Independence Day (1996) 30th Anniversary Retro Review | The K.B. Radio Network

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In honor of the sci-fi blockbuster’s 30th anniversary, THR checks in on the all-star cast, including Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum and Vivica A. Fox. When Independence Day arrived in theaters on July 3, 1996, it looked like the ultimate summer blockbuster: dazzling visual effects, unforgettable set pieces, and one of the most crowd-pleasing presidential speeches ever committed to film.

Independence Day follows an unlikely group of heroes who must unite after an alien invasion threatens to wipe out humanity. It also did something Hollywood blockbusters rarely do anymore. It helped turn Will Smith into one of the biggest movie stars in the world while quietly marking the beginning of an era in which franchises became Hollywood's biggest attraction.

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Hello everyone and welcome to Movie Goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the KB Radio Network. I am your host Kevin Reed and today we celebrate our Independence Day. One of the greatest lines in movie history. One of the greatest speeches of movie history. One of the greatest... uh uh uh battle speeches i guess you could say in movie history yes you have braveheart yeah you have patton and you have all those good battle speeches you know to get the get the troops riled up but nothing in my humble opinion riled up troops or just average ordinary people then bill pullman's speech in independence day that speech It was just epic, man. And Bill Pullman's delivery of that speech, man, I would run through a wall for Bill Pullman if he was the president in real time. Because, you know, judging by how America is right now, I would gladly take Bill Pullman as my president as opposed to this clown. But we are 30 years removed. 30 years. from Independence Day dropping in theaters in 1996 and man it's it's it's amazing how time flies and how quick you get old because I remember going to the theater to go see that I remember it vividly because this was the first time that I went to a midnight screening you know the and they didn't do that back then that wasn't it was they did it but not often you know but to my knowledge that was the first time that a movie opened up at midnight and i wanted to be there the first screen i needed to be there that first at the first drop of the frame in the theater i wanted to be the first because you really can't start. on july the 3rd 1996 when this movie premiered you gotta go back go back to the super bowl of that year uh i think it was the cowboys and the steelers if i'm not mistaken they were in the super bowl cowboys won that super bowl by the way and i think that was the last time the cowboys had won the super bowl if memory serves but that's besides the point they had a commercial and you dope. that's 50 of the reason why you watch the super bowl is for the commercials and for the uh ads not not the ads but the uh trailers you want to see what's coming and this is before the era of youtube and all this other good stuff so if a trailer dropped uh on tv or during a program or at the theater you you you paid attention to it you know it wasn't so uh accessible as it is now due to the internet so when this trailer dropped and like i said the internet wasn't around so nobody knew what was going on all you saw was the white house right and they were showing these little shots of the white house and then you see this ship over the top of it and this was a 30 second ad this wasn't a full-length trailer it was just a 30 second ad And suddenly you see a beam come from the bottom of this spaceship, hit the White House and it explodes. And then you see a flat Independence Day, July 1st or July 3rd. And that was it. After that, I didn't care who won the game. I hate the Cowboys. So it didn't even matter that they won that game. Because all I could think about. was independence day and we had to wait what six months six months to partake in what what we just witnessed just that 30 seconds of the white house blowing up i know now with movies and uh tv shows it's par for the course you see monuments being blown up and stuff like that but there were certain lines you didn't cross in film prior to 1996 so when you saw the white house explode it was like what then when more promotional materials started coming out throughout the year you know you see the empire state building do the same thing it explodes you see uh what is it the chrysler building or whatever it was that explode it was just madness man it was it was like these historical monuments are being destroyed by these aliens and you see the uh uh destruction that is laying waste you see people running through the streets with cars flipping and all this other stuff it was it was pure pandemonium and it was no way that i was not gonna go see this movie i i love disaster films i love disaster films this goes back to the poseidon adventure and the uh towering inferno and earthquake with charleston heston you I love those type of films. because it's it's real world stuff happening that's like a horror movie adjacent because these are things that could happen you know you could get trapped in a building while i was in uh on fire you could you could be on a cruise ship and it flips over it capsizes you know so stuff like that could happen in real life so it's it's more of a horror movie than a disaster movie now with that being said i know what you're thinking well is aliens gonna come down i don't know. Will they? i mean do you believe in aliens do you think aliens exist or not hey i don't know is this is a big universe out there it's so i don't know and it's not like they're all come down here and be like et i would imagine if an alien if an alien race come to earth and just look especially now and depending on where they land at they probably will look around and say we need to read the universe of this species and you can't even get mad at them because you understand but we are horrible human beings are horrible i mean be real man and if you catch offense to that just think i'm a human being too and so i'm talking about myself as well human beings are horrible so in my little warped mind yeah if ellie if an alien species come to earth and look around yeah they probably would. want to annihilate us because man we are we're too destructive we're actually they wouldn't they wouldn't you know why they wouldn't because we're doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves why waste the bullets why waste the uh the laser the photon or whatever whatever they have what why waste it we're doing a very very good job of eliminating ourselves but that's Besides the point. The point I'm trying to make is 30 years ago, man, there was a time. There was a time when big names on posters sold movies. And that was before 1996. Before 1996, if you slapped Arnold Schwarzenegger's name on a poster, you're going to see it. It didn't matter what the movie was or what it was about. If you slapped Harrison Ford's name on a poster. you were going to see it it didn't matter what the movie was about all that changed in 1996 independence day changed hollywood forever in my humble opinion it really did if it if it wasn't for independence day we wouldn't be getting all of these special effects heavy films like we are getting today and the crazy part about it the real crazy part about it A lot of the visual effects in Independence Day wasn't really digital. Like, some of the most exciting visual effects shots were in