'Independence Day' (1996): Everything You Didn't Know

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to another episode of Too Much Information, the
show that brings you the secret histories and little known
details behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows, and more.
We are your ets of extra trivia. You're singing, fat

(00:24):
ladies of facts. I got nothing else your f sixteens
of facts. We could have been out at a barbecue,
but instead we were writing this. My name is Jordan
run Tagg and I'm Alex Hegel, and today we are
talking about the cinematic masterpiece Independence Day. We're talking about
this movie not just because our country celebrated its own

(00:45):
independence stay just a few days ago, but because this
movie rules.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
It does. It's as close to jingoistic as I guess
that's very true.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I don't know about you, but for me, this was
quite possibly the first big event Capital B, Capital E
movie that I recall, which, as we'll discuss, is accurate,
probably because there's a lot of promotional techniques that were
used for this that were fairly revolutionary.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Were you asleep during the whole well, I guess sorry.
Are you counting reissues? Are you kind of now? I mean,
I don't know, do you Jurassic Park.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
This was ninety six. This was ninety six, though.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I know what I'm saying, Like Jurassic Park, Oh yeah,
the reissues hadn't even come out yet. I'd say maybe
I would venture a guest that something Schwarzenegger like possibly
Last Action Hero or T two or Jurassic Park would
have been bigger than this. But I do remember the
ad campaign that you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
I would say, yes, all about the ad campaign that
they started seating like months before this came out, like
doing the Super Bowl, so like some almost six months
before this movie came out, And so I remember by
the time it hit theaters, people were in a frenzy
to see this. I remember my parents getting a babysitter
and making a point to go see this in theaters,
which they never did. It is probably the only thing
I ever remember them seeing in theaters without me.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Really yeah, small town, Yeah, not much to do that.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
I had separation anxiety, and babysitters, a hassle for all concerns.
So maybe it was that, maybe it was more me.
Maybe this is a me thing, But I don't know.
This felt more than just a blockbuster movie to me.
It felt like a real shared experience of the Barbenheimer variety. Uh,
and I I don't know. I can't really think of
anything that predates this for me.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Probably Jurassic Park.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I know you do love Jurassic Park. Was that the
first movie you saw in theaters?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
No? But it had to be up there. I mean
I remember being scarred for that movie, but not even
for like the dinosaur. Well, I guess a little bit
for the dinosaur stuff, because I do have referry nightmares
about dinosaurs besieging my childhood home. But uh, it's you.
I mean, it's probably combined with how much I was
into Godzilla. But yeah, but I will say that the

(02:50):
I always thought Godzilla was a hilarious, cuddly man in
a suit, and then when I saw Jurassic Park, I
was like, oh, these are the real endings.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Fight the real enemy.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah. I ripped up a picture of a t Rex
and I went fight the real enemy. I was about
started singing zombie and it was like, no different, I
was fraud So sorry rip too both. Actually she did
nothing wrong. Yeah. I don't know, man, I think I
saw Jurassic Park first, and then for some reason, I
I mean, I don't think I saw this in the

(03:22):
theaters at all. I saw it on like home video
release and then to my home video release. What am
I a bumper trailer on a VHS in nineteen ninety four? Yeah,
I saw it on video, and but I think it
was like late enough that. God, so I was ten.
The Star Wars re releases were ninety seven. When did

(03:42):
Men in Black come out? We did an episode nine.
Men in Black was ninety seven. Yeah, so Men in
Black was like I remember seeing that in the theater
and being like, yeah, this is a movie. Yeah, and
then we were just into and then I was like
into adult age. I think Jurassic Park was before this. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
So Jess Bark was ninety three. So Independence Day came
about at a fascinating time, I would say, because the
mid nineties marked a transitional moment in the American identity,
bookended by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
rise of global terrorism. With the Cold War over, the
US no longer had a clear ideological enemy, and for
some that lack of external threat stirred in anxiety that

(04:20):
the nation was becoming complacent or losing its competitive edge.
James Murphy voice Independence Day released, As we mentioned in
nineteen ninety six tapped directly into that cultural moment by
offering a high stakes fantasy of restored national vigor. At
the film center was President Thomas J. Whitmore, a former

(04:40):
Gulf War fighter pilot who gives a movie speech for
the ages before suiting up and flying a jet into
battle against a technologically superior alien force. It was a
striking contrast to the real world image of Postcold War leadership,
less diplomacy and more dogfights. This vision of a hands
on warrior president resonated with the audiences looking for reassurance

(05:01):
of American strength and relevance in a time of relative
peace and ambiguity. The film turned a global existential threat
into a unifying patriotic spectacle, with the US military and
by extension, American leadership, at the center of Earth salvation.
The destruction of iconic landmarks, particularly the repeated blowing up

(05:22):
of the White House in trailers and commercials, was both
shocking and somewhat cathartic. It dramatized the vulnerability of American
power while also setting the stage for its triumphant resurgence
in the climax of the film. In that way, Independence
Day wasn't just science fiction. It was a kind of
national daydream, one where the US got to reassert its

(05:43):
dominance on a cosmic scale. But then, of course that
day dream became terrifyingly real on September eleventh, two thousand
and one, when the attack on national landmarks looked more
like Hollywood special effects and reality that got dark. I'm sorry.
More partly though, this movie whips.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, it does. It's a great I mean, it's a
perfect popcorn film. Yeah, I mean, say what you will
about how inappropriate some of those stereotypes have have aged
into between Judd Hirsh and Harvey Thurston and Harvey Firescene.
But you know, everybody, like there's so many little independent
character moments. You do get a like real sense of

(06:20):
these people. And it's got that the great like everything
comes together in this movie in a way that things
of this scale have become much more stupid about they
tied together, like the Randy Quaid stuff and those kids
and for all of these like sprawling ensemble movies. And
it really does. It does click. And I think it's

(06:40):
it's one of the last blockbusters to do so I think, like, well,
maybe not. I guess I'm being uncharitable. The whole Lord
of the Rings things came out, but those were written
on a book. I guess. Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
I mean to me, you gotta look at Large Plane
also known as air Force One, and you gotta look
at Armageddon. I think this is a better action movie
than Armageddon, and I think it's smarter than air Force One.
Even though Harrison Ford as James Marshall in Air Force
One is still my favorite movie President, but that's just

(07:15):
because he's Harrison Ford and not Bill Bulman, who I
still kind of can't take. Seriously.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
He was the boyfriend who came back from the war
in a league of their own. Oh yeah, yeah, has
never done a thing wrong in his life.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Wasn't he like kind of a wimp in that though?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah he's cooked.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah okay, but you know what's your what's your point?
And he was mister wrong in that own the generous comedy.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah yeah, I mean, you know, I just like him
as all, but he's just I just think he's neat.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
You think he's neat. I don't know, I just can't
see him as anything but like the guy in Spaceballs
or the dad and Casper.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
I mean those are both fair. There's this like weird
T and T original series called The Center, in which
he plays like a horrific, we've broken down sort of
old ass detective and he is doing a performance that
I think could best be described as if Colombo starred
in Bad Lieutenant.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
He's like into BDSM. He's just kind of always shambles around,
like looking like he's sort of collapsing on one side.
He's like slurring all of his But he's a hell
of a detective. So there's like three or four seasons
of that that I really like. Yeah, hey man, Bill Pullman, he's.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
No Bill Paxton.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Well that's true.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
That's my that's my Bill of the nineties. That's her
bird Bill.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yes, you can only have the one.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Well, folks, we've got a lot to get to, so
we're gonna dive right in. Ladies and gentlemen, here's everything
you didn't know about Independence Day. The movie Independence Day
was the brainchild of two men, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. No,

