Episode 58 - INDEPENDENCE DAY

 

Best remembered for boot-strapping highlights like Bill Pullman's rousing speech or Will Smith's aggressive greeting of an alien visitor, Independence Day teaches us that only good old-fashioned American courage and ingenuity can take down an intergalactic threat.

Sure, the film also tries to be a gallery of character moments tied together by vague, warm feelings of human resilience and unity in times of great crisis. But what other country's head of state is going to strap into a fighter jet and feed those E.T.s a steady diet of air-to-air missiles?

For this special Fourth of July episode, we welcome two real patriots--Brian Rudloff and Daren Sprawls--to debate the merits of ID4, from the appearance of its extraterrestrials and the dimensionality of its cast, to its tempered version of blockbuster machismo and its entertainment value relative to Mars Attacks!

Independence Day (1996)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Produced by Dean Devlin
Written by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin
Starring Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A. Fox, Randy Quaid, Margaret Colin, Mary McDonnell, Robert Loggia, James Rebhorn, and Brent Spiner