INDEPENDENCE DAY: 4K UltraHD Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox 1996) Fox Home Video
Few
science-fiction movies have staying power beyond the decade in which they were
conceived. Today’s movie-land acreage has been so miserably littered with
like-minded knock-offs of the ‘earthly
invasion by unknown visitors from the farthest reaches of outer space’ that
even to suggest the concept now sounds quaint to downright old hat.
Proliferation is one thing. Over-saturation to the point of absurdity is quite
another. Yet, Roland Emmerich’s Independence
Day (1996, and foreshortened to ID4)
has endured the onslaught it helped to create two decades ago, perhaps because
in hindsight it ushered in this new era of sci-fi sensationalism with a grandly
amusing, unabashedly flag-waving, yahoo-spirited American fight to the finish,
for which it reaped considerable rewards (an opening weekend gross of
$50,228,264 in the U.S. practically earning back its entire outlay of $75
million, and, tipping the scales with a worldwide intake of $817,400,891). It
stands to reason when a movie is this successful it becomes an easy target for
scathing criticism. Rita Kempley of the Washington Post led the charge in 1996,
suggesting Emmerich’s much anticipated juggernaut had been fueled “not by cosmic imagination, but plain,
old-fashioned ballyhoo; an overgrown hybrid of the disaster epic, can-do combat
adventure and '50s sci-fi movie (with a) titanium bumper sticker that reads,
‘Been There. Done That. Beam Me Up, Scotty.’”
In hindsight,
there is some truth to Kempley’s diatribe, more fraught with narrow-minded
indecision over Emmerich’s lack of originality than appreciative of the
impressive vision he hath wrought with efficiency, well-grounded use of his
top-heavy all-star cast and mind-boggling array of then state-of-the-art
special effects. And, it is saying quite enough of Emmerich’s direction – also,
of the screenplay co-authored with Dean Devlin – that ID4 rarely lapses into the sort of SFX-laden, wide-eyed and silly
cliché long-since typifying the sci-fi genre, even as it tends to lean rather
heavily on just about every chestnut from this back catalog. What sets
Emmerich’s movie apart and makes it stand out from its imitators two decades
into the future are the haunting vignettes seared into our subconscious.
Beginning with that first disturbing shadow creeping across the rough gray
surface of the moon, heightened by David Arnold’s evocative underscore, right
on through to our first glimpse of these super craft separating from their
mother ship and descending from on high as fiery Olympian thunderbolts ready to
strike with a dark purpose, to the epic deluge capping off the first hour (a
stellar combination of old school model work, full scale pyrotechnics shot in
slo-mo and cleverly obscured CGI); the complete decimation of Washington,
Manhattan and Los Angeles; each metropolitan center engulfed in a nuclear
holocaust, ID4 creates spectacular
unease bordering on 1950’s Cold War paranoia, arguably, not brought to the
screen with such awesome discipline since Robert Wise’s iconic The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951).
Emmerich’s
precisely manufactured introduction to ID4
is nothing short of a revisionist’s take on this classic sci-fi thriller,
capably bottling, then releasing our collected anxiety about what – and who –
may lie beyond our meager comprehension of the universe, if and when the day
arrives two such civilizations should collide.
The first hour of ID4 is of
such perfection, topped off by (at least in hindsight) a prolific and
bone-chilling matte painting, depicting lower Manhattan in flames (the tops of
the World Trade Center decapitated and burning, Lady Liberty half submerged in
the foreground) it is rather too easy to dismiss what follows in the next hour
and 25 min. (hour and thirty-three in the Special Edition cut) as mere fanciful
tripe. Realistically, the high stakes drama has nowhere to go but down after
this monumental start and Emmerich somewhat fumbles the ball thereafter; his
intergalactic powerhouse becoming earthbound and landlocked in a series of
romantic entanglements, meant to provide back story, but otherwise delaying
hot-shot pilot, Capt. Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and cable TV programmer, David
Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) from becoming the unlikely patriots of a new
Independence Day to prevent the alien blitzkrieg from consuming the world.
ID4 is oft criticized for its’ ethnocentric eccentricity.
Okay, it is difficult, if not
altogether impossible, to argue against this point as, according the film, only
American optimism and ingenuity are shovel-ready and technologically advanced,
enough to give these tenacious leviathans a run for the galaxy; Emmerich and
Devlin pooling their creative resources from that perennial wellspring of
conspiracy theories swirling around the infamously remote desert location,
cryptically known as Area 51, Roswell, New Mexico. ID4 is not terribly concerned with looking beyond the boundaries of
the United States for inspiration or outside help. In the days before 9-11 and
the presidency of Barak Obama, American ingenuity in general, though
particularly of the ilk perpetuated in Hollywood, seemed virtually limitless.
