Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Independence Day (1996) - Roland Emmerich | Houselights #188

Transcript

Independence Day (1996) - Roland Emmerich | Houselights #188 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the net party. Hello everybody at home, and welcome to House
0:23
Lights, House of Emeric Roland Emeric specifically, and tonight we are talking about
0:28
nineteen ninety six's Independence Day, and you listeners might be asking yourself, Tristan,
0:35
John Darren, why on earth didn't you do this a week ago?
0:38
Well, we didn't plan on it being this close, and we were off
0:41
by one friggin' week to have this release on actual Independence Dy, because we
0:48
normally release on Thursdays. July fourth was on a Thursday this year. We
0:52
totally we screwed the pooch folks, but you're still going to enjoy regardless.
0:57
I am your coast, Tristan Radelle and with me as all is John Mills
1:00
and Darren Moser themselves, Guys, Independence Day. I mean, like,
1:07
for those of you who weren't alive when this came to theaters, you have
1:11
no idea how much hype was behind this movie. Darren, did you get
1:18
to see this in the theater? I did. I was a wee lad
1:22
almost thirteen, and so thus you know PG thirteen. I can, I
1:26
can, I can see it, But yeah, I was looking at I
1:30
think this was meant to come out on the like the fourth obviously, but
1:36
they actually released it like a couple of days early because the hype was so
1:38
big. They're like, fine, we'll give it to you. Like I
1:42
remember the ID four posters and being like, what the heck is that?
1:47
I remember the poster with the ships or the shot of the you know.
1:53
I think there was also one which it was either New York or DC,
1:57
can't remember, but it was like it was New York. It was gigantic.
2:00
Yeah, and it just and you just saw it and you're like,
2:02
what is going on? And it was the big budget We're throwing all the
2:07
money at it, you know, sci fi alien invasion movie that we we
2:13
all didn't know we wanted, but we did want, like after they told
2:15
us what we were going to be getting, you know, the stuff.
2:19
But yeah, I remember the hype, like we're just a hair before the
2:23
hype of like Phantom Menace, which is a whole nother level, but this
2:28
was like close to it for an individual property that wasn't around before. It's
2:34
incredible pize what this reached. But yes, I do remember seeing this in
2:38
theaters. I probably saw it. I mean, guys, tickets were cheap
2:42
back then in nineteen ninety six they just worth probably eight dollars, maybe ten.
2:46
It would have been not even that. I can't even like DC metro
2:52
area. It was a shock when in nineteen ninety nine they raised the ticket
2:57
price at the movie theater. I saw Phantom Menace. At the day they
3:00
sold tickets. They were like, oh, by the way, ticket prices
3:02
are going up to I think they raised it's like eight twenty five, okay,
3:07
and that was in ninety nine, So tickets in probably my area would
3:09
have been around six bucks probably, Yeah, six six bucks was around that
3:14
time. And where I'm from in central Illinois in the Midwest, Yeah,
3:16
like it was probably even cheaper than that. Honestly, at that point you
3:20
could probably seven bucks, you know. Yeah, you could go multiple times.
3:23
It was usually go. It was very easy. Movies cheap. So
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that's what we're saying. That's what we're saying, cheap night. Yes,
3:30
back in my day, John, how about you, I mean, clearly
3:34
you saw this in the theater. Yeah, this was one of those ones
3:37
where it was just a foregone conclusion. It was I mean, to borrow
3:40
the term, I'm sure I've heard it somewhere, you know, water cooler
3:43
movie. You had to go see it so that you could talk about it,
3:46
And everybody was just like, Okay, fine, let's just tear the
3:49
band aid off, let's just go see it. I remember a fair amount
3:53
of skepticism from myself because you know, I remembered Universal, and I remembered
4:00
Stargate, and I had fond memories of Stargate, like we discussed, but
4:03
like they would always be like for the you know, director of Universal Soldiers
4:08
like hold on, champ, let's not bring that one in here. Maybe
4:11
we don't lead with that, folks. Yeah, maybe maybe that's a little
4:15
asterisk after you say the director of Stargate. But I mean Will Smith,
4:18
the fresh Prince of bel Air, huge, like he was hot, hot,
4:23
hot hot, but he wasn't a marquee movie store movie star at that
4:27
point, you know, like he was and everybody, you know, Jeff
4:30
Goldblum had just been in Jurassic Park three years previous, so there's a fair
4:34
amount of hype. There's all this stuff. You gotta go see it.
4:38
It was. It was an event movie. It was it was literally like
4:42
it didn't matter whether it was good or not. You had to go see
4:46
it so that you could talk about it. I'm kind of curious what went
4:47
up against it, because I really feel bad for whatever came out that weekend
4:53
besides this movie, because I'm sure it just got smushed. I don't I
4:56
don't think there was. I don't think they even made an attempt at counterprogramming
4:59
on it, because the multiplex scene was a little bit different back then too.
5:02
It's true, and so like, I think that this was just one
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of those ones where it was like people just got out of the way.
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They just weren't gonna bother trying to go up against it. At least that's
5:14
my recollection of it. I mean, it's sort of like I remember Young
5:17
Einstein coming out around the time of the original Batman in nineteen eighty something that's
5:24
like very different, like a chick flick or something that's like gonna try to
5:28
go for a totally different crowd. But anything, like you said, it's
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a water cooler movie. Everybody wanted to talk about it, or if you
5:34
missed it that first weekend, you were seeing it the second weekend because everybody
5:39
was talking about it. Yeah, it definitely had a lot of momentum behind
5:44
it. It was an event movie, and I mean honestly, yes,
5:47
the marketing. I think I was saying this during Stargate last week, Like
5:53
everything around Emricks movies in the nineties pointed us toward where the industry was headed,
6:00
and the idea that the marketing push it didn't matter whether the movie was
6:03
good. All that mattered was that it was coming out and you were gonna
6:08
go see it. And we're going to talk more about that next week with
6:12
Godzilla. Oh will we ever? But I mean the thing is really hat
6:15
tipped to Jurassic Park because Jurassic Park became that huge event, and then of
6:20
course the marketers are going to look at that and be like, how can
6:23
we make that happen again? And that it's served up to you on to
6:26
play here. You have a big music star, you have a no entity
6:30
with Jeff Goldbloom, you have names in the cast, you have aliens,
6:33
effects disaster movie people love disaster movies. Yeah, the table was set for
6:39
this thing. I was ten when this came out and I was I was
6:46
floored. I totally got captured into the hype. I was like, this
6:51
is the movie of the summer. I'm going to define my summer by this
6:56
movie and every year my birthday is the day after Independence Day, and so
7:02
every year my family and I would go see a movie, you know,
7:06
on my birthday or on July fourth, and we were like, well,
7:12
you know, like they didn't even have to ask me what movie we were
7:15
going to see this this summer, it was like, we're going to see
7:16
Independence Day and I was. I have such vivid memories of seeing this in
7:25
the theater. I know exactly what theater I went to, what row I
7:29
was in, and the blocks, the block lettering at the beginning that kind
7:34
of broke up and then you know, zoom's past the camera and you hear
7:39
the sound in this surround sound like it really tested this round sound. Both
7:44
my dad and I looked at each other like this is gonna be good.