camera. With the White House blowing up, they actually blew up a White House. Granted, not the one on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., obviously, but they built a five-foot model of an exact replica. of the white house and blew it up that's how they achieved that effect you know when you see the fire going through the city after they uh they be in the aliens unleashed a little master weapon and in annihilate the city that actually was in camera they built models of the city tilted the uh model set so the fire can go up because you know fire goes up the fireballs go up it is called gravity people and so how do you achieve that shot well they build a bottle and tilt it so the fire can go up like it was racing through the streets and filmed it that way very innovative how they made these visual effect shots and things like that of course they had digital shots you know the alien ships uh uh the uh dog fights with the with the jets and the alien spacecrafts and stuff like that of course all that was digital but for the most part all that it was practical and i'm a huge fan of practical because it looks better and to be to be honest to in comparisons now look at and i'll just stay in this quote unquote franchise you look at independence day from 1996 and independence day resurgence which is god awful one of the worst movies i ever saw in my life but that was all digital that was all cgi and it looked horrible how did the movie from 1996 look better than the uh sequel there's the answer it was it was the visual effects it was the cgi it just didn't feel real you know and that's the thing that's what's missing in a lot of movies today you know it doesn't feel real and you can't connect to the story you can't connect to the characters you can't connect when you see our heroes taking a punch or falling off a building or stuff like that that's why a lot of people respond to john wick you know because john wick gets hit you know that's not digital uh keanu reeves running around there he's really doing all this stuff so it's you can connect to it just to stay with keanu Reeves, think back to The Matrix, the first Matrix film. You f***ed felt neo you felt the pain you felt the dread from the agents because neo was getting hit he was getting punched and he was bleeding you could see the pain in his eyes and you fast forward to uh uh reloaded the sequel where he kept his sunglasses on the whole time you couldn't really connect with him and he didn't bleed he didn't get tired you know he was he was he was virtually superman in that movie and it just got worse from there so that it's just subtle little things you do in filmmaking and i'm saying that from somebody on outside looking in it but that's that's the reality of it you you do little things like that so the audience can connect to it and and enjoy it more and so yeah that's one of the reasons why i enjoyed independence day so much because of the practical effects and how it felt like a lived in world a real world it felt like new york was just devastated by these alien creatures and so independence day from 1996 this film was directed by roman emmerich and roman emmerich is an interesting filmmaker he he made some bangers in the 90s the uh universal soldier stargate uh independence day and to a lesser degree godzilla but you know godzilla had serious issues and if you know the backstory of the making of godzilla it you kind of understand his stance on it he really didn't want to make the movie but they threw all their money at him so coming off the success of this film and so he he went ahead and made it but it wasn't a passion thing for him he really wasn't into it. That's no excuse. You don't put that on your resume. It was horrible. But he makes some fun, popcorn, entertaining films. And Independence Day is that. Pure, popcorn, crowd-pleasing, entertaining movie. You go there simply. And sitting in that theater, it was simply to be entertained. And he assembled an all-star cast that was there just for that. Will Smith in his first big blockbuster role. He had did Bad Boys before this and a couple other small little films, but nothing as big as this. This is what announced Will Smith as a box office draw because he went on a run after this. He basically owned Independence Day weekend. you know or fourth of july weekend i should say he owned it after this every movie he put out the uh men in black and enemy of the state wild wild west well not so much wild wild west but uh men in black two uh bad boys two i robot and it just he just went on a run you know during this era right after this but here's the intriguing part about that the studio 20th century fox at the time did not want will smith in that role they felt a black man could not be a star of a big summer blockbuster because at that time there weren't any they didn't have it they've and and don't be fooled they still feel that way to this day no no black man can or black uh actress can lead a big budget movie don't be fooled by the will smiths of them all because look how he fell off you know uh the denzel washington's and the uh maher shlah ali's of it all they don't they don't draw money like that so that in their mind they they can't hold down a film they can't carry a film like that and will smith at the time he was still fresh prince he was still doing the fresh prince of bel-air on tv you know he was a tv star so putting him in the lead role of this big budget summer block blockbuster film they weren't feeling but roman emmerich for his credit fought for will smith he fought to him to the point where he was he wasn't going to do the movie unless will smith was hired for the role and the rest as they say is history yeah uh they caved will smith got the role and voila you got big willie until he wasn't until he decided to slap chris rock but that's neither here nor there uh starting alongside will smith you had bill pullman jeff goldblum um vivica fox popped up in this thing randy quaid before he went completely insane it it was a it was a whole hodgepodge of talent nobody was the same there was no carbon copies in this cast everybody had their own thing judd hutch uh judd hutch was in this uh film he played uh jeff goldblum's dad and that that was cool it was just a a whole diverse class and they all fit their roles perfectly it was perfectly cast and in case you don't know you've been living under a rock for 30 years uh independence day focuses on a desperate group of people who converge in the nevada desert in the aftermath of a worldwide attack by a powerful interterrestrial race. With the other people of the world, they launch a counterattack on July 4th, Independence Day in the United States. This comes right after Roman Emmerich and his producing partner at the time, Dean Devlin, they had made Stargate. And Stargate was a very successful film. And studios were... you know vying for their services you know and they had came up with this this idea this screenplay for independence day i think every studio was bidding for it 20th century fox won the bid and man we got one of the biggest blockbusters in history uh this movie i would say it's not perfect by no stretch i mean let's let's be real Yeah. It's not a perfect movie, but what it is perfect at is entertaining you. I know I use that word ad nauseum already, but it is the perfect entertainment that you can get in a theater. Going to that midnight screening, July the 3rd, 1996, and it was jam packed in there. And being in there, me, a friend of mine, Mike. uh shout out to mike uh if he if he listens i haven't talked to him in years i don't even know if