The Rewatchables - ‘Independence Day’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Shea Serrano don’t smoke cigars until the fat lady sings. And until after they rewatch the 1996 hit ‘Independence Day’ starring Will Smith, Bill Pullman, and Jeff Goldblum. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Maybe there's no catch. That's exactly what a catch would want me to think. Wow, you need to relax. I need a knock on wood. Do we have wood? Is this tablewood? I think it's laminated. Okay, yeah, that's good. That's close enough. Car selling without a catch. So your car today on Carvona. Pick up fees may apply. We're also brought to by the ringer.com and the ringer podcast network where you can find Chris Ryan on the watch.

You can find Chase Serrano on no skips. And you can find a whole bunch of other awesome podcast coming up. I'm a combat pilot, Chris. I belong in the air. Independence Day is next. This summer, plan your getaway early. Please leave these cities in an quarterly fashion. Beat the summer traffic.

Nice driving, pops. And whatever you do, don't look up. Welcome to Earth. Independence Day. Rated PG-13. All right, Chris and Shay are here. We're putting this podcast up on Independence Day. A lot of people think Independence Day was the day we kicked out the British officially informed our country.

No, it's the day we also fought off the aliens. and the first real scary alien invasion we ever had. This is a bizarrely influential movie. It happens as the summer blockbuster is evolving from Speed and Jurassic Park and we hit 96 and all of a sudden we get Twister, Mission Impossible, and Independence Day. And it's just Hollywood's kind of figuring this out. But Independence Day figures out a couple things. Human interest stuff.

a big-ass star to lead it, load up on the supporting cast, really blow it out, and just do this right. And it's aged really well. Chris, do you think this has been the model now for all these Marvel movies we've been getting in the last 10 years? Is this like the, is this where it all starts? There's a lot of evidence for that, right? There's this sense of humor, which I think that they've brought over to the Marvel thing, maybe not exactly, but that kind of like

somewhat improvisatory, all the Goldblum Smith stuff and all the banter there. And then also like the stakes are pretty huge. Like obviously they can't get any bigger than whether or not the planet is going to survive.

So yeah, I definitely think it has a lot to do with what came after it, you know, starting around 2008 when Marvel really took off. Shea, this has everything you want in a movie?

I don't know. What's missing? Everything. The only thing that's missing is that I wish at the time we had the technology to do two Will Smiths and just put another Will Smith in here. That's the only thing I was missed. I just love every single part of this movie. Which character would you replace with another Will Smith?

Like Secretary of Defense? Oh, I would just add a second, like we have two fighter pilots now. That's what we're doing. Like his twin brother, but it's basically just the same character. It's Bill Smith. It's Jim and I, man. Just fucking keep cranking out the wheels. Yeah, let's start with Will Smith.

I don't know what his most likable performance is, but I think what's great about this one is he's got the low usage rate. You know, he gets, he gets all his shots. He finishes like 16 for 20. He gets to 40 points. He triple doubles it. But he's not in the movie a ton.

And when I was rewatching, I was like, man, there's just a lot of people in this movie. And then every time Will Smith's in it, he kills, but you buy him as this guy who could save the world. And I think, Chris, this transforms his career as bad boys started it and then this cements it where this is going to be the biggest movie star we have.

Late spring 95 is bad boys. July 96 is Independence Day. July 97 is men in black. And it's just like there is there. It's hard to explain to anybody who wasn't there like how what a total like super watt supernova mega star got born in that that run right there. But somebody that we had a history with going back to the late 80s, so we got to watch it. It's like getting to see tape of a prospect coming into the NBA, but then like this is when he goes to the finals three years in a row. And you left that enemy of the state, which is like right after Men and Black. And that was a banger too, four in a row. I don't know if sweaty Gene Hackman completely took like the zeitgeist the way that Men and Black did. Shea, is he your favorite movie star? I don't know if he's my favorite favorite

I think Denzel still beats him but Will Smith is in my he's in my top five for sure of like just people I will go watch a movie because he's in it doesn't matter how many bad ones he makes in a row it doesn't matter when they were like oh we're gonna redo Aladdin

and he's gonna be the genie I was like well I'm gonna go watch that the day it comes out and then I went and watched that the day it comes out I love him I had I was like you guys like I knew him first as before even a rapper

when I showed up, he was a sitcom star. I was watching Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Then I found out he was a rapper. And then I went and listened to his albums. And then he starts doing movies. And when he did Bad Boys, too, I was like, oh, this is the best, this is the best thing I've ever seen in my life. And then he comes back with Independence Day. Same as you, Bill.

I remember this in my head as a Will Smith movie. And then you go back and you're rewatch it and you realize he's not the main guy in it. He doesn't show up for 30 minutes, almost. He's just the one who you're drawn to the most, which is crazy. when you look at the cast list on here, and you're like, this new guy is the one that you want to see more than everybody else. Every single scene he shows up in,

you can't do anything except stare at him. And they also, they stumble, well, it's intentionally, but they stumble into this Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum thing, that they're setting up kind of, they're moving in two separate cars toward the same, the same section of the movie,

but you don't realize it. And then they're thrown together, and it's like, Oh, in the middle of all of this. Now this is, I would totally watch just this movie with these two guys. It's like a buddy cop movie. That's the genius of this movie is that it's a buddy cop movie. It's a war movie.

It's a sci-fi movie. And it's a disaster movie all at the same time. And they spend an inordinate amount of time building up these human relationships so that you actually white of sort of caring about like the Mary McDonald's, the Judd Hirsch's, the other tertiary characters. Vivicay Fox's strip joint. Like what happened to that? Love Jasmine. Did it survive?

I have. This was the second highest gross movie ever up to that point. 1996, Jurassic was first. And it's off. Roland Emmerich said, they did an oral history about the speech, which I know Shay might have a thought or seven on. But he said it's holding up very well Independence Day because it has all these very simple human stories. And he said, Dean, the guy he worked on the movie with.

And I met with Steven Spielberg after the film because he wanted to be involved with the ride, which never happened. But he said to us, quote, you guys change something. There's something different now. Everybody has to see a summer movie differently. And I knew exactly what he meant, which was combining very big images with very humanized stories. And he meant it at the time he was shooting Lost World.

And he said, we're changing the script now. So this is the 25th anniversary of this movie. But it's also the 25th anniversary of people, of kind of a voila moment. seems like. And now how many, how many have we had, Chris? Like, are we over 50 of these kind of movies? 60? Yeah. I mean, there was a whole run of disaster movies that came after this that I think, you know, that they tried to recapture the magic and even Emmerc himself. To varying degrees. Yeah, Emmerc himself has made a couple. Although Shay likes deep impact. He won't admit it, but I don't deep down. He likes it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me Elijah Wood. Give it to me.

Sorry, Chris, I interrupted him. No, not at all. I mean, it's just this, this movie kind of of like, I don't think I'd ever seen destruction on this scale when I saw this movie. Like you, you know, there were disaster movies. There's Poseid Adventure. There's, there's, there's big movies where like incredible set pieces happen and many people lose their lives. But like, I remember like still pretty vividly like seeing the White House and the Empire State building get lasered and just there's only like, how would it? There's like 15 times in your life. We're like, I've never seen that before. You know? And it does, you know, really cook your pasta when you see it.

Well, you think like there's, it's like the 20-year nostalgia thing, right? Where my generation grew up with like these weird movies, like Towering Inferno and all the airport movies, which was that era's version of disaster movies. And then airplane came out and made fun of all of them and did multiple sequels. And then that era kind of died for a while. Yeah, you get 80s hostage movies. It's like, you know, we basically keep it to Nakatomi. Plaza, that kind of thing. Yeah, it was like confined terrorist movies basically. And then everybody ripped off speed for eight years. And we had under siege and under siege too. And we go through all that.

