Happy 25th Anniversary To Independence Day!

I'm a couple days late here, but whatever. Happy 25th Anniversary to Independence Day (the movie, not the holiday)! Believe it or not, it premiered back on July 3rd, 1996 (although some cities just couldn't wait and began running it a day early).

The movie was written by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, and was directed by Emmerich. Over the years the duo collaborated in one form or another on films such as Universal Soldier, Stargate, Godzilla (1998) and The Patriot.

Independence Day had a budget of just $75 million, but went on to gross an astonishing $817 million— in 1996 dollars! That's the equivalent of $1.4 BILLION today! Holy Crap!

ID4 (as it's often known) is one of my guiltiest of guilty pleasures. No, strike that— there's nothing guilty about it, as it's one of my all time favorite movies. I saw it in the theater back in 1996, and immediately loved it. I've seen it a good twenty or thirty times over the years, and I never get tired of it. Any time I see it playing on TV I have to drop everything and watch it.

I'm not exactly sure why I like it so much or what makes it so compelling to me. I freely admit it's big, dumb and loud, but damn if it isn't engaging and entertaining, and in the end, isn't that a movie's job?

Yes, many of the characters are paper thin or stereotypes. But the film allows the audience to spend time getting to know them, so we end up becoming invested in their lives and what's happening to them. Modern movies could learn a thing or two from ID4.

It's become an annual tradition in my household to watch it every July 4th!

ID4 has a huge cast, featuring a large number of actors who'd worked primarily in TV— including Will Smith. He'd just finished his stint on The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air TV series when the film premiered in 1996. The movie catapulted his career and made him a superstar overnight. 

The FX work is top notch as well. The film premiered after the dawn of the CGI age, but still used a massive amount of practical effects. In fact it holds the record for most miniatures used in a single production. That's probably why most of the effects still hold up a quarter of a century later. It featured its fair share of digital work as well though, mostly in the fighter jet scenes. In all the film features over 3,000 effects shots.

What made the movie stand out was its "go for broke" attitude toward the alien destruction. This wasn't your typical wimpy invasion— these aliens didn't hold back, and went for the major landmarks! It's fair to say audiences had never seen carnage on such a massive scale before, which is part of what made the film so successful. The shot of them destroying the White House was totally unexpected and at the time, shocking. It ended up becoming the most iconic image of the entire movie.

The idea for the film came when Devlin and Emmerich were on a promotional tour for Stargate. When a reporter asked if he believed in aliens, Emmerich said no, as he didn't believe they'd fly all the way here just to hide in a backwoods field. He said he was fascinated by the idea of waking up one morning to see fifteen-mile wide spaceships hovering over the world's cities. He then reportedly turned to Devlin and said, "I think we have an idea for our next film!"

The pair wrote the script during a month long vacation in Mexico, and it was greenlit by Fox chairman Peter Chernin just one day later. Three days after that they began pre-production on the film!

The US military originally promised to provide personnel, vehicles and uniforms to the production, but pulled out when Devlin & Emmerich refused to remove references to Area 51!

Watch for the edit when David (played by Jeff Goldblum) warns his coworker Marty (played by Harvey Fierstein) to get to safety. Marty says, Oh, my God. I gotta call my brother! I gotta call my housekeeper! I gotta call my lawyer! Nah, forget my lawyer!" If you watch closely, he clearly says, "F*ck my lawyer," but the filmmakers dubbed the line to "forget" to avoid an R rating.

In the original ending, Russell Casse (played by real life crazy person Randy Quaid) saved the day by strapping a missile to his red biplane and flying it into the alien ship hovering above Area 51. Emmerich eventually reshot the scene with Russell piloting a fighter jet, as he thought it was too unbelievable for a biplane to keep pace with such planes. I think he made the right decision.

Something I noticed in my most recent viewing— the movie features a large and very diverse cast, consisting of numerous races, genders, religions and orientations. Everyone gets along as they all work toward the common goal of survival against insurmountable odds. Best of all, this diversity feels completely natural and not forced, as it so often does in films today. It simply exists, and no one comments on it— which is the way it should be done.

If this film were being made today, you can bet your bottom dollar that the studio would be trumpeting its diversity, representation and inclusivity and beating the audience over the head with the fact, and would sacrifice story for identity politics. Again, modern films could learn a thing or twelve from this one.

So Happy 25th to Independence Day!

Happy 25th Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Can you believe it was 25 years ago today that Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered? Yep, it first aired back on September 29, 1987. 25 years! What the hell's going on with the flow of time lately? 

ST:TNG was the highest rated syndicated show ever, averaging around 20 million viewers per episode. That was more than some prime time series generated at the time, and far more than any series could ever hope to achieve today (to be fair, some stations aired the show twice a week, which naturally doubled the ratings). It racked up a whopping 18 Emmy Awards and was the only syndicated program to ever be nominated for an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. Not bad for a show about people exploring outer space in their pajamas.

I was a huge fan of the series back in the day (by that of course I mean I was an avid enthusiast of the show, not that I myself was huge). After all, this was the first brand new live action Star Trek content to be aired in almost two decades! I dutifully recorded it every week on my trusty VCR (ask your parents, kids) and spent many a paycheck on Trek related merchandise.

The series featured a great cast (especially Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner), top notch writing and for the most part, slick state of the art special effects.

ST:TNG gave us many new and memorable alien races: the greedy, capitalistic Ferengi, the Nazi-like Cardassians (not Kardashians!) and best of all, the relentless, unstoppable Borg.

It also took the Klingons, who were pretty much one-dimensional villains in the Original Series and greatly expanded their culture, making them one of the more interesting races on the show.

