Independence Day (film)

Independence Day is an American action movie about an attempted alien takeover of the Earth. The movie features several scenes of major American landmarks being destroyed by the aliens, such as the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, California, the Empire State Building and the White House. The film's success was partially credited to an extensive marketing campaign which began with a dramatic commercial during Super Bowl XXX. This movie was scheduled for release on Wednesday, July 3, 1996, but due to high level of anticipation for the film, many theaters began showing it on the evening of July 2, the same day the action in the film begins.

Trivia

• In an alternate ending scene, Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) was originally denied service in the U.S.-led worldwide aerial counterattack force, so he flew on his unarmed biplane with a missile attached to it, knowing he was going to kill himself by destroying one of the alien space destroyers. The scene was dropped and later revised: in the new version of this scene, Casse joined the U.S.-led worldwide aerial counterattack force and flew an F-18 jet fighter plane instead of his biplane and later makes the decision to destroy the alien space destroyer on a suicide run after his firing mechanism jammed. According to the director's commentary, the original scene "lost some of the realism of the film" and the revised sequence "gave the character a choice to sacrifice himself or not".
• The studio did not want the film to use the title "Independence Day" so Bill Pullman ad-libbed the final line in his speech to include the title.
• In the TV show South Park, many episodes feature a spoof of the Morse Code scene at the end of the movie, when they defeat the antagonist of that episode.