Alphabetical Movie – Independence Day

Independence Day is a guilty pleasure film.  I know how terrible it is and yet I can’t help thinking the movie is a blast from beginning to end.  You want to tell me that there is no way some computer hacker could figure out how to get through an alien firewall in just under twelve hours?

I’ll just punch you in the face and say “Welcome to Earth!!!”

You want to point out that Bill Pullman may have been the least convincing President of the United States ever put on film?

I’m just going to point to Mitt Romney and remind you that Pullman has more personality.

You want to complain about the horribly stereotyped old Jewish guy played by Judd Hirsch – made all the more offensive when you recall that Hirsch himself is Jewish?

Or the fact that the only gay character in the film (Harvey Fierstein) basically gets to act flamboyantly gay and then he’s torched by the aliens in a way that suggests we are supposed to give a shit except we don’t?

Or the fact there are three female characters of any importance in the entire film and their fates are as follows: One of them dies, one of them is a stripper and one of them is the (I think) Press Secretary or Chief of Staff for the President of the United States but when it comes right down to it, all she’s really worried about is her ex-husband?

Yes, all those things are true.  But the aliens totally blow the shit of the White House!!!!

It isn’t that I hate the seat of our government. Some of the people in it, sure, but not the actual city itself.

I just like the fact that the aliens are cold ass fuckers.  They position their ship right above the White House as if to say “Think your government is going to save you?  Fuck that.  We’re blowing them up first!”

Now I know you’re going to point out that only a complete moron would look at a dozen or so alien ships positioned over every major city on the globe and think “we don’t know what their intentions are so I’m not going to suggest we evacuate the cities.”

Dude, they just parked their spaceships over a bunch of political hubs and now they aren’t saying a damn thing.  If their intentions were benevolent, they might have dropped a line to say hello before they entered the atmosphere, don’t you think?

Run now.  If you were wrong, apologize later.  The’ll probably understand that they rolled a “1” on the “not freaking the shit out of the locals” table.

Yet the movie has Brent Spiner as a nerdy scientist.  Brent Spiner!  He was Data!  And when the movie was released, some people even cared!

I admit that my greatest disappointment in these films (aside from the gaping plot holes) is that I never get to see my city get destroyed.  L.A. and New York have been destroyed more often  than Buster on “Mythbusters” but the Twin Cities are, at least in disaster movie world, still standing.

That frustration aside, I love Independence Day. And I don’t love it in spite of its faults.  I love it because of them.