At the end of the film, The Preisdent is leading the attack in his own fighter plane. He gives the call sign "Eagle One". Well, any plane the president is in is given the call sign "Air Force One" or "Navy One" depending on the branch of the service. So would not the call be "Air Force One."

Very likely they didn't want to tip off the aliens to the presence of the Prez. They had no way of knowing whether the aliens were monitoring their communications.

I'm just astounded Sydney Harbour Bridge survived the attack when all is said and done at the end. Give it's such a part of a mass transport system, you'd think it would be an early target.
And isn't it amazing that doggone dog didn't get a singe on it, depsite the flames at its heels as it jumped to safety with that woman?
Disaster films - the dog always survives. Always, always, always. Can't we have cat or a rabbit if they must use these cliche every time?

So I can get into area 51 by flashing and alien to the guards at the gate? I need to start carring more aliens around with me. Also the guards are wearing black outfits in an open air booth in the middle of the desert. Right.

I always wondered how they got the virus into the alien system in the first place. A machintosh isn't compatibale with IBM, so how would it be compatible with an alien system?

And the dog is never hurt. Didja see volcano? In that movie, the lava is coming in a house, but the dog was able to get away just in time.

Yes, I had the misfortune to see Volcano. And yes, the dog survives, just as in all other disaster movies.

That is why the world will end when the aliens come to take over. Everyone will be using IBM so the computer virus will not be able to affect the alien ship.

Near the beginning of the movie, the President is on the phone with the First Lady when their daughter wakes up. The girl says "Mommy", pretty quietly, and the President wordlessly hands the phone to her. The girl puts the phone to her ear without saying a word and the First Lady says "Hi sweetie", or something like that. How did she know that she was no longer talking to her husband, and, if she did hear the girl murmering and figured she was about to talk to her, how did she know when the girl finally had the phone to her ear?

New idea for ID4 The Sequel:

The aliens come back for revenge, almost wipe out the humans AGAIN, and all the dogs, whom we now know are invincible, completely destroy the aliens forces once and for all!

Maybe the government should look into a national dog defense project.

Jason: Despite popular belief, black does not mak you hotter. it acts as an insulator. If you put it on when you are relativly cool you will not burn in the heat.

My favorite moment is when the aliens are destroying all the buildings, we see this doofus inside, filing papers or something. Obviously, he is less than enthralled by all this silly aliens landing thing.

Actually, black absorbs more light than other colors do (that's why it's black - there's less light reflecting back into our eyes). The heat from the sun is in, or at least comes with, the light. So... black does make you hotter, but only if you are in direct sunlight. The guards in the booth are OK, though, because the booth is shading them and the light that does hit them isn't enough to make that much of a difference.

Leting the President be part of the attack is perhaps the dumbest decision made by any American ever, excapt maybe chosing George W Bush for president ( :-).
The Point is, he's the PResident. Possibly the only authority left on the planet, as long as he's a live, he's incharge. If the attack would fail, human resistance would fall down to a few isolated people around the world, who would probably sepnd more time fighting against each other then against the enemy.

What, the world would fall apart if the president of America died?Pretty ethnocentric attitude isn't it?

He was a pilot though and they needed pilots- and besides, if that attack hadn't have succeeded, what would he have been President of after? So it really makes sense that he would participate.

I may have missed it but how do we know that the Sydney Harbor Bridge survived? (I don't care for this type of movie and only partially paid attention to it.)

Because it was still standing at the end with a crashed saucer behind it, in a brief scene as they quickly thought they better acknowledge other people around the world may have been fighting as well.

Cableface - I'm not American, but still, who but the president of the US has the authority to lead a coordinated attack? I mean, the US is THE super power of the world... Who's next? bill Gates? The German Kanzler? Japanease Prime Minister?


I think they could have used one less Pilot, when he's the PRESIDENT!

What about the secretary-general of the United Nations? (Not as a pilot, the person leading the coordinated attack). Didn't V think more in global terms than this film?

Reality check: at the air force facility near Groom (dry) Lake (referred by UFOlogists as "Area 51"), there is no guard. There's just a sign saying, basically, go any further and we'll shoot to kill. The approach also doesn't look anything like the approach Wil Smith and the RVs used.

Of course, there's no facility near Groom Lake. Honest. Please move along.

The secretary-general of the UN isn't really a military general, and he has no real power outside the UN, which doesn't have that much power anyway. Besides, he probably died when NYC was blown up.

I would like to point out that the President wasn't leading the attack, he simply told everyone what to do and let them do it- he didn't do the coordinating, military strategy, etc.

Unless he or she was in Geneva, of course. The point is - it's a global attack, so shouldn't the representative of all nations, not just one, have some say?

Believe me, you are absolutely correct, I'm only saying that because the head of the UN isn't in charge of even UN military operations, probably no one would listen to her/him.

Probably Geneva was blown up too- I don't think Swiss neutrality would have helped spare the UN offices there.

OK, even if we assume that the General secretary is a higher authority, he's most likely dead. If he's not dead, were was he during the movie? How come he never had a saying about the US's plan.

The President doesn't have to 'do' anything. He has to be in command, be a figure head.