(09:02):
I'm getting something in my ear right now. That's incorrect.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
At least you got that out of the way early.
I knew you were going to do it at some.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Point that was the one, that was my one, that
that was my mulligan, all right. No. The two men
responsible for this great movie are German director Roland Emeric
and New York writer producer Dean Devlyn. Like many filmmakers,
they were both inspired by the work of Steven Spielberg
and George Lucas, specifically summer blockbusters with weight, heart and intelligence.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
You can only have two, yeah, pretty much.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Emmerick would later wax poetic about this, saying I was
blown away from the very first frame of Star Wars.
You saw that small ship and then the Imperial cruiser
kept getting bigger and bigger. A crucial memory that were
be incorporated Independence Day with the big big Alien Saucers.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Ship, Saucers ship, saw Saucers Ship, Saucers.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Carvel has this for me. German movies were boring in dull,
and everything that came from the New Hollywood was cool.
I forgot to read all this in a German accident.
Emeric went the film school, where he distinguished himself early.
His nineteen eighty one graduation film was the most expensive
student film in German history, earning him the nickname Dash Spielberg.

(10:19):
Singlefingen or little Spielberg from Singelfingen.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
How do you take those people other than Nazism? How
do you take those people seriously? I'm sorry, it's not
it's like all those old German it's like Dutch, like
come on, man, don't be talking like that. If you
want to be if you want me to be like
listening to you, yeah, don't.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
What's an outrageous language that is to be taken seriously?
Russians up there?

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, Russian Portuguese. I would say Portuguese actually because I
can never pick up like the vowels. It takes me
such a long time, and it sounds like Russian Spanish
to me. Oh yeah, I think it's a really interesting
It's got a great mouth feel, you know, episodes going well.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Roland Emeriic met his Independence Day collaborator Dean Devlin while
directing a nineteen ninety German production called Moon forty four.
Even though it was just a direct to video movie.
Dean Devlin, who was working as an actor at the
time and cast in a supporting role, was very impressed
with what he found on set. He'd later say, when
I got to Germany, I saw the most beautiful sets

(11:27):
I'd ever seen, and Roland was fantastic with the camera.
He was fantastic with the actors, and I thought, Wow,
this guy's the real deal. But at that point his
English wasn't quite as good as it is today, so
some of the dialogue was rather stilted. So I asked
Roland if he'd be okay if I improv some of
my dialogue, and he said great. We started doing that
and we were having a lot of fun working together,

(11:49):
and then some of the other actors got pissed off
because I suddenly had the best dialogue in the movie,
and Roland said, would you mind rewriting some of their dialogue?
I said no, that'd be great. Then we started working
together behind the scenes and we had a great partnership.
We made movies together for the next eleven years.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Oh yeah, that's cute.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
I know that is they did. I believe they did
your beloved Godzilla movie in ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Oh well, that's dogs and they should both be hanged.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Oh oh, that's like one of the worst soundtrack? Was
what you liked?

Speaker 2 (12:19):
I The soundtrack was a epical. Yes, the movie was
an affront. Did I ever tell you that the Japanese
were so pissed off about that that they there's like
a movie called h It's one of the more interminable,
like every single monster has to fight, so they like
threw the American Godzilla design in there and called him

(12:40):
Zilla and he gets immediately killed, like I think literally
one of the other Godzilla's just like swipes him with
his tail and he flies into a building and dies,
which also sums up my feelings on that film.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Okay, well you might also like this movie that they
collaborated on. When Emeric and Devlin first started working together,
their first Hollywood movie was nineteen ninety two's Universal Soldier.
So John Claude Van Dam and Dolph lung Gren, not
to be confused with the guy from the East Street Band.
To prep, Emeric went to the video store. It's even
a reference to Nil's Lofgren, right, which.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, but like which which I was like, there's like
thirteen people in that band, which of them are possibly
this reference the.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
One that sounds the most like Dolph Lungren?

Speaker 2 (13:26):
That's fair.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah. To prep, Emeric went to the video store and
rented every Vandamn and luengred movie he can get his
hands on, and he would later admit to regretting this.
He said, I thought we have to come up with
a cool story because these guys can't act. He was correct,
and Dean and I conceived that they both had to
die and then be reanimated as robots. Heigel, is this

(13:48):
as dumb as it sounds. I haven't seen this Universal Soldier.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
I don't think they're fully robots. I think they're there
are like I mean, I actually have to say, Doulph
Lungern kills it in that movie. He plays like this
shell shocked marine guy who's collecting ears in Vietnam. And
I mean Johnny's you know, JC, It's just he does
the high kicks. What more do you want from the guy?

(14:13):
But they are I think they're like, yeah, they're killed
and reanimated. But I don't necessarily know that there's the robots.
I don't know. It's been a minute. Good film, Universal Soldier,
and recommend.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
What about Emeric and Devlin's follow up, nineteen ninety four's
sci fi action adventure Stargate, starring James Spader and your
beloved Kurt Russell.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Stargate is a perfectly cromulent film. Is it good? That
may be a stretch? Is it well made, certain that's.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Got all the Egyptian stuff at it, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
I mean I think of Stargate more because it's spawned
like really like crazy TV shows that like, you know,
I file them under like sci fi original movie kind
of stuff. But watched the original one a couple of
years back, and it's got some cool, you know, swushy
effects kind of stuff, if that's what you're into. And
I think the plot kind of holds up. It's also

(15:11):
wild because it has the main villain is played by
Jaye Davison, who is to out them. Gives away the
twist of the film, but they were in the Crying Game.
They literally retired after doing Stargate, so he was cast
in the Crying Game in nineteen ninety two, got an

(15:31):
Academy Award nomination for Best Sporting Actor, starred as the
villain in Stargate, and then retired power move.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
I was gonna say, that's that's range. Yeah anyway, No,
I remember Stargate. It seemed troubling. I remember seeing bits
of it like racially or no, it just I just
remember like it seemed very like just disturbing.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
I think it's just kind of kind of a slog
I mean, I think they were really trying to shoot
for like a big kind of profound like, oh what
does it mean to be in space? It just kind
of meanders around for a while, I think, I mean,
Kurt Russell is doing the best with what it can.
I think there's like a dead kid thing in there
for him, and you know, it's kind of the whole like, well,
when we meet aliens, do we like try and kill

(16:14):
them or do we understand them or whatever?

Speaker 1 (16:17):
And they answered that question in the next movie, Independence Day,
when the answers yea, we try to kill them.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, we super try and kill them.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Hondo.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
But I think it's mostly bad for Spader, who's doing
like they tried to thrust him into the like scientist
who can be an action hero in a way that
I now firmly believe was a dry run for Goldbloom,
and boy Spader didn't have it. This critic's opinion.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Oh this is when they he was like dressed up
like John Lennon, right with the granny glasses and the
shaggy hair. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, like hippie scientists.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, they try and make him seem like quirky and
sort of like foisted into an action role, but I
don't buy him as either. No, sorry Spade.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
So for folks who haven't seen this movie in a while,
which I imagine is a lot of you, the plot
centers around an ancient ring shaped device that creates a wormhole,
enabling travel to a similar device elsewhere in the universe.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
The titular Stargate.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
The Stargate. Yes, the central plot explores the theory of
extraterrestrial beings having an influence on human civilization. It is
a truly weird movie. As Devil would later tell Entertainment Weekly,
everyone thought we were nuts making Stargate. We thought we
were nuts. The studio MGM thought we were nuts. The
actors thought we were nuts. And really, who's to blame them.

