What if Movie Scenario~Independence Day

The 1996 "Super Blockbuster" that was a hit in the summer of the aforementioned year. It's about when all of a sudden from out of outer space, aliens appeared over every major city in the world, humans watched with awe at first, than with terror when the aliens wanted humans dead. To survive, the band of survivors try a counter-attack and stop the aliens, before it's too late.

But, what if the events of the movie were to happen in real life? This is what this wiki page will try to cover. First, let's talk a bit about the movie itself.

### Forward

Just to let everybody know that the following synopsis of the movie is oversimplified and will focus on the main core of the movie's plot.

## The Movie

It all started at dawn of July 2 where alien experts at SETI (The **S**earch for **E**xtra**T**errestrial **I**ntelligence) in New Mexico get a strange signal, and after trying to confirm that it's really from aliens (as they believed that the signal's source is from our Moon), they contact the Pentagon's Space Command, and just as much as the SETI are scratching their heads, the US Military are too, but they were able to get a satellite photo of the mother ship, and confirm is slowing down, General William Grey (actor name unknown) then requests the attention of the US' Secretary of Defense.

This news would eventually reach the American President; Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman), and he questions the other person on the line in disbelief. A few Hours later, he calls for an emergency meeting with members of the White House (especially the Secretary of Defense Numzicky) (actor name unknown).

The Aliens are now beginning to make their move, and unbeknownst to the people who are just about to wake up and turn on their TV sets that their TV screens are acting weird, this is a communication signal from the aliens, one man named David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) discovers the signal and it's deteriorating everytime it starts over on the TV screens.

Despite the aliens' hidden signal, the people are now watching the news as they word of the alien spaceships entering Earth's atmosphere, a few are already heading towards the Middle East and Russia, causing widespread panic. Many US soldiers stationed have detected these ships and informed their commanders, and in turn informed President Whitmore.

It wouldn't be long before these alien ships appeared over the United States, and after a failed attempt from a recon plane to try to identify the ships, they get confirmations that 3 of these ships will hover over 3 of America's major cities of New York, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. The aliens hips continue to move, blocking out a sun and making a small tremble which wakes up a cocky US Marine Fighter Pilot "Capt. Stephen Hiller" (Will Smith) and his girlfriend Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox) and her son Dylan (Ross Bagley) who (as being a kid) makes like he's shooting aliens with his toy gun. Meanwhile in New York, David discovers that the dwindling alien signal is a sign that they are going to destroy the city, and tells everybody to leave. By this time, more alien ships have arrived over other major cities around the world such as London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, and Mumbai. In DC, Whitmore decides to stay to try to keep his people calm, but orders the Vice President, the whole cabinet, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to evacuate to a safe location.

David along with his father, Julius (Judd Hirsch) head to DC which is swamped by the media and David calls his ex-wife; Constance Spano (actress name unknown), and under strange circumstances, allows David and Julius into the White House so David can talk to President Whitmore, and warn him about what the aliens are planning to do, and after David informs the President about the alien signal, Whitmore calls for a total evacuation of America's major cities before the aliens attack, and after a failed attempt to communicate with the aliens. David, Julius, Connie, and The President's staff evacuated the White House and head for Air Force One.

Unfortunately, Whitmore's order to evacuate the cities (at least for New York, DC, and LA) came too late, the aliens use their lasers to destroy the cities. Millions died as a result, though Jasmine and Dylan (as well as their dog; Boomer) were able to escape the alien blast.

On July 3, the sense of devastation is now beginning to mount on the people of the world, seeing their beloved cities reduced to rubble and millions of people dead at the hands of the aliens.

Consumed with vengeance, Steve and his unit of other Marine Fighter Pilots along with his friend Jimmy (Harry Connick Jr.) are ready to fight the aliens. But what they came up against would shock them as the Aliens are protected by some kind of forcefield which renders their weapons (guns and missiles) useless. Having no other option but to retreat, Steve managed to escape while his friend Jimmy wasn't so lucky. Steve then came face-to-face with one of the aliens and punches it unconscious.