he know i have a podcast but in the event if he is what's happening but uh going there with him and we're sitting in there and this was like the first communal experience i've had in the movie and probably the biggest i i do recall you know going to marvel movies and it's real You get the feel. You know, everybody. it's excited and you know cry when you when everybody else cry laugh when everybody else laugh and all these good things like that but this was the first time i sat there in the excitement i mean before the movie even started the excitement was there the defeat like everybody knew this movie was gonna slap everybody knew that this was going to be one of the best best experiences of their lives going to a movie theater and from the opening shot on to the end it was just a rip-roaring good time you know and i went back to see that movie in the theater i want to say i'm gonna just round it off at five in the theater i could be off But it was around that I went back multiple times to see Independence Day because I have never felt like that before. I was searching. It was like a high. It was like a drug. I was searching for that high, you know, I didn't get that same high. I got that opening night, but I still got a high. But this film, this is what I miss about movies today. I miss. how movies take their time and set up a story and set up the characters and entrust the audience to just go along with it to suspend disbelief when when it's necessary and accept whatever because this is the movie that we signed up for that you paid your money to see just accept that and here we go we're not trying to win any academy awards we're not trying to reinvent the wheel we're not trying to uh throw out there a social commentary or nothing like that we are just here to entertain you with and that's that's what this film solely went out to do within the first 10 to 15 minutes of this film you knew everybody's story you knew will smith's story his backstory where he stands what he's going through you knew jeff bridget that jeff bridges jeff goldblum's story and what he's going through his father uh uh uh will smith's girlfriend who's played by vivica a fox her story you know the fact that she got a kid and she's a stripper and but he's this naval uh pilot and he's trying to advance but you're dating a scripper so but with a son who plays a big part in the sequel but we're not talking about that but any who's do you you're not going to get nowhere if you marry a stripper you know all this backstory is there all the while all the while people the aliens are approaching and it's they're just slowly approaching it's not a zap zip and they're in here or you know oh where did they pop up from is a secret you know uh like E.T. or something like that where he's just here and nobody knows that he made it everybody knew they were coming you know at least government wise they knew this thing was coming and and they came and they just sat here for a minute they hovered around for a minute they didn't just come here and guns a blazing and just started annihilating human beings you know they sat around let it simmer and and then pounced on it was it was cool to see the setup of all our main characters where they are uh what they do how they're going to be essential to the story and all the while while they're setting up the characters the aliens are setting up their uh chess pieces around the earth and when the chaos starts it was it was just pure insanity the way roman emmerich filmed this and shot this this uh uh attack this uh invasion of earth was just like nothing i ever seen before yeah i've seen it since you know it's been it's been imitated that that duplicated but imitated however the the expression go but it was it was new for me then it was something different then and it was so chaotic it wasn't a moment to breathe the second they blew up the uh i think it was the empire state building first i could be off but it was it was on and pop it it was pure chaos and then we finally get to that shot that was actually in the movie because it was so often you get these little promotional trailers for movies where they show you something but it's just for the promotion whereas we didn't get that here they actually blew up the white house that was a real shot that they used in the movie the only difference from the trailer that we got at the super bowl and what we got in the movie there's a helicopter that that flew in front of it and it exploded it as well that made me mad that was mad from when i watched it back in 1996 because it blocked half of the of the uh uh white house that shot you know it felt like it ruined the shot putting that helicopter in there but i get why the shot is there i get why the helicopter is there but i wanted to see the white house blow up in all of his glory at the time but that's neither here nor there uh yeah it was on from there and then okay we get the fight back okay we're gonna fight back this is when will smith and uh uh harry connor connor jr plays his friend here uh shout out 504 boy he he was in here uh as a naval pilot as well so they launch uh an attack on the aliens and and then we find out that wait we can't do anything to get they got these shields up you know they're trying to blow up the ship they can't nothing they're doing is working nothing and for the first time i sat in the theater watching a movie wondering how on god's green earth are the good guys gonna win there's no way we can win there's nothing you can do what can you do against this this is impossible you know now they found out a way believable no it was completely ridiculous completely ridiculous uh coming up with a virus and to plant in the mothership which is off world and it'll affect the rest of the ships and all this other stuff completely ridiculous but hey like i said they asked you to suspend disbelief so i had no other choice but to suspend it and and just roll with it because it was no other option it was no other way human beings were going to come out victorious in this fight for mankind it was innovative also and and fun the fact that area 51 was a major part of this film and back in the 90s mid 90s early 90s and beyond that before that i should say or prior to that if i can get my proper english together uh area 51 was shrouded in mystery still is now to a degree but not like it was back then you know So... because it's so secretive why the government hiding something there or the conducting tests on aliens or is the roswell uh ship still there or was it a weather balloon and not and all this other crap so you have all all this mystery surrounding it and you have a film this big budget summer tentpole film that is set in this location now just a little backstory on that the the production had to do a lot of digital planes right the jet planes that's why those were digital because initially they weren't going to be they actually were going to have real uh fighter jets that they borrowed from the united states government and whatnot and and the government was on board with doing it they actually was going to allow them to do this because they read the script thought it was exciting uh fun you might gain some interest for people to join the military and all this other good stuff just like they do with top gun and you know pearl harbor and you know those military type movies but they had a stipulation the stipulation was that they had to take out the area 51 stuff if you take out the area 51 stuff in the screenplay we will allow you to use The Jets. Well, we see the end result of that decision. They got no help from the government