Good Thing, Bad Thing

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

.....and the plot made no sense.

You mean the plot that Kenneth Johnson wrote to try to demonstrate how a group like the Nazis infiltrated society and took over before good people even realized it's happening by using the Aliens as their stand-ins?   From promising business men better profits to courting the Youth and forming groups that make them feel special (and encourage them to inform on their parents) to - through the use of lies and propaganda - turning everyone against a group within the society (in this case the scientists) who can hurt them?   So that they can take over the media and round up entire blocks of people or have whole towns disappear in the night and have no one question it because it's just them protecting us, right?

You mean that plot?

[Principal_Skin-trade]

Independence day would have been a solid film if not for Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, all the cheesy dialogue and gaping plot holes. Basically, it's all Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's faults.

[Junkyard]

Good Thing- Fox as a potential Post Apocolyptic Chieftess.

Bad Thing- The President going up on a suicide mission, to almost certainly leave his child, (who just lost her mother,) an orphan.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Independence day would have been a solid film if not for Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, all the cheesy dialogue and gaping plot holes. Basically, it's all Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's faults.

Well, again....if Brent Spiner is to be believed....they originally wrote the movie to be a comedy.  That's what he was told when he signed on.  But then they heard that Tim Burton was playing Mars Attacks! for laughs.   They were afraid people would wait for Burton's movie if they stuck to that so they went "Serious Lite".  Supposedly this change was decided after they'd hired everyone.

Does that excuse it?  I don't know.

I just think it's a good movie to just entertain you.

And a little trivia....it was also the most rented movie the weekend after 9/11.   Which, ironically, Fox was scheduled to show it that weekend and pulled it because they thought it would be "insensitive" to show it.

And btw....everytime I want to really hate Tom Cruise, I read something like this (from the trivia section of imdb's listing for War of the Worlds):

"While filming nearby, Tom Cruise, along with a 20-member entourage, including Steven Spielberg, visited a Lexington, Virginia, Dairy Queen. Cruise saw a jar on the counter with a photo of Ashley Flint and her story. Flint was in a go-cart accident a few months earlier, leaving her family with a mountain of hospital bills. Cruise put $5000 cash into the jar."

On the other hand...who walks around with $5000 cash?   I mean, even if you have it.....   

[bettertomorrowamy]

.....and the plot made no sense.

You mean the plot that Kenneth Johnson wrote to try to demonstrate how a group like the Nazis infiltrated society and took over before good people even realized it's happening by using the Aliens as their stand-ins?   From promising business men better profits to courting the Youth and forming groups that make them feel special (and encourage them to inform on their parents) to - through the use of lies and propaganda - turning everyone against a group within the society (in this case the scientists) who can hurt them?   So that they can take over the media and round up entire blocks of people or have whole towns disappear in the night and have no one question it because it's just them protecting us, right?

You mean that plot?

No, the plot of "V". 

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

.....and the plot made no sense.

You mean the plot that Kenneth Johnson wrote to try to demonstrate how a group like the Nazis infiltrated society and took over before good people even realized it's happening by using the Aliens as their stand-ins?   From promising business men better profits to courting the Youth and forming groups that make them feel special (and encourage them to inform on their parents) to - through the use of lies and propaganda - turning everyone against a group within the society (in this case the scientists) who can hurt them?   So that they can take over the media and round up entire blocks of people or have whole towns disappear in the night and have no one question it because it's just them protecting us, right?

You mean that plot?

No, the plot of "V". 

Then we're talking about two different movies.

[bettertomorrowamy]

That may have been what the writer was going for, but the movie they made was crap.  It's just like the original Battlestar Galactica.  So much potential, but then they throw all this bad dialogue at you.  I never care about the characters.

But back to the good and bad.

Good:  Earth is free from Aliens.

Bad:  Earth is covered in blown up space ships, and uninhabitable because of radiation from bombs and the alien ships.

[Principal_Skin-trade]

Good Thing: Somehow the primitive tribes people of the Hootu's and the Tootsies managed to shoot down an Alien spaceship
Bad thing: There is not one single thing in the whole damn movie to remotely explain how all the bullshit regarding how the uploaded virus managed to work!!!!

[RVR II]

Good Thing: IT WAS FINALLY RIFF'D
Bad Thing: Not Enough T&A

[Junkyard]

Good: That alien thing didn't even need to be interrogated to spill the beans about their plans.
Bad: The suggestive nature of the Space Ships and their targets.

[Tony Farms AKA Puma Man]

"V" sucked.  I'm sorry.  I watched it as a kid and liked it, but then a few years ago I watched it and I almost smacked myself.

Bad acting, poor story development, and the plot made no sense.

Just like ID4.  Terrible dialog in it. 

GAAAAAH THEY'RE ACTUALLY REPTILES!!!

[DoctorZ]

And a little trivia....it was also the most rented movie the weekend after 9/11.   Which, ironically, Fox was scheduled to show it that weekend and pulled it because they thought it would be "insensitive" to show it.

Yeah, what was up with that?  We had this hardcore conservative friend of ours that came over the Saturday after 9/11 and INSISTED we watch Independence Day.  I don't really understand the reason.  I guess watching a small beleaguered force of the last REAL Americans getting the world to kick some serious alien butt was a cathartic war cry since all King George could muster was "Live your Lives."

Anyway:

Good Thing - Fast paced fun entertainment.
Bad Thing - Totally improbable.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

And a little trivia....it was also the most rented movie the weekend after 9/11.   Which, ironically, Fox was scheduled to show it that weekend and pulled it because they thought it would be "insensitive" to show it.

Yeah, what was up with that?  We had this hardcore conservative friend of ours that came over the Saturday after 9/11 and INSISTED we watch Independence Day.  I don't really understand the reason.  I guess watching a small beleaguered force of the last REAL Americans getting the world to kick some serious alien butt was a cathartic war cry since all King George could muster was "Live your Lives."

Guess it was the same reason that, when Lebanon was in the middle of a civil war the most popular video rental was Rambo movies.

Gave them an outlet for their frustrations over not being able to do anything themselves.

[Tony Farms AKA Puma Man]

Good thing: 
Bad Thing: three words: President Bill Pullman

[Douglin]

Gave them an outlet for their frustrations over not being able to do anything themselves.

More likely is the images they see on the news brought similar movies back into their subconscious (I also heard Die Hard was big after 9/11).  Then when people try to think of something to do, the movies are close to the surface in their heads.

One of the most common things I heard people say about 9/11 coverage was how unreal it was and it seemed like a movie.