155. Independence Day (1996)

Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

For my "arts" class in college I took Intro. to Theater with Dr. Patricia Clark. I had a blast. For our final project we had an open-ended assignment to produce a product about theater. You could write a paper, make a poster-board, give a presentation, or do a monologue (and MOVIES COUNTED!!!). I of course prepared the monologue above. This was pretty easy because I had had this speed memorized for about five years. Dr. Clark loved it! Woohoo!

Let me begin by saying, that according to my standards of refined movie taste, this movie is pretty terrible. That being said, it is just so doggone much fun!!! Fueled by Star Wars (and later "The X-Files"), I was intrigued by aliens. I actually wrote an outline for a movie script called "The Test" in which aliens demolish Washington, D.C. during the Inagaural ball to see how the country would react. When I saw the trailer for "Independence Day" during the 1996 super bowl, I was incensed that they had stolen my idea, but at the same time filled with an overwhelming anticipation to see the movie. Six months later, I LOVED IT! Everthing a fifteen-year-old nerd looks for in movies. It was the second VHS I ever owned (after the Star Wars trilogy, of course), and I actually preordered it so that I could get a glow-in-the-dark frisbee. It's also pretty refreshing to go back and check this movie out because of the use of miniatures. Something just looks a little more real when the objects getting blown up are physically real as opposed to glorified cartoons. This was probably the last great hurrah for this type of special effect.