Talk:Independence Day (1996 film)/Archive 1

message: I was just curious, in the synopsis it says that the UFO was 1/4 the mass of the moon. But according to astrophysics, something with that mass would not be able to orbit the Earth at such a close range... It would smash into the Earth at the orbital elevation in the film... I was wondering this because the film just played on Comcast Detroit Channel recently and I got curious at the size of the thing and its proximity to the Earth. If it was really one quarter the mass of the Moon, it should be quite far just to prevent it from obliterating itself, let alone the Earth... Please reply with your thoughts and comments on this article, thanks (If you do so, post one copy here and one copy in my talk page, thanks...)! --Frithraes! 23:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OOPS! I think I spoke too soon... I just noticed Criticisms and Goofs at the bottom and it appears my concerns were already raised, heh heh... --Frithraes! 23:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

text: According to IMDB it was a promotional abbreviation, nothing more. --Zerbey 21:52, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific Fallacy or movie hype? 

message: No information on the proposed sequel, or at least why there has been no sequel to one of the biggest money earning films ever? 
I heard the sequel had the aliens returning this time with a new species as an ally, and there would be a ground invasion (like the far superior war of the worlds).
:Where did you get that information? There are quite a few films with proposed sequels, but very few of these films ever hit the silver screen. There is a lot of contreversy going on right not as to the existence of a sequel to the film Hulk. Many people want it, but it's future is in doubt. I don't think that it is very different with this sequel. Scorpionman 03:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: SFX magazine. The Hulk sequel is happening with David Duchovny in the lead according to Metro. Magic Pickle 21:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IF there is one, my guess would be that it would be about the resulting REBELLION of humanity against all of the world's governments as a result of the alien contact. Thanks to the likes of the Robertson Panel and the Brookings Report protocol, which state that people who see UFOs, aliens and the like, and/or interested in said forbidden subjects,are to be discredited and ridiculed, and IF there is alien contact, they'll revolt in real life, as will the religious people. Think about it. You and/or your buds see a UFO, aliens then you and/or your buds are called crazy, mentally ill, drunk, stupid idiots, worse, then there is alien contact, just like in this movie. Logic dictates that the people will revolt, as would you, to avenge yourself and restore your credibility and honor. Martial Law 20:42, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sequel?

message: The article states, at one point:
One of the flaws in this is that the aliens fighter craft are also affected by the virus, craft that would seem to have little purpose in "interfacing" with any satellite
Granted, however it was stated by Jeff Goldblun's character in the movie that once the virus was fed into the mothership, it would stream down into all of the smaller ships, which would obviously include the fighters. The commands in the virus could have send a simple "off" command for the shields and/or wrecked the command console system in the mothership (hence the laughing "Jolly Roger" graphic), which would explain why the shields would have been down a few minutes.
Even if this were not mentioned in the movie, it was clearly stated that the sattellite system was used for getting around the problem of line-of-sight for the aliens. While one could say that it would be more plausible for each fighter to be jacked into its mothership, it is equally plausible that each fighter maintained a connection to the satellites (or possibly both).
I think I have sufficiently proved that this is not a flaw to anyone who has payed attention to the movie. I must have seen it a dozen times, so this really stood out to me when I read the article and I thought I should point out my views on the matter.
--Ihmhi 10:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Inconsistancy

message: I hadn't seen this movie since I was like...6 or 7. I just rented it and, I was suprised. This is a good movie.
:Maybe, but I still think that War of the Worlds is better. Scorpionman 01:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wow

message: Removed the following: *The United States flag placed on the moon by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin is no longer standing. It was knocked over by Armstrong's and Aldrin's take off in the Lunar Module.
The reason: A new flag was later put in place by the crew of Apollo 17 (if my mind serves me right). Bjelleklang  -  talk 21:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: From ''Goofs''

message: 1. Didn't anyone pick up on the fact since the aliens were an analogue of socialist insects, with a hive mentality, that their computers would have no defenses whatsoever to an attack, since none of them would be acting counter productively to the commune? Thusly, once someone was able to reverse engineer the basic operation of their processor codes, writing a very crippling virus would be a cinch!
:: Uh, no. They lived by 'stripping worlds' - inhabited worlds, presumably. Thus, however cohesive their own culture, they could expect multifaceted resistance. They should have expected resistance - they subverted Earth satelites and expected it not to be done back to them? They were just dumb. Even though they could cross interstellar space with such huge craft. Hmm, either that or that's a PLOT HOLE.213.86.59.92 17:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  A simple probe and interrogation of the internet through satelites would give all this information. Very easily. You'd look it up on W/P. Possibly the alien fighter that had been here 50 years before the movie had something to do with this as well.213.86.59.92 17:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Additionally (to #4), the APC may have been very far away from ground zero and most of the more severe effects of the nuclear blast were too distant to really affect it.  Plus there's the matter of the yield of the device and how its interaction with the shields could affect everything.  And there's the reference in the article to Houston having already been destroyed before the nuclear attack, but it seemed to me that they had picked to attack the alien ship before it had destroyed Houston. Radivil 00:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some Things overlooked. 

