The advertising campaign had been relentless, and it paid off. Big time. Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi disaster juggernaut, Independence Day (1996), broke multiple box-office records on its way to becoming the highest-grossing film in a year that included other massive hits like Scream, Mission: Impossible, and Happy Gilmore. Wait, what year are we talking about again?
Featuring an ensemble cast of stars and character actors, the film never stops moving while tagging all the bases — action, comedy, romance, drama — delivering a true four-quadrant hit.
Will Smith, ready to retire the family-friendly “Fresh Prince,” steals the show as a daredevil fighter pilot opposite Jeff Goldblum’s anxious, tech-savvy hero. Their hammy, crowd-pleasing performances fit perfectly within the tropey sci-fi spectacle — but Smith gets the iconic moment.
He brings down a spaceship, decks the alien inside, and yells “Welcome to Earth!” My favourite line, though, is the follow-up: channeling the late, great Groucho Marx, he chomps a cigar and quips, “Now that’s what I call a close encounter!” Already a household name in North America, Smith became an international superstar overnight. He headlined another sci-fi adventure, Men in Black, the very next year and then spent decades as one of the world’s most bankable movie stars.
Emmerich’s career also continued its positive trajectory. His filmography became synonymous with large-scale disaster flicks — glorified B-movies with A-movie budgets. From 1998’s Godzilla, to 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow and 2009’s 2012, through 2016’s Independence Day: Resurgence, right up to his last major release, 2022’s Moonfall, he’s directed the destruction of Earth’s most famous landmarks time and time again (taking particular exception to the United States).
Yet for all Emmerich’s landmark spectacle, one moment endures above the rest. Who could forget what is almost certainly the most repeated fictional speech in American cinema? Standing on the tarmac at Area 51, the U.S. president, played with exaggerated gravitas by Bill Pullman, notes the irony of Earth’s last stand happening on July 4 and manages a clumsy Dylan Thomas reference, earning cheers from the movie’s accumulated survivors and real-life audiences alike. Pullman’s speech lands with triumphant sincerity. As a kid, I felt that optimism deeply. The ending left my eight-year-old self with a strong feeling of hope, a sense that we could overcome whatever the universe threw at us. This feeling would build to the end of the millennium, and if Y2K didn’t destroy the world, nothing could stop us.
Watching Independence Day now, it’s impossible to separate the imagery of the Empire State Building blasted to rubble from the real-life analogue of the Sept. 11 attacks. I recall the common reaction to witnessing the event on television was that it looked like a movie.
In the years that followed, that shock reshaped how I understood the stories I’d grown up with. One of the after-effects of 9/11 — learning the parts of world history downplayed by American Exceptionalism — was a forced recontextualization of all the things I, as a child, believed, thanks to the blockbusters that dominated pop culture in the 80’s and 90’s. Generally, (American) heroes prevail and (alien) evildoers eventually face justice or destruction. Films like Independence Day reinforced that; it wasn’t a question of if our leaders would fight for us, but how.
Unfortunately, our reality offers no such comfort. The ruling class continues to demonstrate their utter contempt for life on Earth by hoarding wealth and wasting precious resources much to our, and our planet’s, detriment. Could anyone seriously imagine the current U.S. President giving a rousing, articulate speech about not being “consumed by our petty differences” and then bravely flying off in a fighter jet to save the world? Has that ever been the case in the last 30 years?
While promoting a less insidious form of globalization, Independence Day remains a lifelong favourite; an unforgettable, formative trip to the theatre that reminds me not to take movies too seriously. Emmerich’s modern mythos drops all pretensions, sidesteps politics, and leaves us with a hopeful message that transcends its schlocky sci-fi container: our greatest strength is our humanity.
Extraterrestrial entities can’t be the reason we collectively end oppression. We must consider our own actions, and what each of us can do to turn the tide. No one person can fight forever, and when we need a reprieve from the weight of it all, sometimes it’s just fun to watch Will Smith hit someone who actually deserves it.