(17:32):
We were the guys who just made a Dolph Lungren movie.
I mean, yeah, that's fair, very fair, very fair. I
do wonder what they that bomb. It all bombed in
a huge way. Ah. But if it wasn't for this
truly weird movie, Independence Day would likely not exist. So
we owe it that. The initial idea for Independence Date
came during a press conference when Emeric and Devil were

(17:55):
promoting Stargate, Emeric was asked by a reporter if he
believed Nailien, and, perhaps predictably for a ruthlessly practical German
film director, he replied with a no. Sensing some disappointment
in the room, he started to backpedal, Well, I don't
believe well, I don't believe. No, I'm not gonna do well.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
I don't believe in Santa Claus, but he'd make a
client movie. I went into like a Dutch I was
gonna say, not if we've woke up tomorrow morning and
there were fifty mile wide spaceships covering above the city,
it's be the most incredible moment. That's Arnold. Yeah, he said,
he doesn't believe in Santa Claus, but he believes in aliens.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
No, no, he said, I don't have to believe in
things for going to make a great movie. I believe
in fantasy, he said, I believe in the great what if,
as in, what if we woke up tomorrow morning and
there were fifty mile wide spaceships hovering above the city,
It'd be the most incredible momentous day in the history
of mankind. And then apparently he paused, considered what he
just said, and turned to his partner, Dean Devlin and said, hey,

(18:57):
I think we got our next movie narrator voice. They did,
they had, but Devlin was less taken by the idea
at first because he felt like it was a Spielberg
grip off. He said, I thought there have been so
many movies about aliens coming to Earth, and Spielberg had
done it better than anyone. But Emeric was set on
the idea, and he managed to convince his partner by

(19:17):
giving him the old Hollywood razzle dazzle by just making
everything bigger. He said, I had these images in my head.
I'll make them so big they won't be flying saucers anymore.
They'll be huge ships, as big as cities. And this
proved to be something of a creative turning point for
the pair, who decided to lean into the whole large

(19:38):
scale attack thing, something that they felt had been lacking
in similar movies of the genre. For the most part,
in alien invasion movies, they come down to Earth and
they're hidden in some backfield. Emrick later said, well, they
arrive in little spores and inject themselves in the back
of someone's head. If you're arriving across the galaxy. Would
you hide on a farm or would you make a
big entrance hiding on a farm? Was I think what

(20:00):
they did in the beginning of War of the Worlds
if I recalled it.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
But then they also bring out their ships and start
destroying the world.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yes, yes, yes, and you're not zip zac zopping. No,
you don't, Oprah.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I'm glad you've glommed onto. That is one of the
only thirty rock things I've been able to impress upon here.
So the parent decamped to Mexico for a month long
working vacation to flesh out their idea. Just two young
eble bodied men, one of them German, in Mexico taking
in the sun. In the sun, their bodies brown as

(20:35):
ripe berries. Fully to meess in in the surf, sorry, Roland,
and I went, there's no way of doing this movie
pretending nobody's ever done this. Stean Devlin said, we can't
pretend that we're inventing this. Let's have some fun with it.
Otherwise we're just going to be trying to ignore film history.
Why not make it a movie for people who love
star wars, love Spielberg movies, and one of those movies back.

(20:56):
The movie that most influenced the pair of writers at
the time was War of the World, the nineteen fifty
three classic based on HG. Wells groundbreaking book, which tells
the story of an alien invasion very nearly successful until
they get colds or have earth allergies. Devlin the Nemerick
put a twist on this premise by having Jeff Goldblum's
scientist character infect the independence day aliens with a virus

(21:20):
that's technological instead of biological. How about that if anyone
was so chafed by the fact that Jeff Golbloom's character
was able to reverse engineer a system wide shutdown virus
on a do is he one of the kids one
of the like, was it like the fruity mac laptops? Is? Yeah,

(21:41):
that was like an early eyebook.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
That was a product placement thing. They got a lot
of money for that.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Love that. So there's a deleted scene in the film
that does explain that all modern day American technology since
well really since Roswell, has been descended by what they
captured from the alien craft. So Devlin says, what Jeff
Goldbloom's character discovered is that the programming structure of the
alien ship was a binary code, and as any programmer,

(22:08):
we'll tell you binary code is a series of ones
and zeros. What Goldbloom's character did was turn the ones
into zeros and the zeros into ones, effectively reversing the
code that would send. I'm not sure that constitutes a
virus if you just transpose all the digits.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
But let's just screw it it up.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Devlin and Emeriic had one of those dreamlike Hollywood creative
experiences where everything just falls together, which God, I've talked
about how much I do love that for people who
it happens to. They banged a script out in just
three weeks, leaving a whole week for the two of
them before returning to Hollywood, and as Dean Devlin would describe,

(22:49):
we gave the script our agents on Wednesday. They send
it to the studios by Thursday afternoon. By Thursday evening
we had three offers, and by Friday, every single studio
had made an offer. We spent the entire day on
Friday meeting with each studio, and a bidding war began.
A crucial point was that they wanted a big guy
big by. A crucial point was that they wanted a
big spend for the ad campaign.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
They wanted a big guy.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah, they wanted a big guy. Memory, they like a
big guy sent to Mexico. Fos following is the crucial
point was that they wanted to expend. They wanted them
to spend money on the damn on the goddamn ad campaign.
Jordan uh Stargate, they felt had been mishandled in a

(23:35):
classic I mean wishful thinking for them.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, you guys ruin this.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
Yeah, you guys hop So they're going to space Egypt? Yeah,
and who's your hero Spader? Yeah? All right, who's playing
the bad guy? The crying game? We'll give you ten bucks.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
We'll tell our friends about it.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, I'll mention it in the call. In a conference call. Uh,
they pitched the idea of a teaser that culminated with
the White House blowing up under the slogan the world
ends July fourth. This naturally made studio executives nervous, and,
according to Emeric and Devlin, they're meeting with twenty century
Fox sounded something like this, Fox executives, do you want

(24:20):
to blow up the White House? Rollin Emerick, everyone is
frustrated with politics, right, now they'll cheer it.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
It'll be like the right stag.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Fox execs. Yes, but the White House, Devlin, We would
agree with you if it were a terrorist doing it,
but it's space aliens.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Ah grabs lamp lamps from space.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Feel good for that foot spot. Twenty Century Fox chairman
Peter Chernan greenlit the screenplay on a Friday, as in,
two days after the pair had submitted the script, and
they were in pre production by following Monday. Jordan, howffen
does that happen?

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Very rarely, especially these days more common then?

Speaker 2 (25:09):
So the production was in some ways rushed because they
had heard that Tim Burt was getting involved in Mars Attacks,
which was his reboot of a trading card series. Oh yeah,
and his first film since surely it couldn't have been Batman.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Oh it might have been No, No, ed would Edwood?

