‘Independence Day’ at 30: Remembering the film from nine of its dumbest lines

Until earlier this week, I had not seen Independence Day since it came out 30 years ago—and even back then, I missed the parts where my eyes were rolled to the back of my head. At the time, it was a summer-movie juggernaut of such breathtaking cynicism and commercial calculation (derogatory) that I could not appreciate the low pleasures of its goofy, unrelenting shamelessness (complimentary). Three decades later, Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day speaks to much darker times, clinging optimistically to the notion that proof of alien life may humble a deeply divided population. Independence Day, by contrast, takes global unity as a given, as a youthful Clinton-era President proves that American leadership and spit-and-bubblegum resiliency can save the world as loudly and stupidly as possible. It is the perfect time capsule for 1996, a carbon-dated marvel for showing us what was happening in Hollywood, in politics, and in the culture at large, even as it copy-pasted the box-office formulas of the past. The dawn of the Willennium was upon us and there would be many July 4ths before the sunset of The Slap. 

Directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Dean Devlin, who’d partnered earlier on Universal Soldier and Stargate, Independence Day was an effort to expand and modernize the Irwin Allen disaster movie, which brought ensemble casts together to grit their way through, say, an upended cruise ship (The Poseidon Adventure) or a burning skyscraper (The Towering Inferno). After the film became the biggest hit of 1996, Emmerich and Devlin were encouraged to do it again with their take on Godzilla as well as the climate-change thrillers The Day After Tomorrow (just Emmerich) and Geostorm (just Devlin), and a 2016 sequel (both again), Independence Day: Resurgence, that made nearly $400 million worldwide despite no one seeing or remembering it. 

Though Emmerich was deploying all the newfangled digital tools at his disposal for Independence Day—along with Twister, this was the bellwether year for ones-and-zeroes taking over for practical effects—it’s easiest to look back at the film through the piquancy of Devlin’s dialogue, which Will Smith finessed to star-making effect. Here’s what 10 of its sillier lines, in chronological order, say about the film: 

1. “All right, everybody. Head down to the basement!”— Marty Gilbert (Harvey Fierstein)
There’s nothing not to love about Harvey Fierstein being in this movie. He’s the Shelley Winters of Independence Day, brought in to panic colorfully and sacrifice himself for the greater good. At this point in the movie, a massive alien mothership has entered Earth’s orbit and deployed a fleet of smaller (though still enormous) flying saucers to hover over major cities around the world. One of those cities is New York, where Marty’s technician buddy David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) works for a cable television company. David is the MIT-educated genius who will conclude that the aliens are using humanity’s satellite system to communicate with each other and launch a coordinated attack. Though the attack hasn’t happened yet, terror has gripped the affected cities and there’s no one more freaked out than Marty, who wants everyone to join in the old fallout shelter that still lurks beneath their workspace. It’s the first of many duck-and-cover initiatives that seem comically feeble yet save lives, albeit it not as many lives as those who choose to outrun explosions instead. (Shout out to Fierstein for his resigned delivery of the line “Oh crap” as a wall of alien fire engulfs a New York street before he and others can drive themselves out of town.) 

2. “Man, you never gonna get to fly the space shuttle if you marry a stripper.” — Capt. Jimmy Wilder (Harry Connick Jr.) 
There’s too much story for this 145-minute movie to tell for us to get a glimpse into the decision-making process at NASA and why they denied our top gun, Capt. Steven Hiller (Smith), a spot in the astronaut training program. So we’re going to have to take his wingman Jimmy’s word for it: Anora wouldn’t win Best Picture for another 28 years and respect for sex workers could not be presumed during the vetting process at the space agency. What’s the significance of Hiller’s girlfriend Jasmine being a stripper? The cynical answer is that she’s played by Vivica A. Fox, who could add a little space to the PG-13 rating, but the more generous conclusion is that Devlin and Emmerich like the idea of people from all walks of American life coming together to fight the aliens. It seems significant that Jasmine is the one who discovers the First Lady (Mary McDonnell) at the site of a downed helicopter and helps bring her back to President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) before she succumbs to her injuries. It also leads to the funny cognitive dissonance of people being so mesmerized by footage of alien invaders on TV that no one is paying attention to Vivica A. Fox on a stripper pole.