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Independence Day (Full Reaction)

Happy Movie Monday!! 🎉

I hope you had a great weekend, celebrating Father's Day! Since 4th of July is coming up, I thought it would be fun to watch Independence Day! I hadn't seen this movie since I was a little kid and it was AMAZING!!! This is such a great summer blockbuster film!

Aliens have arrived and the people of Earth are in a state of panic. What do these space travelers want? Total human annihilation. This global takeover occurs on the same weekend as the July fourth holiday and an unlikely group of heroes must band together to fight for Earth's safety.

Watched on: Hulu / Runtime: 2:24:44

❤️🐑

Independence Day (Full Reaction)

Comments

I agree with recommending Stargate, but if you react to that one, you'll need subtitles. There are a lot of important lines of dialogue you'll miss if you don't use them.

Raven Dark

I think I would inform the president by quoting Bender "Whelp, we're boned!"

Kevin Bartelen

That was fun, thanks.

Alex Ch

Just a tiny point I'd like to add: I agree that director's cuts are often in some way improved over the theatrical cut, but in my experience, far fewer people own or have access to them. So, I understand why you'd say the director's cuts are preferred, but the theatrical cut is often the better choice for reactors like Jax, just so that the watch along videos are more accessible to a wider audience. I do have to say though, excellent recommendations there!

BubblyRainbows

Hahaha!

Jacqueline

As an Englishman, I would just like to say that we have both, taxation and representation, and could do without both to be completely honest with you.

Pete

Jacqueline Hellmers, Earth’s Ambassador to the Universe, ‘Stab it! Punch it!’

Pete

I forgot how good this movie was! Been far too long since I've seen it. I believe this is the first PG-13 movie I was allowed to see in the theater without my parents needing to see it first. That was a big deal for me haha. And I also saw it with my dad!

Ed Scoglio

If goes from President, to VP, to the Speaker of the House, to President Pro Tempore of the Senate, then through the Cabinet Secretaries in the order the Departments were established(starting with State and ending with Homeland Security). If the person in the succession list isn't eligible to be President(not old enough, not a natural born citizen etc), they're skipped.

Patrick Egan

On your reaction, Dearest Jax, as someone else noted, I was shocked you didn’t recognize ‘Jayne’ from ‘Firefly,’ BUT…… that was your BEST doo-doo-doo-DOO you’ve ever done! Way to go, Jax

Lamar Smith

I truly enjoyed revisiting this with you! Please consider doing the sequel. I know people generally hate on it (I think mainly because Will Smith didn't come back, instead he did Concussion , trying to get that Oscar) but I personally enjoyed all the fun that the first movie brought, they brought back and then some! Also I noticed that you're enjoying these Dreamworks Animated films, if you liked this, I'm telling you, you'll REALLY like Monsters Vs. Aliens (it's almost a parody of this movie)

Mister Lou

No, no, there IS a protocol for the President AND the Vice President dying. It’s actually written into the Constitution by the founders and then supported by policies enacted following WWII, during the Cold War called, I believe, the Succession Act or the Survival of Government Act. If both President and Vice President die, command of the government goes to, I believe, the Speaker of the House. If he/she too is dead, there’s a chain that continues on. I watched a dystopian, maybe zombie show where this came up. In the show the ‘President’ was protected by the last two remaining Secret Service agents and the show set up that ‘the President’ explained to someone that if she died, power would fall to one of the Agents who began to eye each other warily, clearly each desiring the position and each equally willing, all of a sudden, to kill the other to gain the post.

Lamar Smith

I love this movie and will take any chance to watch it and I'm not even American. It's just so much fun!! My favourite BTS fact for this movie is that it wasn't in the script for the crowd to cheer after the president's Independence Day speech. The crowd of extras were moved by the delivery of the speech by Bill Pullman and so they just started cheering and clapping, so they left it in. I'm sure it's something that probably would have been brought up to have the crowd start cheering but it's crazy to me that they didn't initially write that in

Shaun Hudson

I hadn't thought about that! You make a great point. Also, I completely agree that the speech at the end is one of the best!! It was so moving! Thanks for the movie recs! ❤️

Jacqueline

I didn't!!! I'm so bummed I missed Jayne!!

Jacqueline

Haha! This is a documentary!

Jacqueline

I will definitely be watching that soon!