Speaker 2 (25:31):
Yeah? Yeah, so yeah, his first film before since Edward
two years prior was going to be a reboot of
a trading card series from the nineteen fifties. I actually
like Mars Attacks. I don't think it comes off super well,
but I think it really nails. It's kind of like
fifties sci fi Palm Springs, Vegas campy tone really well,

(25:54):
but Fox was having none of it. Mars Attacks had
a release date set for the summer end of summer
ninety six, so Emeric and Devlin set their sights on
the fourth of July, which basically gave them the title
of the movie. As Emeric were called to the Guardian,
I told our agent we wanted to do it. He said,
forget about it. Tim Burton is doing Mars Attacks. I
said to Dean, we can't do our film after a

(26:15):
parody comes out. We had to beat him to it.
If it came out on the July fourth weekend, we
would beat Mars Attacks. We've beat Mars Attacks. Whips riding
crop into like maps of jours. Yeah, he's wearing job purs.
That's patent. I'm confusing my authoritarian.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
It fits though.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, it's good. Never let the truth get in the
way of it.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
He was on a horse the pit hat.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Well, in retrospect, this cast seems jam packed with huge names.
You got Will Smith, Jeff Goldbloom, Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid
and Vivica A Fox the name but a few also
the dad from The Wonder Years, Dan Lauria. He's a
bit part of this too.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Also Anne from Marissa Development is the daughter the Presidents.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
What yeah, man? Her her? Was she funny or something? Wow?
Good call? I did not catch that amazing?

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Oh man. Yeah, there's so many great character actors. There's
the guy who plays Frank and Donny Darko. Once he
takes his mask off.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Oh yeah, he's Randy Quaid's kid, right, he's like sick.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Yeah yeah, yeah, but there is How can we forget
Harry Connake Junior.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Well, yeah, he's in here? Yeah yeah, yeah, I did
kind of forget that he was in here. Oh you
forgot because he's in here for a spoiler alert. He's
in there for like four minutes, and yet they still
really push him to the front in all the promo
videos for this, and it's like, well, I think he
How many of our moms were sad going to see
this to see that he gets killed in the first

(27:47):
ten minutes?

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, and special alien vocal effects by Frank Welker.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
What did he do?

Speaker 2 (27:55):
He's a who the Monkey? He's like. Rank Welker is
one of those guys. I mean, I've friend of the pot.
We talked about him like seventeen times on here. He
is Scooby he took over Scooby Doo from uh way
or no, he always did Fred. He did Fred from
the beginning, and then he took over doing Scooby Doo
as well in two thousand and two. God, what else

(28:20):
did he voice? Well, a lot of dogs, A.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Lot of dogs, A lot of dogs. You're gonna have
a lot of dogs.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
You're gonna Yeah, he did Quakula.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Oh no, he just Oh.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
He was brain and doctor claw on, Inspector Gadget.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
He was a bunch of things on Super Friends. He
was a few different characters, a Muppet Babies. He was
g I Joe. He was two of the Ghostbusters in
the series. He was a bad guy in Johnny Quest,
Multiple Forces on the Smurfs, Captain Planet, Planet Tears. He
was Sands as a Little Helper and Snowball two.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Wait. Here's an insane stat With this film's earning a
total worldwide box office gross of seventeen point four billion,
he is the fourth highest grossing actor as of twenty
twenty four.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah. He was Nibbler in Futurama. He was Abu the Monkey,
Roger the Tiger, and the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin,
he was the whales in Free Willy to the Adventure Home.
He was both the Martians and the Independence Aliens in
nineteen ninety six. It just keeps going, man, I mean,
Jesus Christ, guys and everything.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
I did not know he was in this. I regret
the error, I regret the omission.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Thank you. You put some respect on his name.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So okay, Obviously, as we just said, there are a
lot of big names in this, but the studio at
the time was firmly against having people who were considered
movie stars. I don't fully understand the logic, but Emeric
and Devlin were not especially thrown off by this. As
Emeric's agent noted in a New York Times article, many
of the most lucrative films ever made from et to

(29:58):
Star Wars didn't star anyone who was well known when
the film first appeared in theaters. So, in short, Independence
Day was meant to be a star making movie. And
that's exactly what it did. For one William Smith. Wow,
his whole vibe changes with William Smith.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, then he becomes a guy who would slap someone
on our live shot on the biggest award, biggest night
in Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
That is correct. You know, it's hilarious to think now.
But Will Smith was seen as something of an odd
choice when he was cast in Independence Day as Captain
Steve Hiller. At the time, Bad Boys was really the
biggest thing he'd ever done, and that didn't come out
until right around the time Independence Day went into production.
So basically when he was cast, he was essentially just

(30:41):
seen as the fresh Prince. As Emeric later explained to
the Guardian, Will Smith's role was not written as black.
His ethnicity was not mentioned, so the studio assumed he
wanted to hire a white guy. But we set our
sights on will very early. There was no one more
American than Lil Smith. Well, the studio dragged their feet.
They sent the script to Ethan Hawk, who was haught

(31:03):
off the success of nineteen ninety four as Reality Bites.
According to his truly hilarious account on Conan, go to
YouTube and watch it. It's really funny. He tells it
really well. Hawk thought the script was one of the
dumbest things he'd ever read in his life. He was
reading it while on a road trip with his friends,
like a good one to be beat poet, and upon
reaching the line about whooping ET's ass. He literally threw

(31:25):
the script out the car window onto the hot asphalt
of the Texas Highway. He didn't much to see the
movie when it came out a year later, and was
horrified to one see how good it was and two
see just how much people went wild for that specific
line about beating Et. Given this quote from Emeric, though,
it seems like Hawk was more of the studio's choice
than his Ethan Hawk was on our list too, he said,

(31:46):
but I thought at the time that he was too young.
It was pretty clear that it had to be Will
Smith and Jeff Goldbloom. That was the combo we thought.
The studio said, no, we don't like Will Smith. He's unproven.
He doesn't work in international markets. He said, you cast
the black guy in that part, you're going to kill
the foreign box office. Dean Devlin added, our argument was, well,

(32:07):
the movie's about space aliens. It's going to do fine
foreign It's a big war, and Roland really stood up
for Will and he ultimately won that war. Will Smith
earned a five million dollar pay day for the role,
and this was his first step in becoming the unofficial
King of the Fourth of July. Blockbuster including future roles
in Men in Black one, two and three, Wild Wild West, Well,

(32:31):
Hi Robot and Bancock? Well and is in there somewhere?

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Sure? Did he rain?

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah? But Independence Day was his highest grossing movie, grossing
eight hundred million plus worldwide for twenty three years until
Disney's Aladdin reboot in twenty nineteen broke a billion.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Okay, so do you find the other alternate story about
how how Roland Emory did this? No, or how he
came up for the pitch of this. This was a
Hollywood reporter. He said that he was originally pitched went
in for meeting at Warner Brothers, and he was originally
pitched a movie starring Harrison Ford, but like a prison
escape thriller for this seventy million dollar budget. And so
he said, I could finally do the alien invasion movie.

(33:17):
I've always wanted for that much. And then he said,
I went into book soup and bought War of the World.
I read it. I read it and I felt it
was dated.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
I did not hear that. Yeah, So I was like,
how do we do this instead? I have not heard
that in all my research.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Interesting, they budgeted in the proposals at sixty nine point
five nice not really.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
That with nice in parentheses is literally inherent some point.
Will was very popular on the set, where he was
nicknamed mister Charisma Devlent Toal Variety in a nineteen ninety
nine profile, we wanted our hero and Independence Day to
be the all American boy, and Will Smith is that
all American boy. This guy has lived the American dream

(34:00):
than anyone. I know your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
No, yeah, I mean I think Will Smith is like
a perfect he's he's he's his brain should actually be stuck.
If he weren't so like, if he weren't so jealously like,
if he didn't wasn't still in laboring on the delusion
that he has like any clout or or career left,
it would be really fascinating, because you know, he like,

(34:24):
he's a great example of.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
What happens when was it over exposure?