as far as using their equipment and whatnot and many toys at their disposal. So they had to spend the money, pony up the money to do the digital, not ships, but fighter jets. Anywho, cool. the fact that you had brent uh spicer in there you know data from star trek the next generation a part of this just made it a little more authentic to me you know and he playing this little hippie guy because he's a hippie because he's been stuck in this area 51 for for years studying this spaceship that happens to be one of the ships from this invasion this same alien race And that's why they're here. And that was unique and cool as well. That leads me to the speech that I've already gushed over. I already drooled about here. Words cannot express how uproaring that speech was because I'm not a speech guy. And I say that in the sense I'm not a guy that... is moved by speeches and movies like that i think they're good if they're acting well i acknowledge that like oh man that was really cool that was he really he he put his soul in that you know that's about as far as my excitement goes when it comes to movie speeches and and battle speeches you know that doesn't do anything for me and it's still to this day i still um am not moved by our speeches like that. every now and then it may catch me in the feels but nothing nothing like bill pullman's speech bill pullman's speech as the president rowing up these these these american fighters you know because they weren't military men mostly they had a few they were all wiped out but you got sharecroppers and you know you people that just know how to fly randomly know how to fly uh where you randomly have all of these uh fighter jets as well but once again we're suspending disbelief and so you you he's riling them up because they don't know what to do they're not military men they're not fighters like that you know and that speech it was so subtle and you know bill pullman bill pullman has one gear As far as, and I'm not talking about his acting ability. I love Bill Pullman. He is awesome. Awesome. And very, very diverse. He can play drama, comedy, whatever. He is really, really, really good. Love his son. His son is like picking up the mantle from him. But anyways, his tone, the way he speaks, that's what I'm talking about. And it's so comforting. But the... The power he had behind those words in that comforting voice that he has, it just resonated, bro. And it's still to this day. I think it's one of the most quoted movie speeches in history because you can say that speech anywhere, everywhere, in any situation. And it will get you riled up, man. I'm not super patriotic like that. Actually, I'm not patriotic like that at all. But I would say that that speech, that speech would make you patriotic. Man, that is awesome. That was an awesome speech. And the fight they put up to save their planet, to save their humanity, was just a climactic joy. And the joy that we got at the end of this movie, it was just purely, purely fun. out. the problems I had with it was a couple of moments that I mentioned earlier, you know, with the, you want to make me believe that random people can fly fighter jets and defeat these, this alien race. It, no, that is, that is silly beyond silly. one scene in particular, I'm gonna point this scene out and I'm not, cause I really don't have many negative. There's a lot of negatives, but I don't care enough to. to really harp on them because that's not what this movie is for but there's one thing that sticks out and it is stuck out to me 30 years ago and it still sticks out to me to date when in the beginning when will smith and vivica a fox they're at home and will smith has to go out because because there's aliens so he has to go back to the base and uh regroup with his unit and whatnot uh vivica a fox gotta go to work she's a scripper now gotta go to work and so she goes and she works at a script club during the day now i this is the thing this is the thing this is why it only bothers me because i don't know i'm not a script club guy during the day that's kind of it just bugged me it bugged me back in 1996 and it still bugs me today now if there are there any scrippers out there listening or exotic dancers i'm sorry Thank you. If there are any out there listening, welcome to the show by the way, I'm glad you're here. Let me know, do you work during the day? I don't, I didn't know they worked during the day. It just doesn't, it never made sense to me. It still doesn't make sense to me now. I don't know why that sticks out to me in this movie as like the one big flaw. And it could not be a flaw, I could get corrected. But... it bothered me it really bothered me uh aside from that that else really bothered me uh uh there was the knocking out of the alien by will smith now it's supposed to be a rah-rah cool moment that he punched uh punched the alien and knocked him out but we later learned in the movie that he's wearing this suit so he really just punched the suit and the way the suit is designed there's no way you can knock him out because the suit is like super super super thick it either will smith has the strength of samson or they didn't think that through and i mean knocked him out for hours from one punch i don't know i look whatever it bothered me but i get it was a rah-rah moment you know the welcome to earth moment anyways independence day is one of my favorite popcorn movies of all time and i categorize it like that because i know the movie's not perfect everybody would have said eyes know the movie is not perfect but it is perfectly entertaining that's why i give independence day from 1996 a letter grade of an a it is so so so so fun to watch it it never it never gets old to me i'm i'm about to watch it now i'm gonna go back and watch it again i didn't want to watch it before i did this because i would have been glowing too much because every time i watch it it's just a certain glow and happiness i get about that movie and it distorts my way of thinking so i didn't want to do that this time But it's so exciting. It still holds up to this day. Today also marks the 10th anniversary of its sequel, Independence Day Resurgence. Now, if you think I'm going to do a review on that, you got another thing coming. I'm not doing it. I watched that movie one time. One time. And I couldn't get... Actually, I'm lying. I'm lying. I just realized I never finished that movie. I have never finished Independence Day Resurgence. I got halfway through and I just couldn't take it. I didn't go to the theater to see it because I was uh uh I just had a feeling it was bad. I just I had a it just looked bad and Will Smith didn't come back and all this here. I just knew it wasn't going to be good. and i was right everybody pretty much told me i was right so i waited till it came on television and when i watched it i just i turned the channel i changed the channel i couldn't do it i always told myself i'm going to sit down and what i might do that this year i might i feel like i want to be tortured for a little while so i might sit down and try to get through one sitting of Independence Day resurgence, but I will definitely be watching. the one that started it all independence day from 1996 i want to know were you around in 1996 and did you go to the uh maybe you didn't you weren't dumb like me and stayed up and watched it opening night and didn't get home to close to three o'clock uh i would love to know if you have the same feeling and joy that i experienced from watching that movie 30 years ago today let me know on our website the kbradionetwork.com you can also look us up on youtube subscribe to the kb radio network channel and like this video if you don't mind don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify iheart radio wherever you are currently listening to movie goodness here on the kb radio network Everybody thank you for joining me as we celebrated the 30th anniversary of independence day want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed

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Speaker #0
Hello everyone and welcome to Movie Goodness where we examine life through cinema here on the KB Radio Network. I am your host Kevin Reed and today we celebrate our Independence Day. One of the greatest lines in movie history. One of the greatest speeches of movie history. One of the greatest... uh uh uh battle speeches i guess you could say in movie history yes you have braveheart yeah you have patton and you have all those good battle speeches you know to get the get the troops riled up but nothing in my humble opinion riled up troops or just average ordinary people then bill pullman's speech in independence day that speech It was just epic, man. And Bill Pullman's delivery of that speech, man, I would run through a wall for Bill Pullman if he was the president in real time. Because, you know, judging by how America is right now, I would gladly take Bill Pullman as my president as opposed to this clown. But we are 30 years removed. 30 years. from Independence Day dropping in theaters in 1996 and man it's it's it's amazing how time flies and how quick you get old because I remember going to the theater to go see that I remember it vividly because this was the first time that I went to a midnight screening you know the and they didn't do that back then that wasn't it was they did it but not often you know but to my knowledge that was the first time that a movie opened up at midnight and i wanted to be there the first screen i needed to be there that first at the first drop of the frame in the theater i wanted to be the first because you really can't start. on july the 3rd 1996 when this movie premiered you gotta go back go back to the super bowl of that year uh i think it was the cowboys and the steelers if i'm not mistaken they were in the super bowl cowboys won that super bowl by the way and i think that was the last time the cowboys had won the super bowl if memory serves but that's besides the point they had a commercial and you dope. that's 50 of the reason why you watch the super bowl is for the commercials and for the uh ads not not the ads but the uh trailers you want to see what's coming and this is before the era of youtube and all this other good stuff so if a trailer dropped uh on tv or during a program or at the theater you you you paid attention to it you know it wasn't so uh accessible as it is now due to the internet so when this trailer dropped and like i said the internet wasn't around so nobody knew what was going on all you saw was the white house right and they were showing these little shots of the white house and then you see this ship over the top of it and this was a 30 second ad this wasn't a full-length trailer it was just a 30 second ad And suddenly you see a beam come from the bottom of this spaceship, hit the White House and it explodes. And then you see a flat Independence Day, July 1st or July 3rd. And that was it. After that, I didn't care who won the game. I hate the Cowboys. So it didn't even matter that they won that game. Because all I could think about. was independence day and we had to wait what six months six months to partake in what what we just witnessed just that 30 seconds of the white house blowing up i know now with movies and uh tv shows it's par for the course you see monuments being blown up and stuff like that but there were certain lines you didn't cross in film prior to 1996 so when you saw the white house explode it was like what then when more promotional materials started coming out throughout the year you know you see the empire state building do the same thing it explodes you see uh what is it the chrysler building or whatever it was that explode it was just madness man it was it was like these historical monuments are being destroyed by these aliens and you see the uh uh destruction that is laying waste you see people running through the streets with cars flipping and all this other stuff it was it was pure pandemonium and it was no way that i was not gonna go see this movie i i love disaster films i love disaster films this goes back to the poseidon adventure and the uh towering inferno and earthquake with charleston heston you I love those type of films. because it's it's real world stuff happening that's like a horror movie adjacent because these are things that could happen you know you could get trapped in a building while i was in uh on fire you could you could be on a cruise ship and it flips over it capsizes you know so stuff like that could happen in real life so it's it's more of a horror movie than a disaster movie now with that being said i know what you're thinking well is aliens gonna come down i don't know. Will they? i mean do you believe in aliens do you think aliens exist or not hey i don't know is this is a big universe out there it's so i don't know and it's not like they're all come down here and be like et i would imagine if an alien if an alien race come to earth and just look especially now and depending on where they land at they probably will look around and say we need to read the universe of this species and you can't even get mad at them because you understand but we are horrible human beings are horrible i mean be real man and if you catch offense to that just think i'm a human being too and so i'm talking about myself as well human beings are horrible so in my little warped mind yeah if ellie if an alien species come to earth and look around yeah they probably would. want to annihilate us because man we are we're too destructive we're actually they wouldn't they wouldn't you know why they wouldn't because we're doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves why waste the bullets why waste the uh the laser the photon or whatever whatever they have what why waste it we're doing a very very good job of eliminating ourselves but that's Besides the point. The point I'm trying to make is 30 years ago, man, there was a time. There was a time when big names on posters sold movies. And that was before 1996. Before 1996, if you slapped Arnold Schwarzenegger's name on a poster, you're going to see it. It didn't matter what the movie was or what it was about. If you slapped Harrison Ford's name on a poster. you were going to see it it didn't matter what the movie was about all that changed in 1996 independence day changed hollywood forever in my humble opinion it really did if it if it wasn't for independence day we wouldn't be getting all of these special effects heavy films like we are getting today and the crazy part about it the real crazy part about it A lot of the visual effects in Independence Day wasn't really digital. Like, some of the most exciting visual effects shots were in camera. With the White House blowing up, they actually blew up a White House. Granted, not the one on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., obviously, but they built a five-foot model of an exact replica. of the white house and blew it up that's how they achieved that effect you know when you see the fire going through the city after they uh they be in the aliens unleashed a little master weapon and in annihilate the city that actually was in camera they built models of the city tilted the uh model set so the