The first one was cheesy popcorn with great SFX that’s (mostly) held up over 20 years. The second one? Unwatchable. Someone should have punched Roland Emmerich when he brought up the sequel and said ‘Welcome to Earth.’
That’s my take. What’s yours?
Mine is going to be kind of strange…
My friend and I went to Grant Park mall in Winnipeg in 1996 to see the original Independence Day. We were at the scene where Jeff and Will had flown up to the mothership and were about to launch the bomb. The missile fires, starts ripping through the mothership and the whole theatre goes black.
The theatre erupted in cheers and applause at this amazing audience emersion! It turns out Winnipeg had just had one of the worst hail storms in years, and power was out everywhere.
Best timing of a hail storm ever.
I remember when Will Smith was charismatic. Dude dripped charisma back then, and now he is a shell of a person. Sad to look at.
Loved Jeff Goldblum.
It may be an unpopular opinion but I feel like Independence Day was a masterpiece. This film is 27 years old and the CGI graphics that were used were incredible for the times. If you tried to watch a 27 year old movie in the 90s it was so painful. Sure there were some cheesy parts but my wife and I still watch this every 4th of July. We even went back and watched it on the big screen a few years back. I will always love it!
For the second one I was glad to see what happened after the first one, that’s about it. It was ok.
The 1st one though is one of those unforgettable epic adventures of historic proportions.
One of my favorite scenes was where Spiner says “they don’t let us out much”