And then with this movie, and really, it kind of starts a year before with species where they're like aliens. What if they came back and started fucking with us? Well, that's like, there's a, there are things in Jurassic Park that you can kind of see getting transferred over, not the least of which Goldblum essentially placed the same character, you know? But there are moments in Jurassic Park, and I think also Jurassic Park being conceived in its inception as this is a blockbuster. This is, people are going to have the lunchbox, people are going to see this movie five or six times, it's going to become a ride, it's going to become a lifestyle for people. That's the same thing that happened with Independence Day, but Independence Day almost is like messier the way it does it, because I think you have to have like,

it's a leap of faith to be like, will people really be okay watching? thousands, millions of people get killed by aliens and nuclear weapons dropped on them by their own president. And it turns out we were. We were very okay with it. I remember I had been bartending for like probably a month at a new place. So I was working all the time. And this came out and I didn't have time to see it right away. And it was like, oh, Tuesday I'll go like three o'clock. And it's like just nice, easy action movie. Just go in there. And it's just you leave it. You're like, Jesus Christ, it was like a life experience. I got to see the White House blow up on the big screen and all these different things

and Pullman's speech. I'm in some theater and like Revere with, you know, five other people by themselves. You're at an Air Force recruitment office? We got to stop these aliens. But it was just really, really satisfying. And then really imitated over and over again. We had two different. What was Deep Impact?

What was the other one that was happening at the exact? same time. Armageddon. Yeah, Deep Pig Pack versus Armageddon and it just people started doing this and all these different ways. Let's talk about that. Now you have basically, I mean, obviously people know this because they've seen all the

Batman, DC movies and like the Marvel movies, but you basically can't get away with making one of those movies without being like, and then New York City gets vaporized or this country gets thrown on top of another country by a superhero. So we've become custom to it, but it was pretty groundbreaking at the time.

Yeah, I remember with Godzilla, which I did not like. The Matthew Broder's one. That was the first time I was like, oh, this is kind of Independence Day's fault. Yeah. This is, we're heading this way now. It's the same director. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think one of the things I liked about this movie and especially on the rewatch, Shea, the special effects are good. They don't feel like too good. You know, they feel very rooted in the 90s. They're realistic, but it's not like now. where we can just kind of do anything, and it almost, I lose the sense of kind of the wow factor because it just seems like anything is possible. In 96, anything wasn't possible. And you see some of this stuff, you're like, wow, I didn't even, it was a little like when we talked about Terminator 2

and some of the stuff that was going out of Robert Patrick and then we were like, wow, we can do that in a movie. And I do feel like that was the case with this movie. And that's been lost over the last 25 years, the wow factor of the first time with this movie. Yeah, it feels so cool when you're watching it to see Will Smith climb up on the ship and open the hatch and then the alien comes out and you're like, oh, he was really on a ship that they made. And that's a real alien that was coming out that he punches. It just, it feels a little more tactile. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And that is not, and that is crisp. Another moment like that is when New York's about to get destroyed when the ship shows up over New York. And the cop stops his cop car and all the cars

hit the back of the cop car. And then the truck hits the cop car. And that's pretty real. Like that whole like car sequence is real, even though all the alien stuff obviously is CGI. And also even the stuff where a lot of people gathering in a place, right? They really use real people. Now they would just fake all of it. the fact that we've had so much UFO shit in real life recently where's your head at with that bill change how you watch this at all like in 96 it's like oh shit they're going with area 51 and the 90s in general there was

X files yeah there was a little fun refascination with that whole alien thing and it was a little like ah do you believe it you would talk about it when you're out wherever um but you never really knew but now in the last two years we've found out not only are they not hiding this they're not hiding this stuff anymore they're like we have a lot of unexplained unexplained unidentified flying objects that we don't know what the fuck they are the Navy and Air Force

they're all like let me can we talk about this for a second yeah let's do it I was really hoping that somebody would bring this up I totally am open to the idea that we are not alone in the universe but what I don't understand is how we can have such great quality footage of everything in existence except for aliens. Yeah. And then the aliens are the ones that we have like the blurry photo that may or may not be a UFO.

Yeah. But for everything else, it's just like, no, no, no. Here, we can, we can slow this down and watch Campaign's hand touch a basketball for a split-stair second. But you can't catch that one spaceship that flew over. Nobody is ever pointing a camera at the sky. It's always like a guy with a Polaroid that, like, it does. didn't quite develop.

Shay, most of these happened, not in Texas, but somewhere near Texas. Yeah, in Southwest, right? Yeah, Southwest is a big, that on us. No, Southwest is a big alien frenzy place. Yeah, I don't know what is going on. The thing that always made me laugh about that is,

when I was younger, I was like super interested in all of this stuff, and I was like, you would get books from the library, and they would have still pictures in there, and you're like, oh, that's definitely a UFO or whatever. And then, yeah, as we've moved further and further along, and now everybody has an HD camera in their pocket, we've gotten less and less of those. And that makes me feel like maybe those aren't,

maybe those original ones aren't real. I don't know. Maybe part of me also, I think, is resistant to the ideas of aliens visiting or aliens existing because, like, other than E.T. at close encounters, we just don't have a ton of, like, good alien experiences in pop culture.

Like, they're more often than not, like, bursting through your chest, like, an alien. So I'm not, like, anxious for them to show up. See, I want, yeah, I want like a Mac and Me experience. Exactly. I don't want, I don't want an arrival experience. Starman was good for that. That was good, yeah.

It's like Starman's heart was in the right place. Do aliens, like, do your kids bring up aliens? Are they like, Dad, do you think aliens exist? Yeah, it's weird because for the TikTok generation, you would think it would have like a whole run. I feel like it hasn't totally happened yet. But in this movie, when they go to Area 51, and they really go for it in the movie, right? Yeah. It's like, we got to go down 24 floors to get the crazy doctor.

and it's like, let me show you the ship, and it's like, here are the aliens in jar cases, and you're just like, is this, you think this is really what it's like? And now I kind of feel like maybe Area 51 existed. I've watched this movie, I don't know how many times, but this was the first time I watched it where I was like, ah, that's probably close to home air.

I feel like we're so far along just, so far into the internet and down the internet hole, that if aliens did show up, like an indisputable proof, an alien pulls up right outside my house right now and like comes down and is walking around in my backyard or in somebody's backyard. I feel like there would be three or four minutes only of everybody freaking out and then immediately it would be on Twitter and we'd be making fun of it. Right. And it would be like, oh, this looks like when you're out too late with your friends and it's like a

picture of an alien doing a weird pose. Ha, ha, ha. Like, I think we would go straight into that. Yeah, people would zag on aliens. They'd be like, not, this is a disappointment. Yeah, yeah. Aliens are overrated. Well, we can catch James Hardin coming out of a gentleman's club at 3 in the morning with a cell phone, but never an alien, not once.

Can't get that one alien who's just like, I'm going to float around here in New Jersey. This was a weird era for movies where they decided every alien had to look as just bizarre and crazy as possible. It starts in the 80s. It goes to the 90s. It's not just like Robert Patrick, where being able to just put a cop suit on. It has to be like tentacles and weird faces and make them crazy as possible. A lot of wet aliens. A lot of Louv used in this movie.

Seriously. Best presidents ever in a movie. I was going to get to this in Apex Mountain. We've litigated this before. I just wanted to tell America yet again. I don't know what the Mount Rushmore is. I don't know if we're allowed to cross. Is it movies and TV?

Is it just movies, whatever? But if it's just movies, I think the four most important movie presidents were Michael Douglas, an American president, which we did on this podcast, Kevin Klein and Dave, Pullman and Independence Day. And then the fourth spot is really wide open for what you want. That's like where you can learn more about almost the individual person who their fourth spot is. For me, it's Jeff Bridges and the contender because I just feel like I just wish that was my president, Jeff Bridges and the contender. I liked how he carried himself.

He just seemed very presidential, but other people would have Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact or, I don't know. Who do you have, Chris? Who's your fourth? Well, I mean, you got a special dispensation for Jeb Bartlett from West Wing, even though I know that there's like...

He doesn't count. It's got to be movies. Okay. Because if you go on then, then I want Hayesbert from 24, too. I thought he was amazing. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I kind of think, I feel like Hayesbert and Bartlett

are really have a shout at being on Rushmore then. No question. TV movie Rushmore. I think both of them have really strong cases. Do you like any film representation of Kennedy a lot worth putting it on there? No, it's been more, I think more fictional presidents. Yeah, it's never really worked. Not Daniel Day Lewis being like, no, no, no, no. Okay. Who did, Shea, who's your fourth? I have a whole different four than what you presented. My four looks totally different than what

you were saying. Every name you threw out there, I was a little surprised. I have, I have Independence Day president on my four. He's in there. But I also have Harrison Ford and Air Force One. I like a president that can fight. So give me him. Give me Jamie Fox and White House down because I want to be able to use a gun. White House down. And give me Morgan Freeman.