After the failed counter-attack in LA, President Whitmore (with help from the Levinsons) head to Area 51 in Nevada, there they meet Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner) who introduces the crew to the Alien Spaceship that crash landed in Roswell in the 1950 as well as the aliens that were inside. Meanwhile, Steve after dragging his alien hostage through the Mojave Desert he is picked up by a convoy of trailers and they head for Area 51 too, and after Dr. Okun was killed by the alien he was trying to perform surgery on, Whitmore authorizes the use of Nuclear weapons, and they do so over the city of Houston, after the nuke hits its target, Houston was destroyed, but the alien spaceship remains, Whitmore calls for a retreat and tries to think of another strategy.

It wasn't until very early in the morning on July 4 when David (inspired by what his father said) got a team of computer programmers and they worked around the clock to create a computer virus that can disable the alien defense forcefield. Whitmore authorizes the mission (much to the Chagrin of Mr. Numzicky who Whitmore fires soon after). Using Morse code, they inform other militaries from around the world to join the US in a huge counter-attack against the aliens.

David and Steve commandeer the alien ship so they can attempt to deliver the virus to the alien mothership.

Before the attack, President Whitmore tells the pilots (military pilots as well as volunteers) that they'll be fighting the biggest air battle in history as America's sir force will joining others from around the world, and after a rousing speech by President Whitmore (saying that they are willing to fight and survive) the pilots gather and proceed to their designated areas, President Whitmore also joins the team.

Meanwhile in space, Steve and David reach the mothership, they cover themselves and then attach themselves to the mainframe of the mothership, and deployed the virus, thus allowing President Whitmore and his squadron to attack the aliens on Earth. Then, the other aliens attack the people outside, calling for an evacuation in the Area 51 base, to make matters more daunting the Alien ship is heading for the base, as the ship gets closer, they're about to fire their blast ray, but with all fighter jets firing all of their missiles, a drunk crop duster; Russel Case (Randy Quaid) comes in and tries to destroy the ray canon himself, but after his missile failed to launch, he decides to commit suicide by flying his own jet straight into the ray cannon, the explosion kills him and destroys the ship, giving the US airforce a moral victory, then using Morse Code, they inform other forces around the world on how to destroy the aliens once and for all. Meanwhile on the Mothership, Steve and David feel a sense of hopeless as they are trapped, then they were led with no other option, fire the nuclear missile they brought with them, they detach themselves from the ship's mainframe and Steve races towards the ship's entrance, before it closed up the 2 men escape and with barely enough time to escape the nuke's blast range in space. Back on Earth, President Whitmore and the surviving pilots celebrate their victory over the aliens, and then they pick up Steve and David on the radar, President Whitmore, General Grey, Julius, Jasmine, Dylan, and Connie drive to the desert to meet up with the men.

Steve and David were revered as heroes when they meet up with their loved ones. Then, Steve takes Dylan and they watch the burning remains of the alien ship.

## What if?

\*Whew\* that was a lot of ground covering, was it? Now here's your favorite question, what if the events of the movie were to happen in real life?

Very much like in the movie, the people would look upon the aliens with awe (and sometimes panic). Of course, just like what we saw in the movie, this would definitely get all Alien enthusiasts and experts (including America's alien loving friend; Giorgio Tsoukalos) as their conspiracy theories would now become facts. Also like in the movie, they would destroy major cities and kill millions of people.

Just keep in mind though, that Hollywood has the aliens in Independence Day portrayed as your "typical Hollywood movie monster" so to say, that is to say that they want nothing more than to destroy the humans with extreme prejudice. Could this happen in real life, perhaps, as we really don't know what will happen if we all of a sudden are faced with another specie from another part of our Universe. Yes, they could want to destroy us, but they could just want to say "hello" and give us a kiss.

