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Independence Day - 20/12/2005 5:29:25 PM

Empire Admin

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Post #: 1

RE: Independence Day - 2/1/2006 11:55:59 PM

effinjamie

Posts: 5
Joined: 2/1/2006

Can honestly say this is one of the worst films I have ever seen, American flag waving jingoistic claptrap. One of the few films I would have walked out from if I hadn't been on a date!

Post #: 2

Yes I gave it five - 6/7/2007 10:04:17 AM

samm0r

Posts: 22
Joined: 21/6/2007

Probably one of the most impressive popcorn movies of my lifetime. That's not to say it's smart or clever in any way... in fact completely the opposite. It's ridiculous and unbelievable. But I don't want my popcorn movies believable, I can watch a documentary for that. It's a classic in my eyes.

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Post #: 3

RE: Independence Day - 5/9/2007 11:14:24 PM

Wilding

Posts: 35
Joined: 16/1/2007

Director: Roland Emmerich
Screenwriters: Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich
Starring: Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Randy Quaid

Synopsis
When aliens arrive to exterminate our planet two days before July 4th, America is mankind's last hope for the greatest aerial attack of our time.

Review
For being one of the most successful movies of all time, director Roland Emmerich will never have that amount of praise anymore. With collaborative writer/producer Dean Devlin, who Emmerich worked with on Universal Soldier and Stargate, its obvious that their main inspiration on ID4 came from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The only problem is, the story is part of a big budget Hollywood action flick.

Like War of the Worlds, the film is told through American survivors, including the President, who's an ex-pilot, an insane biplane flyer who believed he was abducted, a cableguy who has the only true brain of the film, and then there's Will Smith. Although this is just about America saving the world without no mention of NASA, there are one or two sketch scenes about how involved are the other continents. But this is Hollywood, and they don't care about us, and they celebrated their holiday by fighting aliens.

Before his heir Michael Bay try to save the world from Armageddon, Emmerich's quite an interesting filmmaker when he was doing Stargate, a good sci-fi hit that one critic decribed it as 'Star Wars meets Ben-Hur'. Whatever the hell that means? This is a film, in which most of the audience sit on their seats, while eating their popcorn, just watching the spectacular explosions. Even though it was made in the mid 90s, the visual effects never feel outdated, and when you see the cities being demolished by the aliens' heat rays, you just go: WHOA!!!

For an ensemble movie, there may not be a lot of fine acting, but there sure is a lot of humor. Rather than just a president who just gives out the big speeches before the climax, Bill Pullman is much more active, and sometimes blasphemy for no apparent reason. First Tom Cruise, now Will Smith trying to get into Top Gun, while trying to kick E.T.'s ass. The one character I always root for is Jeff Goldblum, because he's become a natural scene stealer since Jurassic Park. This is a film that's trying to give us a message, which is that everyone wish we were all in peace, but after 9/11, I don't think we will never see that.

Verdict
Sure its Hollywood nonsense, but we might as well see flying saucers than meteor showers.

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Post #: 4

RE: Independence Day - 6/9/2007 10:34:00 AM

JagLover

Posts: 447
Joined: 11/5/2007

A film that delivers on the basic purpose of a blockbuster to entertain. It not only has spectacular action scenes but is very funny at times.

Of the more recent Blockbusters only Transformers has the spirit of Independence Day.

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Post #: 5

RE: Independence Day - 23/9/2007 12:38:38 PM

shawshank prisoner

Posts: 1650
Joined: 20/4/2006
From: Norwich

the first time i saw this i found it hilarious... especially the part where the dog misses the explosion by inches. but this is a classic american sci-fi. it has everything- a black guy trying to get home to his family, some trailer trash, and a president who risks his mlife to save the world after making a speech about america and 'the world'. it's prehaps one of the easiest films to take the piss out of, but it's for that reason that it's so great. far from a good film but very entertaining.

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Post #: 6

RE: Independence Day - 23/9/2007 1:19:41 PM

mackey

Posts: 337
Joined: 15/7/2007

Absolute crap and boring crap to boot.

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Post #: 7

RE: Independence Day - 23/9/2007 9:26:51 PM

Sphinx

Posts: 1805
Joined: 11/9/2006
From: East London

I like it, despite the wars it has created on other forums - DO NOT go no IMDB, it's a great summer blockbuster, in fact it was no.1 for practically near the entire summer of '97

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Post #: 8

RE: Independence Day - 23/9/2007 9:33:32 PM

BobaJango

Posts: 7667
Joined: 31/12/2005
From: Mulder's basement

Dreadful. Not being American myself, i find this film rather pathetic in it's blatant jingoism. If i was American, i'd just be embarassed. The scene where some British military person gets "permission" from the yanks to take action is one of my least favourite scenes of all time.

