with the original novelization, as part of the ''Independence Day Omnibus'', which is available as an eBook.

** 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 Casse]] 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).

* PowerWalk: A variant that's not played in slow motion happens when Steve and David walk from their capsule towards the rescue team after their successful mission of destroying the mothership.

** 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 fighter, and a fifth wingtip mounted missile at the City Destroyer's cannon opening, somehow firing ''two'' missiles from the same hardpoint.

* 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.

* DEFCONFive: Averted. President Whitmore considers upgrading to DEFCON 3 but we are not told from where.

* SpeaksInBinary: We see a close-up on a printout David makes from the signal, all in binary code.

[[spoiler:'''Russell:''']] Sorry I'm late, Mister President! Kinda got hung up back there!
-->'''Whitmore''': Pilot, you armed?!\\

* 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 a 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.

* SchizoTech: For the aliens. They have the space travel, laser beams, indestructible force fields... 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.
** May be justified though as it appears that these aliens have curbstomped the living ''crap'' out of everything they've come across prior to Earth, and nobody else ever came up with the idea, or if they did, never had the sheer balls to try it. As such, electronic counteroffensives by a race who appears to be all but dead in the water probably never occurred to them.
* SchmuckBait: "Release me!" Fortunately, General Grey spots the trap.

-->'''David:''' You don't understand, you have to leave Washington!
-->'''Connie:''' In case you haven't noticed, we are having a ''little bit'' of a crisis here!

** 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).

* IgnoredVitalNewsReports: Hiller takes a passing glance at the news and assumes it's about the "small earthquake" he and his wife felt a few minutes prior. It's only when he gets outside and notices everyone hurriedly packing their cars that he takes a good look around and finally sees the several-mile-wide spaceship.

* AlienAbduction: Russell... or so he claims. The viewer is left to draw their own conclusions about whether or not this was entirely a delusion brought on by alcoholism, war trauma, or just being nuts.\\
\\
The novelization has him see the alien downed by [[Creator/WillSmith Captain Hiller]], and think that it's not the same as the ones who abducted him. Then he starts to wonder whether other aliens are visiting Earth, or if it even really happened. The same novelization strongly implies that it ''did'' happen: inside their bio-suits, the invading aliens look exactly like the ones in Russell's memories. There was a [[Creator/{{MarvelComics}} Marvel]] comic book that shows several events from the earlier lives of the characters, as a sort of "prequel". Russell is clearly shown to be abducted by the invaders.

* CallBack: To George Pal's 1950s ''War of the Worlds'', in which the humans likewise attack the aliens with a nuclear weapon without success. In this case it's a double callback because the aircraft that dropped the bomb in Pal's film, the "Air Force Flying Wing", was the real-life Northrop YB-49, the direct ancestor of the Northrop B-2.

* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: Our presidents are ace jet fighter pilots. This one is actually TruthInTelevision in that the 1990s and the TurnOfTheMillennium were when a lot of former Vietnam veterans were running for public office.

* DisasterDodgingDog: At the end of the movie's main disaster scene, Jasmine Dubrow (Will Smith's character's partner) forgets her dog Boomer, which is locked in her car mere seconds away from being incinerated from the incoming wall of fire. Much to our relief, it manages to OutrunTheFireball and reach its master's shelter just in time.

* HadTheSillyThingInReverse: Creator/WillSmith's character Captain Hiller at first, accidentally, when trying to pilot the captured UFO. He then turns the control instructions upside down and retapes them to the dashboard.