Where was he in the movie? Given the sheer parochialness of the film, he wasn't even thought of - Independence Day was about the US taking on the aliens, not Earth vs the aliens, despite token to nods to other countries.

that's true enough... but it just furthers my point

I think the reason the president joined the battle
is because he figures if he's going to die...
he'll die with dignity...not cowering in some
closet

John Lang: I agree. It's what I would do in the same position. If I knew how to fly a jet.

Ironicly, not once in this film did
I hear the city of Philadelphia being
mentioned. Even the aliens seemed to
have missed it. (and I was born in that
city :|

Ironically, it's ironically.

I thought that in the second wave , Philly, chicago and Atlanta were destroyed.

I always wondered why they didn't use nukes on the primary weapons of the ships. Then again I'm sure other countries did.

And it would have been nice to at least hear about what was going on in Canada. I'm sure those city destroyers would want to take out Toronto and Montreal at least.

I too found that filing guy amusing as this guy seems more concerned with the files then with getting blown to bits. Gotta love that redshirt mentaility.

Why was the other guy from the cable company so close to the ship when the beam hit?!? He knew about what was going to occur and has plenty of time to get away, even if he had do walk quickly out of the city or get into a bomb shelter.

San Francisco was not destroyed. That's right. The ship that was going to it was rerouted to be destroyed at Area 51. Maybe 'Frisco can be the new capital of Earth (or something)

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet but when Will Smmith is dragging the alien body across the desert, look at the sky. When the camera is close, it's a hot sunny day and the sky is blue and clear. Then the shot is far away and the sky is full of clouds. The shot returns to the original distance from the two and the sky is clear again.
(Mr President, we can't survive without the Sun...)

At one point someone says..
"If you calculate the time it takes to destroy a city and move on. We're looking at the complete destruction of every major city, in the next 36 hours."

Ok... let's calcualte.
Someone early on someone says that the mother ship has broken into "nearly 3-Dozen smaller pieces", most likely talking about the destroyers. This gives us 36 city-destroyers to cover "every major city" in a day and a half.
The first wave arrives early on July 2, they fly through the air and finally park over a city by early morning... and stay there. They don't attack until later that night. When "July 3" appears on screen and fades away were shown the remains of New York... the main weapons dors are still open. So either the ships attacked right at midnight, or they stuck around all night and to the morning. Basicaly it took around 12 hours (for the sake of calculation) to find the first set of cities and destroy them. Only three ships had taken on the U.S.
There are atleast two "major cites" in each of the Lower 48 states. I am asuming a major city is a)has skyscrapers, and a major city center b)has a substantial population c)well known enough you can name it off the top of your head, and what state it is in (like Los Angles, Calif.; Houston, Texas; New York, New York; Kansas City, Missouri; etc.) d) it is represented by a colored blob on a map rather than a dot. This gives us atleast 96 cities in the U.S. to destroy in 36 Hours.
Assuming each ship takes a third of thsoe cities (32 each) each ship would have to take 1 hour and 7 and half minutes to destroy the city and move to the next one. Anytime one of these ships move, they move pretty slowly. Taking 12 hours to move to a city and destroy it, it would take about 5 Days for the three to destroy the U.S. cites.. and there is probably alot more than 96. Even assuming they moved faster for the later attacks, assuming 6 or even three hours... it would take 2.5 Days, or a 1 Day and a Quarter respectively. While a day ans a quarter is under the 36 Hours given to them by the commander... it would take alot longer for the other 33 Ships to destroy all of the cites in the rest of the world.... there are probably one or two major cites in each of the Canadian provinces... two major cites in each of the Eurpoean countries... a smattering of major cites in Russia, a handful in Japan and China.... a dozen or so in Africa, another five or six among Mexico/South America, a small handful in Australia. Another dozen or so in the Mid-East, Southern Asia.... and all of the cities are spread out pretty well. Leaving these 33 Ships spread pretty thin.
I personaly think it would take alot longer to destroy the world's major cites.

While watching the opening sequence of the movie on the DVD release, I noticed as the mother ship passed over the moon and Earth came into view, you can clearly see the Earth rotating. Now, in the few seconds that we see Earth on the screen, the rotation would not be sufficient to be noticeble. If the planet rotates as fast as it is seen to do in those few seconds, a day would only be an hour or so long.

The DVD version of this movie rocks!

I loved the "Expanded edition"

Here's a nit in the "expanded edition"....

After the little boy from the triler gets sick,
someone from another trailer offers his sister
a bottle of capsuled penicillin.
THIS IS ILLEGAL! You CAN NOT take someone
else's medicine!

Good thing they eliminated that from the "theatrical version"

God knows why they eliminated the rest of the
"additional footage", I thought it added more
drama to the film!

Question:

Why does the Statue of Liberty ALWAYS get
pasted in these sci-fi movies?

John: why it maybe illegal to take someone else's medicine, it doesn't stop it from happening.

Sad but true. However, it turns out to be fatal.

"Area 51" is in Roswell, right? Roswell is in New Mexico, right? So why did the computerized printout on the screen say "Secret Military Base...Area 51: NEVADA" just before Air Force One landed there???????

No, Area 51 is not in Roswell. Area 51 is in Nevada. Roswell is the crash site for the UFO.

After the weapon O' mass-destruction does its thing, I am surprised to see the palm trees still having their leaves on them. The aliens must be enviromentalists...kill all the people, but spare the trees. Also, how about all those partially standing buildings? All the rest of the buildings were totalled. Also there should have more fires burning after that devastation.