Were that it were true or, at least, plausibly believable. In some ways, I would sincerely have this
patriotic naiveté again, as viewing ID4
from our present era, chronically apologizing for its own exceptionalism – and
even going so far as to intimate it never existed to begin with – has since
rendered ID4 itself, as something of
a blind-sided relic, gleaned from an epoch far removed, though undeniably less
jaded than our present.
Since ID4, ‘what if’ scenarios - variations on our hemisphere felled by
intergalactic invasion from hostile visitors, has proven insidiously popular.
As a supposedly advanced and intelligent race of creatures, we require
virtually no outside help to systematically wipe ourselves off the face of this
tiny planet we begrudgingly share, yet rail against, with thought-numbing – and
thoughtless – incongruity to conquer ourselves from within. Even more certain, the mood and sentiment of
one nation triumphing over no less a threat than this marauding interplanetary
foe, hell-bent on conquering, populating and eventually decimating its annexed
food supply, rings hollow with its conformism: disparate surviving factions of
humanity, briefly brought together in service of destroying something greater
than themselves. Yet, Emmerich's take on the traditionalist sci-fi thriller is
far more chancy than most. His first act bates us with awe-inspiring foretastes
of apocalyptic fire clouds gathering on the horizon, and, grainy video images
of unidentified objects looming overhead. Emmerich juxtaposes our limited
understanding of the violent opera soon to follow, with omnipotent vistas from
the alien perspective bearing down on this island earth, piercing the sound
barrier with low frequency hums, first picked up by radar satellite and
thereafter ever-present and growing louder until the countdown to an unholy
phenomenon sounds the first death knell for the earth-shattering dismemberment
of all mankind.
The pacing of
Emmerich second act needs work; chiefly because after establishing a formidable
cast of characters with expertly staged snippets and sound bites precisely laid
out to inform us ‘who’ and ‘what’ each member of this ensemble is
all about, Emmerich is forced to move like a crab, sideways, into his back
story – keeping everyone’s narrative arc moving in a forward trajectory.
Despite some fleeting moments of high drama, herein Emmerich’s brainchild
occasionally stumbles like a clumsy infant learning to take its’ first heroic
steps into the light. This is not quite the deal breaker some critics have
suggested, and yet it diffuses the overall adventurist spirit of the piece; ‘us
vs. them’ taking a backseat as warring factions among this handful of survivors
desperately struggle to iron out the kinks in a daredevil’s comeback; in
tandem, tossing F-1 jetfighters and primitive crop-dusting biplanes at the
mothership in an all-or-nothing aerial assault meant to sabotage the total
alien annihilation of the human race. Difficult to assess whether there is too
much exposition, or, even more ironically, not nearly enough to keep us
interested; President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman), a sort of
better-looking though just as liberal Jimmy Carter, and, First Lady Marilyn
(Mary McDonnell) the least clearly drawn characters in this piece. The
President and his wife are the perfect couple…boring! So Emmerich would much
rather revel in the playfully adversarial rapport between estranged marrieds;
cable programmer, David Levinson and Whitmore’s White House attaché, Constance
Spano (Margaret Colin) whom David erroneously suspects of having a schoolgirl
crush on her boss. For added comic relief, Judd Hirsch as David’s caustic
proto-Jewish father, Julius is stirred to patriarchal fervor in David’s defense
after Whitmore’s advisor, Albert Nimziki (James Rebhorn) tries to diminish his
contributions after their narrow escape from the hellish fireball that leveled
the city and almost engulfed Air Force One.
While the
first half of Independence Day is
clever enough to avoid virtually every cliché in the sci-fi playbook, its
second act steadily falls prey to the retreads and standardized conventions;
both, of traditional sci-fi movie-land lore and the ‘love among the ruins’
romantic entanglements inherent in a traditional disaster flick. These involve
two couples; the aforementioned David and Constance, and the as yet discussed,
unessential alliance of a nightclub stripper, Jasmine Dubrow (Vivica A. Fox)
with Capt. Hiller. Jasmine’s profession has impugned Steven’s ability to step
up his rank, despite a flawless record as a hotshot pilot. The Devlin/Emmerich
screenplay is constantly looking for ways to keep these couples apart,
presumably to remind both us and them of the importance in human solidarity.
