![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no one's gonna take me alive!
Apr. 6th, 2007 01:21 amMy top 5 characters of the patriotic-anti-alien-special-effects fest movie Independence Day, which I watched tonight with Lucia, Kim, kettle corn and vanilla yogurt. Yeah, I know it's a bad movie. I really don't care - I enjoy it anyway. And high-brow snots can just kiss my ass when it comes to this one.
1. Will Smith (Steve): easily the most awesome person in the whole movie. He really goes well with aliens. From the rejection from NASA ("you're never gonna fly a space shuttle if you marry a stripper", as his friend says), to the Star Wars-inspired chase scene through the desert culminating in him punching the alien ("Welcome to Earth!" - the most famous line of the movie), from dragging it through the desert and leading all the trailer people to Area 51, to the final Earth-saving flight when he finally gets to see the stars, he is amazing, a hotshot in every sense of the word. So wonderfully urbane and working-class ("I'm a little anxious to get up there and whup E.T.'s ass"), has practically adopted his girlfriend's kid, funny, down-to-earth, honest ("you think you can do all that bullshit you just said?" he asks Jeff Goldblum when the latter doubts if he can fly the alien craft), and superstitious about his cigars, he is mos def the scene stealer.
2. Jeff Goldblum (David): easily the second most awesome person. Jeff Goldblum plays himself - i.e., it's Ian Malcolm, this time fighting aliens instead of dinosaurs and once again never being taken seriously because he's a math nerd in the midst of all the gun-toting military dudes ("and that's when you can, you know, uh, take them, uh, take them down. Take them out. Do your... do your stuff", as he awkwardly tells the military honchos). Formerly having punched the president, he accompanies Will Smith to the alien mothership and uploads the virus. Ok, basically he saves the entire planet. His drunken tirade is the best part, though ("maybe if we screw this planet up enough they won't want it anymore," he says of global warming).
3. Randy Quaid (Russel Casse): the former alien abductee, now drunken crop-duster, he saves everyone in Area 51 and the rest of Earth by sacrificing himself and flying into the chute in the center of the big alien ship hanging out over Area 51 and exploding it on contact. Everyone thinks he's crazy, and maybe he is, but he sure is awesome in a completely insane way, and you know - he dies happy: "Hello, boys! I'm baaack!"
4. Vivica A. Fox (Jasmine): the most competent female character in the movie - and actually pretty damn competent in comparison to the men, too - and Steve's girlfriend/wife. A single mom and a stripper (the most hilarious conversation is the dying First Lady asking her what she does for a living. "I'm a dancer," she says. "Oh, ballet," says the First Lady. She says, "No, exotic.") she survives the first blast by kicking down a maintenance door in a tunnel, then drives around LA in a city truck searching for suvivors.
5. Boomer, the Dog: the most memorable, ridiculous, and heart-warming part of the movie that I guarantee you everyone remembers is when Jasmine and her kid get into the maintenance room in the tunnel as the alien explosion blast is rippling through it, and she yells, "Boomer!" and her faithful golden retriever happily leaps over the broken cars and gets into the maintenance room just as the blast passes by, surviving and wagging its tail all the way. It also accompanies them into the top secret rooms of Area 51, and out into the desert when Steve and David return to Earth.
I couldn't find a picture of Boomer, so I just included this shot of the alien ship coming out of the sky like Jesus.