He's great. He's great in that. I need him in Channing Tatum taking out the bad guys. Kevin Klein taught us how to redo a budget and Dave. He healed America. What are you putting value on? Do you actually want him to legislate? Do you actually want actual work being done

or do you just want somebody who's going to give a cool speech of aliens show up? Every time a president shows up in a movie it's because some bad shit is happening so I want somebody who can handle himself. Shea, I'm going to hurt your feelings. I've only seen White House down once.

Do I need to double back and try that one again? Yeah, definitely. It's better than you remember. It's also sillier than you remember. It's like super silly to watch now. I liked it in the theater, but I just, that was it.

It was so ridiculous. Partial to Olympus has fallen. Yeah, that's fair. That whole set of movies go for it. So, Paulman does some stuff in this movie. First of all, for the first 45 minutes, you're like, how the fuck was this guy the president? What's going on here?

Is he doing like an indie movie? What's happening? Why is this so understated? He doesn't seem very presidential. And then the second half of the movie, he rises to the occasion. I don't know if that was a deliberate. moved by him or what happens, but the speech becomes the iconic moment of the movie and

he crushes it. Also, I love the fact that he goes in fights, which is great. I just really like him. And he's, I think after this movie, Chris, we thought he was probably going to be like an A-plus Lister, right? It seemed like there was going to be, and it kind of never happened. I never understood why. He seemed like he was in the Harrison Ford zone of that kind of like, The new Harrison Ford. Ruggedly handsome leading man. And he's had a really good career as being like kind of a journeyman character actor

and he's on the center or whatever. But like, yeah, it never really like popped off on like a full, he's like a movie star, movie star thing. Shea, I'm going to give you his next movies after Independence Day.

Go for it. Lost Highway. Mm-hmm. The end of violence. Mm-hmm. Same one I want. Merry Christmas, George Bailey, which was a TV.

movie. Uh-huh. Almost that. Zero effect. Lake Placid. There it is. And broke down Palace. He's so good.

Lake Placid just in general is so good. Lake Placid's fucking rules. I really do like Lake Placid. But he just, he never, it never happened. He never had like, you know, if this had been Costner in the late 80s, he, you know, he does no way out. But then all of a sudden he's in untouchables, field of dreams. And it's just kind of going.

Lake Placid is one of those movies that you. could show someone now and you just be like, you guys don't understand. Pullman, Oliver Platt, Bridget Fonda, and they would just be like, the only person I recognize in this movie is Betty White. Yeah. There's some Mariska Hargitaine in Lake Placet as well. Pullman is a hard movie star to like figure out because the stuff that he does that he's good at is not the stuff we're used to people being good at. Like he's good in those empty moments. He's good in the like little looks. He's good in a quick, like, let me get a quick joke off that you didn't realize was a joke until it detonates in the back of your head a few seconds later. That's why he's so perfect in Lake Placid

because he's able to play up all of those things. That's why when he shows up here, you're kind of like, he's a little wormy to be the president. But then he really turns it on at the end. You're like, oh, I get it. I get it now. He has, there's a genuine quality about him. Like in Sleepless in Seattle, Meg Ryan is basically like, hey, not only we're not getting engaged, there's this guy I've been emailing with, and I'm going to go meet him on the top of a tower. I think I'm in love with him. He's like, cool, follow your heart.

Yeah. There's that like, wait, fuck you. I bet you spent $10,000. He's like, maybe I'll start wearing my hair different. He has malice, which I think malice is a really good movie. Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman, and he's kind of the husband that doesn't, I don't want to spoil it.

But he's kind of the same guy in every movie. And maybe there's only like a six, seven year shelf life for that would be my, my theory. I don't know. Jay, if you wrote Pullman and other things, do you think we could get it into the Amazon bestseller list? I think we could do it. I think so.

The speech, it never really made that this is the Jumbotron era of speeches in NBA games when these movies go to another level with Braveheart and some of these other ones. This one never made the Jumbotron era because it's about human destruction. It just would have been weird to play when you're up one with 27. It has no relationship to fucking basketball. That's right. But same kind of inspiring. He builds.

He's got all the people captivated around him. And then he does the, we will not go quietly into that night. Yeah. We will not vanish without a fight. And it's just like you're so fired up by the end of it. I feel like the Sixers might have blown an opportunity when Ben Simmons was really, really falling apart in those last two home games.

Maybe you should throw Independence Day on the, monitor, Chris. I've been to basketball games where they put that on and you actually listen to the speech. You're like, this has no relevance to what I'm actually seeing. But, Shea, you did a thing, didn't you do a thing in your book about movie speeches? I vaguely remember. I'm sure I did. I think you did something about this speech, didn't you? Am I imagining this? I don't know if I did. I should have it. You wrote about it for Grantland? I feel like you did a thing about this speech. Listen, I love it. I love it. It makes me excited when he gets to yelling.

This is again, he starts out quiet and soft and then he turns it on at the end. And you keep falling for it every time he does it. Yeah. When he decides to like, I'm going to go fight aliens in his jet. At that point, you're like, well, I believe it. Because I just saw the other part. Let's fucking go. We're going to be all right.

Emrick said that he said, he talked to Pullman before the movie and Pullman said, I'm going to play this a little bit like a John Wayne figure, maybe a little bit unsure of himself. At the end, he's very sure of what he has to do. And then Waldman, one of the people behind the scenes of the movie, said, I thought this is a really good point. Hollywood over the decades has had this very interesting relationship with presidents. And Hollywood's often portrayed the presidents it wish it had. Liberal Hollywood usually felt uncomfortable in some way with Bill Clinton personally.

A lot of liberals in Hollywood thought Bill Clinton was a compromiser. And so Bill Palmer caught up there and told it like it is, said what he really thought, which everyone dreamed the real president would do. It is funny when this happens, because people in 96, they were so disappointed in the first four years of Clinton, like, they just, the potential of him versus where we were. And it is funny when that kind of bleeds in a real life. Yeah, there's that movie. You're like, I wish that guy was the president.

Like his first scene with Connie, he's, she's just like, remember when you had ideals and now it's just like politics? And it's like, that is kind of how government works. It's not just like you could just walk in and be like, here's how we're going to do. how they would have done Independence Day in 2020 would have been interesting with our president I'm surprised Trump's not in this movie. He's Randy Quaid.

The film, it won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound. It won a Grammy for its score. It had a $75 million budget. It made $817 million. What do you think Chris Ryan thought? What do you think Roger Eber thought of this movie,

Chris Ryan? Grudgingly accepted it, so probably like two and a half stars. Two and a half stars. Okay. From Raj. Incredible. He thought the special effects are elaborate and pervasive, but they aren't outstanding. But such a snob sometimes, Roger.

We have a $75 million budget and made $817 million. So there you go. I think I said that already. We're going to not take a break. We're going to do today's most rewatchable scene presented by Blue Moon. Now that things are opening up a bit, it's been great to get out to some of my favorite bars

and restaurants for a bite and beer. I actually haven't been doing that. Feels incredible to be back a place you know you enjoy. Kind of like a Blue Moon is going to be great every time, especially when it's in a frosty pint glass with that signature orange garnish. Celebrate responsibly Blue Moon Brewing Company Golden Colorado. Ale.

What's interesting about this movie, is I had one rewatchable scene through the first 45 minutes. A lot of character development, Shea. A lot. We're really, really getting some backgrounds. You don't think, you're fine.

You think this movie wasn't too long. No, I think it was 30 minutes too short. That's how I feel about it. That's how I feel about it. The scene where Will is waking up and doing like his morning routine, that should have been 40 minutes just of him doing that. I had for most rewatchable scene.

First one. the spaceship arrives. And everybody's like, wait, and it's just gigantic. I'm trying to imagine. Like, I don't feel like the people were scared enough, just at really any point in this movie. Like, I'm in Boston right now. If just this giant spaceship just kind of hovered over the entire city

and made everything dark, I'm positive. I would be scared. You would walk outside and be like, you think you're better than me. Maybe they would do that in Boston. I like the special effects, though. The next one is Goldblum warning the president

about what's really going on. David, you have to... David, tell him. I know why we have satellite disruption. All right. Go ahead. Okay. Let's say that you wanted to coordinate with spaceships

on different sides of the Earth. I couldn't send a direct signal, right? You're talking about line? site. Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Curve the Earth prevents it. You'd need satellites to relay that signal in order to reach each ship. Well, I found a signal hidden

inside our own satellite system. Right as the welcome wagon got demolished. And you knew the guy was in trouble. It was like, how many black characters are in this movie, Shade? Like, five? Not enough. And you knew it's like, oh, that pilot, he's dying.