Speaker 2 (34:28):
No, people, I think he got famous too quickly or
too young, and and that's what happens, is you or
maybe it happened less than the nineties. Now everybody's operating
in principle that everything way to argue. But uh, yeah, man,
I think he and then his kids get like he's
just the perfect storm of everything about him. I don't
like his wife sucks, his kids suck. Just go mask off, dude.

(34:52):
I'm sorry, there's just no point in Have you seen
his new video called like is it just called women? What? Oh? Yeah,
you put out a new song summer.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
I'm just trying to figure out, like when he stopped
being like a blockbuster lead.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Oh it's called pretty Girls. It's Pretty Girls, and it
is a song in which he extols the virtue of
you know, age appropriate women, which is wonderful.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
Oh wait, it came out three weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, but it's so cringe as That's what I'm saying, dude,
Just go, like, stop pretending, just stop pretending you're not
an uptight, insane person that you've been, Like, go to rehab.
You're obviously coked out for a very long time, a legend.
Just stop pretending you're normal and give everyone the like insane,
tell all and spill a bunch of or like that's

(35:36):
all we wanted it.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
The video kicks off with Smith in the therapy session,
telling his doctor he's had the same problem since he
was a little boy. After she probes him to explain
what the problem is, he gets a big grin on
his face as the video transitions to him surrounded by
a number of dancers and models. He's like sixty years.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Old, I know. And that's what I'm saying. It's like
it's not just because he's so rich. He still has
like a grip on cloud. He's not like Mickey Rourke,
who's like everyone is like that guy's out to lunch
and but he needs like he's poor, so we can
you know, he doesn't get anything made laughing. But like
Will Smith is so actively out there being like, no,
I have millions of dollars from like being on in

(36:16):
actual media when I was a child, and I'm going
to keep making new music. Everyone's just like.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Okay, man, it's kind of giving me like O J.
Simpson's rap video.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Well, no, because at least O J. Simpson wrote a
book called If I Did It. Yeah, I don't know, man,
He's just he's weird to me. He seems like it's
like a weird He's weird to you.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Will Smith is weird to you.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yes, No, I'm sorry, Yes, that's the thesis point that
I was making. No, it's just uh, he has like
a touch of the like Tom Cruise Subermenshan self, Are
they self?

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Are they both? I mean maybe, but there's multiple ways
to read that.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
But but my point is in saying this is that
Tom Cruise will still throw himself off of a building
and yeah, and we'll all go cheer for it. I mean, like,
do people like the song Pretty Girls that he made?

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Let's check.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
I mean, I'm sure it's got seven million streams on. Yeah,
whatever's stop talking about Will Smith. I'm getting sweaty. It's
making me feel bad.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Well, do you want to talk about President good Speech?
I can never remember his name, your beloved built.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
President good Speech. Yeah, well, this could have been a
very different movie had they, uh well, had they went
with their original pick for president, which was Kevin Spacey
Oxford bos plus Pausford gasps. I guess, I don't know, Like,
what do you want to say about that?

Speaker 1 (37:42):
That's weird. Yeah, had he even been old enough to
be the president, then he would have.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
But Dean Devlin was a friend of his from childhood,
so he might have a little something in there that
we don't really he might have. Yeah, he said he
knew Kevin Spacey since high school.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Kevin Spacey's dad was like a like an actual like
card carrying Nazi was eh.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Back at At one point, Devlin said, we can get
Kevin for two hundred k right now. In a year
from now, he's going to win an oscar and he's
going to cost two million, And the studio executive at
Fox said, Kevin Spacey will never win an oscar in
my lifetime.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
I'm saying you something right now. I want you to
see this picture of Kevin Spacey's dad.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, there it is.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, got the Hitler mustache and everything. Long after you
could get away with that plausibly deny it.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yeah, yeah, Bill Pullman said, he said when he heard
about the part, he said, that sounds like heavy lifting,
which is kind of, you know, good for him. In
an early draft the film, the President was a harsher
Richard Nixon like figure, and eventually the studio did go
with Bill Pullman. And Pullman, as you mentioned earlier, having

(38:50):
been known for recently Casper Mister Wrong, Spaceball, Sleepless in Seattle.
He told The Guardian, I got a call from my
agent saying they're interested in you know, they're interested in
you for a Fox movie as President. I said, is
it a comedy, because that would make sense. At that
point there weren't movies that had a president is the
lead character. It was biof and then usually only on television.

(39:14):
So then they rewrote it because they couldn't bear to
make Bill Pullman.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
Unlike another actor who was confused about the tone of
this movie was veteran character actor Robert Loja, Friend of
the Pod Yes, oh, oh my god, friend the friend
of us all. Really, he plays the president's confidant, General
William Gray, and Lojah was reportedly miffed when screenwriter Dean
Devlin suggested he watched the movie Airplan to get into

(39:39):
the proper headspace for his role the comedy classic Airplan.
Devlin had meant to suggest the nineteen seventy disaster movie
Airport rather than the Leslie nielsen Helm slapstick film Airplane,
but this misunderstanding meant that Robert Loja thought that he
had accidentally signed up to be in a spoof movie,
and he was not happy about it. One day, very

(40:00):
early in production, he refused to leave his trailer. Ultimately,
they cleared up the misunderstanding and he delivered a fine
performance on set. Emeric and Devlin called Robert Lojia the
turtle because he had a hard ardor shell, but was
a soft, cuddly guy on the inside, and he kind
of looked like Squirtle.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Example number two of that Bill Pullman to the Hollywood reporter,
I have a brother who's two years older than I am.
Somewhere along the line we decided the only actor who
was worth talking about was Robert Loggia. Then I was
on the set and there's Robert Loggier. Wow, I said,
I've never done this, but if I can get on
the phone over here, can we call my brother? I
really hate that stuff. Every part of me cringes when

(40:40):
I get asked to do that people that don't know
and they're on the phone. I just I don't know
what came out of me. But Robert was so graceful,
and I never asked anybody again ever to do anything
like it.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
Oh I like that, Yeah, I like grab. What is
like the big defining role of his He's in so
many movies logio, Yeah, Oh, he's seen big. He's as big.
I think, does he do the piano dance with him?
With Tom Hends. I think he's the Yeah, okay, he's
the toy guy, but you know, he officer and a

(41:11):
gentleman's scarface because he's honor.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah. I remember him as the heavy one of the
guys at scarface. Yeah yeah, but you know, I mean,
this guy had been acting. He's been acting for forty
straight years by the time he made Independent Say. His
first movie was Somebody up There Likes Me in nineteen
fifty six. Sorry, Paul Newman in front of the pod.
Paul Newman, Oh.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Yes, yes, Oh my god. He was in the Greatest
Story Ever Told as Joseph Wow, that's wild.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Played a cat burglar in the show The Cat. The
character's name was Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat, which is how
you got the acronym THG cat. Where he's a he's
a cat burglar who became a good guy. It became
a circus guy.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Oh, this is like a sixty show. This looks awesome.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah. It basically was like a test run for like
it takes a thief. Yeah. Oh man theme by uh
oh I duly departed.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
Yeah, my condolences, thank you well. Speaking of krusty cast
members having problems with script details, this brings us to
jud Hirsh. He appears as Jeff Goldbloom's dad, a kind
of borderline offensive Jewish stereotype.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
I mean, I'm not I'm not Jewish, but I would
have been offended had I been Yeah, yeah, I mean
he's yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It's like, I'm not
even gonna give it, give space to the anti semitism
of that film, but it's real fun to do.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
This all seems to bother jud less than his character's name, Moisha,
which he asked Devlin to change. Devlin, presumably annoyed, asked
Judge on the spot what he wanted instead, and for
whatever reason, Julius Caesar was on the front of Jud's mind,
so we blurted out Julius, which stuck because there's only
a ten years between Judd and Jeff Goldbloom, and jud

