Independence Day vs. War of the Worlds

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Title: Independence Day vs. War of the Worlds Lindsay: The franco-prussian war...

When I watched Independence Day in 1996 in New York City the audience cheered when New York was destroyed.

As an Australian, super surprising to see Tasmania mentioned in this video, since the state barely gets mentioned by mainland Australians. However the genocide of the Indigenous people of Tasmania - an island state with land mass equitable to Ireland, Sri Lanka, or the entire lower half of Britain (including Wales) - is certainly always worthy of attention and acknowledgment. They murdered every man, woman, and child who lived there. They marched them off cliffs into the icy southern ocean where the nearest land mass was Antarctica. This is the example of brutality HG Wells acknowledges.

"Despite Robbie running into a literal fireball, he's fine" It's fine, this is fine. He's fine. It's fine. He's fine, this is fine. It's all fine. They're fine.

"They have mouths so they can go blaaahhh " Alien: blehh.

There is also the easily overlooked fact that if Jeff Goldblum is in the movie, humanity will always find a way.

"In the end, it was not guns and bombs that defeated the aliens, but that humblest of all God's creatures, the Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"It is dumb as a bag of rocks and is one of my favorite movies ever. I love it." This is 100% how I feel about it too. It just hits all those ridiculous Summer Blockbuster points so damn well.

Yes, Robbie, that's EXACTLY what the military needs; an untrained, unarmed, undisciplined, teenager.

It's so odd to think about the idea of "pre 9/11" culture as a younger person. In September 2001, I had just started kindergarten and that day was my first memory of watching the news. I have never consumed media without that context. 90s disaster movies feel dated to me in a similar way to 60s westerns, in that neither understands the (now seemingly obvious) implications of their own action.

Watching this during the Corona Virus situation and seeing the current response from media, people, event closures, social distancing, paranoia... I wonder what books and films will come in the future.

I think a more satisfying arc for Robbie would've been starting out as a know-it-all teen who's independent in part because of his dad's absence and toxic masculinity dictating that he be a lone warrior type as the only proper way to be a man, but learns that social dependency is a fact of life. This wouldn't need to be "we all team up to save the world," it could be asking his dad for help or even breaking down crying (this would be helped if he had seen at least some of the real cost of this and had been internalizing it into rage). In this case, he could make for a counterpoint to Rachel (who learns she can get the bag), who stands on her own two feet in some way. The conclusion in this case would be that all of the family are interdependent contributors- not coddled loads like Rachel nor lone wolves like Robbie that are both destructive to the family dynamic that Ray has created by his absence. Ray would also benefit from this, because he would both have to actively care for his children while accepting their help in return. Anyone have thoughts on this version of the arc?

While it might be somewhat unintentional on Spielberg's part, I feel a blanket statement of "Disaster dehumanizes people" is not only shallow, but also incorrect. Nearly every major disaster in recorded history inspired both intense depravity and intense compassion. Thematically portraying it as both, to me, is the most logical option. I feel his integration of the more compassionate view of humanity is just sloppily done, as there wasn't a change in circumstance or community.

The thing with the "Please let me go, you need to let me go..." scene I think Spielberg was going for was to symbolize the phenomenon soon after 9/11 with how many young Americans enlisted in the military. Especially because this is the same character who said the line "We catch up with these soldiers and with whoever else isn't dead and we get back at them! We get back at them!" Robbie is supposed to be the allegory for all the clueless young people that went and enlisted in the army to go running into a situation they really had no idea what they were in for. It would have been more stronger if Robbie died, but yeah, I think that's what Spielberg was trying to say with that scene.

War of the Worlds is one of the grimmest popcorn movies ever made: I remember being stunned at Spielberg’s use of Holocaust and 9/11 imagery. It felt like an attempt to process historical trauma, and I love it when big movies smuggle that stuff in. I think Robocop and Starship Troopers both do this better than any other examples I can think of.

I remember watching War of the Worlds with my father when I was like 8 and it absolutely terrified me because of it felt so tragic and real. I was traumatized for years ...thanks dad

There's actually a visual arc set up for the character of Rachel constantly running away from Ray towards Robbie's arms whenever she's scared. The payoff happens after Ray kills Ogilvy to protect her, then she goes into her father's arms for the first time in the movie. But since Robbie is now gone, her whole arc is reduced to "You're pretty much all I've got at this point."

“It’s dumb as a bag of rocks...and it’s one of my favorite movies. I love it.” God bless you

24:08 as much as it hurts the story, it IS also fairly realistic to expect a child to be traumatised beyond belief by everything that she's been put through by this point.