So the welcome wagon, which for some reason, they're not scared. enough either. Nobody's scared of this giant spaceship. It's very bizarre. One issue I have with this movie is that nobody ever questions the orders they're given. They're just kind of like, I guess I got to go fly up to this spaceship. Hopefully I can win with my small plane against this 15 mile spaceship. Next one I have for rewatchable. Times up. When the clock goes down, Goldblum says times up. Everything starts blowing up, Shea. Everything. Every single thing in the movie's blowing up. Somehow you know the dog's going to survive, though. Vivoky Fox's dog.

That thing, we'll watch hundreds of thousands of people blow up in two minutes, but that fucking white lab is making it. Boomer. Yeah, he's making it. Next one is the aborted Air Force attack. Will Smith's just on fire. Oh, no, you don't shoot that brain shit at me. We get Harry Connick Jr. dies. Jimmy! We get the parachute move, and then we get him punching the alien, welcome to Earth. Shay, I had this later. I'll do it now. Can aliens really get concussed like that?

What's the ruling? If Will Smith punches you, yes. All of this stuff we're going to talk about for me, it all leans toward Will Smith. Like any best scene is going to have him in there. That stretch you're talking about there, when I watched this the first time, I was 15, 16 years old or whatever. it was it was the like the single coolest thing I had ever seen ever

ever the coolest guy on the planet he's a fighter pilot he's not afraid of these he's not only not afraid of the aliens he's talking shit to him that's the thing which I always appreciated I'm a big Reggie Miller guy he beats him in an in an air flight

air fight gets out tells him that's what you get that's what you get motherfucker goes to the ship punches him he gives them two one-liners Not one. Yeah. Welcome to Earth. Boom.

And then he, oh, I thought of another one and then he does another one. And then he's dragging him through the desert. And the whole drag him. It's just like a one-man show. Like that's where Will Smith becomes Will Smith is when he's dragging that alien across the flats. And he's just like,

what's that smell? That's just like. Yeah. That's the exact moment. That's the moment when you're like, this guy will be in my life forever. You know, this was supposed to be my weekend all.

A new. You got me out here dragging your heavy ass Through the burning desert With your dreadlocks sticking out the back of my parachute You gotta come down here with an attitude Hacking all big and bad And what the hell is that smell? What current NBA star

Could have pulled off that entire Woolsmith sequence? Trey Young Oh, just like shit talking? A rational confidence, shit talking Like you said Reggie Miller, he's retired I feel like it's Trey Young. It's definitely. not Ben Simmons.

Would you send Jay Crowder against the alien? Jake Crater gets a flagrant one. Next one is the area 51 scene. It's good. I always like it's like where there's a secret room or a secret building and you have to go down. You have to go, there's a staircase or an elevator down. Great stuff.

Get a little Adam Baldwin. Yeah. A little like, yeah, Adam Baldwin. It's like, oh, this guy. Opening the alien's head I had as a rewatchable scene. when all of a sudden there's that other alien. It's a little quato, total recally, tiny bit. We got the second one in there,

and then he's just not friendly. That's my takeaway. Not a friendly second alien. He's talking through the humans, die. And then they go, is this glass bulletproof, boom. And then. People don't know this about me and Greenwald, but on the watch,

he actually has his fingers wrapped around my voice box. And he just squeezes out my takes, yeah. The speech, which is my vote for most rewatchable. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. And should we win the day? The 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday. But as the day when the world declared in one voice, We will not go quietly into the night.

We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, we celebrate our Independence Day. Pullman said, basically, they filmed it. They were going to edit the speech, but they had forgotten to do the final edits on it. So then Pullman just did it,

and it was written a little longer. And he crushed it. And a lot of the first take of the speech is just what the movie is. And one of the things that they talk about is like when they're cutting around and the people watching it, their reactions are pretty genuine because they're in real life going like, oh, Bill Pullman's kind of killing this. So they're kind of like watching it in awe as he's doing it. And then they're reacting and they were smart enough to keep it.

Devlin said the only thing we changed from that rough draft was we added at the last minute the line, today we celebrate our Independence Day because. the studio was starting to change the title to Doomsday and we thought let's get Independence Day into the speech as you know Chris as I've said a million times I love when the title is in the movie yeah but it's also when the title is in the movie and also the date of the movie's release like how it's the trifecta they they crushed it all the way across

three more rewatchable scenes will takes off in the plane and it accidentally goes backward and we get him in gold bloom and gold bloom's like what the fuck he has to flip the direct, he flies out, and I just like being in the plane with those guys. No, no oops, no oops. Oops. Oops.

What does that mean? What do you mean? No, I got it. Some jerk didn't put, I got it. I mean, what do you mean saying? Oops there? Well, you say, we try that one again, huh? Yes, yes.

Yes, without the oops. That way. And then they nail the, They nail the comeback landing. Great job. Great, great camera work. I like Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum, the only guy in Hollywood, other than maybe Clint Eastwood, who's as tall

as Will Smith for the walkback. So it's not like a Manupol, Mugsy Boggs situation. They're smoking the cigars. We get the ladies running to them. It's like, you know, I think Top Gun did it the best, but this is really, really way up there. Shea, do you have any other favorite the good guys have landed and now they're being greeted happily? agree that there is a one better

spaceship landing good guys have returned to Earth moment. What is it? Armageddon? Is it going to say Armageddon? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was going to throw out there. Give me that one too. Give us a fourth for Mount Rushmore. Well, it's definitely Armageddon Independence Day and Top Gun. That's three. Shade, you have another one?

Of the bad, of the good guys after they land? Coming back. I'm trying to think of like an airplane hijacking type movie. There's that. All right, somebody's got to make it now. You got to throw Captain Phillips up there. No, you don't.

Captain Phillips. All right, what do you have for most rewatchable, Shea? You know, I tip my hand a little bit here with the Will Smithing. That's going to be my pick because I just, just watching him in the desert is so much fun. It's like the one clip you can, I can go from this movie and watch it on YouTube. somebody did like a really great thing where they, because they happen separate from each other, but they take the air fight

and then the desert scene and they stitch them together so it's just like one three minute video. You can watch just the Will Smith part, which I love. The speech is really great but I treat the speech the same way I treat like the big reveal and knives out where I can't only watch that. I have to watch everything leading

up to it so that it feels how it's supposed to feel. So I can't just go watch the speech. But I do want to say the part where everything blows up the first time you see it. Especially, again, I was 15, 16 years old when this happens. I'm able to watch on the screen and recognize the places that we're talking about. I'm in high school.

So I'm like, oh, the White House is like this sacred building that where nothing bad can happen. And then you watch it explode. They do the White House, the Capitol building, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty. And these are like places you recognize as a child. And it's so wild to watch them get blown up. That part, it was just like, holy fucking shit. shit, this is, I don't, like, you're pressed to the back of your seat in the theater watching this crazy thing happen. It felt real in that moment, you know?

Yeah, it's, it's weird. It's now living in L.A. for a while. You recognize so much of the L.A. stuff when Vivica's trying to get out of L.A. L.A. She's like stuck in that tunnel downtown when she's, when the flames come through and boomer and her and Dylan go into the maintenance closet. But, yeah, I think for me, the rewatchable. scene is still the speech. And it's, it's both because the speech, it's also because, like, right before that, he's like, I'm, I'm going to fly a plane too, which is like, that's sick. The president is also going to fly. And then when he does this speech, it's just like, even last night, I watched this speech and I was like, I'm going to go pick up some litter. Like, I want to go

contribute. I want to do something. Pick up some litter. The director, Roland, Emmerich, he, he does he's got a lot of movies where he blows shit up. So he does it here. We mentioned Godzilla. He does it in the day after tomorrow. He does it in 2012. He's so good at showing you a thing and then exploding it and making you feel

something. I wonder how I would love to know like how that became like his signature thing. What's he like to watch game five of the Clipper Sun series with? Or is he just thinking you're just blowing up in the arena? Yeah, yeah. I was

You love to blow up Phoenix Sun's Arena. It would be great to blow that up? He's just like, wow, the basketball court, would it just blow straight up? Or do you like, hey, settle down, rolling. Hey, that was today's most rewatchable scene presented by Blue Moon. Blue Moon on a mission to bring some brightness to your life, break up your routine. Speaking of which, be sure to try Blue Moon's latest brew. Blue Moon Light, Sky, Light and Refreshing Wheat Beer.