message: I have made several corrections, mostly in the form of deletions, to this movie page.
Where to begin?
In the plot summary, the author states that the captured alien fighter was recovered from the Roswell crash in 1947.  First of all, the base at Area 51 didn't exist in 1947 (the wreckage and bodies were supposedly transported to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, and stored there in the legendary Hangar 18).  But more importantly, the character of the Defense Secretary in the film points to the craft and exclaims, "That thing is a wreck!  It crash landed back in the 50's!"  So, the film specifically states that the fighter didn't come from Roswell.  Most likely, the author was confused by the statement that character Julius Levinson makes aboard Air Force One about how the government should have been prepared for the alien attack because of "that thing that you found, in New Mexico."  
In the Criticism section, the author states that the alien fighters have little reason to interface with satellites, and therefore shouldn't have been affected by the computer virus planted in the mother ship.  While it may be true that the fighters wouldn't have been "infected" by interfacing with satellites, they surely would have been connected to and receiving instructions from the mother ship, and thus would have received the virus directly.  Note - I see that this was already pointed out by user ImhmI.
:The name is "Ihmhi". Is it really that hard to spell? d: --Ihmhi 08:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is.  Unless you're born in India or Utah. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.19.155.79 (talk) 05:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow, so many errors! 

message: Things like too many missles for the plane or insufficent fuel. It's in the near future, they've modified the aircraft to hold more missles and made it more fuel efficent. Joncnunn 22:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: A few more of the goofs need deleted

message: It says in the article the film was called "July 4th" in the UK... I'm not sure about this, certainly when I saw it it was called Independence Day. -- 9cds(talk) 13:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "July 4th" 

message: This is a somewhat weird question, and I do understand that the answer would be highly speculative, but based on observations made in the movie, how would the alien ships fare against say the Enterprise-E from star trek?
------
The Aliens appear to be at about Borg level - asteroid-sized spaceships with city-zapping death rays - which makes the idea of them being defeated by a hacker developing a computer virus even more ludicrous. 
Exile 15:53, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: isn't a computer virus how the borg were beaten in best of both worlds? --dan 01:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ship comparison 

message: Bah, I'm still pretty new to wiki, and I was trying to cite "Krauss, Lawrence, Beyond Star Trek (1998) " for a few new goofs/effors, by looking at the editing help, but I did it wrong.  Rather than mess with it, and potentially screw it up worse, I'd rather just have someone help me.  Thanks Roffler 22:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nvm got it Roffler 22:52, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citing 

message: Take a look at this:
"# [1] Note: Remember that this is foreign technology, and the ship would be able to keep stable the geographical changes the ship makes."
Could someone please elaborate on the note? It doesn't make sense because  it sounds like the Aliens know how to break the laws of physics. Did the source elaborate on how this worked? Because these aliens seem to know how to orbit in a geostationary orbit without causing any of the ramifications that would happen. --143.238.196.18 12:11, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: I think the direct reference to The War of the Worlds in the use of the virus and Jeff Goldblum's line of giving the ship "a cold" should be noted clearly on the page rather than being just half-note in the Criticisms section. Thoughts? Annie D 02:27, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Virus? 

message: The article states that Constance is David's ex-wife, but is it actually stated in the film that they are divorced?  My impression was that they were estranged. Jinxmchue 18:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to have to dust off my VHS copy (blech!) and watch it again, but I'm beginning to think you're right. Jinxmchue 04:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are David and Constance actually divorced? 

message: "However, others disagree, claiming that because of their vicinity to the ground, the spaceships would not have enough distance to accelerate to a speed sufficient for this to happen. They argue that for massive amounts of energy to be released, the spaceships would have to fall from a massive distance at a very fast speed (more then 3 kilometers per second)."
Could someone explain to me what this is trying to say? I read it as: "Somehow, unless the spaceship is moving very quickly, the kinetic energy will stay contained in the ship."  This is obviously false, as it has to go someplace, and even if only 5% is released outside the ship when it crashes, that is still several orders of magnitude greater than the energy of the Hiroshima blast.  Any thoughts, fellow wikipedians?  Roffler 21:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've given the original author 2 weeks to respond, w/o any new developments, so I'm removing that passage.  Put it back in if you wish, but please provide sources (as I did), or its OR, and will be removed again.  Roffler 22:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  physics, lol 

message: I want to know if this event is a homage to Star Wars, most notably Return of the Jedi. Okay, during the first counterattack on the aliens, one of Black Knights, before he collides with an alien fighter, declares "There's too many of them!" This seems awfully similar to The Battle of Endor when a Y-Wing pilot says the same thing about TIE fighters.
It's too vague of a sentence, as that could be said about anything. ChunkyKong12345 01:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Star Wars reference??? 

