"'Independence Day': Hated It The First Time!" Topic

However, now I think it is interesting how it portrays the extreme reactions of finding out we are not in the universe.

There are a few who (like in "Mars Attacks") think it is a sign that a higher intelligence wants to communicate and interact with us.

Yet there are many who will be skeptical.

How do you think mankind would really react to such a scenario?

Would precious time be lost because of those who want to give them the benefit of the doubt?

Or would an opportunity be lost if we react in a hostile manner right off the bat?

CC

By the way, Vivica A. Fox, looked as hot as ever!

CC

PS. I am not debating if it COULD happen, only what WOULD happen.

CC

Loved the "ride" the first time, noticed how thin the plotting was, and how dependent on an ear-bleed sound system, the second time. Haven't felt the need to own it.

The reactions protrayed in the movie were pretty realistic, in that the ignorant ranged from fear to exhultation, while the knowledgeable (which didn't include the US President, oddly enough) were firmly in the fear and loathing category.

In a first contact case like this, the reactions are likely to run the same gamut, but will be weighted to one end or the other by the specific actions of the aliens.

What the movie proves is that we need John McCain, or Randall "Duke" Cunningham, as President, if we can spring the latter from stir. Come to think of it, McCain has a bad back from his last combat mission, so probably not. I guess we have to rely on felons.

It also proves that Jeff Goldblum needs some new dialogue when he is not driving, and that George Lucas would have had a good copyright infringement lawsuit, had he decided to press it.

I'm not sure I see the Lucas/copyright issue? Explain?

"The reactions protrayed in the movie were pretty realistic, in that the ignorant ranged from fear to exhultation, while the knowledgeable (which didn't include the US President, oddly enough) were firmly in the fear and loathing category."

I seem to recall the same reactions in the 1953 "War of the Worlds", though they did show a bit more rioting and chaos on that old film

CC

Yes, Viva Vivica! link

I liked the movie. There were lots of problems with it but it was pretty fun.

I'm pretty sure it would be a xenophobe fest if aliens ever landed on Terra. People already hate others simply because their SKIN is a different color or because of their religion-- imagine if the beings had more eyes or limbs, or even worse were completely non-humanoid…

BOOM!

Idiots.

Oh, and I was like Farstar in that I just jumped aboard and rode the inherently stupid ride when I first watched the movie. Afterwards as soon as I gave it a second thought I went, "Huh?"

Total cotton candy for the mind.

Great bit of escapism and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have watched it several times with my son, who loves it.

Years ago I made the tactical goof of reading "Bored of the Rings" before finally finishing "Lord of the Rings." I also made another tactical goof in that the day before going off to Air Force basic training during Vietnam I reread Harry Harrison's hysterical war in space novel "Bil the Galactic Hero" and only stopped laughing before I was nearly thrown in the stockade for scrilege.

Since then my rule is to always read or see the satire WELL AFTER being exposed to the serious version.

Nothing wrong with a bit of mind candy now and then :)

It's the first movie I ever worked on so it's got a special place in my heart.

It's also got Mary McDonnell. She seems to attract catastrophe.

How would we feel now about the movie if on 9/11 they actually had been able to blow up the White House like planned and not the Pentagon?

I prefer Men In Black, which I just bought on DVD. Indy Day just hasn't held up as well for me. But then nothing from that director has held up well for me. I'm such an elitist!

"How would we feel now about the movie if on 9/11 they actually had been able to blow up the White House like planned and not the Pentagon?"

Well, what I'm getting at is what would we do when presented with a first contact situation where, for the first time, we are the technically inferior force, and where they have not yet made clear their intentions.

In other words, have we watched enough sci-fi to be more skeptical, or will we openly embrace them, and expose our weaknesses in the process?

CC

This scenario has occured repeatedly in our long history.

We surprise animal, animal attacks us, we kill animal. Our only hope is the aliens are smart and benign enough to accept or avoid our reaction.

Hollywood needs is to have a fighting chance so not "exposing our weakness" makes Hollywood sense. If it really happened, I doubt it would make any difference to the ability of a space faring race to wipe us out.

Well, what I'm getting at is what would we do when presented with a first contact situation where, for the first time, we are the technically inferior force, and where they have not yet made clear their intentions.

Do what we've done since Roswell: Reverse engineer whatever of their technology we can get our greedy little primate paws on while we wait for that overt "first contact". (Yes, I believe we've got some of their stuff.) Gov'ts don't tell their people everything they're working on behind the scenes, because it would just invite egomaniacs in power who don't don't have any common sense to muck things up by getting involved in it.

As far as a public reaction, you'll see every attention on the planet trying to get on camera. What you won't see publicized is the DefCon 1 pucker factor.

So if They come, if They're actually friendly, we can just dismantle our "insurance" without using it. But if They're not friendly, if They don't take us out with the first strike, They'll have kicked a hornet's nest of the most warlike species in the universe….