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This is now in this. 60 minutes is doing UFO pieces. You mentioned, I just love Will Smith Dragon the concussed alien body fucking kills me. It's funny every time. I don't know what's great about it. It's just really good. It's inspired.

I can't believe somebody thought of it. It's just great stuff. The Austin Powers movies where they do the staring in the sky, kind of scared and in awe joke of just, wait, what is that? Is that somebody's, and then it cuts the next person like, dick.

It's clearly ripped off from this movie. But when I see the staring in the sky, I was thinking of the Austin Powers thing. You mentioned the cast, loaded, Goldblum, Hirsch, Robert Lojia, my guy, Bill Pullman. James Rebhorn. I was just going to say. We're going to have a big that guy litigation with him later.

Randy Quaid. Margaret Collin, who we'll talk about one second. Vivque Fox, Harry Connick, your guy Baldwin, Adam Baldwin. That's right. And then obviously Will Smith, but really, really good cast. Margaret Colin, I feel like it didn't totally happen for the way it should have. It's upsetting to me.

So what happens after Independence Day for her? So here's what really, I went and studied her IMDB. I think she got market corrected by ER is what happened. Okay. So just give you some background. 1994, NBC's making ER, CBS is making Chicago Hope. These are two medical dramas set in Chicago, both trying to do the modern version of Sin Elsewhere.

Right. And it's clear one of them is going to be a hit. And you just don't know which one. And it becomes ER. But she is one of the people on Chicago Hope. Can we just say? So it's basically like she at least should have been Julianna Margulies, but, you know, Margulies ends up and ER ER does better.

Chicago Hope was good, too. It was really good. Patankin, Margaret Collin. Pete Berg was on that show, right? Pete Berg, I'm going to read you the cast right now. Yeah, you had that. Patankin was the star. Adam Arkin.

That's right. I was kind of a joke of. Hector Elizondo, fresh off of a couple years after Pretty Woman. Right. They're just really doing some great stuff with Roberts. Bondi Curtis Hall. Always liked him.

Christine Lottie, Mark Harmon. Just, and our girl, Carla Gigino, mate, was in there for the last couple years. Oh,

that's right. That's right. But it just was always in the ER shadow. But I was really liked her. I think she's really good in this movie. She's good. And like, she was in Vip a couple years ago.

She's awesome. I wish she had done more movies, but she's pretty cool. She's got some good scenes and unfaithful, which I know Shea probably hasn't seen with Diane Lane. I had not seen that one of Diane Lane's friends who's talking about affairs. I like her. Another would stage the best. The, this is it, I think Independence Day, I don't know if it invented it, but it perfected it. The aggrieved guy who's in charge of something, who it's the scene starts out where they're walking and he's like,

better be good. Yeah. And then there's like something. And then they show him something and he's like, there's like three people in this movie who were like, you just woke me up in the middle of the night. What do you want? And it's like, you're a submarine captain. Maybe don't sleep too deeply.

I love that this better be good guy. Your whole job is to. And you're a sub captain. It's probably important. It's, but your job is to solve crises. That's what the money's for, buddy. This better be good. I love those.

And then I mentioned 1990's special effects. What else? Anything else stage the best for you guys? I got to say, we can have the Rebhorn conversation a little bit later, but Nimsicki as like a kind of the subtle villain of this movie for the three, that's his name, right? The Secretary of DeVence Nimsicki. For the three quarters of the movie that he plays at,

he's kind of great and needed. Like you need somebody who's like pushing buttons, being annoying, kind of has like the different take. And then throughout this movie, that character is kind of like, he's negging, Bill Pullman a lot. He's like, you fucked up.

You could have ordered the evacuations and everybody died, so now you've got to let me nuke Houston. It's honestly reminded me so much of working with fantasy. Just a lot of second-guessing and like a kind of evil, smarmy side. That's right. It's very similar to that. Rebhorn, let's just do it now. Let's do it. My favorite all-time Rebhorn

and people may have heard this rewatchable's episode is he is fantastic in the game. I love him in the game. So I'm going to read you from 91 on basically, he rips off a that guy run that is out of control. He's in my cousin Vinny. He's one of the doctors and basic instinct. Oh, yeah.

He's the evil principal and scent of a woman who doesn't trust Chris O'Donnell, and then Pacino has to come in and do that, take a flame thrower. He's in Carlito's way. Yes. He's the DA. He's in, he's a guy.

He's in eight seconds guarding tests and I Love Trouble in 1994. Now it's really going. He's in White Squall, up close to personal. If Lucy fell on Independence Day, all in 1996. And then it all leads to the game. He's D.A. Hoyt in the Seinfeld finale. And then my personal favorite, Rebhorn, talented Mr. Ripley. He's Dickie Greenleaf's dad.

That's right. Herbert, Herbert Greenleaf. He also, that goes on dad. An amazing turn on Homeland where he plays Carrie's dad. He's Rebhorn. And I don't know when he became James Rebhorn, but in my opinion, not of that guy. He's James Rebhorn.

If you were ever going to change pants, the name of the pants award, you could call it the Rebhorn. Rebhorn, I encourage everybody to go look at Rebhorn's 1990s. Any other what's age the best for you, Shea, other than stuff we've mentioned? The one scene in this that I really like

are the one character or the one, like, thing that happens in these sorts of movies all the time is the scene where, like, somebody recognizes the thing before everybody else. this crazy thing that's about to happen and they have to tell other people. And I really, I greatly, greatly enjoy watching that. Because I always feel like I would do a better job of explaining it than whoever the other person is. The only time I was watching it and I saw that character and I didn't feel like that is when Paul Giamati does it in San Andreas.

And he's like, and he's telling them about the earthquake. And he's like, you will fill it on the East Coast. And I was like, oh, fuck, that's a big earthquake. You know what I'm saying? He didn't try to science it up. He was just like, this is going to be terrible. It's the power of your character. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that in a movie. I love that when it happens here.

The only other thing I would mention for what's age of the best is the fact that quite clearly Goldblum and Smith are just improvving their dialogue for like the second half of the movie. They definitely didn't have a script for the last 20 minutes. The second half of the movie is like,

we're going to fly a spaceship into another spaceship and give it a computer virus and we have to also shoot a nuke into it. So it's like kind of heady. And when just getting those guys to do their banter and do their lines is great. Great title, too. Wanted to mention that, Independence Day.

Great job. Comes out on Independence Day. Great stuff. Really smart. What's age to worse? There's some bad Independence Day rip-offs. Volcano? Probably its influence on culture has not been a positive.

I'm treading carefully because Shay likes all of these movies. I don't want to set off Shea. She will get upset. It takes us personally. even when we go into like the Lake Placid Anaconda world. Lake Plac is good. I know. Just be careful when you mention these movies to Shea that you might think isn't good because he likes them.

But there was this weird run or just things blowing up. And Godzilla, I think, is also a blowup movie even though it was Godzilla. But it definitely tried to emulate all that stuff. Randy Quaid's career. He, Randy Quaid just got super, super weird in real life. Like maybe all time didn't murder anybody. still crazy weird weird. Yeah.

And it's hard to see him in any movie now where I just think about how fucking weird is. Especially when he's behaving like this because you're just like, oh, you were acting. It's like, oh, you're not acting. Right. Independence Day 2 is in the what stage the worst. I don't know how you make a sequel to this movie and Will Smith's not in it. There's no acceptable explanation.

They could have waited him out. It sucks. It's like they basically make the movie and Michael Monroe plays Patricia, who's the, who's Pullman's daughter in the movie, but instead of using May Whitman, who was the actual actress who's in the movie, and then winds up being on, like, lots of TV shows, she's on good girls. But yeah, they should have just waited Smith out. He wanted $50 million to make two of them, right? And then, like, there was, like, protracted negotiations, and then he was going to do it, but he had to do suicide squad. It's just like, they should have figured out of it.