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And it was the opening titles. Man, it was the opening titles,
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and we were like, this is gonna be good. And we got it
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on home video. Yeah, my dad was one of the first there people
8:00
we knew to get surround sound installed in the in the basement, and we
8:05
always popped in the opening of Independence Day on VHS to show off this round
8:11
sound of people who came and visited the house. It was in like the
8:13
rumble of the ship, you know, like when it when it approached the
8:16
moon and everything like that. It tested the bait like it was our testure
8:20
VHS like it was it was what we put in. I was. I
8:24
was so happy to be able to see this at ten years old. And
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my wife actually I was watching this on Independence Day and my wife said,
8:31
like we were I said, I was like, oh, I love this.
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When I saw this in the theater, She's like, hold you.
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I was like ten. She's like, you were allowed to watch this at
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ten? I was like, yeah, whatever, Like it's totally tame,
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like it's ready PG. Thirteen For language, I think, like it's not
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even that violent. I don't even recall the language too much. Like the
8:48
language is actually pretty pretty bad actually, Like as I watched it, when
8:54
she said something, I was like, oh wait, yeah, it's it's
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for a PG. Three. There's no F words, but there's a lot
9:01
of son of son of b's and gds and s h I t's and everything
9:05
like that. You know, like see, I'm glad we don't have to
9:09
believe it when you spell out the word. But but like you know,
9:15
like except for the dreaded s word, like all of those are things you
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can you could hear on primetime TV by that point, like granted more you
9:22
couldn't. You couldn't see GD. You couldn't say GD on primetime TV at
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that point. Yeah, okay, that's a fair Yeah, at that point
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you couldn't. That's a good point. But you know, I mean,
9:31
like I don't know, I mean, this is definitely an age thing because
9:35
it is you know, I was old enough that by the time this came
9:37
out, like you don't even notice that anymore. It's like whatever, I
9:39
mean, this is two years after paulp fiction. It's like you want to
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talk about like the language barrier being kicked down with it, you know,
9:46
with a popular movie. It's like, I think sort of landscape shifts a
9:52
bit after that. It's actually really funny that you mentioned that, because Dan
9:54
Nevlin uh pitched this script to twenty century Fox and just scribe to this war
10:00
of the World and meets pulp fiction, which I'm not quite sure how that
10:05
matches up, but the pitch obviously worked. You know. The thing is
10:09
my brain, I want to go to an AI generator and be like,
10:13
put Jules and Vincent in Independence Day and give me a script for what this
10:18
would look like if it were directed by Tarantino. That would be an interesting
10:22
film to say the least. Now, John, I have a question for
10:24
you. So I was ten years old when I saw this in nineteen ninety
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six, So I was a nineties kid, super excited see Will Smith,
10:33
Aliens and everything like that. I mean Will Smith. Will Smith helped define
10:37
the nineties. His performance is very nineties. Yeah, it's very of its
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time. I want to know what the younger generation of today thinks of Independence
10:50
Day. Oh, because I showed my daughter this movie for the first time,
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my oldest daughter, who is going into her senior year of high school,
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and she had never seen it before. And on Independence Day, I
11:01
said, I have to watch this is podcast homework. You want to watch
11:05
it with me, honey, And she said, yeah, sure, And
11:07
I played it for her and we watched it. And this is definitely a
11:13
movie that doesn't translate for the younger crowd the way it did for us in
11:20
the nineties. Time has left its mark, and I think that the biggest
11:28
hurdle that it has is, just like Star Wars, the landscape changed so
11:35
much afterward that you're measuring it against all of the things that came after,
11:39
which found ways to refine the technique and to do the tricks better and to
11:46
tighten the pace or tell things in a more compact fashion. And so I
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think that for the younger generation, it's basically it's oh, I get why
11:58
you like that at the time was sort of the vibe afterward, and I
12:01
had to give her. I had to give her credit. She had a
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lot of very funny comments as well, because you know, I, I
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you know, I'm like Don Corleone, I indulge my children, and so
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you know, we would have a little Can you give us an example of
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something that she that she commented on, and this is a fair thing that
12:18
I commented on as well, is when the alien ships come and attack the
12:22
military base. For the amount of shots that they're firing and the amount of
12:26
things we see blow up. When we were both saying, they're like,
12:30
man, they're terrible shots there. Their accuracy is awful. It's like like
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a thousand shots and like three things blow up in front of it. Yes,
12:37
And it's like that. That's the sort of thing where like when you
12:41
watch it, you're like, yeah, nowadays it would be a little bit
12:43
more oomph to that, like you look even at Transformers when Michael Bay basically
12:50
does this scene with Transformers, and it's like you get the sense of like
12:54
he blows a lot more stuff. I mean, it's Michael Bay, but
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that sort of thing, you know, And she offers a little commentary with
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that. She felt that Bill Pullman, as the president, was to say
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that he didn't impress her as an understatement. She felt that he was completely
13:13
pointless. She was She basically asked a couple of times, what is even
13:18
his point? What is he? Why is he there? Like she's like,
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I'm annoyed by him, more than motivated by him. But you know
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this speech at the end with that, I think you phrased it this way.
13:28
The furious salute, Tristan, Oh yeah, oh oh yeah, yeah,
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the the the furious and emotional salute. Yes, yes, that that
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drew a chuckle and which is where she where she chuckles, I got literal
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goosebumps. Okay, so I'll I'll say that back in nineteen ninety six,
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this is definitely my child, because back in ninety six I might have chuckled
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a little bit too and be like, okay, guys, all right,
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that's oh my God, it's it's it's so funny. It's so funny that
14:03
you say that, because like, as I'm watching this, you know,
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like my wife's walking around, she's doing whatever she's doing. And and so
14:13
she she comes in and she goes to closet while the movie's going on,
14:16
and we're getting to that scene, we're getting to the scene with the with
14:18
the speech, and I said, I was like, hey, baby,
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you want to you want to take a break with what you're doing and witness
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one of the greatest cinematic speeches of all times. She's like, oh,
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I've seen it. I was like, I know, but and I said,
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I was like, no, no, no, baby, baby,
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baby, baby, baby baby. I know you've seen it. But you
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can't just walk around while this is going on. You have to sit and
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observe. And and so like she's watching it, and and she ends up
14:46
just watching me watch the speech and I and I mean this, I mean
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this. I got literal chills on my arms when the speech was going on.
14:56
And when the dude, you know, did that resolute, I was
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like, hell, yeah, that's right, that's right. I get so
15:07
transported with this movie. And I am so glad that you shared what your
15:13
what your daughter thought of this movie, because I cannot. I cannot look
15:16
back at this objectively. It's so hard to look at that. And I
15:20
understand that, I understand that I can't. Like I'm not saying like,
15:24
oh, this is a this is a movie that's sublime, and it stands
15:28
the test of time. My memories of it, my my nostalgia of it,
15:33
definitely stand the test of time. Darren, how how did you feel
15:35
going back and watching this? Well, I mean it wasn't a long respite
15:43
because we watched this almost every fourth of July. It's it's a you know,
15:48
not I haven't watched it with my kids yet, but my wife and
15:50
I will watch it pretty much every yeah, every fourth, because it's just
15:54
it's what you put on. Like we'll watch, you know, certain movies
15:56
at Christmas time and certain movies at Thanksgiving, but this one is fourth of
16:02
July, and yeah, it maybe that keeps it from fading in the nostalgia
16:10
way, Like I don't think about being thirteen and watching this. It's more
16:14
just like, oh, this is just a fun it's a popcorn movie.