Predictably, it all leads to tearful/fearful goodbyes midway through and
smiling/happy reunions in the end. Having survived the alien holocaust that
decimated Los Angeles, idiotically by taking refuge in a cement storage bunker
with her young son, Dylan (Ross Bagley) and their beloved golden retriever,
Boomer; Jasmine adopts an almost warrior-esque Scarlett O’Hara stance on life –
to never (go hungry) be without her man again. Meanwhile, Steven gets involved
in a series of atypically butch and chest-thumping skirmishes with the enemy.
Along the way, sacrifices are made. But victory is at hand – and, predictably,
turbo-infused with American jingoism elevated to WWII Teutonic heights.
Emmerich has
not forgotten how to tell a good story. But he does deviate considerably by
inserting video-game flavored dogfights between passionate embraces and silly
bits of tongue-in-cheek comedy; moments of traditionally male-bonding
camaraderie involving doomed copilot, Capt. Jimmy Wilder (Harry Connick Jr.)
and other turgid bits devoted to Dr. Brackish Okun – a NASA egghead, more
‘nutty professor/hippy brain child (as performed by Brent Spiner). The best of
these screen teams comes late in the third act; a burgeoning, cigar-chomping
buddy/buddy bro-mance between Steven and David, each exercising the mettle of
their character, while egregiously delaying the Spielberg-esque satisfaction
Emmerich is so transparently aiming for; the kind that gave us such
masterpieces as Close Encounters of the
Third Kind (1977) and E.T.
(1982). That the rest of Emmerich's opus
magnum gradually disintegrates under this pressured race against time is a
shame and, even more undeniably, hardly imaginative. The story clings together,
even heroically so, primarily because the cast sells their triviality with
great conviction. Alas, the immediacy of their peril, that nail-biting grace
note of terror Emmerich has so feverishly concocted to kick off his movie, is
now inexplicably absent, replaced by a stifling array of state-of-the-art
visual effects to manage the necessary business of muddling through to the last
hurrah.
Our story
begins July 2, 1996 with an Area 51 sighting of a large circular object rapidly
moving towards the earth. U.S. President Thomas Whitmore is informed of a
possible other worldly invasion by his military advisers. While Whitmore
recognizes the urgency in this unprecedented turn of events, particularly as
factions from this outer space colossus separate and descend upon the
metropolitan centers of Washington, L.A. and Manhattan, evacuating the populace
is delayed for fear of inciting a universal panic. If ID4 has a misfire, it must be Emmerich’s cutaway to the remote
desert town where we are introduced to alcoholic crop duster, Russell Case
(Randy Quaid), the brunt of cruel jokes from a bunch of rednecks, and, an
embarrassment to his children; Miguel (James Duval), Alicia (Lisa Jakub) and
Troy (Giuseppe Andrews). But ole Russell is about to be exonerated of his claim
he was abducted by aliens some years ago when a portentous silhouette passes
overhead, creating intense vibrations in the earth as it heads toward Los
Angeles.
Meanwhile in
Manhattan, cable TV programmer, David Levinson has discovered a dim countdown
signal imbedded in the cryptic alien transmissions. Suspecting the worst is yet
to come, David urges his boss, Marty Gilbert (Harvey Fierstein) to get out of
town. Next, David rushes to New Jersey to collect his stubborn dad,
Julius. Now, the unlikely father/son
team risks their safety to drive to D.C. and forewarn David’s ex, Constance of
the epic deluge about to befall each city. Constance is reluctant to buy into
David’s nervous fear-mongering, as is Whitmore, who once suffered the wrong end
of an altercation with David over a presumed infidelity with his wife. The
President’s chief advisors, General William Grey (Robert Loggia) and Albert
Nimziki add their vote of condescension; at least, until David reveals the
countdown code intercepted from the alien hovercraft. These visitors are
coordinating an attack. Alas, sounding the general alarm comes much too late to
spare everyone. Lost in the firestorm are the First Lady, the Vice President
and Marty, along with millions of gridlocked bystanders.
In the
aftermath, the President, Constance, Julius and David are flown to relative
safety; Whitmore debriefed by Nimziki. Area 51 does exist. Moreover, the
Roswell location has been home to alien autopsies and spacecraft technologies
recovered and thereafter endlessly researched since the mid-1950s by elfin Dr.