BEST LINE: "Die" spoken thru the doctor via the aliens.

Yeah, Area 51, Groom Lake, Dreamland, whatever, is in Nevada, and Roswell is in New Mexico. I could go on and on about the theories that the crashed ship from Roswell was secretly brought to Area 51...but I won't. :-)
PS. I used to be "Trekker" but now I'm the moderator of the I Love Lucy board so now I'm "msmith".

For ID4: IT strikes me as odd that Jasmine can get into her street clothes as quick as she does. I timed it, and it only tooke her four seconds. I tried this myself, without the exotic dancer outfit obviously, with my own clothes, and I find it impossible.

"El Toro" base was also mentioned in the 1954 classic "War of the Worlds" By the way, thanks for the geography lesson.

Could anyone figure out whether it is Rev. Jesse Jackson who cameos in the film as one of the generals who are watching the tv in the presidential office just before the attempt to communicate with the aliens?

When Jeff Goldblum decides he has to go outside and have a look for himself at the alien ship near the beginning of the movie, is it just me, or does he seem awfully tall compared to the skyscraper next to him? It's almost as if it weren't a skyscraper at all, but a model.

In my post from way back I made a mistake. In the second wave , phili wasent destroyed , it was the Pentagon (Im pretty sure the guy said , Chicago , Atlanta and the Pentagon)

Also Fox showed it tonight and they cencored out most (if not all) of the bad language. Yet they still showed NYC in ruins and when you see the destroyed Statue of Liberty you can see the half destroyed WTC on fire in the background. They allow this yet they dont allow swearing? Could someone please explain the logic of this to me.

The big censorship arguement has always been "think of the children". Children can copy cuss words that they hear on TV with little problem, same reason that hand to hand fighting, stabbing & shooting get cut before big explosions. How's a kid going to copy that?

Umm, Fitzie, considering how easy it is to get your hands on the needed stuff today...*sighs*

How? McVeigh used fertilizer, didn't he?

Go out to your local gardening store, or, if you're not that smart, go to a cow pasture and pick up some cow pies.

Dammit..I just lost the nit I was thinking of.. Ahh, it'll come back to me later.

CC,

Do you know how to make a fertilizer bomb? (Cow patties won't do BTW, although that does have a good comedy potential. "Hurry, McViegh, we have to collect more cow dung!") Chemical fertilizer is just one chemical reaction away from an explosive. Over that hurdle you have to make a timer and detonater. (Skip the timer if you are a suicide bomber.)

It'd make a stink bomb!

Why does the guy at radio antenna observatory in the beginning of the movie say at first that the alien signal is coming from the moon? It’s not coming from the moon, it’s coming from a ship that’s in between the Earth and the moon. Perhaps his boss should’ve responded by saying, "Shale! It’s all shale!"

When Goldblum manages to bring down the 50-year old alien fighter ship’s shields, the President points out no one knows how to fly it, and Will Smith steps forward and tells the President that he’s seen them in action, and is well aware of their capabilities. Uh……………huh? What the hell does being "well aware of their capabilities" have to do with KNOWING HOW TO OPERATE IT?!! I am "well aware of their capabilities," what the hell does that have to do with anything? They should’ve simply shown him training to lean how to use it, perhaps in a montage sequence in which they prepare for the big attack, involving Goldblum preparing the virus, Smith learning through trial and error, etc. Instead, they have Smith and Goldblum sit in the ship for the very first time when they’re ready to take off. Utterly unbelievable.

Also, shouldn’t they instead use the one that Smith brought down in the desert? Isn’t that one more advanced, since this one in Area 51 is 50 years old? Why do the two ships look IDENTICAL? Shouldn’t there be some differences? And are these aliens as brain dead as Roland and Emmerich that they can’t keep track of their own ships, can’t tell the difference between one of their ships that went down three days ago and one that was lost on this planet 50 years ago, and don’t even bother screening returning ships with password clearances?

The alien fighter ship has human-fitting bucket seats, even though the aliens’ bodies are totally different in proportion to humans. During the above-mentioned montage, they could’ve shown them removing the alien seats and outfitting them with human seats, but noooooo.

The President had absolutely no business being on the attack mission, period.

Why was Randy Quaid’s son in the control room? He’s a civilian; he has no business being there. It’s a dumb "cutesy" moment, much like the one in Armageddon, another overblown idiotic action movie, in which Liv Tyler is in the control room, just so she can scream and cry, "That’s my father!!" And why is the President’s daughter all alone in the common area with the other Area 51 refugees? Why isn’t the Secret Service guarding her?

By D Mann: Very likely they didn't want to tip off the aliens to the presence of the Prez. They had no way of knowing whether the aliens were monitoring their communications.
Luigi Novi: That gives a lot of credit to both the aliens, and to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Nothing indicated that the aliens really considered the humans enough of a threat to care about anything they did, and it’s more likely that the creators simply care about this point, much like they didn’t care about any of the other ridiculous things in this movie.

Chris Thomas: Disaster films - the dog always survives. Always, always, always. Can't we have cat or a rabbit if they must use these cliche every time?
Luigi Novi: Fear. (1996) The bad guys killed the family dog.

