you may inadvertently trigger an interstellar war

[freckles_and_doubt]

I derive considerable pleasure from contemplating the fact that my DVD collection is now reaching the proportions where, if I randomly decide of a Saturday evening that I want to watch something irrevocably silly and B-movie while consuming half a bottle of red wine, Independence Day is right there. I love that movie. It's so utterly dreadful, and the thunderous crash with which the clichés fall into place is so deeply pleasing. Besides, bonus Adam Baldwin, not to mention random arguments with the Evil Landlord ("the giant spaceship should have crashed on the base!" "no, it was slipping sideways when it blew up!" "was not!") and the fact that my copy is apparently a special edition with bunches of additional footage, causing me, until I worked out this fact, to glare accusingly at the bottle of wine every time I really didn't remember that bit. Also, the active pain of the frequently abysmal essays on Pan's Labyrinth I've been marking all afternoon is now somewhat dulled.

I'm going to bed now. Any typos in this post are entirely drunken.

Comments

[mwotn.livejournal.com]

That film used to terrify me when I first saw it... (think it had something to do with being 10 or so at the time)

Actually can't remember the plot any more. Am I missing much?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Well, it's a terrible film (see "utterly dreadful", above), but enormously good fun if you like disaster movies, giant spaceships, predictable stereotypes, complete absence of plot logic and the deeply satisfying spectacle of major American landmarks being blown to smithereens. Also, bonus Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith, both of whom are fun to watch.

[mwotn.livejournal.com]

Yah, I thought it might have been something like that. The main bit of the film I remember is the world's air forces cooperaing together right at the end... which, despite my institutionalised bias against the RAF and their ilk, is pretty good fun.

A lot of films I watch are pretty sketchy on plot, although the winner on this has to be Death Race, which takes the line "Plot is for losers, let's just blow up stuff!" Hugely entertaining but utter drivel.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Watchers in Africa become a mite twitchy at the idea that Africa is represented solely by tribesmen with spears rejoicing as the spaceship hits Mount Kilamanjaro. Also, Australia appears to have vanished completely, possibly owing to a slightly more subtle alien plot.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

I loved the way they got onto the alien spaceship, plugged in their laptop &, wahay, communication!

It was an Apple laptop of course. Anything running microsoft would have crashed the whole thing!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hah. A valid point also included on the 40 Things I Learned From ID4 (http://www.ufomind.com/area51/event/ethighway/id4/lessons.html) email meme that went around after the film came out. All horribly true, and possibly tending to increase, rather than reduce, my enjoyment of the movie.