Area 51 and UFOs; the alien drag; the sky-staring gag; the loaded cast; the 'better be good' official; 1990s effects; Nimziki; the first-to-know character; Goldblum-Smith improv; the title
Margaret Colin's career did not happen the way it should have; she was on Chicago Hope, which lost the medical-drama race to ER, and she is good here and in Unfaithful.
The film perfected the aggrieved official who says "this better be good" after being woken up, such as a submarine captain whose job is to solve crises.
1990s special effects are listed again.
Nimziki is a needed subtle villain for most of the movie, second-guessing Pullman and pushing to nuke Houston, compared to working in fantasy.
The character who recognizes the danger before everyone else and has to explain it is a favorite trope; Paul Giamatti in San Andreas is the one time the explanation felt right. — Shea Serrano
Goldblum and Smith are clearly improvising for the second half, which makes the heady spaceship-and-virus plot work.
There was only one rewatchable scene in the first 45 minutes because of character development; the reply jokes that the movie was 30 minutes too short and Will's morning routine should have run 40 minutes.
The spaceship arriving is listed first, with a complaint that people are never scared enough of a giant ship over their city.
Goldblum explaining to the president that the aliens are using the satellites to coordinate is listed next.
The welcome wagon being demolished follows; a question is raised about how few Black characters are in the movie, and nobody questions the orders they are given.
"Times up": everything starts blowing up, yet Vivica Fox's dog Boomer is sure to survive.
The aborted Air Force attack: Will Smith is on fire, Harry Connick Jr. dies, the parachute move, and the "Welcome to Earth" punch; whether aliens can be concussed gets the ruling yes, if Will Smith punches you.
Every best scene leans toward Will Smith; seen at 15 or 16 it was the coolest thing ever, a fighter pilot talking trash to the aliens with two one-liners.
Dragging the alien across the desert is where Will Smith becomes Will Smith, capped by the "what the hell is that smell" rant.
Trae Young is the current NBA star who could pull off the sequence; definitely not Ben Simmons.
The Area 51 descent into a secret facility, Adam Baldwin, and opening the alien's head with a slightly Total Recall second alien that is not friendly and the bulletproof-glass moment are listed.
The speech is a vote for most rewatchable, quoted through "We will not go quietly into the night" and "Today, we celebrate our Independence Day."
The speech had not received final edits and ran longer when filmed, per the account from Pullman; much of the first take is in the movie, and the onlookers' reactions were genuine awe.
The only change from the rough draft, per Devlin, was adding "today we celebrate our Independence Day" because the studio was starting to change the title to Doomsday; title plus release date in the movie is called a trifecta.
Three more: Will taking off backward with Goldblum and the "oops" exchange, the comeback landing, and the walk back with cigars as the women run to them, with Goldblum tall enough to match Smith; Top Gun did that return best.
A side Mount Rushmore of good guys returning to be greeted lands on Armageddon, Independence Day and Top Gun; Captain Phillips is floated for a fourth and rejected.
The pick is the Will Smith sequence, the air fight and desert drag, best watched as a stitched-together YouTube clip; the speech needs its lead-up like the Knives Out reveal, and the first destruction of the White House, Capitol, Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty felt real at 15 or 16. — Shea Serrano
Recognizing the L.A. tunnel where Vivica, Boomer and Dylan hide, the rewatchable scene is still the speech, set up by the president deciding he will fly too; it makes one want to go pick up litter.
Emmerich's signature is showing a thing and then exploding it, as in Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012; a joke imagines him wanting to blow up the Phoenix arena during the Clipper-Sun series.