Man, I love this movie. I love Mars Attacks!, but I also love Independence Day. A lot of people say it's gotten worse with time - they've since discovered, that is, how bad it is. But it honestly has not rotted for me. In fact, this last time I watched it, I actually liked it more for all the hidden class dynamics I never noticed before. Except for the President, who is not one of my favorite characters except for his speech about not going quietly into the night (because I'm an idealist poli sci dork), all the heroes are working class or lower and seem to be uneducated, except for David, who's uber-educated and yet a complete failure at life: "You go to MIT for 8 years to become a cable technician" as his father says. Casse, the crazy alien abductee, is clearly a Southwestern hick with a bunch of mulatto kids. Jasmine is a stripper, for Chrissake. The seemingly more successful, WASPy types don't actually do much and are unmemorable characters - there's the President and his pathetic family - the President basically just flails his hands and says, "People are dying!" and "Get them out of there!" once even the five-year-olds in the audience can see that the situation is dire - and it's no wonder he's not doing very good in the polls. As Jasmine says, "I voted for the other guy". There's Constance, who is clearly the President's ho (she doesn't do anything useful, at all), is described as "spunky", and is way too good to be Jeff Goldblum's ex-wife. There's the barrage of military personnel who are all complete swaggering idiots. I think there's something very interesting about that depiction. In fact, one survivor of the LA blast says that this was the only day he took the subway - the dirty, foul, public transportation - and that's what saved him. When the First Lady says, "Oh, I'm sorry," to the news that Jasmine was a stripper, she says, "Don't be. I'm not. It's good money. And my baby's worth it." In other words, fuck conventions and political correctness - if it pays, it pays.
Some people dismiss this movie for the characters (dismissing it for the dialogue is understandable... it's pretty bad), saying they're stereotypes, but interestingly, the stereotypes that are usually pointless comic relief (the black guy, the nerd, the ghetto princess, the hick, the Jewish father) turn out to be the most engaging, important, and heroic characters, whereas the ones who are usually given heroic roles - the all-American whitebread folks - don't contribute to barely anything. Even though the President is the first to fire at the alien ship and hit it (showing that he doesn't give up, I guess), Russel Casse is the one to actually cripple the ship and bring it down. I just love watching Jeff Goldblum's father walk around Area 51 going, "what the fucking fuck is all this?" essentially, and when the military assholes tell Jeff Goldblum to shut up because they want to use nuclear weapons on the aliens and he doesn't, he says, "Don't you tell him to shut up! None of us would be here if it weren't for my David!" which is true. It's actually very empowering to watch, because the heroes, in my opinion at least, are all people with limited voice and limited opportunity to change much in the real world. Yet in this disaster scenario, they are the ones who step it up. Which really does confirm the President's message about this being not only America's Independence Day, but the whole world's Independence Day.
Then again, maybe I just tend to love movies that feature aliens and apocalypse scenarios. And, I just like popcorn flicks, except if they feature Ancient Greece or Rome. But that's for a different day.
1. Will Smith (Steve): easily the most awesome person in the whole movie. He really goes well with aliens. From the rejection from NASA ("you're never gonna fly a space shuttle if you marry a stripper", as his friend says), to the Star Wars-inspired chase scene through the desert culminating in him punching the alien ("Welcome to Earth!" - the most famous line of the movie), from dragging it through the desert and leading all the trailer people to Area 51, to the final Earth-saving flight when he finally gets to see the stars, he is amazing, a hotshot in every sense of the word. So wonderfully urbane and working-class ("I'm a little anxious to get up there and whup E.T.'s ass"), has practically adopted his girlfriend's kid, funny, down-to-earth, honest ("you think you can do all that bullshit you just said?" he asks Jeff Goldblum when the latter doubts if he can fly the alien craft), and superstitious about his cigars, he is mos def the scene stealer. 2. Jeff Goldblum (David): easily the second most awesome person. Jeff Goldblum plays himself - i.e., it's Ian Malcolm, this time fighting aliens instead of dinosaurs and once again never being taken seriously because he's a math nerd in the midst of all the gun-toting military dudes ("and that's when you can, you know, uh, take them, uh, take them down. Take them out. Do your... do your stuff", as he awkwardly tells the military honchos). Formerly having punched the president, he accompanies Will Smith to the alien mothership and uploads the virus. Ok, basically he saves the entire planet. His drunken tirade is the best part, though ("maybe if we screw this planet up enough they won't want it anymore," he says of global warming).