message: Would a virus written on our computers really work on a computer we know nothing about? Leagues of programmers working for companies often have trouble porting programs between linux, windows, and mac. It's that hard to port between 32Bit systems, so I can only imagine how one man can bridge the gap on his laptop.
If that worked I should be able to port some of my windows apps to my toaster...71.10.6.16 01:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cross-Platform Goof? 

message: I already spent some time revising the Errors section today (see the Errors and Goof talk), but I feel more work is needed. The very first error should probably be revised, as the film said "a stationary orbit", not a "geostationary" orbit. I also think the Criticism section should be turned into a Reaction/Reception section and should be more balanced. Right now it is clearly biased by someone who did not enjoy the film. The first two paragraphs don't even have citations. --Matt72986 13:25, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The entire "Errors" section is idiotic and should be deleted.  No one cares what missiles what jets had in reality compared to the film, and what jets are really in service with the Israeli Air Force.  It's a movie, for the love of God.  If we point out every little thing like this you'll have an error section a mile long.  Cut the entire section.  There's not one interesting tidbit in there. Mcflytrap 16:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More Revisions Required; Criticism and Errors

message: I noticed an error in the plot summary.  The author states "It is later mentioned that Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Colorado Springs, and Houston are also destroyed; however, only the Houston attack is actually portrayed."  I would like to point out that they do mention that NORAD was destroyed.  NORAD is in Colorado Springs.
Jcwilder 21:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The blast from the destruction of NORAD would've also wiped out Colorado Springs. I've also added the other cities on that map in Area 51. --MasterA113 22:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Plot issues

message: I don't remember seeing any mention of some of the cities on that list. Can anyone back some of these up? --MasterA113 13:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cities Destroyed 

message: Marines do not salute without a cover or when out of uniform. Captain Hiller was a (fictitious) Marine. My favorite peeve with the movie... --76.212.169.202 04:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Marines don't do that"

message: "While a massive commercial success (it made over $300,000,000 in the U.S. alone), the film was given mixed reviews by some critics. Criticism of the plot included the claim that it would be impossible to cause the aliens' high-tech computers to malfunction by infecting them with a simple computer virus. Another scientific criticism was..."
erm...no, I don't believe there was an overwhelming amount of criticism that the film portrayed the impossible (in your evaluation) when aliens were disrupted by a computer virus.  Maybe amongst some geeky circles it warrented discussion, but I doubt it bothered the editors in Empire magazine. Kransky 11:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Honestly, even one sentence discussing whether this film was plausible in this article just confirms the bad ideas about wikipedia. 150.208.142.31 17:58, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Critiquing the film

message: Why on earth is there a Star Wars comparison in the content? The points made could be pushed against Star Trek movies, WarGames, or even Gone With the Wind. I'm not sure that whole section matters at all, and is just speculation. --oZ 03:24, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Star Wars Comparison

message: I added this section and I'm sure there are several more that I missed. Any others people can think of? SmokeyTheCat 10:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References to other films

message: OK I read through the whole talk section and didn't see this brought up.  Cut me some slack if Im doing something wrong - Im new around here.  With that said -
This article says that El Toro was closed by the time of the movies release, but that isn't true.  It was slated for closing from 1993 on, but it was definitely open in 1996.  Im not sure how much longer it was used (wikipedia itself lists closing as 1999) but I visited it in 1997 and it was still being used (as was MCAS Tustin not far away).  Miramar was still NAS Miramar in 1996 as well - no Marine planes based there until 1997 (according to wikipedia and my hazy memory).
Here is the original statement:
When this movie came out, El Toro was no longer used by the Marine Corps as a base. The closest active Marine bases to Los Angeles would either be Camp Pendleton or TwentyNine Palms. The fighter squadron depicted by the movie, VMFA-314 (the Black Knights) had transferred from El Toro to Miramar. Also, the movie depicts El Toro as being in the middle of the Mojave Desert when in reality, it is located in heavily populated Orange County.
I am going to change it to just the last line in that statement as it is the only one that I am sure is correct.
Runenfool 19:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  MCAS El Toro closing date 

message: We seem to have accidentally collected a huge collection of utterly pointless fluff. The whole second half of the article is constructed of barely-sourced original observations of very little actual value to the article. Planning on removing all of these; splitting them would get them deleted anyway. Chris Cunningham 12:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Imminent removal of the second half the the article