Posted by I, like many other Americans, celebrated the 4th of July in the movie theater with a summer blockbuster. The movie I chose was the sequel to the explosive classic film that came out in 1996, Independence Day. I had very high expectations for this film. I mean, it has been 20 years since the first. After seeing the film though, I had some issues with some of the story elements. Here are a couple of my gripes.
!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!
Earth in outmatched
In the film, it is clear that human civilization has advanced quite far by reverse engineering the alien tech. The human race developed new ships, new weapons and duplicated the alien shield technology. We see them use the shields heavily throughout the film.
So what is my issue? Well for one, we are shown that the humans can take down an alien craft with a single blast of their new moon weapon. The “White Orb” tells the humans that it thought the humans were with the invading race due to the weapons that were used.
Where am I going with this? In the movie, it is made abundantly clear that the human race does not stand a chance against the invading alien race. We are shown that the invaders are able to make short work of the humans. But that is where my issue lies.
If humans were able to reverse engineer alien tech and had 20 years to prepare, shouldn’t they at least be somewhat evenly matched? In one scene, while on the giant harvester ship, the human pilots steal alien fighters so they can escape. Charlie, Jake’s friend, makes the comment that nothing has changed in 20 years.
If the invading aliens have not made any advances in their tech in the last 20 years, but Earth has, why then does Earth not stand a chance against the invading force? I can buy that the humans may have been overwhelmed, but completely out matched? I call bullshit plot hole!
The Harvester Lands On Earth
There are two problems I have with this sequence in the movie. The ship was described as being approximately 3000 miles in diameter. The diameter of the Earth itself is 7917.5 miles. There would be catastrophic, Earth changing events taking place if something that large landed on the Earth. I am talking about end of time events.
For one, the Harvester has its own gravitational pull. The moon, which is 2,159 miles in diameter, affects the tides of the Earth and it is 238,900 miles away from the blue planet. The Harvester is almost 1000 miles bigger then the diameter of the moon. The Earth would have had more damage than a couple of cities being pulled toward the ship. That type of gravitational force pulling against the Earth would literally tear the planet apart.
Secondly, let’s pretend that the Earth does not get destroyed by the gravitational pull of the Harvester ship landing. There is no way that a sip that size would be able to land on the planet. Using the same theory as above, the Earth pulling that ship towards it would tear that craft apart.
For those who think that I am wrong, I have emailed Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson to give the final answer on this topic. I hope to hear back from him with the details.
The doctor lives?
Watch this scene from Independence Day (1996).
How did Dr. Brakish Okun survive this? The movie tries to correct this issue by having one of the prisoner aliens do the same thing to President Thomas J. Whitmore. I believe he died as they were not expecting to make a sequel. What do you think?
Don’t let the few story elements take you away from seeing the movie. If you want a movie that is a good popcorn flick with a lot of action, then this is your film. Just be prepared to have questions when you leave.
Have you seen the film? Did you like it? I want to know. Tell me about your thoughts on the film by leaving a comment below.
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