16:18
It's it's it's a like you said, it's a great surround sound movie like
16:23
it just blows away, you know. The I think it won for Best
16:27
Sound as may as it should. But yeah and yeah, I mean I
16:34
think the most dated aspect of it is Again, it's always going to be
16:38
the technology. Like his laptop looks like you know, utter trash because it's
16:44
nineteen ninety six and it's like Mission impossible where they're just trying to like dial
16:48
up everything and it just looks because that's what it is, that's what cell
16:52
phones look like, that's what technology looks like. And you know, he's
16:56
like communicating with hosts like tee type type type type type type and I'm like,
17:00
oh, man, like what you gotta You've thrown your seven to five
17:03
mega herts at it and you're hoping it works. But thank goodness that mac
17:07
os integrated into that tech alien technology, you know, think goodness that they
17:11
use the same Well, if they had been you know, sixty four bit
17:15
instead of thirty two, we would have all died. It would have just
17:18
been we wouldn't be speaking right now. You know. I will say that
17:22
those of us who were older at the time and knew a thing or two
17:26
about computers, we did have a little chuck like we looked the other way,
17:30
like we get it, we get it and everything like that. But
17:32
oh yeah, totally we got of like walked out. We're like, yeah,
17:34
okay, good, Yeah, that's not you know, because we would
17:37
encounter people, and of course, being nerds, you had to be like,
17:41
well, you know, that wouldn't actually work. You know, like
17:44
you gotta be that way. I think in head canon land you can be
17:48
like, he was so brilliant. All you need to communicating with host problem
17:52
So oh oh, it's communicating with host. He had done he had done
17:56
the necessary work to integrate his code because they were using our satellites or something
18:02
like that. That's true. He did have a lot of knowledge of the
18:04
satellite signal. He discovered the signal they established. He's really like, they
18:08
built it up. It wasn't like and then this technician Bob who we've never
18:14
met, is going to go on the spaceship with you because he has a
18:17
computer. It's like, no, it's gonna be the guy we know.
18:18
Although I will say that my daughter did bring up a great point where you
18:23
know, they fly the old ship back, which implies that the Aliens have
18:27
made no technological advancement since that ship crashed obviously, but fifties to wow,
18:34
that shit. Well, but ships, you know, they go setting aside
18:38
the upgrade sort of thing and all of that, and it's like you could
18:41
say that those aliens probably had hit a stasis point in their technology specifically,
18:45
because all they did was a year round. They took stuff and everything like,
18:48
that's fine. And I always thought that that ship was like Frank,
18:52
came from this mother ship but just went on a little bit ahead because it's
18:56
only wait, what fifties to nineties, that's not that many years. But
19:00
ships still have unique identifiers. And she was the one that sat there.
19:03
She's like, shouldn't that ship's unique identifiers? Like oh yeah, honey,
19:07
yeah, yeah, you went there. Good. You know you're thinking it
19:10
through here, that's fine. Just brushed past that, and she was like,
19:12
okay, yeah, there's a few hundred series just came back and we're
19:18
in like the thousands, like what is the ship doing here? To be
19:22
fair, To be fair, they did lock it down immediately and didn't let
19:26
it go anywhere during during that time, the guy could have been calling up
19:32
his supervis there the supervisors on a break, we saw the space cubicles.
19:36
Guys, we saw him in the ship. They're just doing their job.
19:41
The guys sitting a ship comes up. He's just liked it. Oh look
19:45
a ship like the thousands of other ships I see every day. I don't
19:48
get paid to ask questions space Bob, you know, like you don't do
19:55
the budgetary I do, thank you. I was about to go there with
19:59
the Star Wars family guy thing where it's like, why not just shoot that?
20:02
Yes, right, yeah, there's a bureaucracy on the alien ship.
20:06
It makes sense. Actually, Okay, So I want to ask you guys.
20:08
I want to ask you guys a question. So in the nineties,
20:12
in the marketing and everything like that, they really like, you know,
20:17
John, you hit this perfectly, like Will Smith was huge, fresh prince
20:21
of bel Air music career, like the guy helped define the nineties. I
20:26
mean that, like people don't understand how how much of a pillar Will Smith
20:33
was in the nineties. And they really kind of built this up as like
20:37
this is a Will Smith movie, like Independence Date Will Smith movie. Watching
20:41
this again as an adult because I hadn't watched this for a very long time.
20:48
I don't feel like Will Smith is in it. The most. I
20:51
feel like we get more Bill Pullman and Jeff goldblumd than we do Will Smith.
20:53
Am I alone in that? Or what do you guys think, Like,
20:56
who's the protagonist in this movie? Or is it just an ensemble cast?
21:00
Well, I was interested in talking about this, like we mentioned last
21:03
week with Stargate, where Stargate is also kind of a mix between uh,
21:08
you know, Jack's story and Daniel's story and obviously you know they're inner weave.
21:14
But yeah, you're right, this is there's three guys you and they
21:18
have very different you know, they only coalesced towards the end, you know,
21:22
of the movie as it as it checks off. Ah, But who
21:26
is the protagonist I I would guess I would say, shooting from the hip,
21:34
probably Jeff Goldboom, because his character affects the most change on the circumstances,
21:41
and that's usually your protagonists as opposed to No, not that the others
21:45
don't contribute, they really do, but he's the one that, like,
21:48
if he was not there, things are massively different. I think that his
21:56
plot line affects the most plot line other you know, the most other characters
22:02
as well, the woman working in the White House he had punched the president,
22:06
so they had passed interaction as well, and then you have these other
22:10
characters that he interacts with. So I think that if I'm looking at it
22:14
from a bare bones perspective, he's the quote unquote protagonist, but he's not
22:18
a charismatic protagonist. And so that's why Will Smith steals the spotlight, because
22:23
he's the charismatic figure in the film, and the fact that they come together
22:30
at the end makes it feel much more like a co billing instead of a
22:33
top billing. But I understand why the marketers say, oh no, Will
22:40
Smith is our play in this one, like, because he's got the one
22:45
liners. He's got Welcome to Earth, Right, that's that's your ad campaign,
22:48
right, there's times up. You might have the same kick. And
22:55
as speaking of which he like one of his lines is I have got to
22:59
get me one of these yes, oh, which I saw that in so
23:03
many ads, so many ads. It was all over the place, tons
23:06
of people were saying apparently, like I was listening to an interview with him,
23:11
he got a call from his kids teacher. I think I don't know
23:15
which kid, maybe Jadennur's, I don't know, but he got a call
23:18
from his kid's teacher at the time, like an N ninety six and ninety
23:22
seven, everything like that. Got a call from home saying your son won't
23:26
stop saying I gotta get me one of these You have to tell him to
23:33
stop. That's fair, That's fair, you know I But yeah, I
23:41
mean, Smith is the the He's so charismatic in this movie that go ahead
23:47
and paint him as the protagonist. But Jeff Goldbloom is it he? I
23:52
think you guys are right, because, like I kind of wanted to lean
23:53
towards Bill Pullman just because I have such a huge soft spot for Bill Pullman.