Jason: So I can get into area 51 by flashing and alien to the guards at the gate? I need to start carring more aliens around with me. Also the guards are wearing black outfits in an open air booth in the middle of the desert. Right.
Luigi Novi: Another sign of total stupidity on the part of the creators. The security force there patrols the mountain ridge that surrounds Groom Lake, will force you away if you get too close, and has the legal authority to shoot to kill trespassers. You don’t simply "walk up" to the "gate." There isn’t any gate, (it’s an open area), and you’d be shot before you got "there."

Jack: New idea for ID4 The Sequel: The aliens come back for revenge, almost wipe out the humans AGAIN, and all the dogs, whom we now know are invincible, completely destroy the aliens forces once and for all!
Luigi Novi: Yeah, they come back in the year 2040, and the it can be subtitled War Day. Given the ridiculous nickname ID 4 for this movie, the sequel can be called WD-40.

RickB: Actually, black absorbs more light than other colors do (that's why it's black - there's less light reflecting back into our eyes). The heat from the sun is in, or at least comes with, the light. So... black does make you hotter, but only if you are in direct sunlight.
Luigi Novi: Exactly. This is why elderly people who are not easily mobile wear darker colors.

John A. Lang: "Area 51" is in Roswell, right?
Luigi Novi: No, it’s in Groom Lake, Nevada. Roswell is just where Demi Moore was born.

Chris Booton: Fox showed it tonight and they censored out most (if not all) of the bad language. Yet they still showed NYC in ruins and when you see the destroyed Statue of Liberty you can see the half-destroyed WTC on fire in the background. They allow this yet they don’t allow swearing? Could someone please explain the logic of this to me.
Luigi Novi: The FCC does not, for the most part, allow profanity on network television. It has no such rules about showing NYC or the WTC in ruins, and I don’t see why it should. It’s a harmless little movie, and to think it capable of generating any controversy is to give it too much credit.

Troops are like wet spaghetti. If you lead from behind it is like pushing the noodle, it will go everywhere. Leading from in front is like pulling the noodle. It will follow. I'm not crazy about the movie, but does Randy Quaid still hand deliver his missile via a kamikazie attack at the end if the President isn't with him? (I know he does if the script requires it, Luigi, but reality -- things outside the movie that influence it -- are not the interest of a nit picker.)

Oh, BTW, don't blame me for the pasta analogy, blame Ike.

I don't know, I think the noodle analogy is fairly clever, Blue.

WD-40. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time, Luigi. Good one! (It's funny because of the context; ID4? Sheesh!)

Thanks, but it's not mine, Craig. Peter David, said it in his review of the movie. But thanks anyway.

We learn that the reason that the aliens want to eliminate the humans is because they want to consume the Earth's natural resources.

The human population is VERY spread out. Their super weapon of mass destruction probably takes out a good chunk of natural resources in addition to cities.

Also, when they initially plan to "nuke the ba$tards", they go to Houston, presumably because the aliens are preparing to blow it up. They say that human casualties should be at a minimal because the city is deserted.

If the city is deserted, why are the aliens planning to blow it up??? Isn't that a waste of their energy since their only goal is to kill the humans.

In the first assault against the aliens, thousands of smaller ships start swarming out of the big ship. Will Smith tells his friends to just plow through them. This has got to be one of the dumbest strategies I've ever heard. Remarkably, only one of his planes is hit by the ships.

In the scene where the dog makes the leap into the tunnel compartment, the explosion is right behind him. But the woman and her child are leaning against the back wall. Nobody shut the door. They should have been toast.

Why wasn't the alien tied down with super strong chains or straps while they were examining it?

After they concoct their plan, they start broadcasting their plan to the world. In one scene, a British unit receives the message..
RECEIVER: "It's the Americans. They're planning a counteroffensive."
LEADER: "It's about bloody time. What do they plan to do?"
So what have these British people been doing all this time? Sitting around twiddling their thumbs? And why is their base of operations this little tent while America seems to have several secret installations to choose from?

To relay their message to the entire world, they use Morse code. I'm no expert on the matter, but don't you need to know the location of the receiver in order to send them a message? And aren't wires necessary as well?

In the mass destructo scene, we get an areal view of the destruction. We see the explosion expanding outward in a circular pattern. Within the area that was already destroyed, it's nothing but a flat smoldering area. Yet after the attack, there is A LOT of stuff standing that should have been totaled.

See ya later
TUE

A general broadcast does not need to have the receiver's location known. And morse can be sent via radio waves. Still it was a good movie for the fun light romp.

I swear I brought this up somewhere else, so forgive the redundancy if it occurs...
This film had some homages to past sf flicks throughout. One of the most obvious was the nuke scene, which was essentially lifted from The War of the Worlds. Sure, it was updated with modern equipment (a B-2 instead of a Flying Wing, a mobile forward observation post instead of a forward obs bunker, etc), but the essential scene was the same, including some of the dialogue. I understand that was intended, so it's more of an observation than a nit, and supports the "fun light romp" idea Lolar mentioned abve.
Hmm.. mass destruction of Humanity is light and fun? Yikes!

El Toro was mentioned in "War of the Worlds"...