And then he ended up when they finally were like, hey, we're really doing this. You want in? And he's like, I can't. I got to make after Earth. So it's like a double loss. Even Shay didn't like after her. Shea likes every movie. I didn't like double. I did not like Doubler. Nor did like Godzilla since you mentioned it. It would be like if they're like, hey, we're making a sequel to the Duncan Pop Spurs.

But we can't get Duncan, but we've got a bunch of the other guys. Yeah. But Duncan's not going to be in this. We got Malik Rose. Yeah. What is this? Oh wait, Speedy Klaxston's in. It's like, what's happening?

Morewood's age the worst. So this movie. is basically blamed for the trend of buying Super Bowl airtime to promote blockbusters. If you were wondering, they spent $1.3 million on their commercial for Super Bowl 30, and that led to 25 years of the Super Bowl just being weird action movie commercials combined with whatever new products. Somebody is coming in. They actually did a really good marketing campaign for this movie where they spent

$30 million. bucks. They had all kinds of product placement. They had the toys ready to go. They did a deal with Apple. Some of that stuff was really smart. And some really good trailers too where they were like, I don't know if you remember these, but it was like, we've always believed we weren't alone. Yeah. On July 4th, we'll wish we were. Yeah, yeah. Independence Day. The release of this movie, they put it out like limited in theaters like two days early, right? Like, wasn't there like a whole thing where it was like that whole week you could kind of see Independence Day

and then finally by the weekend. I'm sure there were people who were seeing it by then the second time by the time the weekend roll around. My last one stage is the worst. There's a rip-off Keanu Keanu Reeves character in this. I got you here, Bill. Miguel.

Yeah, well, I would just say... Played by James Duvall and it's just bad. The character's bad. It's like, is this like Keanu Reeves' brother? Did he just study Bill and Ted's adventure? What is this? Midway through the movie, they decided not to make that kid a fighter pilot or something.

Right. But they were like, but we've already shot all these scenes of Randy Quaid's. Like, why is there a scene where Randy Quaid's youngest son gets car sick? And it's like, when you want to know why a movie is two hours and 40 minutes or whatever, it's because of scenes like that. And then you're just like, I didn't need to know that that kid got car sick. Also, the daughter just disappears. If you're making this movie shorter, which I know Shay is morally against, I'm dumping all the Randy Quaid kid stuff. All we need with him is the scene in the dying. where it's like,

the people are making fun of them, and he's like, I'm molested by aliens. Yeah, that's good. I don't need any of the other stuff. That guy, that guy is a bad character. There's been some great Miguel's

in movies and TV, including recently in Kobra Kai. That was, I think, not on the Miguel Mount Rushmore. Casting what ifs we're going to do after a quick break. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market.

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Casting what-ifs. Boy, this is... Do you know who the president was supposed to be, Shea? I do not. Tell me. Somebody good? Do you know, Chris? I don't. It was Kevin Spacey. Oh, right. But he wasn't a big enough movie star, right? Fox refused to cast him. They didn't think he had the potential to be a big enough star. We wrote the part for a Bill Pullman type and it ended up being Pullman.

I'm just glad Kevin Spacey's not the president in this movie. That's complicated. for a lot of reasons. Don't really like that guy. That would have said. Allie Walker was supposed to play Margaret Collins' character. It's a Colin or Colin? I think it's Colin.

Colin, yeah. And then Colin ended up, she did a casting thing, jokingly told the casting assistant she was 22. The person actually wrote down that as her age. She almost didn't get the part. She was actually like 38.

So she gets it. Shea, your girl, Jada Pink. it was supposed to be the Vivicaa Fox thing, but had a scheduling conflict with the nutty professor. Oh. Yeah. But ends up with Will Smith anyway.

There you go. There's the universe working for you. What a fairy tale. I couldn't confirm this, but this was in my research. This is why this is always half-fast. Matthew Perry. Yeah. Originally offered the role of Captain Jimmy Wilder.

Raven. But pulled out at the last minute. It feels conceivable. it's right around friends and take it off for a year. So do we now... I'm willing to believe it. Do we think that

that he would have done the role exactly the way Harry Connick did? Because if not, if he was going to be asked to do that, I think he made the right choice. Yeah. Do you think he just would have been Chandler? Like, could these aliens be any more annoying?

Do we have to get in the plane? Do we really have to fly? When they did REMs, and it's the end of the world, as we know it. Originally, that was supposed to be everybody wants

to rule the world by tears for fears. And that did not happen. That's it. That's all. I thought there would be more casting what ifs, but they really weren't.

They knew who they wanted for this. The Joey Pants award for best that guy. So we're saying Rebhorn's not eligible, right? I feel like he's James. I think he's too much in the movie. Yeah.

Yeah. How about Dan Loria, the dad from the Wonder Years? Yeah. Loria's in there. That's a good pick. As the best that guy? Do you have somebody else, Chris?

Well, I mean, there's people who are like quickly in the movie, like Leland Orser, who is also in seven, in a very famous scene in seven, is in like the surgery room. Yeah. With the doctor. That's a good one. Let's do him. I like Leland Orson. Okay, Leland Orser.

Because Dan Lurier is the dad from the one of yours. The Vincent Hannick, give me all you got a word. It has to be Harvey Firestein. Yes. He is awesome. I guess so excited when he shows up. Another character who gets like a half an hour of screen time and dies. Yeah.

They're just like, the last time you see him, there's a big thing of big flame coming toward him and he just has his mouth open. The Jed Nelson Award. Oh, God. We haven't really mentioned Mary MacDonald yet. It's coming. Okay.

The Judd Nelson Award for the person who just seems like they're in a completely different movie, I got to give it to my guy, Judd Hurd. I don't really know what movie he's in, but he's in like a rom-com where he's trying to stop a wedding or something, but it doesn't seem to realize that there are bigger stakes. I don't know what's going on with him in this food.

I love Jennifer. Do you think that in real life, like what would happen was like, let's say Jeff Goldblum gets all the way into the White House and then is like, here's the information you guys need to know about this signal. And they're like, great, thanks so much. Does that automatically warrant a seat on Air Force One

to get out of like, or do you think they're just like... You can get like the third helicopter out. Right. Can we call you an Uber? How are you getting back to your house? Yeah, take your Plymouth. Dion Waiters Award,

it's for me between Connick... This is a category of one. James Rebhorn and Judd Hirsch, if you wanted to get creative. But I think this is Connick. Connick pretends to kiss Will Smith's ass, literally. Yeah.

Does an impersonation of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and then dies. Or as the good Reverend would say, why we are on this particular mission will never know. But I do know here today that the Black Knights

will emerge victorious once again. Amen, man. Amen, Reverend. That is Dionne Waiters. Yeah, it's a loud nine minutes for him. A loud nine minutes. Can I offer one other person? Yeah.

It's my favorite character in the movie, and I'm going to tell you about him. And then from now on, any time you watch this movie, you're going to get so excited when he shows up on the screen. But when Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum get onto the mothership, they show up, and there's an alien who's working like shuttle intake. Like he's in charge of getting the ships in and out, and he's just there like a regular day of work, like drinking coffee and doing emails. You see him in his little cubicle, and every time he shows up, I just get so happy because this world, it's like a world ending event. And he's just, it's like a Tuesday. And he's whatever, just, oh, got, get the ships in and out. That's all I'm worried about.

Every single time you see him, you're going to laugh now when you watch it. Because it just looks ridiculous to see the alien in there fucking tip-taping away with his tentacles. I love him. He's my favorite. recast the couch. I'm going to give you a number two option. I wanted more from the Area 51, the wacky doctor. I just feel like, just go get Christopher Lloyd. Just get him. Doc Brown. Yeah, just get Doc Brown. Just have them have maybe not quite as crazy hair, but just it's a wink, wink to the 80s, and just have Doc Brown in there. I think it should have been Dennis Hopper. Dennis Hopper, great. Whoever. Just give me a real famous person as the Area 51 doctor who's just,

Yeah, how about this? How about Pacino? Just for two scenes. Here's $10 million. They don't let me outside very much. I've got aliens in jars. I've got a spaceship hovering over me. You know who's looking at us?

Aliens, motherfucker. I had coffee with the head alien half an hour ago. It makes me so happy to think about the rewatchables has become like this juggernaut podcast that everybody in America listens to and it all started because y'all just wanted to do Al Pacino impressions for a few minutes. Shea, the 200 episode,

the re-reheat is coming. If you want in, we got you like that movie. Listen, I'm so ready. I would never step in on that one. I think that one has to be. The re-reheat? We're just going to keep doing it until Michael Mann wants to join us. My number one recasting couch, this is going to get uncomfortable for five minutes.