fire can go up because you know fire goes up the fireballs go up it is called gravity people and so how do you achieve that shot well they build a bottle and tilt it so the fire can go up like it was racing through the streets and filmed it that way very innovative how they made these visual effect shots and things like that of course they had digital shots you know the alien ships uh uh the uh dog fights with the with the jets and the alien spacecrafts and stuff like that of course all that was digital but for the most part all that it was practical and i'm a huge fan of practical because it looks better and to be to be honest to in comparisons now look at and i'll just stay in this quote unquote franchise you look at independence day from 1996 and independence day resurgence which is god awful one of the worst movies i ever saw in my life but that was all digital that was all cgi and it looked horrible how did the movie from 1996 look better than the uh sequel there's the answer it was it was the visual effects it was the cgi it just didn't feel real you know and that's the thing that's what's missing in a lot of movies today you know it doesn't feel real and you can't connect to the story you can't connect to the characters you can't connect when you see our heroes taking a punch or falling off a building or stuff like that that's why a lot of people respond to john wick you know because john wick gets hit you know that's not digital uh keanu reeves running around there he's really doing all this stuff so it's you can connect to it just to stay with keanu Reeves, think back to The Matrix, the first Matrix film. You f***ed felt neo you felt the pain you felt the dread from the agents because neo was getting hit he was getting punched and he was bleeding you could see the pain in his eyes and you fast forward to uh uh reloaded the sequel where he kept his sunglasses on the whole time you couldn't really connect with him and he didn't bleed he didn't get tired you know he was he was he was virtually superman in that movie and it just got worse from there so that it's just subtle little things you do in filmmaking and i'm saying that from somebody on outside looking in it but that's that's the reality of it you you do little things like that so the audience can connect to it and and enjoy it more and so yeah that's one of the reasons why i enjoyed independence day so much because of the practical effects and how it felt like a lived in world a real world it felt like new york was just devastated by these alien creatures and so independence day from 1996 this film was directed by roman emmerich and roman emmerich is an interesting filmmaker he he made some bangers in the 90s the uh universal soldier stargate uh independence day and to a lesser degree godzilla but you know godzilla had serious issues and if you know the backstory of the making of godzilla it you kind of understand his stance on it he really didn't want to make the movie but they threw all their money at him so coming off the success of this film and so he he went ahead and made it but it wasn't a passion thing for him he really wasn't into it. That's no excuse. You don't put that on your resume. It was horrible. But he makes some fun, popcorn, entertaining films. And Independence Day is that. Pure, popcorn, crowd-pleasing, entertaining movie. You go there simply. And sitting in that theater, it was simply to be entertained. And he assembled an all-star cast that was there just for that. Will Smith in his first big blockbuster role. He had did Bad Boys before this and a couple other small little films, but nothing as big as this. This is what announced Will Smith as a box office draw because he went on a run after this. He basically owned Independence Day weekend. you know or fourth of july weekend i should say he owned it after this every movie he put out the uh men in black and enemy of the state wild wild west well not so much wild wild west but uh men in black two uh bad boys two i robot and it just he just went on a run you know during this era right after this but here's the intriguing part about that the studio 20th century fox at the time did not want will smith in that role they felt a black man could not be a star of a big summer blockbuster because at that time there weren't any they didn't have it they've and and don't be fooled they still feel that way to this day no no black man can or black uh actress can lead a big budget movie don't be fooled by the will smiths of them all because look how he fell off you know uh the denzel washington's and the uh maher shlah ali's of it all they don't they don't draw money like that so that in their mind they they can't hold down a film they can't carry a film like that and will smith at the time he was still fresh prince he was still doing the fresh prince of bel-air on tv you know he was a tv star so putting him in the lead role of this big budget summer block blockbuster film they weren't feeling but roman emmerich for his credit fought for will smith he fought to him to the point where he was he wasn't going to do the movie unless will smith was hired for the role and the rest as they say is history yeah uh they caved will smith got the role and voila you got big willie until he wasn't until he decided to slap chris rock but that's neither here nor there uh starting alongside will smith you had bill pullman jeff goldblum um vivica fox popped up in this thing randy quaid before he went completely insane it it was a it was a whole hodgepodge of talent nobody was the same there was no carbon copies in this cast everybody had their own thing judd hutch uh judd hutch was in this uh film he played uh jeff goldblum's dad and that that was cool it was just a a whole diverse class and they all fit their roles perfectly it was perfectly cast and in case you don't know you've been living under a rock for 30 years uh independence day focuses on a desperate group of people who converge in the nevada desert in the aftermath of a worldwide attack by a powerful interterrestrial race. With the other people of the world, they launch a counterattack on July 4th, Independence Day in the United States. This comes right after Roman Emmerich and his producing partner at the time, Dean Devlin, they had made Stargate. And Stargate was a very successful film. And studios were... you know vying for their services you know and they had came up with this this idea this screenplay for independence day i think every studio was bidding for it 20th century fox won the bid and man we got one of the biggest blockbusters in history uh this movie i would say it's not perfect by no stretch i mean let's let's be real Yeah. It's not a perfect movie, but what it is perfect at is entertaining you. I know I use that word ad nauseum already, but it is the perfect entertainment that you can get in a theater. Going to that midnight screening, July the 3rd, 1996, and it was jam packed in there. And being in there, me, a friend of mine, Mike. uh shout out to mike uh if he if he listens i haven't talked to him in years i don't even know if he know i have a podcast but in the event if he is what's happening but uh going there with him and we're sitting in there and this was like the first communal experience i've had in the movie and probably the biggest i i do recall you know going to marvel movies and it's real You get the feel. You know, everybody. it's excited and you know cry when you when everybody else cry laugh when everybody else laugh and all these good things like that but this was the first time i sat there in the excitement i mean before the movie