24:00
Ever since while you were sleeping, I love that. I love me
24:03
some Bill Pullman. Absolutely, I love that movie so much. But Jeff
24:07
Goldblum clearly yes, absolutely, John, like Darren you're you're both are absolutely
24:11
right about what you said. Now, now, since we're talking about some
24:15
of the actors, I want to talk about the performances before we kind of
24:18
get into the directing. Since this is director based podcast and like where we
24:22
see Roland Emerick and everything like that, we gotta talk about these performances because
24:26
these are some really, really great people. We got Mary McDonald Judd Hirsch,
24:32
Robert Loja, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Harvey, fire scene,
24:37
Brince Spiner, Adam Baldwin, Vivak A Fox, James Reborn, is it
24:44
Redborn? Reborn? I'm gonna say Reborn out borrow the Gene Hackman line.
24:48
He's great and everything like that guy walks on screen and it's like, Oh,
24:52
this is gonna be a good one. I want to talk about his
24:53
character. He's a fantastic actor. I really do like him, but his
24:59
portrayal, well, that character, Like I know that we get that great
25:03
Robert Loja line where like, Darren, can you can you say that Robert
25:07
Loja line for me that he says about American pilots? Oh, where he's
25:11
like, maybe you should have told us that before we launched a campaign that
25:15
costs a life of hundreds of American pilots. Bravo. I love it,
25:21
Bravo. So okay, I know that the story needed to happen and we
25:26
needed that reveal. So I know from a plot standpoint and a story standpoint
25:30
that the Secretary Secretary of Defense needed a hold on to that little secret so
25:34
we could have that big reveal of Area fifty one legitimately, this man needs
25:41
to be tried for treason. Right, I'm not joking. There's a time
25:47
out here. There's a time out here. Because Area fifty one, like
25:52
so many other things that my conspiracy theory loving heart is filled with, Area
25:57
fifty one was regarded as a conspiracy theory at this time. You don't understand
26:03
Area fifty one was that thing where it's like, yeah, yeah, the
26:06
crazy people believe in Area fifty one. Now I knew Area fifty one,
26:08
everybody knew Area fifty one, but it was one of those It was like
26:11
the NSA where it was like, oh, no such agency. And even
26:15
though there were those of us who knew people who worked for the NSA or
26:18
had dads who worked in the NSA, the NSA didn't exist. It wasn't
26:23
a thing. It didn't exist. Now, I won't go down the rabbit
26:26
hole of you know, how S seven is the real site where things happen
26:30
and all of that type of stuff. But like at the time, it
26:33
was completely believable that Area fifty one would have been so locked down that nobody
26:38
would have been told about it except for like a handful of people, And
26:44
what I wish they had done is teased out a little bit more about the
26:47
fact, like a retort along the lines of like, yeah, well Truman
26:51
didn't even know about Fat Man and Little Boy for Pete's sake, Like there
26:56
is a need to know basis for a lot of things. And I know
27:00
I'm going down a rabbit hole here, but like in ninety six, the
27:03
fact that they talked about Area fifty one was like a little love tap to
27:07
those of us who believed in Area fifty one. It was a first exposure
27:11
for a lot of people at the time. None of that counteracts what I
27:15
said about him in this universe, in the reality of the movie, the
27:22
fact that he knew that there was how complementary days, Yeah, that there
27:30
was complementary technology of the aliens who landed in Roswell in the sixties and it
27:41
was hovering over every major city. No, no, listen. Having grown
27:48
up in the DC metro area as well, it's completely like we just sort
27:52
of shrug at those sorts of things. It's like, yeah, of course
27:55
it's compartmentalized. It's the whole. It's a whole thing. Like CIA doesn't
27:59
talk to FBI and all of that type of stuff. I'm not saying you're
28:02
wrong from an ethical or moral I'm saying that it's just one of those things
28:06
where it's like they did enough research to know, Yeah, it's just how
28:08
it works. Yeah. And also his character, Like I freaking hate when
28:14
they make the Secretary of Defense a warmonger, Like he's like, it's again,
28:18
like the second the Secretary of Defense is always an idiotic warmonger who's just
28:23
like, let's let's blast them with some ibms. Let's do it. But
28:26
then of course when they want to mount an offensive, he's like, there's
28:32
stupid, this will never work, and like he just he's just he is
28:37
the he's the on the ground antagonist of the movie. And he that's a
28:41
one big criticism I have of this is that the Secretary of Defense is the
28:45
on the ground antagonist for the movie and he flip flops depending on what the
28:48
plot needs. Again, I'll give it a little bit of an out saying
28:53
this is how your government works, and be comfortable with it. And this
28:56
is just like seriously, Like again, being in the DC Metro, We're
29:00
all like we didn't even notice it, Like we was like, yeah,
29:03
that's just what happens. Oh, it's so true. Like in the nineties
29:08
at ten years old. Oh my gosh, Like you don't realize that Washington
29:12
does not get the best in the brightest No, no, you know what
29:18
before we go down that rabbit hole. Though, I want to say that
29:22
as a Star Trek fan at the time, seeing Brent Spiner walk on screen
29:27
and get a non data role, it was so like we, like my
29:33
group of friends, when we saw him walk on screen, we were so
29:37
thrilled. There was like a little mini teer that went up. We were
29:40
like, yay, Brett Speiner. He's so I consider him such a scene
29:44
stealer in this movie. Now, Darren, what did you think about seeing
29:47
Brent Speiner on screen in a non data role. What do you think about
29:49
his role? Oh? Same as John. I mean Data was like my
29:53
favorite character from TNG. You know it was just gone, you know,
29:57
just retired off the air. So yeah, seeing him and acting for emoting
30:04
having long hair, it was like I almost didn't recognize him. I think
30:08
it took like half a second because he's got glasses. He looks it's like
30:12
the Clark Kent effect where he looks so different that I almost didn't place him
30:18
as the same actor. But No. I think Oakin is a great character.
30:23
I love that he just plays it like a tiny bit mannic where he's
30:26
like, yeah, they don't. They don't let us out very often.
30:27
You're like, okay, so it's all you need to say. I totally
30:30
understand everything about your character right now. Yeah, just the whole you know,
30:36
once we get there with the area fifty one, it work. I
30:38
mean, these beautiful sets, you know, and I love just the the
30:45
extra plating that we put on the alien ship, with the you know,
30:48
emergency hash marks like that just feels like, oh, yeah, we got
30:52
to build that. Just just just glue it together, just put just cover
30:55
that hole with some you know, titanium. Maybe he don't make it in
30:59
space, won't who knows, but we toletally just use bondo or something.
31:03
Yeah, yeah, Gorilla Blue again it you know, So that part of
31:10
the movie. I like. How and I've said this many times with movies,
31:14
especially with sci fi, they establish the rules and then they stick with
31:18
it. The rules are the little ships run off of the power from the
31:22
mothership. That's why it turned back on when it came into orbit, and
31:26
that's why they weren't like, oh, yeah, we know everything about this
31:30
ship. It's like, no, it literally just turned on for the first
31:33
time in you know, fifty years. So I love little details like that
31:37
where when they're like what do you know about them, it's like, oh,
31:40
we know this and that, and you're like, yeah, but that's
31:41
really not that much because the technology has all been dead. Uh So Yeah,
31:47
I love stuff like that where you know it just it it fits.
31:52
I mean, yeah, Morse code. Yeah, you know, there's other
31:55
parts where you're suspending a little bit of disbelief. What's that Morse code connected
31:59
to? How are they getting there that don't exist? I don't know.