Just so you know, sometimes my instincts are right on certain actors. I've said for years that Amy Adams was the Alex Smith of A-list actresses. I feel like I was proven right. She's fine. She's not great. She's fine. You can win 11 games with her. You can make round two of the playoffs, but ultimately that's where you're going.

I've never been a Mary McDonald person. I've never gotten it. I think she's the same person in every single movie. and I just don't understand it. And her as the first lady, her being married to Bill Pullman, I don't get any of it. Just give me Demi Moore.

Give me like four Demi Moore scenes and I'm good. She's barely in the movie. So if you have to be more lady, do you still want her to die? I think that would be more shocking. It's like, whoa, Demi Moore died. Right.

She's bleeding internally. She'll be fine. Wait, she's dead? Mary McDonald, I just, I'm expecting her to die the whole movie. I like Mary McDonald's. She's good on bad. She's good in John Sails movies. I like her.

But I see what you're saying. I'm just saying. This is one of my things. They have a chance there. They could have had like if they brought like a cameo huge actor, actress in and then still had the character die, it would have been really shocking. Yeah. I just like the, if it's going to be where the person's only on set for three days, go big.

It should have been, Bill, it should have been Sharon Stone. Oh my God. Sharon Stone would have been amazing. I never would have expected Sharon Stone to die. The half-ass internet research, the idea for the film came when Emmerich was promoting Stargate. And a reporter asked him why he made the film, if he did not believe in aliens. He said he was fascinated by them. And then he asked the reporter, what would it be like, imagine waking up one morning.

There's a 15-mile-wide spaceship hovering over your city. That would be crazy. And then he turned to Devlin, who he was with. And he was like, I think I have an idea for our next movie. And that's how it started. U.S. military was originally in. Why do you think they bowed out, Shea? What was it?

I do not know. Area 51. They were like, we're scared. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Oh, you're bringing this shit up, I'm out. 3,000 plus special effects shots. They did a whole, this was old school where they created models of the different things they had to blow up. So they had this model of the White House that was 10 feet by five feet.

And they blew that up. And that's how they did a lot of the destruction stuff. They used the White House interior set, had already been built for American president and also used for Nixon. So that set was pretty busy. This film has six Oscar nominees. Let's go Game Show.

We'll go back and forth and whoever can't get the six one, the other person wins. Shea, you go first. Give me the first Oscar nominee in this movie. Will Smith. Chris? Goldblum?

Okay. Shea. Pullman. Damn it. Chris, you can win if you come up with one more Oscar nominee. Does Judge Hirsch have an Oscar nomination? He sure does. Chris Wright is our winner. Boom. Also, Robert Loggia, Mary MacDonald, and Randy Quaid somehow got an Oscar nomination. I love this one. They did a screening at the White House for Bill Clinton. And he loved it. I bet he. did. And then somebody told him, somebody in the oral history, they said, oh, Vivica Fox said, I got to introduce myself to Bill Clinton. And he was like, I loved you in Independence Day, Vivica. I bet you did, Bill. Stay away. Do you remember there was a big VHS marketing campaign for this

movie, Chris? Vigely. Six weeks, $30 million. Jesus. And it sold $22,000. copies became the best-selling live action video ever. This did come up in the research. Most of the scenes with Jeff Goldblum and Judd-Hurish or Will Smith was improvised. They used 70 mock news broadcasts for the film. This was my favorite one, though. Emrick remembers one day Robert Lozsche was very upset refusing to leave his trailer. Apparently a producer had suggested to him a few days earlier that he should watch

airplane for inspiration for the movie. he meant to say airport, but he said airplane. So Robert Lusier watched airplane and then was confused and thought they were making a spoof movie and not telling him and was furious and wouldn't leave his trailer and they had to smooth it out. That's an actual thing that is.

That's incredible. That's incredible. Actual moment. And that's it. All right, we're going to go to Apex Mountain. But first we're going to take one more break. Apex Mountain. Will Smith?

No. It's got to be men in black, right? Men in Black, now he's got three. Oh, I would think it was either this or bad boy. It's either this or bad boys, too. I think it's Men and Black. Because after Men and Black, I think he could have made any movie he wanted for whatever salary he named.

Yeah. Because now he's three for three. But it could be this. I think it's got to be this movie or Men in Black in terms of most use, everything. I think men and black are bad boys too. Why wasn't Will Smith's peak longer? Is it really because of Wild Wild Wild West? Did that really just destroy it?

No, because he decided he just was going to make giant blockbuster movies and never, you know, he didn't follow the motto of some of the other great A plus listeners of just you got to weave in the occasional something. And then by the mid 2000s, he figured that out, right? And he least tried a couple. But I just think he did too many, the same type of movie too many times, right? Yeah. He's just going for the biggest box office over and over again. Yeah. But there's, he passed up some good ones.

over the last 25 years, you know? There's a couple, like, think of, like, how many Denzel movies could Will Smith have also made, right? Like, he could have been a man on fire and been awesome. It's Django, too, because that was the one. Django was the worst one, yeah. Django's the one that he was up for or that he could have done, apparently. Shea, Will Smith and Man on Fire?

Yeah, absolutely. Better or worse? Sign me. Sign me up. It's not going to be better than Denzel. It can't be better than Denzel. There's no movie you can take Denzel out of it. and put someone else in. I can't really imagine Will Smith putting a bomb up another person's behind. Craig always asked me, what happened? Are we going to run out of movies? No. And I'm like,

I mean, we haven't done man on fire yet. Like the rewatchables, there's a lot of meat left on the bone. Harry Connick Jr. Apex Mountain. I think he's. Mary DeGillo Goodacre at this point. She's one of the, one of like the hottest woman in the world, the mid-90s. He's got music stuff. He's got the when Harry met Sally tale. When does his Christmas kicking because like Carrie Conach's like a Christmas album. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was running shit. Yeah, he was like...

I'm going to look this up because this is important. So you feel like that was his... Yeah, when he puts his Christmas album out. He was going to be the one who when we were doing recasting. I wouldn't mind the swapping him out. If we just need like a funny guy in there, let's get Martin Lawrence in that seat and see what happened. I think that would have been great.

That's a good one. Christmas album is 93. 93. Okay. Yeah. So I think by Independence Day it's really happening. And then he's actually getting cast as leads, which should not work out as well. Right. More apex bound.

Bill Pullman, yes. Has to be. It just has to be. Yeah. Long, dumbfounded action movie stairs. Apex Mountain or was there a different movie? I think Jurassic Park is Apex Mountain for long stairs. Some people would say close encounters.

I like the fight being when they see the Brachiosaurus the first time in Jurassic Park and when Will Smith sees the ship the first time. He's looking at his paper and then he looks to everybody else and that he looks up. Yeah. It's so good. And then Vivica joins him

too and they both do it. It's probably Jurassic. Vivica A Fox, I would say yes. This are Kildelia. Huge part. I think set it off for a vividly. You think so?

I think so. This was the second biggest movie of all time. Yeah, but she doesn't do a lot in it. And set it off, she's like a star, the star. Okay. Alien invasion movies? So do you guys prefer this or War of the Worlds? This.

The Tom Cruise War of the Worlds? Yeah. The baseball scene killed War of the Worlds for me. I was never the same. I just couldn't believe he threw a baseball like that. It really, it rocked my world. the sound that the alien ships make

in War of the Worlds is better it's like a I remember being in a theater and they're playing it where like at the AVX roar and it comes in

and like all your shit is shaken that part's better but just a fun movie to watch in the theater I think I think Independence State gets it

concussed aliens I say definitely yeah definitely but we know so much more now about CTE so I think that

the aliens have been put in some kind of protocol you know Chris Nowitzki is tweeting about the alien. It's too bad. Movie president's speeches. I was going to, I mean, we talked about movie presidents.

I would say, you could make an argument that this is the apex mountain of the presidency. It's the apex of like the actual presidency. Just across, just across. Lewinsky hasn't happened yet. No. So. We still believe in the office. We have Dave in 93, West Wing's coming.