But for the sake of this scenario, let's say the aliens want to destroy us.

This is where you have to pay attention to every aspects of the movie when they talk about the aliens, according to Dr. Okun, the aliens have similar structured bodies (except with no vocal cords) can breath Oxygen-rich air, and though not said so exactly, they can also use potable water (H2O) as well. The only huge difference is technology, as it's well depicted in the movie that the aliens have technology that is centuries ahead than anything built by humans. But they built their computers similarly to humans, and that is one of the weaknesses that the humans were able to exploit and then upload a computer virus into the mothership's mainframe computer, by using a spaceship that the US Military recovered back in the 50s.

Yes, this is a very popular conspiracy theory when it comes to Alien experts. But this bit of information is still to this day controversial as there's little evidence of this happening, could the Military purposely covered it up and blacked out the media, perhaps. But as of right now, with the info we have, there have been no alien spaceship recovered by the US Military. So, that will be a high hurdle for us to clear without that darn spaceship.

As we know by watching the movie, that the alien ships had a forcefield which rendered any weapon the humans had (including nuclear weapons) useless. But the ace in the hole for the humans was the spaceship at Area 51, but this is the real world and as stated before there was no real evidence that the Military recovered any alien spaceships. So, we would be good as dead.

That'll do it for this..........

Woah wait a minute, I'm not about to end this page right now. There's more to discuss, a lot more.

Let's say that somehow we \*did\* defeat the aliens (maybe that spaceship existed after all). The pickle now is in the form of the aftermath. To oversimplify, it'll be a very, very, very, \*VERY\* \*LONG\* road to recovery, as the aliens destroyed most of the major cities in the Northern Hemisphere.

We know by watching the movie that a lot of the major cities in both the US and Europe were destroyed by the aliens. It's not just New York, Washington and LA either, the aliens also destroyed Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. In Europe, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, and Moscow were also destroyed. Asia and Australia were virtually untouched by the alien attacks (except for Mumbai). The aliens didn't just attack major cities, they also attack military bases (air bases in particular like Steve's base in El Toro (which is far away from LA), they also destroyed NORAD (**Nor**th American **A**ir **D**efense) where President Whitmore's cabinet was staying. So, restoring the major cities (already a daunting task) won't be the only challenge the humans would have, the other challenge is to rebuild their armies, and in some cases rebuilding from the ground up.

Another thing is that the United States (which were especially hit hard by the alien invasion) would lose it's superpower status as it lost both its center of Government (Washington DC) and business (New York). So, what would America do?

Well, back in the 19th century, there have been talks about moving the US capitol (as well as the Government) to St. Louis since it's in the center of the nation, and most nations like to have capitols in the center of their country since it can get resources more easier. In America, this never left the drawing board, but in this alternate reality and with DC now reduced to rubble, this idea can be entertained (assuming St. Louis wasn't destroyed by the aliens).

Though, it may seem like at the end of the movie that everything will be "honky dory" now that the aliens are defeated for all time. But in the real world, this feeling of peace and a strong sense of confidence will fade quickly as the aliens have destroyed almost every major city which will leave some of the survivors homeless. There are other problems that we have to consider here, such as shortages of food and water, shelter for the homeless, a severe economic crisis which can lead to rioting, terrorist activities, and even a huge refugee crisis which can displace billions.

Now, you ask me this question. "Johnny, why can't they just use the alien technology to rebuild?" Well, the humans in the movie destroyed all of the alien ships (including the mothership) so it's possible that there may not be much of that "alien" technology left for the humans to use, and even if they do, it'll take a long, long time for the humans to research and reverse engineer the alien tech (assuming we do).

One thing is for sure is that "The world will never be the same again", and that would be true as political, social, and cultural demographics in many nations would change forever, for better or for worse. The events that also happened will be remembered forever, and how it changed the world.

That'll do it for this page, what do you think would happen if the events of Independence Day were real? Don't forget to check out my Games and Movies wikis as well.Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.