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1. Who directed Independence Day?
Roland Emmerich
Emmerich and his producing partner Dean Devlin wrote the script in about a month after a press tour for Stargate, where a reporter's question about aliens gave them the idea. He went on to flatten the world again in Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012.
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2. Who plays fighter pilot Steven Hiller?
Will Smith
Smith was still best known for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and the studio worried that a Black lead would not sell overseas; Emmerich insisted. The July opening made him a movie star, and Men in Black followed the next summer.
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3. Who plays computer expert David Levinson?
Jeff Goldblum
Goldblum had just done Jurassic Park, and David is another fast-talking scientist whom nobody listens to until it is too late. His ex-wife, Constance, works for the president, which is how a cable technician gets into the White House.
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4. Who plays President Thomas Whitmore?
Bill Pullman
Pullman's Whitmore is a Gulf War fighter pilot turned president, which is why he can lead the final sortie himself. The speech before it was shot on the old airfield at Wendover, Utah, where the Enola Gay's crew once trained.
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5. What does David discover in the satellite signal?
A countdown
David notices a repeating signal hidden in the satellite feed that is slowly shrinking, and works out that the ships are using Earth's own satellites to synchronize an attack. His first thought is to warn his ex-wife, which is how he reaches the president.
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6. Where is the captured alien craft secretly stored?
Area 51
The president learns about it from Julius Levinson, played by Judd Hirsch, who treats the Roswell stories as common knowledge and asks what else the government spends its money on. Secretary of Defense Nimziki has known all along and kept quiet.
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7. Where does Hiller bring down the alien fighter after the dogfight?
The Grand Canyon
Hiller leads the alien fighter into the canyon, pops his chute at the last second so the pursuer plows into the wall, and lands beside the wreck. He opens the hatch and knocks the pilot out with one punch, which is where 'Welcome to Earth' comes from.
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8. What is Russell Casse's everyday job?
Crop-duster pilot
Russell flies a biplane over the Imperial Valley, often drunk, and claims to have been abducted by aliens years before, which embarrasses his children. Randy Quaid plays him, and he takes a jet up for the final battle to finish what he started.
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9. Which Oscar did Independence Day win?
Best Visual Effects
It won for Best Visual Effects, with much of the destruction done in miniature and shot at high speed, and lost its other nomination, for Best Sound, to The English Patient. It was the highest-grossing film of 1996 worldwide.
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10. What famous building is destroyed by a beam from an alien ship?
The White House
The model was several feet across and could only be blown up once, so the explosion was filmed at high speed to stretch it out on screen. The shot anchored the Super Bowl ad in January 1996 that first showed the film to the public.
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11. What protects the alien ships from ordinary attacks?
Energy shields
Every missile, including the nuclear strike on the ship over Houston, fizzles against the shields. The weakness turns out to be that the city destroyers share one system with the mother ship, which is why the plan is to go upstairs.
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12. How do David and Hiller try to disable those defenses?
They upload a computer virus
David's father fussing that he will catch a cold gives him the idea, and the plan is to fly the recovered Roswell fighter into the mother ship, plug in a laptop and infect the network. The joke about a 1990s Mac talking to alien hardware has never stopped.
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13. What does Hiller drag across the desert after a dogfight?
An unconscious alien
Hiller wraps the pilot in his parachute and hauls it across the desert on foot, talking to it the whole way, until Russell's convoy of RVs picks him up and takes him to Area 51. The alien wakes up on the operating table there, with bad results for Dr. Okun.
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14. What is the name of Hiller's girlfriend?
Jasmine
Jasmine is a dancer at a Los Angeles club, with a young son, Dylan, and a dog named Boomer, and she survives the blast wave in a highway tunnel maintenance room. Vivica A. Fox plays her, and she finds the First Lady in the wreckage afterward.
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15. Which date gives the film its title?
July 4
Whitmore's speech points out that the counterattack falls on the Fourth of July and will make it the whole world's holiday. The studio kept the date for the release too, opening the film in the first days of July 1996, which is how ID4 became its shorthand.
