Sequence (stitched together with practical effects, close-ups, digitalĬompositing, and editing) could be replaced by "Armageddon" destroying Paris in less than ten seconds with a single computer generated wide-shot.
Span of two years, “Independence Day”’s elaborate four-minute apocalyptic
With which it could be satisfied with advancements in CGI technology. Hitting an irreversible turning point for blockbusters: the collision between “Independenceĭay”-inspired “more on screen” lust for mass destruction and the growing ease We’re most proud of.” “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” represented that attitude, “You won’t find a film that has more on screen than this film, and that’s what It all abided by the adapted spirit of that co-writerĪnd producer, Dean Devlin, boasted in a making-of feature for “Independence Day”: More eagerly adopted “Independence Day”’s global catastrophe and destruction-the former drowning the world’s Atlantic coasts with a mega-tsunami, and the latter slingshoting meteor fragments into cities to wipe them out of existence. The following year, competing cataclysmic meteor movies (“ Deep Impact” and “ Armageddon”) Peak”) menaced cities with lava and ash ( "Dante’s Peak’s" climax was even already miming the destructive aesthetic of Emmerich’s film). A year afterĮmmerich’s movie was released, dueling volcano movies (“ Volcano” and “Dante’s So, summer blockbusters began destroying. Hollywood, it instructs, and what “Independence Day”’s eventual $817 million worldwideĮarnings told studios about audiences was, “If you destroy it, they will come” Line to see “Independence Day” on opening weekend. That change began as soon as audiences waited for hours in Of the Blockbuster saw that: When the movie was released, Steven Spielberg told Roland Emmerich, “This movie will do more to changeīlockbuster summer movies than any movie before.” Their changing environments and ensure their proliferation. Blockbusters, by their high-concept and explosion-loving nature, haveĪlways pursued bigger spectacle “Independence Day” expanded the cinematicĪn evolutionary leap, one blockbusters can be prone to in order to shift with More significantly, it didn’t leave the threat aīluff. Include global catastrophe,” Tom Shone writes in his book, Blockbuster.
“If 'Jaws' had radically downsized its threat level to that ofĪ single shark, then 'Independence Day' radically upsized its threat level to It was horrifying, which is to say that it was also spectacular. Not only sincerely threatened the end of the world, it made us watch it happen. Or shown its aftermath with disheveled Statues of Liberties, “Independence Day” Where other movies had teased annihilation in villain’s monologues, Glass, conducted with blood lust and guilty pleasure-the scales of which we’d This was operatic destruction-composed of screams and shattered May have traded in disaster and apocalypse before (Emmerich’s movie itself wasĪ hybrid of 1950s alien invasion and 1970s Irwin Allen disaster movies), but
It was full of the sound andįury that can create the awe needed for an instant all-time movie moment. For those who saw “Independence Day” in 1996, itsĭestruction was something we’d never seen before.