There's always extreme reactions to any situation, but they're on the ends of the curve.

If aliens showed up, there'd by a media frenzy – but in the end, people would still have to go to work the next day, all the mundane things still need to happen.

And no, I really doubt that there would be some sort of massively violent xenophobic spasm. A whole heck of a lot of people go about their day among others of differing color, creed, whatever, without turning into murderous, uncontrollable savages. The whole 'suddenly evil humanity' thing is a pathetic excursion into Hollywood self-loathing.

This is, of course, barring some sort of immediate attack.

Aliens capable of interstellar travel are going to be pretty far advanced. If they've figured out some sort of 'miracle' tech (FTL, reactionless thrust, whatever), there's not a lot we could do about them. If it's just brute force, then…they're oddly determined, and still pretty high-tech. Interstellar travel is difficult at sublight speeds.

I think we'd be pretty wary of them – and they might be pretty wary of us. Both reactions would be wise. We might be hiding our capabilities, so they might be quite circumspect in their approach.

If, a la Independence Day, they showed up and started knocking down our sats, we could be well assured that they're hostile, and either very confident or not very smart.

There's really only one reason to come and talk to us – and that would be an overwhelming desire to talk to aliens.

If they need resources, almost everything they could need is readily available somewhere else in the system, and could be collected without the need to bother a potentially hostile, dangerous species (us).

If they show up to talk…they might actually be gregarious. If they really want us dead, they just toss a few big rocks our way, and move on.

Most of the 'alien invasion' scenarios are pretty silly, logically – but fun to watch!

"Aliens capable of interstellar travel are going to be pretty far advanced. If they've figured out some sort of 'miracle' tech (FTL, reactionless thrust, whatever), there's not a lot we could do about them."

"If they really want us dead, they just toss a few big rocks our way, and move on."

Thank you. Someone finally said it. The alien critters have serious MOBILITY over us – it is inconcievable they would NOT check us out thoroughly before ever doing ANYTHING with us.

If they figure we're a threat, they'd nail us w/o a thought and we'd have no recourse, we cannot react in time to threats down the block, much less out in the solar system – they do not even need to get into the earth-moon orbit to triangulate and chuck sizable asteroids/meteors our way to devastate the planet.

Still it was fun to watch with my 12 yr old

It was a fun movie, and I still enjoy it when I see it.

However, nvdoyle has it right I think. Humanity's reaction won't be so much in the extremes, but more scattered along the curve.

The whole 'suddenly evil humanity' thing is a pathetic excursion into Hollywood self-loathing.

Well said!

You're welcome.

Yeah, stuck near the bottom of the system, we're in a pretty vulnerable spot.

Personally, I'm less worried about aliens showing up, than their machines. Especially the ones that make more machines…

Somebody tried to answer the Fermi Paradox this way (paraphrasing):

"Imagine the galaxy is a city park, in a very bad part of town, at night. You know that there might be others out there, and they might have weapons. And they're all thinking the same thing, too. If you shoot, you give yourself away. If you try to contact someone else, you give yourself away. And if you move too much, you give yourself away. And once you give yourself away, somebody else very well (and relatively easily) might shoot you, so you don't shoot him. So everybody crouches in the dark, silently – especially if they happen to have seen another pair go at it, and watched/listened to the aftereffects. So you wait for the sun to come up, for the cops to respond to the sounds of gunfire.

Except that there are no cops, and the sun will never come up."

And Independence Day was fun to watch, yes.

Fun to watch. Will Smith is funny and Jeff Goldblum is great.

Favorite line Jud Hirsch

All you need is love, John Lennon shot in the back, very sad.

Bill Pulman Henry V speech is great. we shall not go quietly into the night.

I saw this when I was in Atlanta setting up security for the Olympics

I hated it the first time. Now I can get into the cheesiness when it plays on TV.

A couple years later I got dragged into seeing Godzilla (by the same crew). Now that really stunk.

Ok here is another scenario to counter the comments quoted by nvdoyles submission.

The universe is about 12 billion years old.

The first stars show up billions of years later. This generation of stars (with an average life span of about 6 billion years) thrive, age and die. They spew out carbon into the universe.

This carbon is required for the fabrication of complex molecules needed for any living creatures. Therefore it is the second generation (and subsequent ones) of stars that can produce planets that fly through the debris of fullerenes and "bucky-balls" and get a carbon wash. Therefore, it is this generation of stars that have planets capable of supporting life.

Therefore it is conceivable that the universe is teeming with life and that we are actually the most advanced form out there. Maybe we will be the "invader" that someone/something light years away is fearfully postulating about.

Just a thought.

Ralph

'Splosions and V.A.F.'s tookus. What more does one need?

