Somethings I noticed about the original ID4
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
The Roswell incident took place in July 1947. Bardeen, Shockley and Brattain at Bell Labs "invent" the transistor about four months later. The transistor leads to the integrated circuit, which leads to the microprocessor, which leads to the personal computer, and to now, where I'm posting this reply on my iPhone, which would have seemed like alien tech twenty years ago, nevermind fifty.
So yes, David Levinson could have written and uploaded the computer virus to the alien network with his 90's Macbook, if you buy the premise that our tech is derived from theirs.
So yes, David Levinson could have written and uploaded the computer virus to the alien network with his 90's Macbook, if you buy the premise that our tech is derived from theirs.
Last edited:
Does make you wonder a tiny bit doesn't it?
Also flat panel technology, LCD and LED displays and such which were all "invented" around the late 50s / 60s, but not in consumer quantities.
My thoughts on a couple points:
The Roswell ship was a scout vessel, sent out to find planets suitable for takeover. Who is to say that the ship that crashed was exactly like the fighters used in the movie? It could look the same and have some of the same flying/fighting abilities, but have a different purpose, much like many of our own military aircraft.
The crash knocked out, but did not destroy its internal components. A signal sent out by the mothership rebooted it, basically brining it back on line.
As for the rebuilding of our cities... We see that happen here every day. Wipe a town out with a hurricane or tornado? Rebuild it! Knock the twin towers down via a terrorist attack? We'll build something in its place that is even bigger and better. What the earth did was rebuild as a way of saying "F-You" to the aliens. It's almost a dare to come back and try it again, as evidenced by the President's comments in the trailer.. We thought we were prepared because we had all their tech now.
The Roswell ship was a scout vessel, sent out to find planets suitable for takeover. Who is to say that the ship that crashed was exactly like the fighters used in the movie? It could look the same and have some of the same flying/fighting abilities, but have a different purpose, much like many of our own military aircraft.
The crash knocked out, but did not destroy its internal components. A signal sent out by the mothership rebooted it, basically brining it back on line.
As for the rebuilding of our cities... We see that happen here every day. Wipe a town out with a hurricane or tornado? Rebuild it! Knock the twin towers down via a terrorist attack? We'll build something in its place that is even bigger and better. What the earth did was rebuild as a way of saying "F-You" to the aliens. It's almost a dare to come back and try it again, as evidenced by the President's comments in the trailer.. We thought we were prepared because we had all their tech now.
Yeah, and look how long that took. 15 years for JUST ONE BUILDING.
The political will to rebuild entire cities would be far greater and thus quicker than two building regardless of the significance of the original ones.
To be fair, we don't have alien technology to help us out there.
Although, I am curious, if the cities are being re-built to exactly as they were prior to the attack, does that mean in New York they rebuilt the WTC as the twin towers in ID4 world? Logically, they should, or do they for some reason decide to go with the "Freedom Tower" instead?
Assuming the rebuilding of the cities commenced immediately after the conclusion of the first war, then I'd guess they would have rebuilt the WTC, as there was no Freedom Tower at the time (and indeed no 9/11 attacks).
True, but I'm wondering, any scenes set in New York in Resurgence will likely be filmed on location, so will they just leave the Freedom Tower in or will they digitally insert in the Twin Towers in its place?
If there are any scenes in Resurgence which take place in New York, I'd be VERY surprised if those scenes were actually filmed there.
I mean, are there any shows or films nowadays (regardless of genre), apart from Law & Order: SVU of course, which still do their filming in New York City? I'd assumed that most of the modern apparatus of filmmaking had been permanently relocated to L.A. and/or Vancouver.
In any case, I'm sure CGI would take care of any variations in the NYC skyline that might arise, given that most of the effects in this film are probably being done via CGI anyway.
I mean, are there any shows or films nowadays (regardless of genre), apart from Law & Order: SVU of course, which still do their filming in New York City? I'd assumed that most of the modern apparatus of filmmaking had been permanently relocated to L.A. and/or Vancouver.
In any case, I'm sure CGI would take care of any variations in the NYC skyline that might arise, given that most of the effects in this film are probably being done via CGI anyway.
Last edited:
NORAD was destroyed by the city killer beam off-screen. I'd say Baldwin's character was trying to be nice and offer comfort when someone asked if they'd be safe below ground. Or he was trying to convince himself. Or he was just plain wrong. No way is Area 51 more hardened than NORAD (even fantasy Area 51) and when the alien ship started the firing sequence during the final battle, that almost destroyed the base right there.
Will Smith's wife escaped the secondary fireball and blast effects on the city outskirts, rather than the ground zero detonation that created them.
The First Lady's chopper was downed on the outskirts too and not only did she survive long enough to be evaced, there were a bunch of other survivors kicking around who just happened to be inside residential buildings when the strike occurred. So attributing Will's wife's survival purely to being underground is questionable.
Like nuclear weapons, the farther from the center of the detonation, the less damage inflicted and the higher chance of survival, but the damage at ground zero is extreme. Again, NORAD, designed to survive a nuclear strike, got wiped out by a city killer -presumably a direct strike.
Story wise, if the ground zero full beam was no threat to underground facilities, it would have been like the Death Star in ANH being unable to hurt Yavin 4 because of a super planetary shield. It undermines the threat and changes the dynamics of the final act to something more akin to The Dam Busters: i.e. a critical mission where all of the danger is on the air crews and not really the aerodrome staff back in England.
Building your cities underground is just asking to be buried alive during the next invasion.
Will Smith's wife escaped the secondary fireball and blast effects on the city outskirts, rather than the ground zero detonation that created them.