Brakish Okun and his small entourage of gooney eggheads. In the desert, an
alien dogfight utterly decimates the remote military airbase where Steven is
posted. In the ensuing foxfire, Steven manages to take out an alien pilot; its
stinky remains brought back to Area 51 for dissection. Regrettably, the pilot
is not dead; merely wounded and stirred to retaliate as Okun begins his
autopsy. The creature murders Okun and his colleagues; then, invades Okun’s
mind, using him to lure Whitmore to the bullet-proof glass in the hopes of
freeing itself from the laboratory. The
President, however, is not so easily fooled. After discovering Okun is already
dead, his body merely being contorted like a puppet by this foreign life force,
Whitmore orders a full-on assault that destroys the creature for good.
Steven is
reunited with Jasmine who, having stolen a dump truck stocked full of refugee
survivors, has made her way to Roswell. The couple rekindles their love, vowing
to never again let differences stand in the way of their happiness. In a
private ceremony, Steven weds Jasmine before being called to his most perilous
mission: to fly the captured alien attacker back to the mothership with David
aboard. Once docked, David will download a computer virus to disable the ship’s
protective shields and render contact with their earthbound destroyers useless.
Aside: I have read far too many critical diatribes on how idiotic a notion it
is to believe earthbound computer technologies – arguably, more primitive –
would have the capacity to wipe out such an advanced communication system;
other reviews pointing to a glaring transparency in the argument that any
man-made tech support could interface with this alien platform, much less
infect it with a virus. At some point, one has to simply run with Hitchcock’s
logic, “it’s only a movie” and move
on from there…or, adopt Steve Martin’s glorious explication from 1991’s Grand
Canyon; “You know what your problem is?
You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the
movies!” After downloading the
lethal virus to the mothership, Steven and David stage a daring escape moments
before it implodes. On earth, the alien vessels are immobilized and/or downed
by U.S. fighter pilots; Russell redeeming himself in the eyes of his children
by sacrificing himself; his biplane, loaded with explosives and bound for a
kamikaze collision course with the alien cruiser. At the victory celebration
that follows, Whitmore congratulates Steven and David for their heroism and
Jasmine and Constance rejoining their men with a communal sense of pride.
Emmerich's
pie-eyed patriotism aside, the final act of Independence Day is pretty par for the course of what constitutes a
good sci-fi thriller these days. We have seen all this before and occasionally,
done with more originality, though arguably, not with as much finesse,
elsewhere. It is difficult to discount the picture in its entirety, despite
such artistic failings and loopholes, even less to remain disgruntled with, or
virtually unmoved by, the clean humor thrown in for good measure. Hitchcock implicitly understood that even a
dark thriller needs its gags. And Emmerich has taken this sentiment to heart if
– as some may argue – somewhat too far. I disagree. The laughs are properly
placed and evenly maintained throughout
ID4. They neither suffer from, nor destabilize, the set piece action
sequences. Example: as Steven and David prepare to engage the mother ship in
outer space, Julius invites the refugees huddled in an underground bunker
inside Area 51 to partake in a vigilant prayer. When Nimzicki, taking notice of
the yarmulke atop Julius' head, suggests,
“But I'm not Jewish”, Julius’ sly rebuttal, “Well...Nobody's perfect” brings levity to the hour of their
retribution.
Even more
admirable, Emmerich has foregone using CGI SFX as his crutch. While ID4 is loaded with miracle-inducing
special effects, virtually all are put into servicing toward the story.
Employing detailed miniatures of famous U.S. landmarks, among them the Capital
Building, the Statue of Liberty and the White House, Emmerich has devised an
ingenious and seamless pseudo-reality; the models imploded with advanced
pyrotechnics shot at high film speeds and only augmented in the editing process
by CGI enhancements to add depth and scope to the effect itself. The results
are uncanny and far more convincing. Too many like-minded endeavors have
suffered from CGI overkill. ID4
holds up because we can clearly see these effects have been achieved full scale
rather than artificially reproduced wholesale inside the clinical realm of a computer
hard drive. Karl Walter Lindenlaub's cinematography has also torn a page from
the film maker’s playbook of yesteryear. Today, it has all but become
unfashionable to establish the cinema space in long shot. But ID4 is a movie of exquisite visual panache.
Lindenlaub gives us many master shots throughout that go so far as to hint of
an almost David Lean quality if Lean himself were ever prone to exploring
sci-fi up close and personal; the spaceship that ominously advances at a
snail’s pace on the tiny isle of Manhattan, as example, viewed from a multitude
of angles; the craft’s laser dart centrifuge resting atop a cleverly designed
miniature of the famed Empire State Building. Herein, we ought to applaud
Lindenlaub and Emmerich for their artistic restraint; the lack of lazy/shaky
handheld camerawork commendable in achieving a high key-lit level of
sophistication.