We talked about the fictional. presidency's up against, I would just, you know, I would say Whitmore is up there with Obama, Kennedy, Lincoln, you know what I mean? In terms of just like, fair. What he accomplishes? The cons, you know, the things going against him is he did nuke one of his own cities. That's, that's definitely going to be a market. There's going to be some fallout. There's going to be literal fallout. There might be some PR. It might be hard to spin that. Pros, uh, great public speaker and can fly. So like, I don't know. all right so i was going to do this later but let's do it now are we sure president

wentmore was a good president doesn't tell tells nobody to evacuate for hours on end there's giant 50 miles spaceship over every major city it's like where can you evacuate targeted huge cities with the most people and he's like now let's see this let's see what happens let's play it out um nukes his own city and then goes to fight maybe to certain death who's gonna run the country I think the implication is if this doesn't work

it doesn't matter Right yeah Yeah I think that's a good I think if you didn't leave Your city you saw those ships And you didn't leave That's on you You shouldn't need somebody to tell you

To get out of the water When there's a shark by Right Okay Not sure he was a great president I feel like the evacuation Could have been a lot sooner Well my big question

It's like that's my big Unanswerable question Is like what are we looking at After this? Yeah What's he the president of Are we like in a straight up like the road where dudes are eating dog food and like there are cannibals on the road? Like what how fast can we get America propped up again?

It's like L.A. right now. I don't know. I don't know what we're losing all three major cities. So maybe like Dallas becomes the alpha dog city or Chicago for some. And also if you're in Chicago, are you mad you didn't get a spaceship over your city? Do you have to reconsider your status as one of the three biggest cities? Yeah. Somehow the Dallas Cowboys come out unscathed from this.

I have a last apex mountain. Computer viruses. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. It's early in the whole computer virus thing. It becomes a key focal point in the movie. People are still kind of figuring out the old internet thing. And then it becomes a huge plot point.

And I think it worked. Picking Nits. the strip joint stayed open during the alien fleet invasion. The spaceships are all over the cities and they're like, hey, should be closed the strip joint? No. Get to work. Let's keep going. Ladies, we have customers.

Do you think the casinos would have closed? I mean, like, I would assume everything would close. If there's 50-mile spaceships, what's open? Where are you going? I just want to be with my family for the last two hours. Of course, before we all get blown up. There's a few people out there who might not want to be with their family for the last few guys. Yeah, that's fair.

That's fair. I also was confused why everybody reacted so happily to the alien invasion where people are... Well, I think that's kind of part of the sort of that pop culture moment with aliens, where it was like, take me to your leader and like it was like, what if the aliens are cool and stuff like that? Like, that's supposed to be people being like, yeah, cool, aliens. Yeah. Shea, any other picking nits for you?

I didn't see one single knit that needed to be picked when I rewatched this. Everything lined up perfect. I actually thought I agree with you. I thought it's pretty solid. Chris,

you have anything? It all made sense. I thought that Judd Hirsch and Jeff Goldblum being able to get from Manhattan to Washington, D.C. and inside the White House within six hours,

given the fact that there would be apocalyptic traffic on I-95 South is pretty, it can take more than four hours to get from New York to Washington on a good day. So... True.

So you think there's an alternate a script where they're just on the highway. They just die on 995. It's like, I had the code. This sucks. The part when Goldblum and Will Smith have to high tail it out of the mothership and they're like squeezing through the thing

at the last possible minute. This was like one of the first times I watched a movie and that happened. And then I was like, oh, they just did that. That's like the bad boys too. I mean, the bad boys ending. It's the exact same thing with the two cars when they're racing and one's got to get in front

of the other one. That's how you drive. That's great. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? We all agree, yes. I think you can run this back. I actually wouldn't be shocked if Netflix did this. They should.

They should give Will Smith a boat full of money. So when they did part two, without Will Smith, I think it makes like $350, $380 million. If you have Will Smith in there, that's automatically doubled. Yeah. What are you doing? 50 million was a no-brainer. what are you doing? I did not say Independence Day 2.

I didn't even bother to watch it and I watched everything. I know. And I was like, if you're not at, I'm out. This is the thing is that like people think

that everything should be remade or they rebooted or there should be a sequel. And like there is a certain, I obviously charmed to this movie. But I don't leave this movie being like, you know, I really needed to find out more about those aliens.

What was their plan? What was it like I? There's not a universe that I want to explain blower or I want to expand it. This is a perfect standalone movie. We beat the aliens. Bill Pullman's president. Will Smith kicks ass. I don't need to know what happens next.

I actually don't want to know. What my theory is on that is somebody said, hey, you know what it would be a fucking cool-ass trailer? Is we take the speech from the first Independence Day and we just show like whatever we want and we play that in the background. Because when that happened, when that trailer came out and they did that thing in it, I was like, oh, fuck, yes. Because I got so excited about the speech,

and I'm like, they're bringing everybody back. And then you find out there wasn't that, and it became, like, sucky. But my theory is somebody just thought that was going to be a cool trailer, let's do that. And then they made a whole movie just for that. I think if you're going to do a sequel,

I think it goes rom-com style because Pullman and Margaret Colin's character, you can't tell me there wasn't like a little bit of a something there. Oh, yeah. He loses his wife. Love Triangle there. She's with Goldblum, but who the fuck wants to stay with Jeff Goldblum for that long?

And maybe it's a love triangle. It's a love triangle rom-com with the presidency Rebuilding America, and that's our sequel. Like, way less special effects, way less expensive. Right. Way less aliens. It's directed by Steven Soderberg. It's an intellectual kind of rom-coms thriller. We could have just called it like Infrastructure Week.

It's just all about rebuilding the roads and bridges. Yeah, and she's got to choose. Yeah. That's the end of the movie. Good idea. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? We all said, yes. Oh, I had should Martin Colin have ended up with Bill Pullman.

I really watch this movie every time and just expect that they're going to end up together. And then she's like, oh, no, I'm going to be with Jeff Goldblum and stuck with his weird dad. Like, it's just a bad career move there. Do you think this movie invented computer viruses? Probably not. No. No. Popularized them? Maybe, yeah.

Do you think Randy Quaid became the guy from this movie in real life? Like, he method acted, something snap. and it just became him. Oh, so you think it's the performance is what triggered it? Yeah. I gather not. Any other answer?

Any other other answerable questions? I gather not. No. Shea, what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? The spaceship. They have the whole spaceship. Where are you going to put it?

I don't, I fucking in outer space where a spaceship belongs. I'm out of here. I'm fucking gone. Chris, what do you want? I think I'd like Jeff Goldblum's laptop. They really made sturdy little like Mac laptops back then or the victory dance cigar. That's good.

I was thinking, I don't even know if this exists, but the replica of the White House that they blew up. Oh, yeah. There was the second one before they, I think that would be cool to have. Ten by five. You can, Shea, you could have that right behind you and you're often. That would be awesome. I'm sure he's passed on by now, but Boomer seems like a really solid dog.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could stuff him like in scrub. If we, if I need like something that I can, that I can like have at my house, I'll take the parachute that Will Smith drives an alien in. Yeah.

Oh, that's a good one. Who won the movie? I think we probably all agree on. Unanimous decision, Will Smith. Will Smith, baby! Nobody wants to make the Bill Pullman case? I mean, he has the best, my favorite scene in the movie,

but Will Smith makes this movie what it is. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. All right. Independence Day. Shea Serrano, Chris Ryan.

What's the next giant disaster blockbuster we're doing? Should we open up to the Twitters? Oh, yeah. Let's open it up. So you're in on 2012. Of course. You know like 2012? I haven't seen it in a while.

Oh, go watch it. You're going to love it. I think we might have to do White House down. Oh, shit. So that's the one I'm going to watch. I'm watching that this weekend. I got to fly back this weekend. I think I'm downloading White House Down

and I'm just banging that. What was the sequel? Well, no, it was Olympus's fallen and then it was like London has fallen, right? Yeah, that's right. So White House Down wasn't part of... White House Down only had one, right? Yeah.

White House Down is Channing Tatum and Jamie Fox. Right. And then after that, they bring Gerard Butler in. All of these movies ripped off the 24th season when they attacked the White House. They just were like, ooh, cool. Let's just make that a movie. We'll do that.

Yeah, cool. All right. Shea, Chris, a pleasure as always. always this podcast was produced by the one and only a strapping handsome guy Craig horroback we will uh we will see you next week we have some good rewatchables coming over the next couple months so uh we will see you next week