They even managed to feature a few guest appearances from Original Series characters, specifically McCoy, Spock, Sarek and Scotty.

Like the Original Series, ST:TNG used sci-fi to examine various controversial topics such as racism, terrorism, assisted suicide, child abuse, homosexuality and torture.

Despite all the accolades and my love for the show, even I have to admit that it wasn't perfect. Many of the First Season episodes are dreadful and a chore to sit through. The Second Season was better, but was marred and cut short by a lengthy writer's strike. In fact the final episode of Season Two strayed firmly into Family Ties territory as it gave us the first ever clip show in the history of Trek! The series finally hit its stride in Season 3 and from then on gave us a shuttlecraft full of memorable episodes. 

Part of me has to wonder: If it had been a network show, would they have given the series three full seasons to get its bearings? I'm thinking probably not.

ST:TNG also suffered from a large number of just plain dull characters. Dr. Crusher? Counselor Troi? I'm dozing just typing their names. For seven seasons all Counselor Troi ever did was sit in a chair with her arms crossed and say, "I sense great anger..." Her only memorable characteristic was that she liked chocolate. How fascinating. And other than her wildly inappropriate name I don't think we ever learned anything at all about Dr. Crusher. 

Even Geordi LaForge was pretty bland when you think about it. The only interesting thing about his character was that he was blind and wore a cool vision-enhancing VISOR.

The original Star Trek had some very vibrant and distinct characters, which made for some dynamic interactions. Funny that ST:TNG's three most interesting characters-- Picard, Data and Worf-- are pretty much analogues of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

A good part of the blame for the dull characters has to lie with series creator Gene Roddenberry. Mr. Roddenberry had the lofty notion that by the 24th Century, humanity will have advanced to the point where everyone will get along. That's a very nice sentiment, but... it ain't ever gonna happen. If humans haven't learned to live together in the past 5,000 years, there's no reason to think it'll happen in the next 300.

Nevertheless, Roddenberry was adamant that there be no conflict between crew members on the Enterprise. Apparently he never took any creative writing courses through the mail like I did or he'd have known that conflict is the basis of all drama. Without it, all you've got is a bunch of people sitting around holding hands, smiling and singing Kumbaya. Pleasant enough I suppose, but it sure makes for pretty dull TV.

Roddenberry had some other peculiar ideas for the show. He didn't want any of the alien races from the Original Series to appear on ST:TNG. That meant no Vulcans, Klingons or Romulans; fan-favorites the audience would be expecting to see. Luckily he was overruled on that one, else Lt. Worf would never have been a part of the crew.

He also toyed with the idea of not having a ship in the new series at all. He thought that by the 24th Century technology would have advanced to the point in which the crew would use some sort of "super transporter" to just teleport anywhere in the galaxy. He was outvoted on that one as well (no doubt by studio lawyers who'd happened to see the movie Stargate).

Some of his ideas were just downright kinky. He supposedly wanted the males of the newly created Ferengi race to be incredibly well-endowed, sporting enormous schlongs up to two feet long (!). Fortunately one of the producers took him aside and pointed out that the series was airing on regular TV, not HBO or Cinemax.  

The series also relied much too heavily on the ship breaking down in order to provide tension. In practically every episode the B-plot involved some piece of ship's technology malfunctioning and putting the crew in danger. Sure, Kirk's Enterprise broke down now and then, but Picard's ship was worse than an old used car. It became a crutch for the writers whenever they couldn't think of any other way to fill the time slot.

ST:TNG provided me with many memorable and sometimes shocking moments over the years. Remember that the series aired before the internet cropped up, in an era in which you didn't have to work at avoiding spoilers. Back then the only way to find out what was going to happen was to just sit down and watch the show.

The third season finale, in which Captain Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg and Commander Riker gives the order to fire on the Borg ship-- absolutely floored me. I was not expecting that and had no idea such a shocking denouement was coming. I spent a long and anxious summer waiting for the follow up to air in the fall. 

The problem with their cliffhanger episodes though was that the setups were always way better than their lackluster resolutions the next season. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, "You know how to set up the cliffhanger, you just don't know how to resolve the cliffhanger."

As much as I loved the show, watching it (or rather trying to watch it) was a grueling chore, due to my local TV station. It was just plain hard work to even find the show where I lived. In my hometown ST:TNG was usually relegated to the wee hours of Sunday morning, in time slots normally occupied by Aerosol Toupee and Psychic Hotline infomercials.

One week it might be on at 11 pm, the next at 1:30 am. Sometimes it would even pop up in the afternoon. You just never knew. I used to record the show every week but there was no way I could just set the timer on the VCR and forget it, because there was no guarantee as to when it might air. Many's the night I would stay up until 1 or even 2 am waiting for it to start so I could hit the record button (and have to go to work at 6 am the next day!).

I never understood the local station's attitude toward the show. This wasn't some execrable drivel like Mama's Family, this was an award winning, critically acclaimed series that regularly got higher ratings than some network shows. Plus it had a built in audience of rabid fans. So why the shabby treatment?

Sometimes I wonder if the station's programming director secretly hated the show and deliberately aired it at such a dismal hour in hope that the ratings would sag and he could justify canceling it. Why else would you pay for an no-doubt expensive syndicated program and then air it when no one was awake?

Ah well, that's all in the past now. 25 years in the past, to be exact. Thanks to home video and the internet I can watch the show anytime I want.

So Happy Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'll close with a joke: What did Captain Picard say when he took his sewing machine to the repair shop? Make it sew! Haw!