The First Lady's chopper was downed on the outskirts too and not only did she survive long enough to be evaced, there were a bunch of other survivors kicking around who just happened to be inside residential buildings when the strike occurred. So attributing Will's wife's survival purely to being underground is questionable.
Like nuclear weapons, the farther from the center of the detonation, the less damage inflicted and the higher chance of survival, but the damage at ground zero is extreme. Again, NORAD, designed to survive a nuclear strike, got wiped out by a city killer -presumably a direct strike.
Story wise, if the ground zero full beam was no threat to underground facilities, it would have been like the Death Star in ANH being unable to hurt Yavin 4 because of a super planetary shield. It undermines the threat and changes the dynamics of the final act to something more akin to The Dam Busters: i.e. a critical mission where all of the danger is on the air crews and not really the aerodrome staff back in England.
Building your cities underground is just asking to be buried alive during the next invasion.
Good point. In fact, most of the movie was shot here in New Mexico, so I would imagine most cityscapes will be CGI no matter what. I would imagine, much like with the first Avengers movie, any street-level scenes were done in downtown Albuquerque and then re-dressed with CGI afterward.
He might have been wrong, but there's no way he was just offering comfort or convincing himself, given after he said that it's pointed out all the civilians are still above, and he's all "oh, shit! Get them underground!" and then personally leads the efforts to get all the civilians underground. So he really did believe they would be safe down there. As you say, he may have been wrong.
well, saf-er. Being above ground made them targets for fighters...underground would be a better chance to live, especially if Hiller & Levinson did their job
The first movie filmed most of its outdoor New York scenes in New York and New Jersey, except for the destruction sequences which were a combination of full-sized sets and miniatures.
Principal photography began in July 1995 in New York City. A second unit gathered plate shots and establishing shots of Manhattan, Washington D.C., an RV community in Flagstaff, Arizona, and the Very Large Array on the Plains of San Agustin, New Mexico. The main crew also filmed in nearby Cliffside Park, New Jersey before moving to the former Kaiser Steel mill in Fontana, California to film the post-attack Los Angeles sequences. The production then moved to Wendover, Utah and West Wendover, Nevada, where the deserts doubled for Imperial Valley and the Wendover Airport doubled for the El Toro and Area 51 exteriors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film)#Production
The sequel doesn't appear to be showing NYC this time, or very little of it if it does. New York hasn't been shown in any of the trailers or ads that I've seen. They do show Julius Levinson again (on his boat ahead of a giant wave created by the mothership moving toward the East Coast), so he might be living back in New York.
The main targets on Earth being shown destroyed in the trailers are Singapore, Dubai (at least, we see the Burj Khalifa skyscraper fall from the mothership onto London), London, Washington DC, and Area 51. However, the rebuilt Statue of Liberty is shown being destroyed again in a poster for the film, so they might show New York again:
Filming began on April 20, 2015, and wrapped on August 22, 2015. Filming of additional scenes also took place in early 2016 in Los Angeles. Some scenes have also been filmed in West Wendover, Nevada, London, at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and Singapore's Marina Bay Sands. The makers of the film refrained from shooting in India or portraying any prominent Indian monuments as being damaged to avoid potential protests and legal action from Indian religious groups and activists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day:_Resurgence
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1628841/locations
Hundreds. In fact, I just watched the finale to Person of Interest which is set in and filmed on location in New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_television_shows_filmed_in_New_York_City
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_shot_in_New_York_City
http://onthesetofnewyork.com/news.html
The first films effect's were more practical effects than CGI, but due to budget constraints this one used mostly CGI since it's cheaper. But judging from the trailers it looks pretty flawless.
Regarding how the scout ship was here and what it was doing, I'd say that's not really even problematic at all. Yeah, the original movie kind of implied that their whole race moved as one devouring worlds one world at a time, but the wording was more than vague enough to allow for their to be more of the aliens out there, which means their civilization obviously doesn't all move together. Presumably they must have multiple branches/fleets active in different solar systems simultaneously, which means they obviously must have scouts to determine which areas are worth attacking. Those scouts clearly would have to be in something more than a single fighter, so, yes, in the 50s there was a larger ship in the solar system that was capable of powering the scouts/fighters, but it was probably just one ship and there's no real reason for it to be a full size city killer, either. The scout forces simply wouldn't have had the capability of attacking at that time, so they left and came back with a larger force. They probably spent some time abducting people to get more information about humanity - make certain there's not some hidden capability that would make us more dangerous than we seem, or just find out if there's any particular way we can be made useful to them - and then went off to report to their leaders (who were probably pretty far away at the time, since it took 40 years for the attack to start).
Now had Jeff Goldblum's team sent the Kardashians to the aliens they would have never attacked us at all.
Michael. Bay. @bigdaddy is correct - you're all putting way more thought into it than the creators ever have. There's aliens, neat toys, attractive people, big explosions and other dramatic special effects, a heart-warming patriotic and/or humanist speech or two, and popcorn. "Repeat to yourself, it's just a show. I should really just relax." 
These aliens are actively powering a technology to selectively manipulate gravity in order to keep their city-sized (and bigger) ships from wrecking the cities they move in over so they can line up and... fire another weapon that requires a massive build-up of power, in order to wreck the city.
We're just lucky there's probably not a racist Transformer in Resurgence.
These aliens are actively powering a technology to selectively manipulate gravity in order to keep their city-sized (and bigger) ships from wrecking the cities they move in over so they can line up and... fire another weapon that requires a massive build-up of power, in order to wreck the city.
We're just lucky there's probably not a racist Transformer in Resurgence.
Sadly, there's precious little "political will" on Earth as it is; I'm skeptical whether even an alien invasion would manage to create some.
Similar threads