(43:03):
just looks so goddamn youthful. The makeup people had to
go to town on his face. As Dean Devlin would
explain the irony with Judd hirsh is that he looks
too young to be the father, so he had to
put a lot of old age makeup and liver spots
on him to make him believable as a dad. But
when he saw himself in the makeup, he got very
depressed as he looked into the future. How dare you

(43:24):
bumb out? Jud hirsh I know, I know, Oh, here
we go. You need to hit Harry Connick and everybody's
favorite Weasley dickhead character actor. Ooh these feel like you?

Speaker 2 (43:37):
Well, yeah, so we mentioned Harry Connick Junior earlier. I
have no problem with Harry Connick Junior as a genuine
son of New Orleans. Sure, he makes like, you know,
the Christmas jazz for your mom. But I'm gonna go
ahead and say the thing everybody says. If you haven't
seen that clip of Harry Connick Junior making a crowd
stop clapping on one and three and making them clap
on two and four instead.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Oh yeah, go watch it.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
It's great. That's next. Let that's Galaxy bran pre I'm playing.
In all of my years, I have never seen someone
successfully flip the crowd around like that. Harry Connick Junior
was cast as Jimmy Wilder Will Smith's Red Shirt friend,
but he was not their original choice. That was a

(44:18):
little unknown TV actor named Matthew Perry.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
He was in Friends at that point.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
He was Yeah, God, can you imagine how annoying he
would have been in this movie?

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, I mean, he lasts all of four minutes.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
He would have made it count though Perry would have Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
He would have been like chewing the scenery.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
That's what I'm saying. Well, according to the director's commentary track,
Matthew Perry had to drop out very close to the
shooting schedule, and through the good fortune of Harry Connick's
recording schedule and touring schedule, there was a window of
opportunity that he could do this part. What's funny, though,
is that there ends up being a Perry in the film. No,
not Linda Perry actor John Bennett Perry, Matthew Perry's actual

(44:59):
dad appears as the secret Service agent protecting First Lady
Marilyn Quitman played by Mary McDonald, who's also in Donnie Darko. Man.
I didn't realize that. God, yes, two Donny Darko cast members.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
In this movie, and we mentioned Dan Laurier from The
Wonder Years. Kevin Arnold's dad is a military personnel member.
I didn't mention that, but words my know, and now
this is I love this guy. He's one of my
favorite character actors. My favorite bit player in this movie
is the underhanded Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki Nimzicky, who,

(45:33):
when the President insists the area fifty one doesn't exist,
utters the immortal lie that's not entirely accurate. In this movie,
he was a former CIE director who was therefore aware
of the alien's existence due to the shift being recovered
at Roswell. He is played by the late great character
actor James reb Horn, who made a career out of

(45:55):
playing as you have called it in one episode or another,
Weasley dickheads.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, he's great. He's one of those perma that guys, Yeah,
big time.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
But else see my.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Cousin Vinnie basic instinct scent of a woman White sands
All in nineteen ninety two alone.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Of course he was on Law and Order, where he
played multiple characters, and he was in Homeland when he died,
which I believe was what most people had chosen to
love him for. He's also the district attorney in the
series finale of Seinfeld.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Right, Okay that I knew there was a Seinfeld connection
in there, Yes, yes, yes, okay, thank you.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
He was usually playing like military men or FBI agents,
or like attorneys.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Weasily dickids, weasily dickids. Oh, I love this though. I
love the pettiness of this. I think this is like
the third or fourth time we've encountered a situation like
this on the show. His character name of Albert Nimzicki
was a not so subtle jab at Joe Zicky, MGM's
head of advertising, who apparently had been tough on Devlin

(47:04):
and Emeric during the production of Stargate, demanding recuts and,
according to them, screwing up the promotional campaign for that movie.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Another character named after someone from their Stargate experience is
doctor Brackish oakin the hersuit eccentric research scientist at Area
fifty one played by Brett Speiner aka Star Trek's Data
and his whole Stick is an affectionate tribute to Stargate's
visual effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Oakin how about that?

Speaker 2 (47:35):
How about that?

Speaker 1 (47:36):
How about that?

Speaker 2 (47:37):
You know Jeff Goldlin plays jazz pian, right, Yeah, Brent
Spiner is also a singer, and so the pair of
them would just apparently sit around keyboards and sing and
play jazz standards before shooting together.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Oh I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
What do you think about Brent? Oh?

Speaker 1 (47:55):
I like him? Okay, see, is there something I don't know? No, No,
I like, I'm a big fan of X Gen. Okay,
I mean there's LeVar Burton, of course, there is Frank's
Jonathan frankes Ye who plays Wharf. I can't remember his name. Uh,

(48:15):
there's Wharf. I can't remember his name.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
There's Wharf.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Michael Dorn, Michael Dorn, Yes.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Michael Wharf. I feel like you just keep not getting it.
I'm sorry, I don't really know what your problem is.
So close?

Speaker 1 (48:31):
What do I say?

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You're saying? Dorn's Michael Wharf.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
The character is is Wharf, and this his name is
Michael Dor.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
I'm just trying to make you lose your mind slowly.
We like to have fun here. You should trust yourself
more often. You were you were, you were right. As
you meditate on that, We'll be right back with more
too much information after these messages. Wow.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
The seventy two day Independence Day shoot began on July
twenty eighth, nineteen ninety five, with a press release from
Fox heralding the day as quote the countdown to the
End of the world. Fox gave Emerican Devlin a sixty
nine million dollar production budget. Nice They, in turn instructed
their team to make it look like one hundred million, because,

(49:39):
as you may be aware, sixty nine million for this
kind of movie was not a ton even though it's nice,
even back in the nineties, the film would be like
a third of that, right, Oh yeah, I mean maybe
even a little more.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
It's it's actually really shocking what they were able to
get away with because so much of this was done
with practical effect. Oh here, this is movie magic. You
got to talk about the movie magic.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
No, I was going to bring in the fact that they,
you know, much like Operation paper Clip, they brought in
a power from Germany who was really good at blowing
stuff up. They help him. His name was Vulkar Engel.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Yes, yes, yeah, and he was the guy who's famous
for blowing up the Death Star.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Mm hmmm oh no, sorry sorry, no, incorrect, incorrect, That
was not Vulgar Engele. Vulgar Anger was the supervisor. Engle
basically farmed out the effects work for six different companies.
The only reason he was worth mentioning was for the
Operation paper Clip joke. The guy who blew up the
White House with a guy named Joe Viscosl who you

(50:44):
correctly said, blew up the Death Star.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Well, here we got some great movie magic here. I
know how much you love that. If you want to
take this, I say go right ahead. No you okay,
it's got some great stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, okay. But
whereas the Pyro stuff and the blown up the White House,
this seems like this is hardcore movie magic. I think