32:05
I guess it's just the fact that it's a code that everybody knows, because
32:07
yeah, but how are they sending it out? I saw them going.
32:14
I still remember speaking of the Morse Code, a little bit of a chuckle
32:19
going out through the audience when the British guys, like when they're like,
32:22
oh, the Americans, it is about bloody time. And I remember a
32:24
lot of people in my circle being like, why would people be waiting for
32:30
us anyway, Like, wouldn't you I'm sorry, Eric, Okay, I'm
32:35
sorry, John, I'm sorry John, I'm I'm from the Midwest. We
32:38
all knew what it meant. We're like, yeah, of course the Blimeys
32:42
are that are waiting for the Americans to do something, just like we save
32:46
them in w W two. Okay, so we okay, which makes me
32:50
think of The Simpsons, where it's like, yeah, well we saved your
32:52
ass in World War two. Yeah, well we saved your ass in World
32:54
War three? All right, fair enough. I think that there is is
33:00
definitely the the aura of American exceptionalism about this movie. It's called Independence Day,
33:09
I know, I know, but but it is still it's still one
33:13
of those things where I I almost wonder if part of the reason that it
33:16
had trouble finding traction with my daughter is because she's very post that era,
33:23
so it's trigger with her that way. Totally. The nineties we had we
33:30
you know, quote unquote, we had won the Cold War, and it's
33:32
pre nine to eleven, like we felt that the audience sitting in there felt
33:37
like we were invincible, Like this was this was this very much tapped into
33:42
that vein. And I'm not saying that as a positive or negative. I'm
33:45
saying the real power of this movie at the time, and all credit to
33:51
devilin and Emeric for figuring this out was how to speak to the audience that
33:55
was going to receive it, and just getting through to them and having them
34:00
say wow, yeah and like walk out and be energetic about everything like that
34:07
is part of your job as a pulp factory popcorn filmmaker is to throw it
34:14
to the audience in a way that they're going to receive it. And I
34:17
think that as a result, Independence Day went up in retrospect, getting a
34:22
little a little too much static in later years when people revisited it and not
34:28
understanding that the true talent of Devil and Emeric was understanding the audience of the
34:31
time and getting to them. And still the international box office was larger still
34:38
than the domestic, but at the time, domestic was what everybody focused on,
34:45
and that was the one you were trying to capture, which they did
34:46
in spades with this movie. And it's all because they knew how to speak
34:52
to that emotional level of the audience. So I think the same thing,
34:58
it's context. I mean, it's a kind when it came out the same
35:00
thing as like Star Wars, like people are like, oh, like,
35:04
why can't we recreate that magic from seventy seven. It's like, because everyone
35:08
was tired of just the downward motion of movies and the glum and all of
35:17
that, this was like, hey, here's some heroes and and you know,
35:22
good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and we win in
35:23
the end. Like that that was new and or that was It came at
35:29
the moment it needed to. And then it made a ton of money.
35:32
And I think you're absolutely right. We were riding that high of the mid
35:37
nineties. Tell me about that money, Darren, tell me, give me,
35:39
oh, throw me some so much, hold hard cash figures at me.
35:44
We got it in ninety six dollars. We got it in twenty four
35:46
dollars. We got all the money. So this movie was made for seventy
35:51
five million, which I almost don't believe because that sounds like in ninety six,
35:54
that's just that's nothing. I got that in my couch. I spend
36:01
that on three episodes of The Mandalorian Boom. Right there you go. But
36:07
so that's around like one fifty and twenty twenty four dollars. It made eight
36:13
hundred and seventeen million dollars, almost a billion in ninety six, when money
36:20
meant something and tickets were tickets were cheap. That's like one point six billion
36:25
dollars today. So you're saying it made a profit. Oh yes. If
36:30
the if any sort of studio that was attached to this was in trouble,
36:34
they weren't any more. And this was the moment that Roland Emmerick was like,
36:38
you know what, this was a sci fi disaster movie and this made
36:43
a lot of money. I'm gonna do this until the end of time.
36:49
We'll find something to check out pay you for it. Right, Like this
36:52
feels like I mean, we'll probably get to this next week, but this
36:54
feels like that you can make whatever you want after this, like you're playing
36:58
check. Absolutely this is a blank check because like you said at the time,
37:01
it was seventy five million. Is the budget whatever that translates to in
37:05
twenty four domestic, which I promised the audience, I swear to you from
37:09
the bottom of my heart, was all that anybody cared about. In nineteen
37:13
ninety six, it made three hundred and six million plus, meaning that's like
37:17
quadrupled its budget. Like that is the basic math of that is that everybody
37:25
went home with I mean they still lost money with creative accounting, you know,
37:30
as they always do. But everybody else went home happy with that.
37:36
I mean, this made as much as we talked about, Will Smith was
37:38
a name, and Will Smith was known, and Will Smith to find the
37:42
nineties. This made him a movie star. He walked out of this movie
37:47
able to do whatever he wanted. Strangely, Jeff Goldblum not afforded the same
37:53
sort of cachet, which is weird but okay, But like he walked out
38:00
of this and Will Smith had an ego coming out of this where I remember
38:04
when Wild wild West came out and everybody said, oh, you know,
38:08
you were releasing on July fourth weekend again and he I remember him saying at
38:13
the time, July fourth is my weekend. Understand that's me. And then
38:17
Wild wild West happened and it wasn't his weekend anymore. But like, that's
38:23
insane to quadruple your budget, that's the dream of every studio and on a
38:29
big budget movie. This movie cost a lot to make and it's all on
38:31
the screen. But again it points us toward where we are now. Spend
38:37
a lot of money, make a lot of money, and it's not sustainable.
38:42
This pointed the way for what was going to ruin the industry in future
38:45
years. Like, it's so funny how prescient behind the scenes this movie is
38:51
as much as you know on screen. Since we're talking behind the scenes,
38:55
Darren, where do you see mister Emerick in this? Like? Do you
39:00
see Universal Soldier Emeric? Do you see Moon forty four? See? Let
39:07
me rephrase, do you see Stargate Emric? Right? No, it's like
39:12
what if it took place on Earth? Oh my gosh, yeah, No,
39:15
I think. I mean, obviously there's the Roswell thing, which I
39:20
think is the most emeric of things, where it's like very analogous to oh,
39:24
the Aliens built the pyramids and then we prove it. It's like,
39:28
oh, Aliens actually went to area fifty one, oh, and then we
39:30
prove it. So you have a little bit of dichotomy there. I think,
39:35
like we've mentioned before, he just gets really good performances out of ensembles,
39:40
Like he can handle an ensemble cast, he can handle the story.
39:45
I mean, I probably part of it is the fact that as long as
39:52
you hit your third act, and that's what everyone's talking about when they're leaving
39:55
the theater, you kind of have a lot of leeway in your in your
39:59
beginning, so you're hitting it and you're nailing it. But like that's a
40:01
long time ago. By the time we get to blowing up the spaceships,
40:06
you know, a lot of the setup is people aren't even remembering that.