Speaking of which, I read yesterday that Tom Cruise & Paramount are planning a REMAKE of "War of the Worlds"...All I can say is..."PLEASE DON'T! THE ORIGINAL IS FINE! Please do not ruin another George Pal movie. You ruined "The Time Machine with your worthless remake, don't trash "War of the Worlds"

HEY! I liked the Time Machien re-make! At exactly what point did the hot American fad become bashing every movie I even remotely enjoyed?

_{So what have these British people been doing all this time? Sitting around twiddling their thumbs? And why is their base of operations this little tent while America seems to have several secret installations to choose from?}

This scene was not representing what Britain as a country was doing. Weren't they in Iraq? These were British pilots who were stationed near Iraq keeping tabs on Saddam. When the aliens arrived, they and the Iraqis (sp?) put aside their differences to fight the common enemy.

Of course, we could ask why the Iraqis don't have a secret installation...

Is the new War of the Worlds film really a remake, or is it an adaptation of the original novel, set in the late 1890's? I'd like to see an adaptation, if done correctly (i.e. faithful to the original book). A modern setting will inevitably have comparisons being made to Independence Day, which really wouldn't be fair.

Luigi: [The FCC] has no such rules about showing NYC or the WTC in ruins, and I don’t see why it should. It’s a harmless little movie, and to think it capable of generating any controversy is to give it too much credit.

Guess which ten seconds of the film was cut out of tonight's screening of the movie on BBC1. (Go on, guess!)

The nearest version so far of TWOTW is Jeff Wayne's 1970s Musical version, with Richard Burton, David Essex, Phil Lynnott, Justin Hayward etc.

By John A. Lang 11/13/2000 and 5/14/2002. Mentioning "El Toro".

Until it was closed in the mid '90s, there was an El Toro MCAS. It was in Laguna Hills, CA, which is in Orange County, about an hour south of Los Angeles.

I'm into military aviation and some errors do crop up. There are others, but I haven't seen the movie in a while. The ones I remember are:

A Nice touch:

The USMC does(or did) have a F/A-18C Hornet squadron stationed at El Toro.

When Will Smith does eject from the F/A-18C Hornet, he comes down kind of hard. The F/A-18C Hornet does have an ejection seat that can be used at zero altitude and having Will HIT the ground like he did was done nicely as his Hornet was below ground level (relatively speaking_a canyon).

Nits

1. The missile that the crop duster pilot had jam or lock up was not a Air to air missile (AMM) that is in current service on the F/A-18C Hornet. The exterior visual showed a missile that looked too rounded on the nose. I'm not sure if it is based on an actual missile, but it looked sort of similar to the AGM-84 Harpoon AntiShip Missile.

2. The F/A-18C Hornet has a max velocity of Mach 1.8! NOT 2.##! To my knowledge, the display showing the Mach # does not and would not look like that.

3. There were other planes seen in this movie. F-16s, F-14s, and the F-5. The F-5 has been retired from service for quite some time now and only serves as a training craft with Navy. (NASA uses the T-38 Talon, a trainer that looks close to the F-5.) The F-14 is strictly a Navy aircraft and would not be seen on the tarmac of a Marine base. The F-16 is strictly a Air Force aircraft and would not be seen on the tarmac of a Marine base. Other air arms still use it, but it wouldn't be seen on the U.S. Marine base.

4. When Will Smith tells his wingman to put his mask back on... you can't bank at that speed, my question is why? 'Banking' refers to lowering the left/right wing and raising the right/left wing. As long as the aircraft doesn't change its heading by having its pilot pull back on the stick while the aircraft is banked, then there shouldn't be this "I can't breath" speech.

5. Doesn't anybody have anymore missiles?!! It should be obvious that you can't damage the huge spaceship with AMM alone. An AMM doesn't even have the explosive yield to completely destroy a regular aircraft like we have today. AMMs don't always physically hit the enemy aircraft when it detonates. The missile will likely explode when it is in range of harming the aircraft by its blast radius. If the movie makers wanted to have some more action fun, they should have had some B-1Bs screaming over the top surface of the Flying Saucer carpet bombing the aliens ship. It would have been more accurate in terms of causing damage.

6. The scene where there is F-16s parked in the middle of the desert was flawed. The F-16 can't land on an unpaved runway strip like the desert sands of Iraq or where ever. Besides problems with the landing gear, the large air intake below the fuselage would $uck in too much debris.

3. There were other planes seen in this movie. F-16s, F-14s, and the F-5. The F-5 has been retired from service for quite some time now and only serves as a training craft with Navy. (NASA uses the T-38 Talon, a trainer that looks close to the F-5.) The F-14 is strictly a Navy aircraft and would not be seen on the tarmac of a Marine base. The F-16 is strictly a Air Force aircraft and would not be seen on the tarmac of a Marine base. Other air arms still use it, but it wouldn't be seen on the U.S. Marine base.

Of course ever stranger in the final battle all we see are FA-18s. If it's a last ditch attack shouldn't we see every aircraft they could scrounge up from all branches of the service.

Whats really bad is that the F/A-18C Hornet is not the top dog in the Air to Air combat arena, The F-15C is. (Info based without the F-22, since it isn't in the field yet.)

More Nits I found. (I apologize if some are already mentioned.)

The blaster that hits the communication helicopters looks like it doesn't come from the cannans that line the front of the ship.

In the cable station that is left empty because everyone is in the bomb shelter, who is still up there changing the TV wall to make the president take up 3 big spaces and so on? Shouldn't there be somebody who has to change what is on what area of the wall?