(51:08):
you'd like that. Well, initially the cost was going to
be offset by the US military, who pledged to supply
filmmakers with appropriate costumes, vehicles, and props. But then they
actually read the script and caught all the references to
Area fifty one, and we're not happy. They felt that
this movie depicted the government as duplicitous and ruefully deceitful,

(51:31):
and demanded that all references to Area fifty one be removed.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Oh babies.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
To their credit, Emerican Devil refused. This is probably one
of the biggest twists of the movie. Emrick noted in
the middle of the movie, all of a sudden, you
come up with Area fifty one. There's this mythology about
this place where they keep spaceships for Dean and I.
It was the most important part because it ties together
this mythology that people believe into the movie so it
feels more real and so for not the first north

(52:00):
the last time, the US military pulled out. As a result,
the production was forced to borrow equipment from other movies
payback for the time when another German director, Wolfgang Peterson.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Director Wolfgan Peters director wolf.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Kang Peterson lent the sub from dass Boot to Steven
Spielberg for the filming of Raiders of the Lost Dark
in the early eighties. The Submarine and Independence Day came
from Crimson Tide and also the Kelsey Grammer comedy Down Periscope.
The Stealth Bomber came from Broken Arrow and the White House.
Interior sets have been used in both Oliver stones Nixing

(52:33):
biopic and the Michael Douglas romcom The American President.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Oh I Remember the American President, written by Eric and Sorkin. Yeah, funny.
One thing I wanted to mention about Area fifty about well,
not even Area fifty one, but more the bases in
the films. In the original nineteen fifty three movies, there's
an offhand comment by the character Doctor Forrester who says
El Toro Base is the home of the Marines, and
so that's where they make Captain Hiller fly out of

(53:00):
and Harry Connick in Independence Day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Also, this white house set that was borrowed for the
Independence Day movie was then borrowed by Independence Day's rival movie,
Mars Attacks. It's the same room where Jack Nicholson was
the president in Mars Attacks.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
That's really I mean, it just goes to show that
studios have no loyalties, no whatever's going to make put
money in the till Yep.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
I'm surprised they didn't like go scorched earth and burn
it to the ground, so that Mars Attacks had to
build a whole new one and install even later.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
So the production was forced to obtain their own planes
and choppers, and one of the most unique aircrafts in
Independence Day is featured in the Welcome Wagon scene, when
a helicopter pilot is sent to communicate with the alien
spacecraft with an array of flashing lights. The aliens then
shoot the thing out of the sky, revealing their hostile intent.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
It was also a little too close to home for
different people.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
John land Has had nothing to do with this.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
John Landis did not have anything to do with this,
but apparently when they were filming the welcome wagon. They
actually got about one hundred and fifty Californians called in
UFO sightings.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Yes, Unfortunately, no one thought to actually alert the public
that there would be this huge I think it's called
Skorroski S sixty four sky crane, which is mostly used
to fight forest fires, outfitted with strobe light things on
the side, just telegraphing morse code messages. So yes, the
population of Orange County was absolutely terrified, and as you said,

(54:34):
something like one hundred and fifty people called in UFO sightings.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Part of the reason that the shooting schedule was a
lean seventy two days was because the studio wanted to
free up the budget to tackle the special effects. Independence
say boasts an astonishing three thousand effects shots, which was
a record for a single movie at the time.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
That's insane.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
I mean, do they even count stuff that's entirely done
in the box as an effect shot? Oh?

Speaker 1 (54:59):
Yeah, that's a guy. I don't know. That's a great question.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
How did you How do you start counting it as
a screen time? This was one of the last films
to rely primarily on practical effects. About eighty percent of
the effects in Independence. They were done with miniatures and models,
and Eric explained this in the Movies Behind the Scenes feature.
I think old fashion effects will never die out because
they're simply too good. We sometimes make a combination of
a model, motion control photograph models for the foreground and

(55:24):
then go digital CGI in the background. That was confusing,
but English is not his first language. The production's model
making department built over twice as many miniatures that had
been built for any film prior.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
Ever, that's insane, like more than like in Kong or well,
because this is all over the world, you know what
I mean, like all the cities that were represented.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Oh, I guess that's true. Yeah. It was probably like
the most like miniature recreation of architecture ever undertook at
that point, except by a bunch of nerds in their homes.
The spaceship model tapped out at thirty feet long in
some cases, and the shots of them entering the Earth's
atmosphere were done in a cloud tank. The scenes in
which flames and golf city scapes were created by using

(56:09):
a miniature skyline mounted sideways on a wall and filmed
from above, with fire being shot through them below. So
fire wants to go up. Some of the streets are
that they reverse the shit. It's like I'm gesturing right now.
It's very dark in here, Jordan David to see me.
As we mentioned earlier, Emeric's German pal who he flew in,
contracted legendary pyrate Joe Dyscoke Sill, famous as the guy

(56:32):
who blew up the Death Star, to oversee these explosives.
It took him a week to plan and required upwards
of forty charges. Emerics said, we gave him a room
for three and a half months where he did nothing
but shoot explosions. He built up his library of fire
and flame that was the most extensive ever created.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
That's a beautiful sentence.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
I was gonna say, that's beautiful. Well, you know, I'm
told they have a.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
History of literature and of violence.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
The piece deies us is, of course, watching the White
House get blown up, which for certain purposes I do
not endorse on the record. The one twelfth scale plaster
model of the White House was fourteen feet wide and
five feet high, and so elaborate that when the time came,
the crew was reluctant to blow it up. Bob Hurry,

(57:18):
the movie's visual effects production supervisor, admitted this in the
Special Features documentary, is that the White House has got
such great detail in it that even during the most
preliminary test that we've done, the White House holds up
at an extreme close up. And this particular miniature that
we've done is very near and dear to our hearts
because it's got some wonderful detail. I don't really know
if I wanted to blow up or not. I mean seriously,

(57:41):
And of course the movie production built it up. They
built bleachers around it for the press to watch this,
which is that's just great. And they only had limited
chances to do this, so because they built one spare,
so they had between seven and nine cameras filming, including
one shooting in what must have been one of the
earliest i'm as cameras. Right, This is like literally around

(58:03):
the time when I started seeing Imax, like promoted.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
There was a Titanic movie called Titanica that was an IMAX,
and I want to say that was like ninety two, Yeah,
it was nineteen ninety two, but yeah, I mean if
this was nineteenety five, yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Hammers were shooting at three hundred frames per second, twelve
times slower than the average twenty four frames per second
speed in order to capture the destruction in a way
that looks much more dramatic than the one second explosion
that occurred in real time. Has a thing about the
White House, apparently, which makes me think we should look
into his visa. Described the White House three times in total,

(58:43):
once in Independence Day, again in two thousand and nine,
confusingly titled twenty twelve, again in twenty thirteen's White House Down,
and for his climate change movie Disaster Movie The Day
After Tomorrow, the White House was frozen. So yeah, I
don't know. Someone call ions' the guy.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
The most poignant explosion, if I could call it, That
occurs at the end of the movie when Randy Quaid's
lovable loon Russell Cassi his name saves the Day. You
recall that his character, an ex fighter pilot turned crop duster,
claimed for years that he'd been abducted by aliens, leading
to scorn and mockery from everyone in his life. In

(59:22):
the movie We Know and Love, he's involved in the
climactic dogfight, which apparently drew on footage provided to the
production by the Israeli Air Force for authenticity questions. Mark,
that's interesting but yes. Randy Quaid's character is the last
fighter on the scene with an active rocket, but then
it gets jammed and won't fire, So after radioing down
to the general that tells kids that he loves them

(59:43):
very much, he sacrifices himself by flying Kamikazi style into
the mothership with his warhead activated, uttering the immortal rallying cry,
Oh you gotta do it, love boys. Ah, it's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
It's just funny that in the original version they wanted
him to just show up with his biplane biplane like
crop duster. He drives with a bomb just strapped to
the side.

