Movies in a different perspective.

Baya Rae 4900 · 22 nov 2011

http://www.crappytown.com/2009/11/independence-day-when-cable-repairman.html

Independence Day is an often belittled summer blockbuster from 1996. One complaint raised against it was that placing Americans at the forefront of the efforts at repelling an alien invasion come to exterminate all humanity was self-absorbed, even propagandistic on the part of the Hollywood. But that was missing the point. If it was propaganda it was not of the sort official America would ever commission. If anything the film, whether by error or by design, portrays official America as a dunce, crediting named individuals with saving the humankind while leaving the state to look dense.

The movie is best understood as a story of two parallel efforts at repelling the aliens. The state effort which is costly in resources and in lives jet an utter failure all the same. And the improvised, cheap, individual effort based not on sacrifice of others, but on self-sacrifice which becomes a resounding success. This is what makes the film not just an entertaining pop corn flick but, I dare say it, a libertarian classic.

To mention the movie`s tagline: "On July 2nd, they arrive. On July 3rd, they strike. On July 4th, we fight back," is nearly all that needs to be said of its unsophisticated premise. After the aliens arrive the state and the president at its helm are, despite all the resources at their disposal, clueless as to the intentions of the arrivals. No, it is up to the real hero of the movie, David Levinson, a satellite technician with a private cable TV company, to warn the government. Levinson guesses the intentions of the aliens after he discovers a signal in satellite transmissions. Then has his father drive him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in order to save his ex-wife, a spokesperson at the White House.

The warning gives the government just enough time to escape on an airplane and they take Levinson and his father with him. In the meantime its military aviation is faring poorly and is decimated in a frontal attack on the alien crafts – giant levitating saucers. You see, the alien craft possess powerful energy shields that the ordnances the taxpayers were expropriated for can not penetrate.

Meanwhile back on the Air Force One there is a scuffle about how to proceed. The senior Levinson asserts they should go to Area 51 and examine the Rosswell ship. This is met with the looks of resigned bemusement of nearly everyone present, however it turns out this retiree knows more about the workings of the state than any of them. The secretary of defense comes forward to admit that actually there is an Area 51 and it does host the Rosswell alien, but it has been kept secret from the public and from the president.

So the Area 51 is real, it is the place where the government kept alien technology under lock and key. In 50 long years the state had an alien craft in its possession but failed to learn anything about it or in any way take advantage of the technology. However their secrecy made it impossible for anyone else to best their efforts and better prepare Earth for its encounter with the hostile aliens.

Upon arrival to Area 51 Levinson Jr. takes to the base and the alien artifacts it holds as a fish to water. All the while the record of the bizzare, state employed lead scientist on the base is revealed to be horrendously feeble. Concerned more for appearances than for science he soon exclaims grudgingly: "You know you are really starting to make us look bad!" Starting to?

Above the underground Area 51 complex, cracks in military discipline appear as reason begins to take over. After a brief confrontation a military guard relents and permits, captain Steven Hiller, the Will Smith character, to take off in a helicopter in an unauthorized flight and go search for his girlfriend and other possible civilian survivals. The state despite its ability to help is sparing no thought for the civilians, instead it is up to individual efforts to do something immediately useful for them.

Just as state resources were in an unauthorized way used in order to save and evacuate civilians, they are moments later used in a state authorized way to kill them. The president decides to target the giant alien saucer over the city of Houston with nuclear weapons, expecting "minimial" civilian casualties among his constituents. The plan fails as alien technology proves immune even to atomic weapons.

Having seen the nuke plan he was opposed to fail, the cable technician comes up with a plan of his own. He intends to infect the alien mothership with a virus in order to disable their shielding technology. Unlike the plan of the state his plan requires no civilians be incinerated. It does, however, require he himself goes on a bold mission and takes his life in hand. The hawkish secretary of defense suddenly discovers a dovish streak and finds reason to object vehemently to the plan proposed by the non-state individual, because... well because.

Levinson's plan gets the green light and soon a word is dispatched across the world telling surviving fighter squadrons of the upcoming counter-attack. It is here we are treated to a scene on a runway in Northern Iraq where British, Israeli and Iraqi pilots have all taken refuge at. It is certainly nice to see elements of the RAF, presumably in the region from the units enforcing the 1991-2003 no-fly zone, doing something non-criminal for a change, even if just in a movie.

It is just as nice to see Iraqi pilots featuring in the same role as Western pilots without distinction. The movie premiered in 1996, five years after the first war on Iraq and seven before the second. In the middle of an economic blockade and media satanisation of that country, six years after the incubator lie. It is not an insignificant thing for the movie to without a second though portray Iraqi military personnel as human beings, fighting on the right side and providing refuge in their country no less. It is a corny scene to be sure but an appealing one all the same.