40:09
So yeah, I think, but he he really navigates these three men,
40:16
these three stories, and weaves it together in a three day Like the timeline
40:22
of this movie is crazy fast from July second, boom in the screen because
40:28
so you know what day it is. I don't know if the aliens are
40:31
landing on the International dateline or where exactly they were, but yeah, from
40:37
July America, America America's timeline. It's all that matters. But He's like,
40:45
okay, so we we we drew a line in the stand on July
40:47
second, and we have to have the little girl say happy for to July
40:52
to her dad at the end. So make it happen. Fit it in,
40:57
but make fireworks happen it may you know. Yeah, So that's where
41:01
I see it mostly, I think. I mean, we were listening all
41:05
these amazing actors and just it's a very quotable movie. I mean, there's
41:10
quotes coming out your ears. From all of it, not just oh well
41:14
Will Smith got all the good lines. It's like, no, like we
41:16
called this movie all the time. There's so many great little pieces and and
41:23
it's and it's just a fun movie. So yeah, I think my dad's
41:28
favorite quote, which is, what was you didn't think they're actually spending twenty
41:34
thousand dollars on a hammet on a hammer and thirty thousand dollars on a toilet
41:37
seat, did you? My dad? Every single time he's just like yep,
41:43
I love like, you know, oh, this is not check big,
41:45
this is not check bik. You know, just yeah, there's so
41:47
many little or you know, like the signal or time's up, and you
41:52
know, even the good Morning Dave reference of his when he boots up his
41:57
computer and it's like a Hall of nine thousand and you know reference. Speaking
42:01
of my dad. Yeah, he had to explain that reference to me at
42:04
the time at ten years old. That's true, I mean nineteen sixties.
42:07
Yeah, yeah, it's a little little later, but no, i'd say
42:10
that's where I see it. And it's been really fun just watching these movies
42:15
in order, Like I'm glad we started with Moon forty four, which wasn't
42:19
that long ago, guys, It really wasn't. Which is it feels like
42:22
a long time ago. It feels like decades ago, and it wasn't even
42:28
five years. It's it's crazy that he just right plays, right time,
42:32
right sequence, just each one's making more money than the next. And then
42:37
he got this and it just nailed nineteen ninety six. It really did,
42:44
now, John, You know how a lot of movies nowadays come up with
42:49
character posters where like, you know, like you have the main movie poster
42:52
and then you have character posters at the actors in their possums and everything like
42:55
that. I think if that was a trend back in ninety six, I
43:00
would pay good money third of my paycheck to have a Judd Hirsh Independence Day
43:07
character poster. I will make one. I need to make one. I
43:13
think that is because he definitely has some good moments too. And I think
43:21
because you would ask Darren about where you see the director. One thing where
43:23
I will point out where I still see the deficiencies of Rolandemeric in this movie,
43:29
and my daughter glombed onto this without any prompting for me as well,
43:35
was when they wind up in Nevada and they go through that whole. I
43:38
mean, when they go through the canyon chase, I immediately think now of
43:45
Moon forty four. And does that canyon chase any more sense to me visually
43:51
than that did. Maybe a little more, but not a lot. It's
43:57
spectacle and it moves fast, and it has will Smith, and so it's
44:00
better, it's clearer, it's more direct. I understand better where they're going.
44:06
But she actually said, wait, where are they now? And I
44:09
said, oh, well, they're in Nevada now, because they were going
44:13
so fast and they went from La to Nevada. They're pretty close to each
44:15
other and everything like that, but pretty close. But the child did not
44:22
get that they were in a whole different state by that point, and so
44:28
I thought you were going to go in a different direction with that where because
44:31
like, the canyon chases don't make sense in any movie. And the only
44:37
time I've ever seen that mocked is in Firefly, which is another Adam Baldwin
44:43
property, where the pilot wash is going through a canyon. He's going like
44:47
crazy, He's just like going left and right and up and down. He's
44:51
just like super intense, and he's like he's like, yeah, we got
44:53
away and then the bad guys are just above him and he's like, oh
44:59
yeah, fly, I could do that. Then there is I mean there
45:06
there there are a couple of things as well. Like at the end of
45:08
it, she says, so this is just Star Wars. I said,
45:12
yeah, basically, honey, when when everything is just Star Wars, I
45:15
hate that. I I understand that, but I also understand that it's the
45:22
hero's journey. That that that's It's not everything is Star Wars. Everything is
45:25
the hero's journey. Well, she saw when you were baking in the way
45:30
that they were doing that final run at the you know, at the the
45:36
trench ship and the first shot misses, and then you have the hero show
45:40
up and and do the thing, and that's just story. Was Randy Quaid
45:45
the hero really was Randy Quaid. That he's my hero because he's functional and
45:52
that's what I aspire to be and that's what I am every day. So
45:54
I thought it was very brave of Randy Quaid to show up on set and
45:58
just play himself. You know, I think, you know what, listen,
46:00
you can character assassinate him all that you want to, but he was
46:04
poor to play this role. That's all I'm gonna say, you know,
46:07
and thank god that they changed it from the way that it originally was,
46:10
which was please talk about that, because that's insane. And according to Devlin,
46:15
it was received well by test audiences, but I would rebut that by
46:22
saying that if it tests well with audiences, one does not typically tend to
46:25
change it. But okay, I'll stick with Devlin's story because it's the only
46:29
one I've heard that even though it tested well, that Randy Quaid did not
46:34
get accepted to fly one of the fighter jets and instead showed up at the
46:37
end in his biplane with a bomb strap to it and flew in And audiences
46:44
loved it when they tested it, but they changed it anyway to show him
46:46
getting in the jet, and they reshot everything so he was he was in
46:50
it. I can tell you that had he been in his biplane with a
46:57
bomb strap to it, I would have walked out of this movie laughing hysterically
47:02
and watched it only to mock it for the rest of time. Like that.
47:07
Yeah, if that was a if that made it to the final cut,
47:12
I would never have given this any truck whatsoever like that. That would
47:19
have been a deal breaker for me. I remember seeing that on the laser
47:22
disc edition. My uncle had a player like a deleted scene that you could
47:28
watch that I thought it was. I mean, I may be misremembering this,
47:32
so like, folks, don't call me a liar or say that I'm
47:36
wrong. I might be. I could have sworn that it was integrated into
47:40
the main feature, seeing the biplane fly up. It could be a false
47:45
memory. It could be a false memory. Don't tweet it well because it
47:49
changes it because now it's a suicide mission from the get go, like he
47:52
knows he's not coming back, and it is such a great moment where he
47:58
chooses to sucker himself in the moment because of the malfunction of the I mean
48:04
that's plot. I mean we can see where that's coming. But just to
48:07
talk for a second about because we watched a mix of the theatrical and the
48:13
extended edition, and I will say this for the extended is it gives I
48:20
think the biggest difference is it gives a lot more to Randy Quaid. It
48:23
flushes out his character a lot more. We get a lot more of him
48:27
and his kids, and a lot of good moments where I like those moments
48:31
where he's standing up for his kid, he's being a dad, Like,
48:35
yeah, he's not the best dad in the world. He's kind of a
48:37
screw up. But I like all those moments, and it gives an even
48:42
better payoff when he has that hero's moment in the end. So I will
48:46
say I do enjoy that. I think the exact opposite that was actually it's
48:55
I think I think it's really better with the theatrical the way it's the way
49:00
it stayed. Oh, I think the theatrical is way better than some of
49:05
the extended scenes that are in it. But I think the reason why I
49:09
think that theatrical is way better is because of the Randy Quaid scenes are the
49:15
worst of the worst. And so like like listening to you say that is
49:20
so funny that you took it so differently than me, because like, as
49:22
I'm watching the extended edition, like even when I'm watching the theatrical edition,
49:27
I was just like, you know what, I could use less of that
49:30
storyline. I think less of that storyline would make this a stronger movie.