even started the excitement was there the defeat like everybody knew this movie was gonna slap everybody knew that this was going to be one of the best best experiences of their lives going to a movie theater and from the opening shot on to the end it was just a rip-roaring good time you know and i went back to see that movie in the theater i want to say i'm gonna just round it off at five in the theater i could be off But it was around that I went back multiple times to see Independence Day because I have never felt like that before. I was searching. It was like a high. It was like a drug. I was searching for that high, you know, I didn't get that same high. I got that opening night, but I still got a high. But this film, this is what I miss about movies today. I miss. how movies take their time and set up a story and set up the characters and entrust the audience to just go along with it to suspend disbelief when when it's necessary and accept whatever because this is the movie that we signed up for that you paid your money to see just accept that and here we go we're not trying to win any academy awards we're not trying to reinvent the wheel we're not trying to uh throw out there a social commentary or nothing like that we are just here to entertain you with and that's that's what this film solely went out to do within the first 10 to 15 minutes of this film you knew everybody's story you knew will smith's story his backstory where he stands what he's going through you knew jeff bridget that jeff bridges jeff goldblum's story and what he's going through his father uh uh uh will smith's girlfriend who's played by vivica a fox her story you know the fact that she got a kid and she's a stripper and but he's this naval uh pilot and he's trying to advance but you're dating a scripper so but with a son who plays a big part in the sequel but we're not talking about that but any who's do you you're not going to get nowhere if you marry a stripper you know all this backstory is there all the while all the while people the aliens are approaching and it's they're just slowly approaching it's not a zap zip and they're in here or you know oh where did they pop up from is a secret you know uh like E.T. or something like that where he's just here and nobody knows that he made it everybody knew they were coming you know at least government wise they knew this thing was coming and and they came and they just sat here for a minute they hovered around for a minute they didn't just come here and guns a blazing and just started annihilating human beings you know they sat around let it simmer and and then pounced on it was it was cool to see the setup of all our main characters where they are uh what they do how they're going to be essential to the story and all the while while they're setting up the characters the aliens are setting up their uh chess pieces around the earth and when the chaos starts it was it was just pure insanity the way roman emmerich filmed this and shot this this uh uh attack this uh invasion of earth was just like nothing i ever seen before yeah i've seen it since you know it's been it's been imitated that that duplicated but imitated however the the expression go but it was it was new for me then it was something different then and it was so chaotic it wasn't a moment to breathe the second they blew up the uh i think it was the empire state building first i could be off but it was it was on and pop it it was pure chaos and then we finally get to that shot that was actually in the movie because it was so often you get these little promotional trailers for movies where they show you something but it's just for the promotion whereas we didn't get that here they actually blew up the white house that was a real shot that they used in the movie the only difference from the trailer that we got at the super bowl and what we got in the movie there's a helicopter that that flew in front of it and it exploded it as well that made me mad that was mad from when i watched it back in 1996 because it blocked half of the of the uh uh white house that shot you know it felt like it ruined the shot putting that helicopter in there but i get why the shot is there i get why the helicopter is there but i wanted to see the white house blow up in all of his glory at the time but that's neither here nor there uh yeah it was on from there and then okay we get the fight back okay we're gonna fight back this is when will smith and uh uh harry connor connor jr plays his friend here uh shout out 504 boy he he was in here uh as a naval pilot as well so they launch uh an attack on the aliens and and then we find out that wait we can't do anything to get they got these shields up you know they're trying to blow up the ship they can't nothing they're doing is working nothing and for the first time i sat in the theater watching a movie wondering how on god's green earth are the good guys gonna win there's no way we can win there's nothing you can do what can you do against this this is impossible you know now they found out a way believable no it was completely ridiculous completely ridiculous uh coming up with a virus and to plant in the mothership which is off world and it'll affect the rest of the ships and all this other stuff completely ridiculous but hey like i said they asked you to suspend disbelief so i had no other choice but to suspend it and and just roll with it because it was no other option it was no other way human beings were going to come out victorious in this fight for mankind it was innovative also and and fun the fact that area 51 was a major part of this film and back in the 90s mid 90s early 90s and beyond that before that i should say or prior to that if i can get my proper english together uh area 51 was shrouded in mystery still is now to a degree but not like it was back then you know So... because it's so secretive why the government hiding something there or the conducting tests on aliens or is the roswell uh ship still there or was it a weather balloon and not and all this other crap so you have all all this mystery surrounding it and you have a film this big budget summer tentpole film that is set in this location now just a little backstory on that the the production had to do a lot of digital planes right the jet planes that's why those were digital because initially they weren't going to be they actually were going to have real uh fighter jets that they borrowed from the united states government and whatnot and and the government was on board with doing it they actually was going to allow them to do this because they read the script thought it was exciting uh fun you might gain some interest for people to join the military and all this other good stuff just like they do with top gun and you know pearl harbor and you know those military type movies but they had a stipulation the stipulation was that they had to take out the area 51 stuff if you take out the area 51 stuff in the screenplay we will allow you to use The Jets. Well, we see the end result of that decision. They got no help from the government as far as using their equipment and whatnot and many toys at their disposal. So they had to spend the money, pony up the money to do the digital, not ships, but fighter jets. Anywho, cool. the fact that you had brent uh spicer in there you know data from star trek the next generation a part of this just made it a little more authentic to me you know and he playing this little hippie guy because he's a hippie because he's been stuck in this area 51 for for years studying this spaceship that happens to be one of the ships from