All too predictably this was also the section of the film that was most criticized. It left critics complaining that the movie features America leading the counter-attack and everyone else doing nothing until they hear from the Americans. Just what is behind such criticism is easy to imagine once we take into account that the loudest objections of this sort came precisely from such countries that are deepest in Washington`s pocket. But we need not go there.

The critique of this sort completely misses the fact that the counter-strike could scarcely be said to have been spearheaded by America. Instead it was led by two individuals, piloting an alien aircraft, who happened to be Americans. A Jewish cable repairman from New York and an African-American marine aviator from Los Angeles who had earlier crashed his state plane. The only real reason they needed permission of the state was a practical one - the state was guarding the alien aircraft they required for their plan. The movie actually shows American military aviation, the most powerful in the world, just as unable to do anything about the aliens as any other aviation and in no way elevates it about the rest.

In addition before the counter-strike commences television tells of military forces in hiding, and of the consequential shortage of pilots to partake in the attack raising doubt of the courage of military pilots, including those of the US. Private individuals not in the employ of the military come forth to fill in the void. Among them an elderly crop duster with a drinking problem, earlier shown to had been a much ridiculed conspiracy theorist who would become important later.

The president Whitmore not wanting to be left behind does the same proclaiming that as a pilot he belongs in the air. This again was criticized as flattery to American presidents but is anything but that. A greater condemnation could scarcely be imagined. Yes Whitmore comes out as a hero in the end, but not in his role as the president. As the president of the United State Whitmore comes out as a useless dunce, possibly a criminal. He proactively manages to do absolutely nothing with any beneficial results.

We see his best moments as president not when he is wielding the state but in the moments where he reins it in by calling off further nuclear attacks, once the first one had failed, and a while later dismissing the hardline "sniveling weasel" of a defense secretary. But it is only as a pilot commanding an aircraft, not the machinery of the state, that he really begins to shine. The clear moral, intended or unintended, is that trained pilots bold enough to fly against a giant extraterrestrial saucer are something that we may have a use for. But presidents on the other hand will always be useless.

The attack is ultimately successful and aliens repelled albeit not before the troubled but likable crop duster, faced with a malfunction of his weapons load decides to turn his whole plane into a missile and carry out a kamikaze attack to salvage the strike mission - without anyone so much as batting an eyelash after hearing of his intent. America would spend the years after the attacks on WTC pretending this movie scene did not exist, and that suicide attacks are something beyond comprehension, but this film tells a different story

In the end Levinson gets one over the state even in a direct competition, the competition for the affections of his ex-wife. It had been earlier on revealed that she left him in order to pursue a career in the corridors of power. But the final scene of the movie has the two leads, the cable repairman and the marine aviator being embraced by their love interests, presumably with the implication that the repairman's ex-wife is now reunited with him for good

The movie has its flaws. One of them is the overuse of the address „Mr. president“ particularly irksome to libertarian ears. Another is the fact that Levinson's opposition to the use of nuclear weapons is explained as stemming from his environmentalism, as if one would need to be an environmentalist to oppose such a thing. Still the main message is sound. If genocidal and technologically superior aliens one day arrive we better have some brilliant cable guys and lovable crop dusters on standby to save the day. Because the state is likely to do little but get in the way of our efforts.

Lloyd · 22 nov 2011

Baya Rae 4900 zei: ↑

http://www.crappytown.com/2009/11/independence-day-when-cable-repairman.html

This is more like "a single movie in a perspective that not-so-subtly supports my political views, and I didn't even come up with it myself"

Is this your new strategy, after straight-up TL;DR rants failed to make anyone see the light, are you know trying to get us to agree with you via seemingly innocent pop-culture subjects?

Baya Rae 4900 · 22 nov 2011

Lloyd zei: ↑

This is more like "a single movie in a perspective that not-so-subtly supports my political views, and I didn't even come up with it myself"

Is this your new strategy, after straight-up TL;DR rants failed to make anyone see the light, are you know trying to get us to agree with you via seemingly innocent pop-culture subjects?

Of course not.

ExplosiveDiareah · 22 nov 2011

When i saw the remake of the Day the Earth stood still it realized my theory on why Aliens might want to destroy Humanity.
Because they are destroying the earth's biodiversity and ecosystem.

Seku · 26 nov 2011

Independence Day was still a bad movie.

Bottom Feeder · 26 nov 2011

It became a fad to hate it but that doesn't take away the fact that it was a cliché ridden crapfest, so over the top that it would have made a decent comedy. Except that it wasn't.

The remake of The day the Earth stood still was proof. once again, that Keanu Reeves shouldn't play any role involving some kind of dialog, even when it's between him and a little nigglet (for like 2/3 of the movie)

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