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A 1996 movie by RolandEmmerich. At its core it is a straightforward AlienInvasion movie with a lot of elements taken from well known sources like ''WarOfTheWorlds''. The archetypical SummerBlockbuster with a large cast of familiar character types, StuffBlowingUp, fighter jets dogfighting alien crafts, {{Rousing Speech}}es, {{Area 51}} and is otherwise fairly by-the-book storywise.

President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is the recently elected U.S. President when a ''massive'' (one-fourth the size of the moon) spaceship enters the orbit of Earth. Sending out smaller (city-size) ships that scatter across the globe to all the major cities, it doesn't take long before they begin firing their {{Wave Motion Gun}}s to wipe out entire cities at a time.

Humans fight back, with U. S. Marine pilot Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and a computer programmer David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) pulling together a plan to save the human race.

Needless to say, this is one of the most [[{{Troperrific}} trope]]-[[ClicheStorm filled]] movies of all time. Which is not to say that it's not completely awesome. What {{Plot Hole}}s exist are [[FridgeLogic covered up]] with outstanding [[VisualEffectsOfAwesome visual effects]], likeable characters and just being honest entertainment. It falls just short of [[LampshadeHanging hanging lampshades]] on everything it can, while being entirely aware of just how silly it is.
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!!This movie provides examples of the following tropes:

* AchillesHeel: [[spoiler: The open bay of an alien saucer's main cannon.]]
* AirForceOne
* AlienAbduction: Russel.
* AlienInvasion
* AlwaysChaoticEvil: The aliens.
--> '''President Whitmore:''' I saw its thoughts. I saw what they're planning to do. [[HordeOfAlienLocusts They're like locusts.]] They're moving from planet to planet... their whole civilization. [[PlanetLooters After they've consumed every natural resource]] they move on. And we're next. [[NukeEm Nuke 'em]]. Let's nuke the bastards.
* AmericaSavesTheDay: And how. The producers of a British radio spinoff were even given strict instructions ''not to portray the British as heroic or in any way contributing to America's victory''.
** It's mostly from the American point of view, but they do acknowledge that it takes a worldwide effort to win in the end.
* ApocalypseHow: The aliens plan to strip Earth of resouces until it counts as a Class 4 Apocalypse.
* {{Area 51}}
* AuthorityEqualsAssKicking: Partially subverted - the president was a fighter pilot, and does lead the raid against one of the ships, but doesn't get the final shot to take them down.
* BackedByThePentagon: The producers ''tried'' to use this trope, but the Pentagon refused to back a movie whose plot involved {{Area 51}}.
* {{BFM}}
* BikiniBar: Jasmine is named as a stripper in dialogue, but we only ever see her in one of these.
* BilingualBonus
* BondOneLiner: WillSmith does this over and over in this movie, to good effect.
-->'''Steven Hiller''' (to crash-surviving alien): *WHAM* "Welcome to Earth!"
* CaliforniaDoubling: Actually Utah Doubling; most of the movie after the first act was filmed on the Bonneville Salt Flats, near Wendover, UT.
* CapturedSuperEntity
* CassandraTruth
* ChekhovsHobby: A quick mention is made that President Whitmore is a former fighter pilot.
* ChessMotifs: "And when the countdown reaches zero, then what?" "... checkmate!"
* CollapsingLair
* ContrivedCoincidence: Oh so many.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: "WE WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT!"
**"HELLO, BOYS! I'M ''BAAAAAAACK!''"
* CrowningMomentOfFunny: Do you even have to ask what scene? "This was supposed to be my weekend off. But ''nooooo...''instead you got me out here dragging yo' heavy ass through the burning desert with your dredlocks stickin' out the back of my parachute. ...AND WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL??? ''(repeatedly kicks unconscious alien)'' AHHHH! I COULDA BEEN AT A BARBEQUE!"
* DeadlineNews: In the ads, as a ''WarOfTheWorlds'' ShoutOut.
* DeathByCameo: Volker Engel, who was head of the FX unit
* DeflectorShields
* DelayedExplosion
* [[DeusExNukina Deux ex Nukina]]
* DisappearedDad
* DisasterMovie
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything
* DoNotGoGentleIntoThatGoodNight: "We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish, without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today... we celebrate... our [[TitleDrop Independence Day!]]"
* DuelingMovies: Against ''MarsAttacks!'' and the almost-unknown ''TheArrival''
** TheArrival was in more of a movie duel against Film/{{Contact}}. It wasn't as good as ''that'' movie either.
* EarthIsABattlefield
* [[EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse Earth Is the Center of the Universe]]: Not completely straight, but somehow the Earthlings managed to stop the alien advance when they've stripped God knows how many planets before them.
** That was because HumansAreWarriors .
* EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion: If only America could resolve its ''Earthly'' wars over a lazy weekend...
* ETGaveUsWiFi: we've evidently gotten quite a lot of use out of [[{{Area 51}} that one crashed spaceship]]. Especially since they couldn't any of it's tech to work.
** "Evidentally"? The movie never showed that ANY human technology was ever derived from that ship.
* TheEternalChurchill
* EurekaMoment (David's final solution)
* EveryoneKnowsMorse
* EyeOpen
* [[FacingTheBulletsOneLiner Facing The Bullets One-Liner]]
* {{Fanfare}}
* FatalFamilyPhoto
* FingerTwitchingRevival
* FiveRoundsRapid.
* FlyingSaucers
* FridgeLogic
* GenreSavvy
* HemisphereBias
* HeroicSacrifice
* [=~Hey, It's That Guy!~=]: I didn't know [[{{Firefly}} Jayne Cobb]] worked for the US military.
** And did you know that, before she was President, [[BattlestarGalactica Laura Roslin]] was married to one too?
** And Dr. Okun is Data from StarTrekTheNextGeneration!
** And Harry Connick Jr. from ''WillAndGrace'' and ''TheIronGiant'' as Captain Steve's best friend Jimmy!
***He's too well known for this, but, technically ''TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' saved the world!
** [[AvatarTheLastAirbender Mae Whitman]] is the First Daughter.
*** [[ArrestedDevelopment Her?]]
* [[HistoricalInJoke Historical In-Joke]]
* HollywoodScience
* HollywoodTactics
* [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Horde of Alien Locusts]]
* HowToInvadeAnAlienPlanet
* IComeInPeace: Used straight and subverted. The military sends a chopper to one of the huge spaceships with a lit sign displaying greetings in all the languages of the world, and civilians in every major city hold up signs of greetings to said ships. The chopper gets blown out of the sky, and the cities (and associated welcoming parties) get cratered, with very little discussion.
* IGotYouCovered
* InferredHolocaust
* InWorkingOrder
* [[IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Israelis with Infrared Missiles]]
* ItHasBeenAnHonor
* [[ItsGoingDown It's Going Down]]
* [[JustBeforeTheEnd Just Before the End]]
* [[TheJorEl The Jor-El]]
* JustPlaneWrong
* LampshadeHanging
* LandmarkOfLore: {{Area 51}}
* MagicCountdown
* MissingMom
* MobileSuitHuman (The Aliens)
* MonumentalDamage
* TheMothership: The big ship, obviously.
* [[TheMountainsOfIllinois The Mountains of Illinois]]
* NoEndorHolocaust
* NukeEm
* OneBuwwetWeft
* OurPresidentsAreDifferent: Our presidents are ace jet fighter pilots.
* [[OutrunTheFireball Outrun the Fireball]]
* PatrioticFervor
* PlanarShockwave
* PlanetLooters
* PlausibleDeniability
* [[PlugNPlayTechnology Plug 'n' Play Technology]]
* PowerArmor: Bio-Mechanical in nature, and offers little protection from a punch to the face (which doesn't actually line up with the real head), but with several built-in weapons and decent protection from bullets.
* ProductPlacement
* RammingAlwaysWorks
* [[RedSkyTakeWarning Red Sky, Take Warning]]
* RockBeatsLaser
* RousingSpeech
* RuleOfCool
* RuleOfPerception (Steven and later Jasmine don't notice the alien ship hovering over Los Angeles until the camera shows it. This is when they have a to-die-for view of LA from their front lawn.)
* SceneryGorn: This film revels in the wholesale destruction of the populated centres of the world.
** Love of this trope must be the reason that a movie which features the destruction of the White House is shown on American television every year on the Fourth of July.
* [[SeeTheWhitesOfTheirEyes See the Whites of Their Eyes]]
* ShoutOut: To ''JurassicPark''; {{Jeff Goldblum}}'s character says, "Must go faster. Must go faster. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go!" in the exact same way as he does in one scene in ''JurassicPark''.
** Only one of many. There are shout outs and EasterEggs to classic sci-fi shows and films dating all the way back to the 1940s.
** The strategy to defeat the aliens mirrors the defeat of the aliens in ''WarOfTheWorlds'', with just a different meaning of a term.
* SingleMomStripper (Jasmine)
* SnarkBait
* SomeoneHasToDie
* SortingAlgorithmOfMortality: The characters who got killed were the stereotypically gay boss, the dumb stripper (a case of TooDumbToLive), the First Lady who didn't get out in time (a sympathetic character to give the impression that AnyoneCanDie), and the alcoholic father (seems like the alcoholic made a {{heroic sacrifice}} of redemption so...).
* SoulBrotha
* StuffBlowingUp
* SuckingInLines
* TakingYouWithMe
* TelevisionGeography
* ThrowAwayCountry
* TooFastToStop: The alien dogfighters, inexplicably, towards the end of the movie, even though they are stated to be extremely manueverable.
* TropesAreNotBad: There's a reason this movie spawned the Big Willy Weekend tradition.
* ToyShip: The President's daughter and Hiller's stepson
* [[UniversalDriversLicense Universal Driver's License]]
* [[WeComeInPeaceShootToKill We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill]]
* TheWorfBarrage
* WronskiFeint
* [[YouDontWantToDieAVirginDoYou You Don't Want To Die A Virgin, Do You?]]: TropeNamer.
* [[YouJustHadToSayIt You Just Had to Say It]]
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