Independence Day

***Independence Day*** (also known by its promotional abbreviation ***ID4***) is a 1996 epic science fiction action film directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich and starring an ensemble cast that includes Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Randy Quaid, Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, and Harvey Fierstein. The film focus on a a hostile alien invasion of Earth, forcing disparate groups of people who converge in the Nevada desert. With the entire people of the world, they launch a desperate all-out counterattack on July 4 – the same date as the Independence Day holiday in the United States.

While promoting *Stargate* in Europe, Emmerich came up with the idea for the film when fielding a question about his own belief in the existence of alien life. He and Devlin decided to incorporate a large-scale attack when noticing that aliens in most invasion films travel long distances in space only to remain hidden when reaching Earth. Principal photography for the film began in July 1995 in New York City, and the film was officially completed on June 20, 1996.

The film was scheduled for release on July 3, 1996, but due to the high level of anticipation for the movie, many theaters began showing it on the evening of July 2, 1996, the same day the film begins. The movie's combined domestic and international box office gross is $816,969,268, which at one point was the second-highest worldwide gross of all-time. It holds the 25th highest worldwide gross of a movie all-time.

## Plot

On July 2, 1996, an enormous alien mothership arrives in the orbit of the Earth and deploys multiple saucers, each fifteen-miles wide that take positions over some of Earth's major cities.

David Levinson, an MIT-trained satellite technician, decodes a signal embedded within global satellite transmissions that he determines is the aliens' countdown timer for a coordinated attack. With the help from his ex-wife, White House Communications Director Constance Spano, David, and his father Julius, they gain access to the Oval Office and warn President Thomas J. Whitmore that the aliens are hostile. Whitmore immediately orders large-scale evacuations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., but it is too late; the timer reaches zero and the saucers fire destructive beams, killing millions. Whitmore, the Levinsons, and a few others narrowly escape aboard Air Force One as the capital is destroyed, along with the other locations over which the saucers are positioned.

On July 3, military counterattacks against the alien invaders begin. However, the alien ships and their attack fighters are shielded by force fields, preventing human forces from destroying them. As a result, the aliens decimated human fighter squadrons and military bases. Captain Steven Hiller, an F/A-18 jet pilot with the USMC squadron VMFA-314, survives by luring his attacker to the enclosed spaces of the Grand Canyon and sacrificing his plane, forcing the alien to crash-land. He subdues the downed alien and flags down a convoy of refugees, hitching a ride with former combat pilot Russell Casse. They transport the unconscious alien to Area 51, where Whitmore's group has landed.

Through Secretary of Defense Albert Nimziki, Whitmore and the others have learned that a faction of the government has been involved in a UFO conspiracy since 1947, when one of the invaders' spacecraft crashed in Roswell. Area 51 houses the now-refurbished alien fighter, and three alien corpses recovered from the crash. As eccentric scientist Dr. Brackish Okun examines the alien captured by Steven, it regains consciousness and attacks, telepathically invading Okun's mind and killing all the other doctors. It uses Okun's vocal cords to communicate with President Whitmore, before launching a psychic attack against him. After Secret Service agents and military personnel kill the alien that leaves Dr. Okun in a coma, Whitmore reveals that he had a vision of the aliens' plans. He explains that the invaders are like locusts; their whole civilization travels from one planet to the next, stripping them of all their natural resources. The President reluctantly authorizes a nuclear attack; a B-2 Spirit fires a nuclear warhead tipped cruise missile at a saucer positioned above Houston, but the saucer remains intact. Meanwhile, Steven's fiancée Jasmine and her son survive the destruction of Los Angeles, and use an abandoned service truck to rescue other survivors, in the process finding the injured First Lady, Marilyn , whose helicopter crashed during the initial attack. Though the group is rescued by Steven and taken to Area 51, Marilyn dies of her wounds shortly after being reunited with her family.

On July 4, David devise a plan to defeating the aliens is to deactivate their shields by uploading a computer virus into the mothership using the refurbished alien fighter, which Steven volunteers to pilot. The U.S. military contacts surviving airborne squadrons around the world through Morse code to organize a united counteroffensive against the aliens. With military pilots in short supply, Whitmore enlists the help of volunteers with flight experience, including Russell, and leads an attack on a saucer bearing down on Area 51. Flying into space, Steven and David upload the virus and successfully deploy a nuclear weapon on board the mothership, nullifying the aliens' communications system and reinforcements once the malware has filtered into the alien ships over Earth. With the aliens' shields deactivated, the fighter jets are able to successfully fight back against the enemy craft, but their supply of missiles is exhausted before they can destroy the saucer. As it prepares to fire on the base, Russell has one last missile to spare, but when the firing control on the missile jams, he rams his jet into the directed-energy weapon port, causing a chain reaction that destroys the entire saucer.

Human military forces around the world are informed of the alien saucers' weak point, and successfully destroy the others. As humankind is rejoicing in victory, Steven and David return to Area 51 unharmed and reunite with their families. They then accompany Whitmore and his daughter in watching the wreckage from the mothership blowing up, resembling a fireworks display as it enters Earth's atmosphere.

## Cast

* Will Smith as Captain Steven Hiller.
* Jeff Goldblum as David Levinson
* Bill Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore
* Margaret Colin as Constance Spano
* Robert Loggia as General William Grey
* Randy Quaid as Russell Casse
* James Duval as Miguel Casse
* Judd Hirsch as Julius Levinson
* Mary McDonnell as Marilyn Whitmore
* Vivica A. Fox as Jasmine Dubrow
* James Rebhorn as Albert Nimziki
* Harvey Fierstein as Marty Gilbert
* Adam Baldwin as Major Mitchell
* Brent Spiner as Dr. Brackish Okun
* Harry Connick, Jr. as Captain Jimmy Wilder
* Mae Whitman as Patricia Whitmore
* Ross Bagley as Dylan Dubrow
* Kiersten Warren as Tiffany