History Trivia / IndependenceDay

** Creator/MatthewPerry was originally offered the role of Captain Jimmy "Raven" Wilder but pulled out at the last minute. His father John Bennett Perry plays a Secret Service Agent in the movie.

* OrphanedReference: When David arrives at the office, Marty asks him why his beeper was turned off, to which David says it was on but he was ignoring him. In the script, Julius points out that David's pager is going off, sarcastically asking if he's "ready to get a real job."

* BackedByThePentagon: The producers ''tried'' to use this trope, but the Pentagon refused to back a movie whose plot involved {{Area 51}} (because it doesn't exist!). Tellingly, Emmerich noted in one interview (and in the DVD commentary) that the Pentagon bent over backwards to help him get the technical details right ''until'' they saw Area 51 mentioned, at which point they pretty much told him that he was on his own. This is because despite the existence of the facility being an open secret thanks to the Air Force base being clearly visible from the perimeter fence (though what they do or don't there is still unknown), the U.S. government wouldn't publicly admit to its existence [[http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/16/212549163/there-it-is-area-51-revealed-in-declassified-cia-report until August 2013]].

* TheWikiRule: [[http://independenceday.wikia.com/wiki/Independence_Day_Wiki Independence Day Wiki]]

* TropeNamer: For YouDontWantToDieAVirginDoYou. Later renamed to MustNotDieAVirgin.

* WorkingTitle: The film's title was almost ''Doomsday''. Part of the reason they kept in "Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!" was to ensure that Fox would approve the title.

* ActorInspiredElement: Creator/RobertLoggia got to decide which branch of the military his character was in, since it was never established in the script. Loggia ultimately decided that General Grey should be in the Marine Corps.

* CreatorChosenCasting: Creator/RolandEmmerich and Dean Devlin had always envisioned an African-American as Steve Hiller and specifically wanted Creator/WillSmith after seeing him in ''Film/SixDegreesOfSeparation''.

* CaliforniaDoubling: Actually Utah Doubling; most of the movie after the first act was filmed on the Bonneville Salt Flats, near Wendover, UT.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: 20th Century Fox executives did not want Creator/WillSmith in the lead, under the rather racist pretense that movies with Black leads do poorly overseas. Creator/RolandEmmerich was dead-set on Smith and threatened to take the project to Universal if Fox rejected the actor. Emmerich was rewarded for standing his ground, as Smith became one of the biggest stars in the world thanks in part to ''Independence Day.''

* BackedByThePentagon: The producers ''tried'' to use this trope, but the Pentagon refused to back a movie whose plot involved {{Area 51}}, (because it doesn't exist!). Tellingly, Emmerich noted in one interview (and in the DVD commentary) that the Pentagon bent over backwards to help him get the technical details right ''until'' they saw Area 51 mentioned, at which point they pretty much told him that he was on his own. This is because despite the existence of the facility being an open secret thanks to the Air Force base being clearly visible from the perimeter fence (though what they do or don't there is still unknown), the U.S. government wouldn't publicly admit to its existence [[http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/16/212549163/there-it-is-area-51-revealed-in-declassified-cia-report until August 2013]].

** A deleted scene (included in the extended version) early in the movie had David explaining exactly how our satellites were being hijacked by the aliens. At the end of the scene, Harvey Fierstein's character planted an (ad-libbed) kiss on David. Ironically, it was [[StraightGay Roland Emmerich]] himself who decided to cut the scene, lest he incur the wrath of the [[MoralGuardians MPAA]]. And the kiss in question was at best a platonic kiss, so it wasn't even that close to potentially upsetting the MPAA, especially seeing how [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons another thing that Fierstein was in]] got away with a similar male-male kiss without it being censored.
** There was a scene in the film that would have explained how Levinson's [=PowerBook=] 5300 was compatible with an alien operation system, by showing that Levinson analyzed the computers on board the crashed alien fighter to build the virus. For some reason, the scene was removed from the theatrical cut. It was cut because Emmerich didn't think people would make that big a deal of it.

** During the destruction scenes, there was a shot filmed where a bus flies through a billboard for ''Film/{{Stargate}}'', Emmerich and Devlin's previous film. Another shot featured a movie theater with the marquee "Coming Soon: Independence Day." Neither made it into the finished film.

** The original ending involved Casse being disallowed to fly alongside the others, and so [[spoiler:he straps an explosive to his biplane and performs the HeroicSacrifice by flying it into the superlaser]] as per the ending that found its way into the film. It was determined to be a little bit too comical seeing a biplane match the speed of the fighter jets, and the reshot version allows us to see [[spoiler:Russ make his decision for a HeroicSacrifice as opposed to a suicide mission from the outset]][[note]]The movie's novelization contains this alternate ending.[[/note]].
** Homaged/Parodied in one of the later ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'' games as a cutscene once the BigBad ship starts to fire its big beam. An antique plane flies into the beam and...

** According to DVDCommentary, Julius Levinson was based off of one of Dean Devlin’s uncles.

* TheOtherMarty: Richard Riehle and Sam Anderson were set to portray David's boss Marty and the Secretary of Defense, respectively, but both roles were re-cast. As compensation, Dean Devlin and Creator/RolandEmmerich promised them all roles in ''Series/TheVisitor''.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: 20th Century Fox executives did not want Creator/WillSmith in the lead, under the rather racist pretense that movies with Black leads do poorly overseas. Creator/RolandEmmerich was dead-set on Smith and threatened to take the project to Universal if Fox rejected the actor. Emmerich was rewarded for standing his ground, as Smith became one of the biggest stars in the world thanks to ''Independence Day.''