History Trivia / IndependenceDay

** Creatr/

* UnderminedByReality: The Apple [=Powerbook=] 5300 was discontinued a month later due to, among other things, batteries that burst into flame in some models. Maybe David could have defeated the aliens by ''gifting'' them a few of the computers.

* EnforcedMethodActing: Will Smith's rant about a god-awful smell was because of the set they were at. See: ThrowItIn.

** Creator/WillSmith's "AND WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL?!" line while ranting about having to drag an unconscious alien through the desert in his parachute when he could have had a day off for the Fourth of July was not in the original script: the desert setting that they were filming in was actually the salt flats near Great Salt Lake in Utah. Great Salt Lake is home to brine shrimp. When they die, the bodies sink to the bottom of the lake (which isn't very deep) and decompose. When the wind kicks up just right, the bottom mud is disturbed and the smell of millions of decaying brine shrimp can be very very bad. Apparently, [[EnforcedMethodActing nobody warned Will]]. (Creator/RolandEmmerich also said that he would have loved to let Smith improvise as much as he could, given how hilarious the scene turned out).

* EnforcedMethodActing: For the alien's telepathic attack on Whitmore, Bill Pullman remembered an especially painful tooth extraction.

** Creator/WillSmith's "AND WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL?!" line while ranting about having to drag an unconscious alien through the desert in his parachute when he could have had a day off for the Fourth of July was not in the original script: the desert setting that they were filming in was actually the salt flats near Great Salt Lake in Utah. Great Salt Lake is home to brine shrimp. When they die, the bodies sink to the bottom of the lake (which isn't very deep) and decompose. When the wind kicks up just right, the bottom mud is disturbed and the smell of millions of decaying brine shrimp can be very very bad. Apparently, nobody warned Will. (Creator/RolandEmmerich also said that he would have loved to let Smith improvise as much as he could, given how hilarious the scene turned out).

* BillingDisplacement: Though Mary McDonnell is higher billed than the fellow female stars, Margaret Colin and Creator/VivicaAFox, her screen time is much lesser than both of them.

** Creator/KevinSpacey was Dean Devlin's first choice to play President Whitmore, as they were high school friends. Creator/MatthewPerry was also considered to play Jimmy.

* WriteWhoYouKnow: According to DVD commentary, Julius Levinson was based off of one of Dean Devlin’s uncles.

* StarMakingRole: Will Smith already had [[Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir a popular sitcom]] and [[Film/BadBoys a successful buddy cop film]] to his name, but ''Independence Day'' sent his career into the stratosphere.

** Both ''VideoGame/MetalSlug 2'' and ''VideoGame/SigmaStarSaga'' have alien spaceships taken down by kamikaze attacks to their ventral {{Wave Motion Gun}}s (final and first bosses, respectively).

** Both ''VideoGame/MetalSlug 2'' and ''VideoGame/SigmaStarSaga'' have alien spaceships taken down by kamikaze attacks to their ventral {{Wave Motion Gun}}s (final and first bosses, respectively.

* ReferencedBy: Both ''VideoGame/MetalSlug 2'' and ''VideoGame/SigmaStarSaga'' have alien spaceships taken down by kamikaze attacks to their ventral {{Wave Motion Gun}}s (final and first bosses, respectively.

* EndOfAnEra: This movie was one of the last big-budget blockbusters to rely almost entirely on practical and optical effects (the only CGI is the "energy blasts" from the enemy fighters). While they have never gone away entirely, and are even enjoying a bit of a resurgence due to often looking better and being cheaper to do, CGI still dominates as the preferred way to do effects.

** Dean Devlin and second unit came up with Russell Casse's heroic last words "Hello, boys! I'm back!" After the ending was changed, they kept the line.

** Creator/WillSmith's then-girlfriend, Creator/JadaPinkettSmith, was reportedly offered the role of Jasmine, but had already accepted a role in the 1996 remake of ''Film/TheNuttyProfessor1996''.

* 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.

** A scene was cut which would have explained that we based our personal computing technology was based on what we'd reverse-engineered from the crashed alien ship, which is why our computers can interface with it. It was cut because Emmerich didn't think people would make that big a deal of it. It's probably the biggest [[Headscratchers/HomePage Headscratcher]] surrounding the film.

* PracticalEffects: The Oscar-winning effects included scale models of the spaceships and target buildings. To achieved shots of city blocks being destroyed, the models were tilted upwards so that they acted like a chimney for the flames.

* RetroactiveRecognition: The President's wife is... well... [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 the President.]] Except here, instead of dying of incurable cancer, she's dying of incurable injuries.
* ShownTheirWork: Not only are the Black Knights [[http://www.3rdmaw.marines.mil/Units/MAG11/VMFA314.aspx a real fighter squadron]], [[http://www.3rdmaw.marines.mil/About/History.aspx they really were assigned to El Toro]].

** Creator/WillSmith's then-girlfriend, Creator/JadaPinkettSmith, was reportedly offered a role in Independence Day (probably as Captain Hiller's girlfriend), but had already accepted a role in the 1996 remake of ''Film/TheNuttyProfessor''.
** There was a scene in the film that would have explained one of the biggest [[Headscratchers/HomePage Headscratchers]] of how Levinson's Macbook 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.
** Creator/RolandEmmerich wanted Creator/MartinLandau for the role of Julius Levinson, but he was busy with Film/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio.
** Creator/EddieMurphy was the first choice for the part of Steven Hiller. Creator/TomCruise, Creator/KeanuReeves, Creator/JohnnyDepp, Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme and Creator/WilliamBaldwin were considered for the part.

** 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.

** 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.

* UnderminedByReality: The Apple [=Powerbook=] 5300 was discontinued a month later due to, among other things, batteries that burst into flame in some models. Maybe David could have defeated the aliens buy ''gifting'' them a few of them.

** Ceator/WillSmith's "AND WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL?!" line while ranting about having to drag an unconscious alien through the desert in his parachute when he could have had a day off for the Fourth of July was not in the original script: the desert setting that they were filming in was actually the salt flats near Great Salt Lake in Utah. Great Salt Lake is home to brine shrimp. When they die, the bodies sink to the bottom of the lake (which isn't very deep) and decompose. When the wind kicks up just right, the bottom mud is disturbed and the smell of millions of decaying brine shrimp can be very very bad. Apparently, nobody warned Will. (Creator/RolandEmmerich also said that he would have loved to let Smith improvise as much as he could, given how hilarious the scene turned out).

* ShownTheirWork: not only are the Black Knights [[http://www.3rdmaw.marines.mil/Units/MAG11/VMFA314.aspx a real fighter squadron]], [[http://www.3rdmaw.marines.mil/About/History.aspx they really were assigned to El Toro]].