Every Fourth of July, there’s one movie that I almost always end up watching, and that’s Independence Day. I still remember seeing it on the big screen for the first time and just being completely blown away.
It had everything I wanted from a summer blockbuster. It was so much fun! Massive alien ships, crazy visual effects, great characters, incredible action, fun humor, and one of the most crowd-pleasing speeches ever put in a movie. It was just an absolute blast.
All these years later, Independence Day still holds up as one of my favorite sci-fi action movies, and hearing Roland Emmerich and Bill Pullman reflect on how it all came together makes me appreciate it even more.
Their stories offer a fun look at how a movie that could’ve easily never happened ended up becoming one of the defining blockbusters of the ’90s.
For Emmerich, the idea started with a love of old-school disaster movies, but he wanted to push the concept in a completely different direction.
“Me and Dean Devlin wrote the script. I had an office right next to Book Soup on Sunset, and I went in there and bought the classics like War of the Worlds but they were all too old-fashioned.
“We were fans of disaster films, but there hadn’t been one for a long time – in the 70s they had made a disaster out of anything, like a swarm of bees.
“But aliens were a new idea. We both lived in the Hollywood hills, and I took Dean to the window, and said: imagine if all this sky was the underbelly of a ship. We thought: OK, that’s cool.”
Standing in the Hollywood Hills imagining a giant alien mothership filling the entire sky feels like the perfect spark for a movie built around spectacle.
The filmmakers also knew timing was everything. “I told our agent we wanted to do it, and he said forget about it, Tim Burton is doing Mars Attacks! I said to Dean, we can’t do our film after a parody comes out.
“We had to beat him to it. If it came out on the 4 July weekend, we would beat Mars Attacks!, which was coming out in August. So we wrote the concept around the release date. Dean said: ‘Let’s just call it Independence Day; we can come up with something better later.’”
It’s funny to think that one of the most recognizable movie titles ever was originally meant to be temporary.
Another decision that proved to be incredibly important was casting Will Smith. At the time, he was best known for television, and the studio wasn’t convinced he was the right choice. Emmerich never wavered.
“Will Smith’s role was not written as black; his ethnicity was not mentioned, so the studio assumed we wanted to hire a white guy. But we set our sights on Will very early.
“There is no one more American than Will Smith. The studio had a problem with it as he was mainly known for sitcom, but they came round to it.”
Looking back now, it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in that role. Smith’s charisma became one of the biggest reasons the movie connected with audiences.
While Independence Day became known for its patriotic imagery, Emmerich says people often misunderstood what he was trying to say.
“We were decorating the set and I was like, guys, there’s too many flags. And they all said, no, this is the fourth of July! Then when it came out, the whole world thought I was Mr Superpatriot.
“But what no one saw was this was an African American, a Jewish man, and a white-bread politician saving the world as a team. Then my next film was The Patriot. But politically I was always more on the left, and I felt concerned about that. So I did The Day After Tomorrow, which criticised America quite a bit.”
It’s an interesting perspective because, underneath all the explosions and alien destruction, the movie really is about people from very different backgrounds coming together to survive. It really is an America positive patriotic movie.
The film also ended up influencing Hollywood in ways Emmerich never expected. “Just after Independence Day came out, I met Steven Spielberg and he said: ‘What you guys have done with that film, everybody will imitate you.’ He was right.
“When you look at Marvel movies today, it’s always about alien invasion, and a lot of stuff gets broken. Also, these films don’t take themselves too seriously. But I had learned this from Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
The formula of mixing large-scale destruction with humor and likable characters has become a blueprint for modern blockbusters. As for whether he actually believes aliens exist, Emmerich said:
“I don’t believe in aliens but I really hope they are out there. ‘The question of whether we’re alone in the universe has been answered’ – that was a line that came from me. Finally, they’re out there – in very big ships!”
Meanwhile, Pullman admitted he was initially surprised anyone wanted him to play the President of the United States.
“I got a call from my agent saying they’re interested in you for a Fox movie, as a president. I said: is it a comedy? Because that would make sense. At that point, there weren’t movies that had a president as a lead character, unless it was a biopic, and then usually only on television.
“I really enjoyed working with Roland. He’s always aware of what would be ‘cool’ – the way he uses that word, with a German accent, reminds me of the teenager in him. ‘Then you look up and you see this really cool monster…’
“I was also impressed with the presidential cufflinks – I think they got them from the gift store of Nixon’s presidential library. They were talismans: I could touch them, and remember: oh yeah, I’m the president.”
One detail I never knew is that the movie’s ending was actually filmed first. “We shot the ending of the movie first, where I come up to Jeff Goldblum, and we’re overcoming this long history. It was absurd, having these warm embraces with people we barely knew. I had to shake a little giggle out of me.”
Pullman also shared a hilarious memory from one of the film’s most memorable production days. “In the scene where I go into Area 51 and see what they’ve been doing without my knowledge, Will Smith comes in, and it’s the only scene I have with him.
“It was when the verdict for the OJ Simpson trial was announced; everybody was glued to the TV in their trailers. We got to the set and Will said: ‘OK, I see I’m here with a lot of angry white people!’ It was perfect.”
Of course, no discussion about Independence Day would be complete without talking about President Whitmore’s iconic speech. Pullman revealed it almost played a major role in saving the movie’s title.
“Fox was interested in a different title to Independence Day. Dean and Roland said: we’ve got to move up the filming of the rousing speech scene, because in that you understand why the movie is called Independence Day.
“I was influenced by hearing Robert Kennedy’s speech after he had just found out Martin Luther King had been killed – you knew he wasn’t going from notes. A day or two later I watched it, and I thought, holy f*ck, this is good. They’re going to keep the title!”
Pullman also summed up exactly why the movie continues to entertain audiences after all these years. “It’s a fable, and there are coincidences that happen in a fable that you have to just let go of.
“It’s a good movie, but you wouldn’t say it fits all the rules of profound movie-making. Characters run across each other in dire circumstances and you’re like: really? They found each other there? But it has a bravura about it. We’re just going to tell a fun story, and you’re going to have to ride with it.”
I think that’s exactly why people still love Independence Day. It isn’t trying to be the smartest sci-fi movie ever made. It’s trying to entertain you for two and a half hours with giant alien ships, memorable heroes, incredible destruction, quotable dialogue, and a story that knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be.
The movie remains one of the great summer blockbusters, and every Fourth of July is the perfect excuse to revisit it all over again.
Via: The Guardian