Will Smith didn't wash his hands after using the...

The B-2 Stealth Bomber goes left after launching missile, The control room graphic shows it going right. Either way it turns it is going to be affected by the Nuke!

The computer graphic of the Los Angeles Attack Squadron does not match the actual formation of the aircraft.

NANJAO_The missile launched from Night 3 comes from the other wing. It could be switched, but I suspect the 'Makers' wanted to add a little variety for the attack and not use the same Hornet shot 3 times in a row.

When everybody is running from the wall of fire, nobody seems to be burned until after they are hit. Just the extreme magnitude of the fire would be enough to "sunburn" someone. Also, the fire would no doubt cause some serious damage to their eyes yet everyone can look at it and still see to be running away.

The AMRAAM launcher on the Stealth... Just which Stealth would that be captain? The F-117 Night Hawk doesn't have the necessary computer hardware/software to launch an AAM. Nor does the B-2.

Even if the U.S. Gov. couldn't duplicate the power source of the spaceship, I was kind of shocked that the movie makers didn't attribute some kind of technological advancement due to the aliens. (Think of Chronoworks_[VOY])

When one of the first City-Destroyer ships comes through the atmosphere and the news reported says it's moving to slow to be a meteor or comet or something... What is causing the ship to create the fire ball (ring?) in front of the ship. It is not moving fast enough to have air friction affect it, and I see no natural condition that could account for the Fire. Is it part of some weapon on the ship?

Also, there was a post above that asked the question why wouldn't the aliens be able to tell the difference of a ship that was launched 50? some odd years ago?

That point might not necessaryly be a nit. On Earth we have had airplane travel for 100 years now and some of our aircraft have ages of over 40 years. The youngest B-52 is over 30 years (I think) and yet it still flies in front line assaults. If we compare it to the spacecraft from an alien species that has been traveling through space for thousands of years, their technological advancements would find a slowing down phase (especially if it has worked for several centuries.) They probably wouldn't mess with success. (example: how much of a technological advance has the old number 2 "wooden" pencil gone through in the last few years. Note: that I'm talking about the wooden ones, not mechanical pencils.)

When one of the first City-Destroyer ships comes through the atmosphere and the news reported says it's moving to slow to be a meteor or comet or something... What is causing the ship to create the fire ball (ring?) in front of the ship. - Torque

Just because it was a controlled descent (unlike a meteor) doesn't mean it wasn't moving fast enough to cause air friction. Our space shuttle fleet essentially glides down to the surface, yet still cannot avoid the heat of re-entry.

When one of the first City-Destroyer ships comes through the atmosphere and the news reported says it's moving to slow to be a meteor or comet or something... What is causing the ship to create the fire ball (ring?) in front of the ship. It is not moving fast enough to have air friction affect it, and I see no natural condition that could account for the Fire. Is it part of some weapon on the ship?


Actually they didn't say the ships were going too slow to be a meteor, they said that the mother ship was slowing down (in the vacume of space) which is why they knew it wasn't natural.

I'm pretty sure the news anchor in russia said something about it moving to slow...

I don't think I communicated what my point was very well. I was saying that the ship, when they show it as a huge fire and smoke trail (Chapter 9, 15? minutes into the movie [reg ed.], is moving to slow to cause the type of fire that we see in the scene.

It's is when the White house staff are watching the special report on the events in Russia. Just after the "infered is off the chart" statement.

"It's is" -Torque

A little finger happy, are we Torque

Why would there be 'admiral' on the nuclear submarine in the Persion Gulf?

Someone says Admiral on deck! I would think he'd be on the carrier.

More Nits

Pilot Russel Case's missile jams and his weapon stores display in his cockpit shows he was attempting to fire a sidewinder. He also calls out Fox 2 which indicates an IR tracking missile which confirms that he did want to launch a sidewinder. Yet the exterior visual shows the missile thats jams is hanging from the left outer wing station, not on the rail on the wing tip. And the Malfunction display also shows it to be another missile and not the sidewinder. No wonder it jammed, it didn't know which missile to fire.

Also, when Russel fires missile at the alien fighter, the alien fighter is directly in front of him as shown on the HUD; He should have just used his 20mm cannon. He was well below MINIMUM range to fire that missile. Lucky for him the alien ship went a little to the left or a midair collision would have occured.

At the end of the movie after Russel destroys the City-destroyer ship, we are given a sideways (looking to the right) cockpit view of the Presidents plane. In it we can see another F/A-18C Hornet right next to him. It looks as if the the wingman of the president is a little too close to the president if we think of wingspan.

NANJAO: The movie the people are watching in the trailer home was "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

NANJAO:

When the helicopter tries to use the banks of lights to send a message, it says:

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

Maybe that's why they decided to attack?

Naw...it said, "Do you waaaaant...do you waaaaaant...to come back to my place, bouncy bouncy?"

I thought it said, "NI!" Or maybe "Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-Ekki-PTANG. Zoom-Boing. Z'nourrwringmm!"

As the Commander In Chief of the United States Military, it is the President's prerogative on his role in any operation. If the President wished to drive a tank around, it would be his authority to do so.

And since his actions were sucessful, they will be judged as both brave and noble, rather than foolhardy.

