Corrected entry: Late in the movie, there's a remark about the Belgian Airforce having been destroyed in the Sinai. The Sinai Desert is next door to Egypt - what was the Belgian Airforce doing there? They're supposed to defend European airspace, not African.
Phoenix
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
28th Oct 2003
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: After Air Force One has just touched down in Area 51 we see a view of Air Force One in a hanger. Later when Will Smith brings the people in the motorhomes Air Force One is missing. Surely a Boeing 747 can't go unnoticed?
Correction: Area 51 probably has more than one hangar.
5th Feb 2004
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When the Morse code signal is received in the Iraqi Desert, the man standing in the background is playing with his pistol the entire time. First he points it at the man across from him, then he holds down the paper with it, then in the next shot he's playing with it again.
Correction: There's nothing wrong here. The man is holding the pistol, then sets it on the table to weigh down some papers, then the scene changes to another area. Here, there is only one shot, and the man is holding the gun the entire time.
26th Aug 2003
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: Area 51 should be deep underground. The rocks should therefore provide everybody with enough cover for large bombs and even protection from the alien's primary weapon. When Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum go out to save the world in the alien spacecraft, the door to the surface opens. The launch site has its own door to the outside world. Why is it that the base is deep underground but has a big door leading to the surface that has no protection at all?
Correction: It's not simply a door into the outside, it's a launch tunnel at least one hundred yards long. There are heavy blast doors on the inside that are opened so that craft can exit, and it can be assumed that there are also similar doors on the other end of the tunnel. All this is a far cry from a simple surface door with no protection.
Correction: The Command Center is deep underground. Portions of the base are on the surface.
26th Aug 2003
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When the aliens arrive for the first time and move over Washington, the shadow of the spacecraft goes over the Washington monument, but the shadow of the Washington monument is never seen, even though the sunlight is directed at an angle where it would be very large.
Correction: The shadow is running off into the lower right corner.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: The three helicopters hover by the alien space ship. The ship then shoots a beam to destroy all 3 of the helicopters. But the two smaller helicopters start to explode from the inside before they are hit with the ray.
Correction: All three of the helicopters show internal explosions before the energy ray hits them. However, it cannot be said with certainty that this is not how the ray is supposed to function. Perhaps the preliminary light from the ship indicates the release of radiation that can detonate the fuel and ammunition in the helicopters after a few seconds' exposure and the ray burst is an explosive charge to detonate whatever remains. The city-destroying weapon works in a fashion similar to this: the initial beam does very little damage, then the burst acts as a nucleus of destruction.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum is in the Oval Office waiting to talk to the president he stands up and closes his laptop and sets it on the desk with the opening side facing the front of the desk. When he tells the president "And the clock is ticking," he turns the already opened laptop around towards the front of the desk.
Correction: Goldblum sets up the laptop facing the desk chair, but he picks it up and closes it when he realizes that the President doesn't want to listen to what he has to say. When he starts explaining the satellite interference, he sets the laptop down on his side of the desk, away from the chair. Thus, to show the timer to the President, he opens the laptop in front of him and turns it toward the President, who is now standing at the desk in front of the chair.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum is explaining "line of sight" to the President, he hands the same piece of paper to him three times.
Correction: No, he doesn't. Goldblum hands Pullman the paper exactly once, and even then it's offscreen and could merely be an illustrative gesture.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When the fleet of alien vessels is wiping out the army base, they fire hundreds of shots, yet we never see any of them hit the ground, except to blow up a few planes.
Correction: The aliens have poor aim against moving targets, but are quite skilled against stationary targets such as installations (possibly a result of lack of combat experience due to the length of their voyage). Most of the vessels are aiming at the actual buildings and hangars offscreen in the foreground, with a few aiming at planes on the ground. No alien fire aims for the ground and disappears before it hits it.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum and Judd Hirsch are playing chess, the radio next to them says it's 97 degrees outside. Yet the two men are both dressed as if it were winter time.
Correction: Neither of them is really bundled up for winter. Goldblum is wearing a short-sleeved collared shirt with the top button unbuttoned and khakis, not unusual for someone as straitlaced as his character in summer. Though Hirsch is wearing a sweater over his shirt, it's a low V-neck that still allows for ventilation. Judging from his character's fairly conservative nature, this isn't surprising either.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Will Smith was flying over the remains of El Toro, there is nothing but rubble. It's flattened with only a few palm trees remaining. But when Jasmine comes to the gate, you can see planes (in good condition) behind her.
Correction: Those planes are definitely not in good condition. There are a few largely intact parts, notably two plane tails and most of a cockpit that happen to be lying relatively close together, but they are rubble like everything else.
5th Jul 2002
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum and his dad arrive at the White House, a right-to-left pan of the front lawn (which begins from inside a police cruiser) plainly shows red holiday ribbon and Christmas wreaths along the grass. Odd to the point of irony, as the movie is supposed to be set in JULY!
Correction: The alleged Christmas wreaths are actually the shrubbery of the White House hedge, and the red ribbon could either be large red flowers or another red decoration - it's too irregular to be ribbon.
10th Jun 2003
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: The entire scene where Will Smith and his girlfriend first see the spaceship is pretty ridiculous. First, Will goes out to get the paper, but instead of taking it back in the house, he opens it up and starts reading it - in the yard. Then Jasmine comes out (conveniently neglecting to notice the spaceship that's directly in her line of vision) and offers him a cup of coffee - in the yard. Were they planning to spend the rest of the morning standing in the front yard? (00:25:20)
Correction: Steve and Jasmine just woke up and are suffering from a certain amount of morning grogginess. This explains why they don't notice the saucer in the distant sky - most people don't look up at the sky as a matter of course. Steve is looking through the paper's headlines before he heads back to the house - not an unusual thing to do, before he returns to the house and the paper is completely disassembled. Jasmine would know this morning ritual since they have been together so long and looks out for him by giving him fresh coffee instead of waiting for him to come back inside. Maybe it's not what every American does in the morning, but it's not completely bizarre, either.
27th Aug 2001
Independence Day (1996)
Corrected entry: When Jeff Goldblum is demonstrating how he puts the virus into the old alien fighter to lower its shield, he puts a soda can on the ship and asks an officer to shoot it. When he does, the bullet is stopped by the ship's shield. Then after the virus is put into the ship's system, the officer is able to shoot the can off of the ship. But when Goldblum picks the can up, there is no bullet hole in it, only a dent. The military must make their soda cans bulletproof.
Correction: No one picks up the soda can after Mitchell shoots it off the spaceship. It's knocked off by the bullet and never seen again. The soda can that Goldblum picks up at his desk is an entirely different one, used to show that he cares about recycling and saving the planet that way.
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Correction: After the aliens began their destructive campaign, it quickly became clear that military forces would have to be moved away from population centers to protect them. It's not surprising that some European forces evacuated to northern Africa, where there are fewer targets.
Phoenix