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Post #: 9

RE: Independence Day - 24/9/2007 10:01:05 AM

jonson

Posts: 8057
Joined: 30/9/2005

A daft, daft film but damn entertaining. I was fortunate enough to catch this at the cinema and it was what cinema's were invented for. The hype before the film was immense (I think they showed the White House being blown up during the SuperBowl and a lot of people actually thought it was real)
Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum play their parts to perfection, the special effects are great and even the cheesiest rousing speech in movie history is so bad it's great.
I still think it's a benchmark for pack-em-in summer blockbusters. I can't think of one movie since that has even got close yet.

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Post #: 10

RE: Independence Day - 24/9/2007 11:08:26 AM

Al Swearengen

Posts: 403
Joined: 17/4/2007

i watched this about 3 weeks ago, first time in about 5 years...

i love the movie, it's what a blockbuster should be, just big daft entertainment. I know alot of people hate the american-theme going on, but i just look past that shit and enjoy seeing big ass alien spacecrafts blowing things up.

The special effects are still staggering.

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Post #: 11

RE: Independence Day - 24/9/2007 12:42:35 PM

Fluke Skywalker

Posts: 9540
Joined: 23/4/2006
From: the dark side of the sun

I saw it as well when it came on TV and it instantly blew away ever single one of this summer's blockbusters (barring Bourne). Now I've seen it again after a few years I think it's a really great sci fi film despite it's cheesiness. The initial attacks are as spectacular as any committed to film and the scene where the alien speaks through the doctor is genuinely creepy.

All in all the recent crop of big budget movies wish they had half the balls of Independance Day

4/5 stars

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Post #: 12

RE: Independence Day - 26/9/2007 5:32:07 PM

shool

Posts: 9607
Joined: 24/3/2006
From: In The Pipe, Five by Five.

First hour is Awesome. Especially at the cinema.

After that runs out of steam.

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Post #: 13

RE: Independence Day - 26/9/2007 6:23:09 PM

Rabidhoax

Posts: 163
Joined: 21/6/2007

terrible film that not only insults every other race thats not american, but also insults anyone who has read or seen the war of the worlds.
*SPOILER*
just to point out something, a computer virus? really? its a human binary code etc etc, being uploaded on an alien ship!!! .................do u think they have msn windows on mars?

there where some very good action set pieces, but thats all the film is, a show case of special effects and stunts, oh and some good ole' americana feel good fluff!

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Post #: 14

RE: Independence Day - 27/9/2007 12:46:33 AM

/Clarence\

Posts: 596
Joined: 18/6/2006

quote:

ORIGINAL: shool

First hour is Awesome. Especially at the cinema.

After that runs out of steam.

Agree with that statement.

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Post #: 15

RE: Independence Day - 24/10/2007 1:37:56 AM

omarx

Posts: 150
Joined: 7/10/2005
From: Somewhere that's neither here nor there

First hour promising, then turns out to be the SHITTIEST FILM ON MY SHIT LIST

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Post #: 16

best movie you'll ever see - 29/12/2007 2:18:59 PM

Fade to Black 411

Posts: 11
Joined: 27/7/2007
From: Bantry

wow what a classic, in my opionon will smiths greatest movie with bad boys2, i.e (if its will smiths greatest movie, then that means its the worlds greatest movie) because will is the greatest actor in the history of forever.
fantastic performence by bill pullman, what a speech, the BEST speech i have ever heard in movie ever, and im a movie expert.
the bum in the movie was so funny and i was laughing when the hill billys asked him if the aliens abused him, sexually.
you wont see a better movie!

Reviewer: Muddy
Comment me if you liked my review

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Post #: 17

RE: Independence Day - 3/10/2008 12:51:20 PM

bendoofus

Posts: 59
Joined: 25/3/2007
From: London

America saves the world. Woop de fucking woop. How anyone can bear to watch this tosh after America's assault upon freedom in the last year is anyone's guess.

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Post #: 18

RE: best movie you'll ever see - 3/10/2008 12:52:28 PM

bendoofus

Posts: 59
Joined: 25/3/2007
From: London

America saves the world. Woop de friggin woop. How anyone can stand to watch this tosh after the USs assault uopon humanity in the last decade is anyone's guess...

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Post #: 19

RE: Independence Day - 3/10/2008 1:01:23 PM

Shifty Bench

Posts: 14553
Joined: 30/9/2005

quote:

ORIGINAL: shool

First hour is Awesome. Especially at the cinema.

After that runs out of steam.