I still think ID4 is bad. It's problem is that it tried to strike a balance between being a serious alien invasion movie (like Spielberg's remake of 'War of the Worlds') and a campy one (like 'Mars Attacks' or 'Men in Black'). It doesn't work. As for portraying the gamut of human reactions to 'first contact,' it's nothing new and has been covered in better movies like Jodie Foster's 'Contact.' What really did this movie in for me wasn't the aliens in their exo-suits, it's Randy Quaid, who graduated from an alcoholic crop duster flying a beaten up biplane to an F/A-18 Hornet ace. Not likely. Sorry, this movie just plain sucked.

This is interesting and amusing:

peaceinspace.net
exopoliticsinstitute.org
link

CC

Heck.

Global warming might just be their attempt at "terraforming" our planet:

link
link

CC

<<Except that there are no cops, and the sun will never come up.">>

Now imagine if there are "cops" (self-appointed ones, anyway) and they show up. No "sun," so the "cops" bring their own "spotlights" to find where everyone is hiding, and start making arrests, sorting out bystanders from perps, and etc.

It gets better; they start to "deputize" some of the bystanders, including *us.*

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

<< Randy Quaid, who graduated from an alcoholic crop duster flying a beaten up biplane to an F/A-18 Hornet ace. Not likely. Sorry, this movie just plain sucked.>>

Quaid's character had been a jet jock in "Nam before he climbed into a bottle after his close encounter of a nasty alien kind. Perhaps his character was more exceptional than first impressions would indicate…?

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I for one liked ID4 it was a thrill ride and that's good enough for me.

However much as i enjoyed ID4 i HATED one of their later projects which was about a big lizard in 1998.

Captain Gideon

I expect if an advanced alien life-form wanted the earth without people on it they'd do the same thing we do to unwanted infestations, poison them without even landing. Humanity wouldn't go out with a bang but a whimper.

Sounds like a very interesting story potential, Leland. And a lot brighter (er, sorry…) than the postulation I read.

Wait…wasn't that Forge of God/Anvil of Stars – Greg Bear?

Actually, Godzilla wasn't that bad a monster movie. It was an enjoyable, brainless popcorn muncher about a big lizard.

Only thing I really didn't like was that it was called "Godzilla." If it had been called "Big Honkin' Lizard That Eats City," it would have been fine.

Horrible movie. Simply horrible.

I gave up on Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich movies a long time ago. I skipped 'The Day After Tomorrow' after such misses like ID4, 'Godzilla' and 'Stargate.'

What bothered me most about Independence Day is that at the end everyone is dancing around the downed saucers and cheering like, "Yay! We won! It's all over now!"

No one seems to notice the fact that the saucers were mostly intact. Presumably many of the aliens were still alive, and I imagine they were REALLY ed off about being shot down…

My wife maintains when that when the Roswell aliens return it will be with attorneys to claim royalties on all the Roswell knock-offs.

They're back… and they're litigious…

I think it'll go a bit like this :

picture

I skipped 'The Day After Tomorrow'

You didn't miss much. It was sorta like Godzilla and ID4, except the bad guy was…weather. And the occasional wolf.

However, now I think it is interesting how it portrays the extreme reactions of finding out we are not in the universe.

I'm not sure how I'd react if I found that out.

Actually, Godzilla wasn't that bad a monster movie. It was an enjoyable, brainless popcorn muncher about a big lizard.

Only thing I really didn't like was that it was called "Godzilla." If it had been called "Big Honkin' Lizard That Eats City," it would have been fine.

"Fine" might be a stretch, but "enjoyably second-rate"? Sure. I agree on the name, though. Taking the Big G's name off the movie posters and out of the dialog improves the movie quite a bit.

Speaking of which, have you seen Godzilla: Final Wars? They actually use the big iguana (or one of the escapees from the end of the movie) under the name "Zilla". Zilla doesn't last very long…

What bothered me most about Independence Day is that at the end everyone is dancing around the downed saucers and cheering like, "Yay! We won! It's all over now!"

No one seems to notice the fact that the saucers were mostly intact. Presumably many of the aliens were still alive, and I imagine they were REALLY bleeped off about being shot down…

My impression, despite the thinness of the movie itself, was that it would make an excellent starting point for a sequel and/or a near-future post-holocaust RPG. "What kind of holocaust?" "Locusts, man. Locusts."

I once had an Earth vs nasty aliens with a bit of a twist – the ufo's come from a very screwed-up society which has barely and accidentally mastered space flight but are otherwise pretty much klutzy to the first order. Their greatest strength comes from their perceived superiority over humans. This comes to light when the air force tries befending an airliner from a shoot-down and are trying to figure out why their best pilot flying the newest and best line fighter gets quickly shot-down. Meanwhile a barely competent pilot flying a totally unsuited a/c for aerial combatnot only defends the airliner but splashes ten alien craft in the process and becomes a big hero.

I've seen and own Godzilla Final Wars and i like it but i might be in the minority when i say that.

Captain Gideon