Jacqueline

WHAT!?!?! I DIDNT EVEN RECOGNIZE JAYNE!!! 🤯

Jacqueline

Again, according to my man, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, he puts it in these terms: Comparing our DNA to our closest relative, the chimp, shows only about 7% difference. If you will, we’re 7% ‘more advanced’ than chimps but look what difference that 7% makes. If we chose, we could wipe out the entire chimp population in VERY short order. Any alien civilization capable of spanning interstellar distances would have to be at LEAST 7% more advanced than us. If anyone wants to quibble with my numbers, the principle still applies. Even a tiny bit more advanced than us makes us, essentially, helpless. If they actually show up, best get along best you can.

Lamar Smith

On the “How would you react?” question. The super smart people who get paid to think about these things opine that any, actual, physical approach of an alien craft that size is REALLY bad news. It’s a really sad historical fact that the first human any advanced alien civilization would detect is….. wait for it….. Adolf Hitler. Sucks, huh? The first radio transmissions powerful enough to go beyond our atmosphere, unfortunately, is der Fuhrer opening the Berlin Olympics. First human aliens see is Adolf in his puffy pants and ridiculous mustache from 1936. The next transmission with a chance of exiting our atmosphere and traveling at the speed of light forever would probably be the coronation of the English king, I want to say Edward VII. For more on him, do yourself a favor and watch, ‘The King’s Speech,’ a truly uplifting story. By the end of WWII any alien could point a radio telescope at us and see EVERYTHING we’ve been getting up to since then: the Slinkey all the way to PornHub has gotten beamed out into the cosmos. Any civilization advanced enough to monitor radio transmissions would know, essentially, EVERYTHING about us, so, if they’re actually, physically coming, odds are it’s not with friendly intentions. That’s the bad news. The good news, though, is that it’s the absolute height of arrogance to posit that we have something on earth any sufficiently advanced civilization would want. Chemically speaking, there’s nothing special about our planet or us. If you break humans down into their separate chemical components, we’re made of the exact same chemicals available across the universe and, not really surprisingly, in the exact same ratio as what you’ll find in the universe with the exception of helium. LOTS of helium in universe but, since it’s chemically inert, it doesn’t bond with other chemicals, so it’s useless for building us. The earth, too, is made of everything you find elsewhere in the universe. You can try to posit “maybe liquid water,” but MASSIVE ice clouds positively permeate the universe. You’re an alien civilization after water? Harvest the ice in your own solar system a LOT easier and cheaper than mounting an invasion here. If an alien civilization wants to contact us, especially in a friendly way, radio us. We’ll pick it up, most likely. Certainly faster and cheaper than actually going across the vast reaches of space. On your ‘Do you believe the moon landings were real?’ question, I’m going to go with my man Neil DeGrasse Tyson: “Given the number of people working on all the aspects of going to the moon, it would have been more difficult to fake it than to actually load up and just go. If you want to argue we haven’t gone to the moon, you’ll have to explain the laser reflectors each mission set out on the surface and left them that allow us to determine the distance to the moon constantly, to the millimeter. On the advanced alien civilization, we’re ‘listening’ to the cosmos for telltale radio transmissions aimed at us or just picked up like the 1936 Olympics were and haven’t heard anything yet that for sure indicates alien civilization and those listening theorize that we should have heard something by now, if they’re really out there. A follow on theory, though, opines that there could be one or more advanced civilizations but that once a civilization reaches a certain technological point, essentially, once it’s learned everything there is to know scientifically, that civilization may ‘go silent.’ It may receive data but, not really learning anything new, it may just hunker down and be completely self-contained, figuring “There’s nothing new/more we can learn, therefore no reason to interact with another civilization.” We’ve already detected thousands, if not tens of thousands, of ‘exo-planets’ in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone: the range from its parent star to allow liquid water, giving evolution a chance to kick in. The universe could be filled with, essentially, dinosaur planets or planets containing civilizations at the level of Rome or roughly 1800s level technology and we wouldn’t know it. We’ve launched the James Webb space telescope which has already taught us SO much we didn’t know about the universe but I’m not sure it could detect a fire and stone civilization. We’ve found life in some BIZARRE places, though, where we could have sworn no life is possible. There are organisms doing quite well on the bottom of the ocean, for instance, that draw nutrients and energy from, for instance, undersea volcanoes that withstand pressure and high temperatures that would destroy anything else.