In the days
following the real-life tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, rumors swirled 2oth
Century-Fox was contemplating re-editing this New York sequence; particularly,
to remove and/or alter the static master shot, illustrating a lower Manhattan
afire with both World Trade towers decapitated and burning. Thankfully, cooler
heads at Fox prevailed - as they should. Film is a cultural artifact of its own
time and should never be tampered with to suit contemporary tastes and
sensibilities. Generations from now, the mood, temperament and collective
cultural mindset of a pre-9-11 America will be on full display in ID4 to be studied, judged and
interpreted on its own terms; our insatiable appetite to witness our own demise
from afar perhaps adopting a perverse catharsis from which this even more
repugnant reality was spawned. It is difficult to impossible, if not entirely
foolhardy, to suggest such art gave terrorists their grand ideas for the
nauseating attack that brought down New York’s Twin Towers. In retrospect only,
ID4’s visuals distort the reminder
of that thought-numbing moment of cowardice from afar when terror struck at the
heart of this metropolis, never to be quite the same ever again.
In 1998, Independence Day became one of Fox Home
Video’s first 2-disc Five Star DVD Editions to hit the market, containing both
the theatrical and extended cuts of the film; to say nothing of the formidable
girth in extras afforded its debut. Alas, when the new Blu-Ray from Fox arrived
in 2008, fans were outraged to discover a bare-bones affair; only the
theatrical cut, and an audio commentary surviving this cost-cutting effort. Then,
for its 20th anniversary, Fox elected to issue a new 4K mastered
2-disc Blu-ray. The results were not
without their curiosities. For starters, the old Blu-ray from ’08 held to
vibrant color saturation, favoring candy-apple reds, rich earth tones and deep
azure blues. By direct comparison, the 20th reissue looked duller; reds,
adopting a slightly ruddy orange patina; earth tones more brown/beige than
orange/brown, and the azure blues slightly leaning toward teal. Contrast was
another issue. The old Blu-ray appeared darker; blacks inky and rich. Since 20
years have passed, I could not say which presentation more accurately achieves
the look of original print theatrical projection. In some ways, the claim now seems moot,
because the legitimate 4K re-release of
ID4 goes even further in color refinement than either of the two
aforementioned discs. Reds still look slightly out of whack to me. Look at the
tail lights of all those cars trapped in the tunnel as Vivica A. Fox
desperately tries to flee the mother ship’s roiling fireball; the tail lights glowing
ominous orange instead of danger-warning red. There’s less ‘teal’ here, but a
lot more blue, the palette decidedly cooler than anything we’ve seen thus far.
Special effects hold up remarkably well under the all-exposing scrutiny of
ultra-hi-def. Film grain is far more prominently displayed, and there are a few
fleeting edge effects scattered throughout that I personally found
disheartening. I mean, this is 4K. Edge
effects? Are you kidding me?!?
We finally get
a 7.1 DTS audio. The old 20th Blu-ray advertised as much, but my
receiver only ever decoded it as DTS 5.1. So, good stuff. Better still, Fox has
reinstated a lot of the retired extras on the Blu-ray only option: two audio
commentaries for starters: a rather tepid one by Roland Emmerich and
producer/co-writer, Dean Devlin; the second, fleshing out lots more details,
cohosted by Oscar-winning SFX supervisors, Volker Engel and Doug Smith. The
best of the extras is Independence Day: A Legacy Surging Forward,
a brand new documentary weighing in at just a little over 30 minutes with
remembrances culled from the old extra features and new reflections from
Emmerich, Devlin, Engel and Smith, production designer, Patrick Tatopoulos, and
actors, Brent Spiner, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch and Vivica Fox,
as well as a few choice bits of consideration by the new stars of the upcoming
sequel. Fox has also deigned to give us the old extras in their original edit: Creating Reality – a half hour promo on
how the SFX were created; ID4 Invasion
Mockumentary – at just under a half hour, showcasing the unedited ‘news’
accounts used to chart the alien invasion;
The Making of ID4 – again hovering around the 30 minute mark with Jeff
Goldblum as the MC to this backstage look; and finally, Monitor Earth Broadcasts – almost an hour of simulated
around-the-world broadcasts charting the alien invasion. Bottom line: you don’t
really need to double dip for this unless, of course you have a sizable home
theater setup, have never owned the movie in any of its many reissues, or are
just into spending money on repurchases because you can.
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
3.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
5+
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