49:35
And then seeing the extended edition, I'm like, oh, good lord,
49:37
they had more. There was actually more on the cutting roof floor. I
49:40
can honestly say that I have only seen the theatrical edition. I have no
49:45
desire to see an extended edition because I think that it's a little long.
49:51
Even in the theatrical cut. Is the idea that this would go longer than
49:55
two twenty five. I think two twenty five is too long for this movie
50:00
to begin with. And it's like two thirty five, like, it's only
50:04
like ten more minutes. Ten minutes of screen time is a lot of screen
50:08
time to be a little pedantic. Nine it's nine minutes long, Okay,
50:14
But you're totally right. I'm not just saying, oh, it's only nine
50:15
minutes. That doesn't matter. It obviously changes the movie and makes Tristan hate
50:21
it, but it goes from five stars to two stars immediately. Listen.
50:28
I think the biggest tell for me is that by the time it was over,
50:35
and I think even all the way back in ninety six, by the
50:37
time it was over, I was like, Okay, I've I've had enough
50:44
of it. I still see moments that could be cut, I still see
50:50
where it could be tightened. I see a couple of things where they really
50:54
there's a sort of an ironic love that I have for it because, for
51:00
instance, even even back in ninety six, and I know full well the
51:06
you know, the the the the the suspension of disbelief starts from the opening
51:10
frame sort of thing. But when you have Air Force one taking off riding
51:15
basically a wave of explosion and the plane isn't even shaking on the inside,
51:22
really, I'm like, okay, look, I've flown over things where it's
51:25
like there's a storm thirty thousand feet below us, and like the planes Like,
51:30
I'm like, you couldn't at least like shake the camera a little bit
51:32
or something. Listen, we all know in it's cinematic law that you can
51:38
survive flames, okay, but you can't survive the actual explosion itself. Like
51:45
looks at the Millennium Falcon and Jedi I mean, boom pops out of the
51:49
flames. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, now hold on
51:52
a second here, Oh I got close to the space found close Listen.
51:58
I like, you know, there's also stuff I remember at the time.
52:00
You guys might be a little young to remember this, but I remember at
52:02
the time there were critics that were sort of making fun of the dog jumping
52:07
into the Okay, to be fair, that is also ridiculous, like that
52:12
is the slowest moving fireball I've ever seen. But hey, you know,
52:16
I think it's well, that was that was a test thing of now they're
52:22
like the saving of the dog. That is what made that moment that moment.
52:27
I will say also that I at least give the movie credit for blowing
52:30
up all the idiots that are at the top of the Capitol Records Building that
52:34
are holding welcome aliens. I was like in ninety six and today I was
52:38
like, that's right, you got what you deserve. The stupid fools.
52:45
We all know heat can't make a right turn and go through a door.
52:51
All the heat just kept going down that tunnel. None of it turned and
52:53
fried them. Alike, hey the light bulb went out, come on now,
53:00
okay, okay, okay, okay. To be fair to Vivica A.
53:04
Fox's character, I did like how smart they made her. Like everybody
53:07
was running forward and she's like, no, I gotta take cover, I
53:10
gotta I'm gonna bust down the door here. I'm gonna deal with my kid
53:15
first, and if I have time, I'm gonna call for the dog.
53:17
And then like even when she is driving the truck, you know, like
53:22
looking for the keys, making sure that the like it's a stick shift,
53:25
and so she's putting out the clutch first, well put together one. After
53:29
the apocalypse happens like absolutely ride or Die, and she's like, I got
53:32
a mission. We're gonna get tell Toro. And we get there and we're
53:36
like, hmm, okay, plan B. I think it's time, which
53:40
is my favorite time is Lance Reddick time. So where, Darren, where
53:47
would you place Lance Reddick in this, this major motion picture that defined the
53:52
summer? Oh man? You know, for one, we're want for choices
53:57
because there are so many small roles in this that I think Lance would be
54:01
great at, you know. Okay, Like I'll just say this stating,
54:08
like we always say, we're not saying that the character we're replacing is not
54:14
good. Instead, we're just saying, I would like to see what Lance
54:16
Reddick would have done in this, And I actually really want to see a
54:22
doctor Oaken lance Reddick choice, because again, it's kind of maybe like he's
54:31
got almost like multiple personalities where like he's talking to the president, he's a
54:36
straight faced, like clear cut You're like, oh, this guy knows what
54:38
he's talking about. And he turns to talk to like Jeff, who's not
54:42
there. He's like his imaginary assistant that doesn't exist because he's been not let
54:47
out, and so he's like switching back and forth between, you know,
54:51
talking to Jeff and not talking to Jeff. I don't know however Lance wants
54:54
to play it, but I think it comes along late enough in the movie
54:59
has a very specific role. Unfortunately you know dies and didn't watch the other
55:06
movie, but I think, yeah, I think Doctor Oaken as much as
55:10
I love Brent Spiner, which I love Brent Spiner, but I think that
55:14
would have been an interesting role for him. John same question. I would
55:19
have replaced the great Robert Loja and made him General William Gray because I think
55:25
that the scene that you quoted earlier, Darren, where he loses his mind
55:31
and dresses down the Secretary of Defense, would have been great because he would
55:37
have he would have just absolutely put the fear of God into the audience and
55:42
everybody on that set with anger, and so I would put him as General
55:46
William Gray, no disrespect to Robert Loja. That is my answer, verbatim,
55:53
Like that's the example I was going to give. Like Lance Reddick would
55:57
have killed that scene. All right, So now it is time. I'm
56:01
gonna go first here. I'm gonna give mercy to Darren because we normally make
56:05
him go first, but I'm gonna go with it with this film. I
56:08
like this film. I think it's great. I think it totally holds up.
56:12
But I'm also I was also a kid in the nineties that was ten
56:15
when this came out. I loved it. I think this movie definitely has
56:17
its flaws, but I think you, like, oftentimes we talk about movies
56:22
you got Sometimes you gotta judge movies for the time that it came out,
56:27
and oftentimes we'll talk about movies that came out like a fifties or the seventies
56:30
or something like that. You know, like the nineteen ninety six was not
56:35
yesterday, Okay, the nineteen ninety six was a while ago, and so
56:39
sometimes you have to judge a movie in the time that it was given.
56:42
I think John you talked about it in a great way about you know,
56:45
like about American exceptionalism and like just out of the Cold War pre nine to
56:50
eleven. I think this is a this is a four star film. I
56:54
think this is a really great movie that came out in ninety six. I
56:58
think it has a lot of great things going for it. I think there's
57:00
a lot of suspension for disbelief. I think there's a lot of scenes that
57:04
could be trimmed down, but the greatness of it I think makes up for
57:09
a lot of things. And so I'm going to give this four solid stars.
57:15
I feel like if this wasn't as exciting, if it wasn't if this
57:19
didn't have as much hype as it did, and say that I just watched
57:22
this for the first time in twenty twenty four, yeah it would be lower.