I know this is just a fantasy film, but doesn't anyone else get a creepy feeling when watching the destruction of the L.A. skyscraper and the Empire State Building? It just brings to mind the destruction of the real life World Trade Center towers. Maybe, in a sense, it makes the predicament of those fictional characters all the more horrific.

More nits:

A mothership that size would probably have enough gravity to significantly disrupt the earth's tides.

The force of the giant saucers crashing into the ground at the end of the movie would create enormous craters and probably send billions of pounds of dirt flying into the air.

What happens to all the little fighters when the big ships are destroyed? Do they just disappear?

A single nuclear warhead, even the largest ever produced, would not seem to be able to destroy a target the size of that mothership, unless somehow the blast got to the primary energy source which started a chain reaction, etc.

Why don't they use nukes against the big saucers at the end (aside from giving the president and the band of ragtag fighter pilots a chance for heroics). It's never mentioned that the aliens destroyed the entire American nuclear arsenal, and what about those B-2s we saw earlier?

As already mentioned, Area 51 does not have a gate, but the surrounding area is patrolled by fatigue-wearing guards with authority to kill; even if there was a gate, guards would certainly have spotted an approaching convoy that size long beforehand. Speaking of which, heat or not, shouldn't the guards be wearing desert fatigues instead of black?

More on the guards: when Will Smith pulls the tarp over the alien at the gate, the commander of the guards recoils in horror and, flustered, waves the truck through. Something tells me that a commander of the guards at an installation like Area 51 would be much calmer in a situation like that.

Area 51 is a no-fly zone, even for most military planes. Will Smith says he spotted the base during his dogfight with the alien fighter. Excusing, perhaps, the extreme nature of the emergency that might have permitted Area 51 authorities to ignore his plane, how would he know it was a military base given his tight situation? If I recall correctly, Area 51 does not leave planes in the open and its aircraft do not have insignia.

Why is there so much open space inside the mothership? A compact design would be much more efficient. This seems like an incredible waste of resources. Maybe that's why the aliens have to move from planet to planet.

And one anti-nit:
It seems possible that the aliens are perfectly aware of the specific spacecraft and the identity of the pilots when Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum head up. Certainly, the clamp they dock with seems to suggest observation rather than "welcome home." There are legitimate reasons why the aliens would not destroy the craft on sight even if they knew who was flying it (interrogation, over-confidence, etc.).

I ended up writing a lot more than I intended. Cheers.

The force of the giant saucers crashing into the ground at the end of the movie would create enormous craters and probably send billions of pounds of dirt flying into the air.- E

It would depend on the speed at which the ships crashed. They didn't seem to plummet very quickly, so whatever damage the ships sustained didn't seem to completely neutralize their hovering capabilities.


What happens to all the little fighters when the big ships are destroyed? Do they just disappear? - E

Perhaps they have self-destruct mechanisms tied to the big ships' systems...? Though that certainly wasn't shown. Or perhaps the planes took them down once the shields were down.


Why don't they use nukes against the big saucers at the end (aside from giving the president and the band of ragtag fighter pilots a chance for heroics). It's never mentioned that the aliens destroyed the entire American nuclear arsenal, and what about those B-2s we saw earlier? - E

Because nukes would have destroyed them as well.

Well, Torque, you answered one of my questions - the Fox 2/3 thing. But I still have lots more.

One caveat: I've watched this several times, and I really like it (altho it is rather US-centric). Still, I did have several questions this time 'round.

One of the big ships settles over New York. It is stated that these ships are 15 miles wide (side to side), yet it only seems to hover over Manhattan. Now, a New Yorker may tell me I'm wrong, but it seems to me that Manhattan is only 1-2 miles across, not 15.

What building did they kill in New York? It certainly looked like the Empire State Building, but I don't remember that building being in the middle of the street like that.

After they kill New York, there's a picture of the Statue of Liberty destroyed. How? The blast was going out; the Statue shouldn't have fallen like it did. It should have fallen away from the city.

What exactly was the Welcome Wagon supposed to be doing? (This was referred to above; the flashing lights.) What are the lights supposed to mean? "Hey, are you awake in there?" And if someone flashed me like that, I'd probably be a bit annoyed as well.

This is more of a grammar nit, but still: When they're considering whether to nuke the ships, someone (the CIA twit?) mentions all the 'innocent civilians' that will be killed. Well, who else would it be - guilty civilians? A civilian, by definition, is innocent in a military action.

And, as an aside, does anyone know WHY it's called Area 51?
It's my understanding that it's named after it's plot on a map; i.e. it's right between Areas 50 & 52.
And if this isn't true, please let me know. I hate to be spreading false rumors. (Hmm, 'false' rumors, huh? So there are true rumors, hmmm? I think it's time for bed.)

Maybe the welcome wagon was inspired by the music & light display in Close Encounters Of the 3rd Kind?

It was the Empire State Building that was NYC's Ground Zero, but you're right in that it isn't facing a cross street in real life.

I believe your explanation of Area 51 is correct, but when the government chooses to acknowledge it, it's usually termed "Nellis Air Force Range" or more specifically, the "Groom Lake Facility."

"Why would there be 'admiral' on the nuclear submarine in the Persion Gulf?" Torque

Was it an admiral? I thought he said "captain on deck." If it was an admiral, he's in the wrong uniform; if it was a commander, he's wearing the wrong collar devices.