3. Randy Quaid (Russel Casse): the former alien abductee, now drunken crop-duster, he saves everyone in Area 51 and the rest of Earth by sacrificing himself and flying into the chute in the center of the big alien ship hanging out over Area 51 and exploding it on contact. Everyone thinks he's crazy, and maybe he is, but he sure is awesome in a completely insane way, and you know - he dies happy: "Hello, boys! I'm baaack!"4. Vivica A. Fox (Jasmine): the most competent female character in the movie - and actually pretty damn competent in comparison to the men, too - and Steve's girlfriend/wife. A single mom and a stripper (the most hilarious conversation is the dying First Lady asking her what she does for a living. "I'm a dancer," she says. "Oh, ballet," says the First Lady. She says, "No, exotic.") she survives the first blast by kicking down a maintenance door in a tunnel, then drives around LA in a city truck searching for suvivors.
5. Boomer, the Dog: the most memorable, ridiculous, and heart-warming part of the movie that I guarantee you everyone remembers is when Jasmine and her kid get into the maintenance room in the tunnel as the alien explosion blast is rippling through it, and she yells, "Boomer!" and her faithful golden retriever happily leaps over the broken cars and gets into the maintenance room just as the blast passes by, surviving and wagging its tail all the way. It also accompanies them into the top secret rooms of Area 51, and out into the desert when Steve and David return to Earth.
I couldn't find a picture of Boomer, so I just included this shot of the alien ship coming out of the sky like Jesus.
Man, I love this movie. I love Mars Attacks!, but I also love Independence Day. A lot of people say it's gotten worse with time - they've since discovered, that is, how bad it is. But it honestly has not rotted for me. In fact, this last time I watched it, I actually liked it more for all the hidden class dynamics I never noticed before. Except for the President, who is not one of my favorite characters except for his speech about not going quietly into the night (because I'm an idealist poli sci dork), all the heroes are working class or lower and seem to be uneducated, except for David, who's uber-educated and yet a complete failure at life: "You go to MIT for 8 years to become a cable technician" as his father says. Casse, the crazy alien abductee, is clearly a Southwestern hick with a bunch of mulatto kids. Jasmine is a stripper, for Chrissake. The seemingly more successful, WASPy types don't actually do much and are unmemorable characters - there's the President and his pathetic family - the President basically just flails his hands and says, "People are dying!" and "Get them out of there!" once even the five-year-olds in the audience can see that the situation is dire - and it's no wonder he's not doing very good in the polls. As Jasmine says, "I voted for the other guy". There's Constance, who is clearly the President's ho (she doesn't do anything useful, at all), is described as "spunky", and is way too good to be Jeff Goldblum's ex-wife. There's the barrage of military personnel who are all complete swaggering idiots. I think there's something very interesting about that depiction. In fact, one survivor of the LA blast says that this was the only day he took the subway - the dirty, foul, public transportation - and that's what saved him. When the First Lady says, "Oh, I'm sorry," to the news that Jasmine was a stripper, she says, "Don't be. I'm not. It's good money. And my baby's worth it." In other words, fuck conventions and political correctness - if it pays, it pays.
Some people dismiss this movie for the characters (dismissing it for the dialogue is understandable... it's pretty bad), saying they're stereotypes, but interestingly, the stereotypes that are usually pointless comic relief (the black guy, the nerd, the ghetto princess, the hick, the Jewish father) turn out to be the most engaging, important, and heroic characters, whereas the ones who are usually given heroic roles - the all-American whitebread folks - don't contribute to barely anything. Even though the President is the first to fire at the alien ship and hit it (showing that he doesn't give up, I guess), Russel Casse is the one to actually cripple the ship and bring it down. I just love watching Jeff Goldblum's father walk around Area 51 going, "what the fucking fuck is all this?" essentially, and when the military assholes tell Jeff Goldblum to shut up because they want to use nuclear weapons on the aliens and he doesn't, he says, "Don't you tell him to shut up! None of us would be here if it weren't for my David!" which is true. It's actually very empowering to watch, because the heroes, in my opinion at least, are all people with limited voice and limited opportunity to change much in the real world. Yet in this disaster scenario, they are the ones who step it up. Which really does confirm the President's message about this being not only America's Independence Day, but the whole world's Independence Day.
Then again, maybe I just tend to love movies that feature aliens and apocalypse scenarios. And, I just like popcorn flicks, except if they feature Ancient Greece or Rome. But that's for a different day.