57:28
But like like we talked about, this is one of those things where
57:31
you know, after the fact movies came out and did it better because it
57:36
built on the foundation that Independence Day helped build. So, Darren, what
57:40
star rating are you giving this now? I think that that goes really well.
57:45
Tristan, It's yeah, it's judging it not necessarily today because we have
57:50
the benefit of having seen it when it came out. We remember that.
57:52
I would judge you know, the Matrix or Episode one for the same reasons.
58:00
I remember that hype, and I I'm just still I'm going to give
58:05
it a five. It maybe nosalgia tips it over a little bit. Maybe
58:09
I'm judging it also compared to Stargate, which I gave a five. Like,
58:13
it's not a step down for sure, it's a you know, it's
58:17
the effects. I mean, my god, the effects are so good in
58:22
this movie. They're we're still in this ripe time where there's digital compositing and
58:27
CGI, but there's a lot of model work. There's a I mean that
58:31
the blowing up of the giant, well not full size, but giant for
58:36
its time, you know, the White House, like all of that,
58:37
Like that shot was played over and over every time you bought a DVD,
58:42
and you know, and they're wanting to talk about something, they're showing that
58:45
shot. Uh yeah, yeah, I mean, could things be trimmed,
58:49
could things be you know adjusted? Apparently some of us like crop dusting more
58:54
than others. But yeah, I can have to give it a five.
58:59
It's you know, it was one of the first DVDs I bought. I
59:02
reboughted on Bluerry recently because I'm like I need that full surround sound experience and
59:07
high definition. And it's just a great movie. It's a great popcorn movie,
59:13
it's a great action movie. It's great mid nineties and it's just boom
59:19
boom boom, one after another, rollins setting them up and knocking them down.
59:24
Now before John, before we go on to your rating, Darren,
59:28
you talked about the special effects, which I really loved. The miniature work
59:30
was fantastic. Special effects are great. I want to ask you guys real
59:35
quick. Ever since I saw this in the theater, something felt off about
59:39
the special effects, almost like the special effects. The miniature work was filmed,
59:45
I should say, recorded on video and composited on film. Did anybody
59:52
else notice that, like the motion blur was kind of off, like it
59:55
was almost at a higher frame rate than twenty four I am I low.
1:00:00
I don't think you're off on that. I think that the effects are caught
1:00:07
in that weird spot of they were doing it as cost efficiently as possible,
1:00:14
and that there are moments where I think that. Nowadays, I look at
1:00:20
it and I'm like, oh, okay, this is where we had hit
1:00:22
that pinnacle like that, I understand where it was going. Like again,
1:00:25
I understand where it was going, and I understand where the deficiencies are with
1:00:30
this. In that sense, I think you're right Tristan in that just eyeballing
1:00:37
it. That definitely jumped out at me that there were certain scenes where it
1:00:40
looked like the model was shot differently than the rest of it. And I'm
1:00:45
very used to the tradition like of it there there's no explanation for me why
1:00:52
it would look that way. Why it would look that way doesn't make sense.
1:00:57
But I go back in my brain to an interview with Dean Devlin where
1:01:01
he talked about how Lucas came to him and talked about how ILM could do
1:01:07
similar stuff and maybe a little more efficiently for him. I'm not quoting verbatim,
1:01:13
but I remember Devlin chuckling because it was in that afterglows sort of thing
1:01:15
where it's like we're Independence Day sort of thing, and he he looked at
1:01:19
the camera and said, we did, okay, George, we figured out
1:01:21
how to do it effectively on our own. And I'm like, I don't
1:01:24
know that they did in every shot. And I think that I think that
1:01:30
your your eyes are not lying to you there. Yeah, I don't recall.
1:01:34
I kind of remember or can pick up what you're saying. Maybe a
1:01:38
little bit of that is you're obviously adjusting frame rates and speed for the explosion.
1:01:45
You're slowing it way way down like it and I know you're just talking
1:01:49
about those shots. Yeah, but yeah, there's some shots where I think
1:01:52
like the worst are when the fighters are in the broad daylight attacking. That
1:01:59
is where it when when the ship is wrapped and missed, there's no atmosphere
1:02:04
for them to blend into, and it's they do not do well in that
1:02:07
shot. Uh yeah, it's I'm just enjoying, you know. Right when
1:02:13
I think it's shuddering a little bit, I just take another scoop of popcorn
1:02:16
shove it in my mouth. So oh right, I mean that's that's the
1:02:20
thing is that like I'm really like I'm still blown away by some of the
1:02:22
model work that they do. It's really it's really just like a a small
1:02:28
technical thing that it's just it was just kind of strange. It's it's like
1:02:31
some of the effects work were shot at like thirty frames per second as opposed
1:02:36
to twenty four frames per second. And they may that to some people that
1:02:39
may not sound like much, but it really it's like the difference between watching
1:02:44
a TV show versus a movie. It was just kind of odd, Like
1:02:47
it's still kind of jarring to me. But anyway, John, I want
1:02:52
to know you're you're star writing like so, Darren gave it five, I
1:02:54
gave it four. What are you gonna lay down on us? This?
1:02:58
What kids dream? Are you going to crush right now? I don't make
1:03:01
any friends with this one. I can say that I've loved this discussion,
1:03:07
and obviously I still have a deep, deep, abiding affection for this film.
1:03:14
I absolutely will never trash this movie. I will always have had a
1:03:19
good time with it. I will always affectionately remember seeing it. I remember
1:03:23
going to see it for a second time because at the Uptown Theater in DC,
1:03:28
they had attached the Star Wars trailer to it. It was the biggest
1:03:30
screen in the area, and I was like, oh, the Star Wars
1:03:34
Special Edition trailers on this. Oh yeah, I'm going to go back and
1:03:37
see this the second time, and then having a good time with it.
1:03:40
I think that it's definitely a movie that is better on the big screen.
1:03:45
I hope they re release it for its thirtieth anniversary. I think that it
1:03:49
will be tremendously benefited from being on the big screen. But there are flaws,
1:03:55
run times a bit much, There are a couple of things where it's
1:04:00
It pushes credulity a little bit too much here and there, so I wind
1:04:04
up with a three point five three and a half stars almost if you force
1:04:11
me, like Darren, he's too much trending, no any difference, he's
1:04:15
trending up. You got one, two, three, three point five,
1:04:18
so you're going in the right direction. But I will I will say that
1:04:20
if you force me to say no, half stars don't exist, Darren doesn't
1:04:26
believe in half stars, then I'm actually I would have rounded down, but
1:04:30
as it is, it's a three and a half. You're right. You
1:04:33
have no friends, John, none whatsoever, and with good reason. All
1:04:38
right, folks, thank you so much for listening. Please go to the
1:04:40
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1:04:43
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1:05:13
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1:05:20
thank you. We really do appreciate it. And apparently we have a lot
1:05:25
of British fans, but we have been rising the ranks in the island of
1:05:30
Great Britain and so we wanted to think our friends across the pond. And
1:05:33
even though this is an episode about Independence Day and about how we chase the
1:05:38
red codes out of our country and continent, we still love you guys very
1:05:44
very much, So thank you for listening. Darren. What are we doing
1:05:46
next week? Well, next week we're going to be wrapping up the House
1:05:51
of Emerik with his fifth film of the nineties, nineteen ninety eight's Godzilla.
1:05:58
Here on house Line, Join the Revolution, Join the nerd Party.