It's the basics, stupid: Why Independence Day still holds up 15 years later.

I'm sorry if this makes you feel old.  But it's been fifteen years since Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin blew up the White House with a giant flying saucer.  It's been fifteen years since Will Smith punched out an alien, exclaimed "Welcome to Earth!" and became the biggest movie star in the world.  It's been fifteen years since Bill Pullman gave what still ranks as one of the corniest and most shamelessly uplifting battle speeches in cinematic history.  Yes, tomorrow (July 2nd) marks the fifteenth-anniversary of the theatrical release of Independence Day.  And while many armchair pundits like to hold the film up as an example of when blockbuster filmmaking turned to shit (as they like to do with every single major blockbuster since Jaws), the truth is that it still works as the kind of old-school, character-driven fx-spectacular that seems in painful short supply these days.  The truth is that the film still feels like perhaps the biggest-scale adventure movie ever set on planet Earth.  But, take away the Super Bowl trailer, take away the box office records ($100 million in six days!), take away who did and who didn't become a star as a result of its success.  The fact remains that Independence Day still holds up because it's a damn good movie.

Despite its reputation, it was not anywhere close to the most expensive movie of all time back in 1996.  At $75 million, it cost about the same as The Rock, $5 million less than Mission: Impossible, and $20 million less than Twister that same summer.  Despite its reputation as a new breed of CGI blockbuster, most of the special effects were done practically.  Like Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Jurassic Park, Independence Day did most of its most memorable effects work as cheaply and efficiently as possible.  That shot of an entire city block being engulfed by flames?  They built a miniature city block, turned it on its side, and lit the thing on fire from the top while filming the built-to-scale carnage in slow motion.  Thus, fifteen years later, ID4 still holds up as a spectacle because most of the effects work was done the old-fashioned way.  But despite its cheaper-than-expected budget, the film still towers over most of the would-be event pictures that have been released in the last decade and a half.  Fashioned like a 1970s disaster film, the picture creates an unparalleled sense of scale, which makes you believe that the malevolent alien invasion really is happening all over the world.  We see devastation across the globe, and we see hints of retaliation from several major countries.  This isn't a variation on the 'only before your eyes' sub-genre (Signs, Battle: Los Angeles, Pontypool), where we only see an otherworldly event from the point of view of a few characters in a single location.  We see the entire globe get invaded and decimated, and then we see the entire planet fight back accordingly.

But aside from the scale, the film still holds up, quite frankly, because of its characters.  Intermixed in all of the mayhem and effects are several relationships that actually matter, character development that actually works, and resultant emotional climaxes that actually pay off.  Yes, the film is corny, but melodrama often is. Randy Quaid carefully balances the line between comic relief and the tragedy of a mentally-ill parent who cannot provide for his children (admission: the 9-minute longer director's cut vastly improves this character and is the preferred version of the film for that reason alone).  Will Smith is relatively low-key for much of the movie, and his down-to-earth relationship with his would-be fiancee feels lived-in and natural (bonus points - when's the last time a major tentpole film had a woman who was an exotic dancer who wasn't judged for her profession?).  Bill Pullman's wish-fullfillment fantasy president (Bill Clinton baby boomer appeal with George H.W. Bush's war record) has wonderful character scenes with    his doomed wife (Mary McDonell, who goes out with dignity), his Chief of Staff (Robert Loggia), and his press secretary (Margaret Colin).  Of course, his whole 'young idealistic president who loses support due to constant comprising' takes on a whole new 'Barack Obama-level'.  But best of all is the incredibly warm and honest by-play between Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsh, as father and son.  The characters may be archetypes, but they are fleshed out, given real character arcs, and allowed to act like human beings during the chaos of the second and third acts.

Yes we all thrilled to the larger-than-life explosions and intergalactic dogfights back in 1996, but 15 years later, it's the smaller character moments that make the movie worth rewatching.  The terrifying moment where Jeff Goldblum reveals to the President that 'the clock is ticking', the moment where Randy Quaid's stepson scolds him because he has to beg on the street to buy medicine for his stepbrother, the whacked-out Brett Spiner performance in the Area 51 scenes, the farewell between Pullman and McDowell, the climactic 'just-in-case' scene between Goldblum and Hirsh, the nervously comedic interplay between Goldblum and Smith, etc.  More than just a special effects showcase, Independence Day is a just plain great movie.  Yes, there is a bit too much comedy, the whole 'dog jumps through the tunnel' scene is stupid, the always-reliable James Rebhorn is a cartoon villain, and yes it's absurd that the aliens would use technology that could be hacked on a Mac Book, but they are but minor qualms in a very long (about 150 minutes) movie that remembers the basics.  It's about fun characters that we give a damn about, with an actual story worth telling and special effects that merely serve that narrative.  Fifteen years ago, Independence Day was held up as the ultimate in bubble-gum blockbuster filmmaking.  Today, it deserves to be held up as an example of the blockbuster done right.

Scott Mendelson