Philly was destroyed in the second wave along with Chicago and Atlanta. The Pentagon was most likely destroyed with DC. Speaking of DC, why aim the weapon above the White House? Ensuring the destruction of the Capital Building or Pentagon would be more appropriate.

There was some promotional thing about ID4 before it came out that the fire in the sky as the 'city ships' entered the atmosphere were the result of its engines.

Somehow, even without shields, I doubt the alien fighters would be damaged much by missiles or machine guns. I also don't see that nuke fired in the mother ship doing that much damage either.

To secure more natural resources, wouldn't it be more efficient to develop a chemical/biological weapon to wipe out humans instead of what the did?

"Why would there be 'admiral' on the nuclear submarine in the Persion Gulf?" Torque

Was it an admiral? I thought he said "captain on deck." If it was an admiral, he's in the wrong uniform; if it was a commander, he's wearing the wrong collar devices.

The person said Admiral on deck and they focus in on that guy, so logically, one would conclude that they're referring to him being the Admiral.

Speaking of position over the white house, wouldn't that mess up any antenna based reception for a tv that comes from a satellite? Isn't that like trying to receive a radio transmission from a radio station tower while you're at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and there's also a mountain between you and the transmitting tower?

Speaking of DC, why aim the weapon above the White House?

Symbolic.

Admirals can certainly ride on any vessil they want, even though it's usually a surface boat, but the guy they focus on wasn't wearing admiral stars, he was wearing the silver leaf shoulder devices of a commander.

Just watched this scene again and "cap'n on deck" is said, not "admiral..." Also, "USS Georgia SSBN... Persian Gulf" is typed on screen and there's a shot of a sub moving through the water. First of all, this isn't a ballistic missile sub and SSBNs don't travel around surfaced, espicially in that part of the world. Secondly, I don't think this is even an American sub because it doesn't have the tear-drop shaped hull design, unless TPTB cleaned up some old footage; it's probably a British sub.

Just watched the scene again and someone does indeed say admiral on deck. Also, the guy in focus doesn't have any emblem of or anything on his shoulders. He has 2 flowers or star things on his collar though. One on each side.

However, the closed captioning says captain on deck, so who knows...

It sounds like someone's saying admiral on my dvd, maybe they fixed it to make it sound like captain on yours.

I have the fabulous VHS version and the guy who says it has an accent, southern I think, and he speaks in an old school, salty sailor sort of way, so it's a bit difficult to make out, but it sounded like cap'n to me. The insignia for O-4 & O-5 is a leaf, not sure which kind; gold for O-4 and silver for O-5. What this guy is wearing on his collar are silver leaves, for commander, but they are the bigger pins that go on the shoulders, the collar pins are smaller. In other words, the wardrobe people messed up with this guy and not any of the other people in uniform, from what I could tell.

okay, so he's not an Admiral and not a Captain, and he wasn't on a US submarine...

he must have been a politician...

Well, the CO of a naval command is usually referred to as captain, no matter the rank, but I'm not positive it wasn't an American sub, it just didn't look like one and I'm a submariner. How do you make that big, cartoony smiley, not that I use emoticons very often?

in formatting...


http://nitcentral.philfarrand.com/cgi-bin/discus/board-image-lister.cgi

Thanks PV. Now if I ever use one I know what to do.

Independence Day will be converted to 3-D, and re-released on July 3, 2013.
And, "The Nostalgia Critic" has reviewed this flick. He...kinda didn't like it. You can see just how much here.

Converting a movie to 3d when it has not been shot in 3d from the start makes for a crappy 3d movie. Just saying.

Too bad it won't be converted into mulch.

Not an ID4 fan, I take it?

Not really. But I'd love to see a sequel in which the aliens return for a rematch 50 years later in the 2040, and it can be subtitled War Day. That way, the abbreviation can be WD-40.

Two nits in the opening scene where the mother ship flies over the Moon.

First, we see the Apollo 11 landing site with the american flag still in place. That's fine, but after decades of exposure to unfiltered UV light from the Sun, those flags are bleached completely white and that's how the flag in the movie should have been depicted.

Second, we see the laser reflector the astronauts left on the Moon aimed at 90 degrees to the ship's trajectory. The ship is moving straight toward Earth, the reflector should have been aimed in the same direction.

The mothership is said to have a mass of about a quarter that of the Moon. It also comes closer to the Earth than our communication satellites (it is shown destroying such a satellites as it approaches Earth). Such a large mass that close to Earth would have caused ENORMOUS tidal effects, at least 300 times greater than what the Moon creates.

When Air Force One is taking off from Andrews Air Force base, it flees the wall of flames coming from directly behind it. We also see the city killer, which is centered exactly over the White House, almost directly behind. However, the runways at Andrews are oriented almost 90 degrees to the White House. That scene, dramatic as it is, could not happen that way.

The 2016 sequel Resurgence wasn't so
great, it needed Will Smith,
Plus it needed the character of
Major Mitchell from the 1996
Independence Day film, and more of the character of General William Grey from the 1996 film

I would welcome a 3rd
Independence Day film , as long as it is somewhat decent

For Independence Day: Resurgence , should they have had some other actor play the part of
Captain Steven Hiller ? Even though it wouldn't be as good as
Will Smith