There's a lot of incredibly serious and depressing shit going on in the world this past week, in case you haven't noticed. So let me set your mind at ease by talking about something that is far, far less substantial or important...though of course, that's what the government wants you to believe.
I was in high school when the original Independence Day (also known as ID4, in an attempt to confuse people wondering where IDs 1-3 were, or maybe that's just me being silly) came out. I *think* I saw it during its original run, but I certainly saw it during what turned out to be the last of VHS's glory days (the late Nineties) on more than one occasion, and it sure seemed awesome at the time. Shit got blow'd up real good, and when you're a hormonal teenage boy that's what you went to movies to see (well, that and naked female chests, of which ID4 was bereft). Over time, as is often the case with things that we love when we're younger and stupider, I came to view ID4 as a cynical cash-grab by two directors who were clearly of the Michael Bay school of action shit (even if they pre-dated him or even inspired him, I lumped them in with Bay's amped-up uber-manly shitfests). This is not to say that ID4 is a bad movie; it's entertaining as hell when shit's getting blow'd up real good. But it's the alien invasion movie as popcorn thrill-ride, when more substantial and lasting alien movies (like Alien or The Thing, for instance) force us to confront more "realistic" instances of aliens among us (I use quotation marks because no one really knows how "reality" would be affected by contact with an alien species. My guess: we'd lose our shit).
Part of what makes me appreciate, to some extent, my own view of the film's faults is that it has quite possibly the most overwrought death scene in the history of cinema. I speak, of course, of former walking punchline (and current walking punchline, but for different reasons) Randy Quaid's heroic sacrifice to shove his plane up the alien ship's....well, just go watch it. I can wait, it's on YouTube.
Are you back? Good. Notice anything about that scene in particular? I am not a professional screenwriter, I don't know if it's hard to craft the perfect dialogue for anally probing (or perhaps acting as a human catheter on) an alien spaceship, knowing full well that you're a goner. But I'm guessing a roomful of actual monkeys chained to typewriters would write more convincing "last hurrah" dialogue than what comes out of Mr. Quaid's mouth. Why stop at one cliché when you can use them all? Really, we're in no hurry to bring this alien craft down, have your moment, Mr. Quaid!
It is shitty filmmaking par excellence.
So while I see this generation's ID4, with Goldblum and Pullman and even, for some reason, Brent Spiner back in it (spoiler alert: I thought his character died in the original, but I'm not a Hollywood scriptwriter), I say "that's nice, but where's your Randy Quaid-esque character or moment?" By the way, I have zero interest in seeing the new one. I find that remakes or reboots or re-imaginings sometimes stretch the credibility factor and indeed rarely justify their existence (there are exceptions to this rule, of course. But they're few and far between). And while the internet (read: lonely men) was getting itself in a tizzy over an all-female Ghostbusters, nary a word seems to be said about a Quaid-less ID4 (if Spiner can come back, why not Quaid? Maybe his proctology exam of the alien ship granted him an extra life or two?). I will be that voice in the wilderness, then, that one brave soul asking the question that no one in their right mind would ask because I have a lot of time on my hands and it's stupid and pointless and less depressing to think about than our country's sick obsession with firearms.
I'll be more than happy to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom for this post, is what I'm saying.
Truly, in the history of cinema, in the history of chewing scenery, in the history of milking it for all it's worth, Randy Quaid in ID4's closing act cannot be beat. So maybe the new film won't even try. But where there's a will, there's a way. Nothing like a little elbow grease to get the job done. I'm coming, Elizabeth, and that's all she wrote. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. In the words of my generation, whatever...
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