Lamar Smith

Jax: "Where is the secret service?" Movie: "It's a secret." LOL, to be honest, though, was a little disappointed Jax didn't react to seeing Jayne from Firefly playing the head of security in Area 51. I know Boomer was just too big of a star to tell. So I can over look it.

Minibeast

Classic Roland Emmerich, stupid but lots of fun :) A couple of things popped into my head as I was watching: - AWACS stands for "Airborne Warning And Control System", they're planes with massive radar capability that are used to coordinate air combat. - You mentioned the aliens that built the pyramids, this is a good chance for me to nominate the movie "Stargate" as a future reaction if you haven't already seen it. Kurt Russell, James Spader, and directed by the same guy who directed Independence Day. The Director's/Extended Cut is preferred, but the differences aren't massive. - If S.E.T.I. piques your interest, I would strongly recommend the movie "Contact" with Jodie Foster & Matthew McConaughey, based on the novel by Carl Sagan. - And if patriotic movies are your thing, another Roland Emmerich movie might be up your alley, "The Patriot" starring Mel Gibson. Again, the Director's Cut is preferred, but not essential. - As for what's really at Area 51, it's more officially known as Groom Lake. It was originally established in the 50's to test the U-2 spy plane. In more recent years, it was where they tested the F-117 stealth fighter.

Patrick Egan

Okay, early movie questions: Who paid for those flowers (at the White House? We did. You don’t know what AWACs means. Airborne early Warning and Control. You take a civilian airliner, attach a HUGE radar dish to its back, fly it up at the cruising altitude of, say, a 707, stuff what would be the passenger compartment with trained Air Force aerial intercept personnel and a crap ton of secure radio communications and you have, essentially, an airborne ‘quarterback’ for American aircraft. The aircraft itself has no weapons, so these things don’t fly without fighter escorts fairly close by. When the US deploys air, ground or naval units overseas, one of the absolute FIRST considerations is AWACs support: Where are the nearest ones and how quickly can we get enough in theater to keep one aloft on a 24 hour basis? In shifts, of course. I’m 100% sure there’s a unit of them deployed just outside of, for instance, Ukrainian air space to monitor the airborne battlefield and feeding target data and threat warnings to the Ukrainians 24/7. They are, literally, our electronic ‘eyes in the sky.’ The standard answer as to their radar range is 250miles with some sensors able to pick up threats 400miles away. We don’t deploy ANYWHERE without them. In a civilian disaster, if an airport loses, say, its tower, the AWACs can easily handle those tasks for MULTIPLE airports. My absolute FAVORITE scene in this movie is when the US figures out how to communicate and sends messages out to the world’s air forces and you see both how eager fighting pilots are to protect their land, the earth and, at the end, you see Israeli pilots sharing a tent with Muslim pilots, setting aside their differences and ready to set the world aright. Gives me chills EVERY time. Want peace in the Middle East, we need an alien invasion.

Lamar Smith

I generally try not to nitpick action movies and just enjoy them for what they are, but there's one thing that bothers me with this movie. The aliens have a ton of city-sized ships and need to coordinate on opposite sides of the planet, so they use our satellites to broadcast their signal. But it disrupts our satellite signal and gives a clue to the countdown. Why couldn't they leave a ship or two in orbit to redirect their signal? Why disrupt our satellite signals. Even without the countdown, if they're disrupting our satellites and communications, some people might come to the conclusion that they're up to no good. It just seems like an unnecessary risk, considering how efficient the rest of their invasion is. You'd only need to leave your ships in orbit until the countdown is complete, and then they could come down and join the attack. Anyways, that's it. I love this movie, and that speech from the president will always be the best movie speech ever, in my view. While not nearly as polished and uplifting, I personally also enjoyed "Battle: Los Angeles" and "Battleship," which are two more alien invasion movies. Both are just popcorn action flicks, so they're not boasting any Oscars, but they could be fun to watch someday. Also, "War of the Worlds" (2005) with Tom Cruise is worth checking out.

BubblyRainbows

I couldn't tell if you recognized Jayne Cobb, without his cunning hat.

Chester Beals

So this is why Americans celebrate Independence Day.

LittleGalaxyBoy

Always a fun movie, looking forward to watching it with you, Jax :)

Patrick Egan

Frankly, JAWS is the premier 4th of July film. But this one isn't too bad.

MotoDork


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