this invasion this same alien race And that's why they're here. And that was unique and cool as well. That leads me to the speech that I've already gushed over. I already drooled about here. Words cannot express how uproaring that speech was because I'm not a speech guy. And I say that in the sense I'm not a guy that... is moved by speeches and movies like that i think they're good if they're acting well i acknowledge that like oh man that was really cool that was he really he he put his soul in that you know that's about as far as my excitement goes when it comes to movie speeches and and battle speeches you know that doesn't do anything for me and it's still to this day i still um am not moved by our speeches like that. every now and then it may catch me in the feels but nothing nothing like bill pullman's speech bill pullman's speech as the president rowing up these these these american fighters you know because they weren't military men mostly they had a few they were all wiped out but you got sharecroppers and you know you people that just know how to fly randomly know how to fly uh where you randomly have all of these uh fighter jets as well but once again we're suspending disbelief and so you you he's riling them up because they don't know what to do they're not military men they're not fighters like that you know and that speech it was so subtle and you know bill pullman bill pullman has one gear As far as, and I'm not talking about his acting ability. I love Bill Pullman. He is awesome. Awesome. And very, very diverse. He can play drama, comedy, whatever. He is really, really, really good. Love his son. His son is like picking up the mantle from him. But anyways, his tone, the way he speaks, that's what I'm talking about. And it's so comforting. But the... The power he had behind those words in that comforting voice that he has, it just resonated, bro. And it's still to this day. I think it's one of the most quoted movie speeches in history because you can say that speech anywhere, everywhere, in any situation. And it will get you riled up, man. I'm not super patriotic like that. Actually, I'm not patriotic like that at all. But I would say that that speech, that speech would make you patriotic. Man, that is awesome. That was an awesome speech. And the fight they put up to save their planet, to save their humanity, was just a climactic joy. And the joy that we got at the end of this movie, it was just purely, purely fun. out. the problems I had with it was a couple of moments that I mentioned earlier, you know, with the, you want to make me believe that random people can fly fighter jets and defeat these, this alien race. It, no, that is, that is silly beyond silly. one scene in particular, I'm gonna point this scene out and I'm not, cause I really don't have many negative. There's a lot of negatives, but I don't care enough to. to really harp on them because that's not what this movie is for but there's one thing that sticks out and it is stuck out to me 30 years ago and it still sticks out to me to date when in the beginning when will smith and vivica a fox they're at home and will smith has to go out because because there's aliens so he has to go back to the base and uh regroup with his unit and whatnot uh vivica a fox gotta go to work she's a scripper now gotta go to work and so she goes and she works at a script club during the day now i this is the thing this is the thing this is why it only bothers me because i don't know i'm not a script club guy during the day that's kind of it just bugged me it bugged me back in 1996 and it still bugs me today now if there are there any scrippers out there listening or exotic dancers i'm sorry Thank you. If there are any out there listening, welcome to the show by the way, I'm glad you're here. Let me know, do you work during the day? I don't, I didn't know they worked during the day. It just doesn't, it never made sense to me. It still doesn't make sense to me now. I don't know why that sticks out to me in this movie as like the one big flaw. And it could not be a flaw, I could get corrected. But... it bothered me it really bothered me uh aside from that that else really bothered me uh uh there was the knocking out of the alien by will smith now it's supposed to be a rah-rah cool moment that he punched uh punched the alien and knocked him out but we later learned in the movie that he's wearing this suit so he really just punched the suit and the way the suit is designed there's no way you can knock him out because the suit is like super super super thick it either will smith has the strength of samson or they didn't think that through and i mean knocked him out for hours from one punch i don't know i look whatever it bothered me but i get it was a rah-rah moment you know the welcome to earth moment anyways independence day is one of my favorite popcorn movies of all time and i categorize it like that because i know the movie's not perfect everybody would have said eyes know the movie is not perfect but it is perfectly entertaining that's why i give independence day from 1996 a letter grade of an a it is so so so so fun to watch it it never it never gets old to me i'm i'm about to watch it now i'm gonna go back and watch it again i didn't want to watch it before i did this because i would have been glowing too much because every time i watch it it's just a certain glow and happiness i get about that movie and it distorts my way of thinking so i didn't want to do that this time But it's so exciting. It still holds up to this day. Today also marks the 10th anniversary of its sequel, Independence Day Resurgence. Now, if you think I'm going to do a review on that, you got another thing coming. I'm not doing it. I watched that movie one time. One time. And I couldn't get... Actually, I'm lying. I'm lying. I just realized I never finished that movie. I have never finished Independence Day Resurgence. I got halfway through and I just couldn't take it. I didn't go to the theater to see it because I was uh uh I just had a feeling it was bad. I just I had a it just looked bad and Will Smith didn't come back and all this here. I just knew it wasn't going to be good. and i was right everybody pretty much told me i was right so i waited till it came on television and when i watched it i just i turned the channel i changed the channel i couldn't do it i always told myself i'm going to sit down and what i might do that this year i might i feel like i want to be tortured for a little while so i might sit down and try to get through one sitting of Independence Day resurgence, but I will definitely be watching. the one that started it all independence day from 1996 i want to know were you around in 1996 and did you go to the uh maybe you didn't you weren't dumb like me and stayed up and watched it opening night and didn't get home to close to three o'clock uh i would love to know if you have the same feeling and joy that i experienced from watching that movie 30 years ago today let me know on our website the kbradionetwork.com you can also look us up on youtube subscribe to the kb radio network channel and like this video if you don't mind don't forget about the five stars the reviews and sharing this show if you're listening on apple podcast spotify iheart radio wherever you are currently listening to movie goodness here on the kb radio network Everybody thank you for joining me as we celebrated the 30th anniversary of independence day want you all to know that i love you continue to love everyone and until we speak again you all be blessed

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