I'm an Independence Day hater but I will agree with this. The initial set-up and attack is good but for me, as soon as that dog escapes the fireball, I lost interest. Thousands of folk burn alive yet we are supposed to stand up and cheer because the dog lives? Ummm....no thanks.

After that, the film is full of 'stand up and cheer NOW' moments which is fine if you're American since they save the day. but when I saw it in a cinema in Glasgow, nobody gave a shit. In fact, when the ending came, a guy a few rows behind me loudly said 'A virus? Oh, fuck off!'. Exactly.

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Shifty said it best

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Post #: 20

4 stars? huh? - 12/1/2009 12:01:50 AM

meltbananastu

Posts: 9
Joined: 4/12/2007

ok, lets start by saying when i first watched independence day i thought it was great. will smith's awesome i thought. the aliens look great. woah, the white house just got owned. amazing special effects. oh my god, pullmans speech is mesmeric. it was great. probably the best film i'd seen.

i was 11.

every time i've seen it since then, i've come to hate itmore and more. the special effects are great, which is a blessing, since they distract you from what must be one of the worst films ever made. over hyped, badly acted, patriotic american shite with less going for it than a particularly bad case of herpes. in the eye.

4 stars? your fucking kidding me!

will smith punching an alien in the desert... 1 star.
bill pullman making me want to choke on my own vomit rather than listen to one more agonizing moment of his shitty pro america speech half way through...1 star.

that dog jumping through the flames to safety...1 star

the god awful acting...1 star

the fucking disgustingly glib, shitty ending...1 star

independence day can fuck right off.

1 star.

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Post #: 21

Terrible!!!!!! - 22/7/2011 2:02:19 PM

guysalisbury

Posts: 166
Joined: 3/11/2005

One of the worst films ive ever seen! How this can have the same amount of stars at district 9.................? Don't get me started!

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Post #: 22

Just simple fun...no need for the hysterical anti-U.S f... - 5/12/2011 3:27:09 PM

Emyr Thy King

Posts: 2153
Joined: 13/4/2006
From: The Grid

quote:

ORIGINAL: bendoofus

America saves the world. Woop de friggin woop. How anyone can stand to watch this tosh after the USs assault uopon humanity in the last decade is anyone's guess...

Well we wouldn't have such a world if Britain hadn't willingly dismantled its Empire (no matter your opinions of it) after the second world war. The film's entertaining enough and I always love watching the large-scale aerial dogfights (something we haven't seen in a while!). I find the USA bashing amusing, if we ever ran into the kinds of trouble that befell our wee island nation circa 1940s, who else would help us out? The E.U? Russia? China? We can't even help ourselves: no aircraft carriers, virtially no fleet air arm component and a meagre RAF presence...yeah let's blame the U.S.

. The only criticism this film deserves is not due to some pro-USA slant but rather due to rather awful and schmaltzy dialogue. The virus idea was creative on one hand but quite silly on the other hand.

What didn't quite come off was the idea of the producers that by packaging July the 4th into an alien invasion film, the rest of the world would suddenly embrace it as a 'world holiday' and it would not just be an American holiday. Although we did get Independence Day UK, which was funny!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rabidhoax

terrible film that not only insults every other race thats not american, but also insults anyone who has read or seen the war of the worlds.
*SPOILER*
just to point out something, a computer virus? really? its a human binary code etc etc, being uploaded on an alien ship!!! ................

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we send out a probe and a signal that used basic mathematics (which is supposed to be the universal language) to communicate our presence to other 'intelligent' lifeforms? Binary code is routed in mathematics of course. Whilst I'm not going to further a theory that we only need C++, COBOL or even Java to defeat an alien invasion, I can kind of see what they were going for.

quote:

do u think they have msn windows on mars?

No, maybe UNIX? Seeing as we left (1) a few probes there...

1. Sorry the Americans...no we wait have...no need to start up the outrage bus then.

< Message edited by Emyr Thy King -- 5/12/2011 3:38:41 PM >

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Post #: 23

RE: Just simple fun...no need for the hysterical anti-U... - 8/12/2011 2:02:20 PM

Pencilton Phoenix

Posts: 9
Joined: 8/12/2011

Quintessentially nineties. I enjoyed it as a teenager. Anything with Jeff Goldblum was great. Yet more than 10 years on, I'm still hanging out for a much more interesting take on aliens in a popcorn film.
Why does hollywood still use this tested and overdone vision of aliens. Incrementally different from H.R Gigers ugly toothy beasts in the original Aliens. War of the Worlds, Battle Los Angeles, it keeps perpetuating. Rather I want to see a sinister humanoid alien with superior technology that treats us the way westerners treated aboriginals world over circa colonisation. I want to see something more complicated, than airship battles. District 9 was an interesting evolution of the genre.

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Post #: 24