Speaker 1 (01:00:14):
Which I don't understand if that meant that he was
good he had a bomb already. Well, okay, there's that,
although that wouldn't surprise me, but that he like it
was always a suicide mission as opposed to like, oh shoot,
this rocket won't fire. I guess I'm done, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Like, Well, apparently they said that it was unrealistic.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yes, the test audiences did not like the byplane thing.
Why I don't know, I mean, I maybe it's not
heroic enough that this is like weird guy in an
old aster playing crop duster just like flies out of nowhere.
And yeah, I think it given him like the full
military muscle, a little more gravitas.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Randy Quid to the Hollywood reporter, I want a lot
of money at the casino in Utah where we shot
a lot of the film, So that was nice for him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Has anyone found him yet? Is he still like hiding
out in Canada or wherever?

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
No? No one has any idea.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Oh jeez, speaking of grizzled men who kind of seem
like they live in the woods and explosives. Apparently, shooting
was interrupted briefly when the unibomber called in a threat
to lax hell Ay brother. But yes, as you mentioned,
test audiences did not like the whole biplane thing, and

(01:01:27):
so they reshot the final scene with Randy in in
F sixteen, and to save money and time, they just
flipped the explosion used for the miniature model of the
Empire State building for the moment when Randy gets sucked
up into the Mother's ship and then everything blows up.
But that's not the only thing they recycled. When the
alien ship fires its death ray at Randy Quaid's plane,

(01:01:48):
sound designers mixed in a tiny sample of one of
James Brown's signature's screams, and I'm unclear if this was
some sort of play on I'm Back, which Randy Quaid screams,
and also James Brown was fond of screaming and his
songs like get Up off of that thing. I don't
know if that had something could do with it, But
whatever it is, it rules. I'm gonna splice it in

(01:02:09):
right here, because once you hear it, once you know
it's James Brown, you can never unhear it. Oh boys, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
You know what I think it sounded like. More like
to me is the noise that they used to make
R two D two make when he got hit by.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Oh oh yeah, Oh that's true. Yeah, so that's Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
I'm just some guy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Another interesting cameo in this movie is Godzilla. The young
son of Vivica. A. Fox's character can be seen playing
with a Godzilla toy, which is a nod to the
then upcoming remake that Roland Emeric and Dean Devlin were
due to make immediately after this movie, and then, in
a really cute twist, Independence Day toys can be seen

(01:02:59):
in certain scenes of a remake which came out as
you mentioned earlier in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Apparently for the press tour for this movie. Randy Quaid
may or may not have been there. According to Roland Emerick,
he said that Randy Quaid was a player for Worker.
This is to the Hollywood Reporter for their oral history.
He said, Randy was always great, but when it came
time to do adr automated dialogue replacements, when you repeat
your lines in a studio, you always had to deal

(01:03:26):
first with Quade's wife to get to Randy. That was
the only way to do it. Then when it came
to travel, she behaved so badly that Fox sent him home.
Dean Devilin continued. That whole thing I find sad. I
don't know what was going on. She was causing a
lot of problems, and he loved her very much, and
the studio said we can't have this. It's heartbreaking because
I loved working with Randy Quaid. Editor's Note. In an email,

(01:03:49):
Quaid denies these accounts and incorrectly writes that there was
no press tour. Randy Quaid, there was no press tour.
Independence Day didn't need a press tour. Didn't happen, but
nice try. Editors note after the story is published. Quaid
further denied that his wife interfered in any way with
his personal or professional obligations, and denied that Fox sent
him home from the press war. Quayde said that his

(01:04:11):
agent at the time handled his work on Independence Day
and his wife was not involved. Quaid also stated he
was filming a Warner Brothers project in Las Vegas during
the time the Independence Day press war would have occurred
and was never involved with what.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Oh that might have been Las Vegas vacation seeing that, Oh,
I know that was from ninety seven, that's when it
came out.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
I didn't clock that. I was just in that, Okay,
So he was shooting soday. By the way, is the
incident that they're remembering Randy Quaid being a terror at
casinos and in and around Las Vegas, shooting.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Vegas vacations, Vegas vacations.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
And either stumbled into the press event for an Independence
Day or people just thought he was causing terror at
both tuns about right, All right, great, whither Randy? He's
doing well? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I love him anyway. He is brother to Dennis Quaid. Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
I would be shocked to find out if not square.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Jawed Rom com lead and Randy Quaid just sharing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Yeah, that's so wild. Wow they are. There's also a
Buddy John Quaid who's also an actor and a songwriter
and a luxury realatur in Austin, Texas. It's Buddy Quaid,
And then there's a Brandy Quaid who appears to have
died sadly because there's something called the Quiet Sister. Oh,

(01:05:37):
she's just not in she's not in Hollywood, which is nice. Well,
there's your rundown with the Quads minus Jack, which one's Jack. Oh,
Jack's Jackson, a proper, proper actor these days. He's in
He's the Boys at Amazon. He's in that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Oh, Meg Ryan's care Canyon.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Yeah, he's in. Yeah, he's more than just Ryan's Jordan.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
You didn't need to be anything wether Meg Ryan's kid,
Ryan's kid.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
I've dined out on that all. Yeah. Hi, I'm Meg
Ryan's kid.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Do you want to tell us about aliens and lube?

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Oh? Man, Well, you know, aliens and lube go way back.
Let's let's be honest, folks.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
If you're if you're the successful sequel to Ebony and Ivory, sorry, basically.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Anytime something looks gross in a movie. They probably just
threw a bunch of ky at I guess it mixes
really well with dies because like famously the Predator's blood
was was was ky jelly? Was it?

Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Yeah, I think there's an enormous amount of ky jelly
in the an Alien and and the sequels. Yeah, they
just like they spray it on stuff. It's it's phrasing, uh,
but yeah, they use a lot of these aliens too.
The aliens have that side it's seek outer like exoskeleton,
a layer, and then they're they're piloted by a little

(01:06:57):
a little guy inside, which I love because I loved
I love weird little guys. This was not in initially
in the script. Patrick to Tatopoulos, who is the concept
artist for this, drew two concepts and Emritt couldn't choose
between them, so he combined them into both. And actually

(01:07:22):
Bill Pullman went method for when he's like getting the
telekinesis signal from the aliens, you just imagined that he
was having a tooth extracted. Is there anything else about
ky jelly.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Or is it just that I think it was just
that It's just that they because they were filming in
Las Vegas and in the desert. They had to reapply
it all the time, so they had to have a
lot of ky jelly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Oh you got drums of it. It's like a diddy party.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
And speaking of diddy party, wanna take us into the
peeing scene?

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Yes, Will Smith's peeing scene. Devon says on the film's
commentary track that this scene had an almost quote Havolovian
effect on audios. He said that sarning some screenings, in
that scene, people would run up and start going to
the bathroom as if I guess they'd forgotten too before
the movie and this reminded them of No.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
But he's like, you know when your little kid you're
trying to get parents are trying to get little kids
like use the toilet for the first time, They like
turn the sink. Well there's that too, but they like
turn the sink on to try to like help sound
like trigger some kind of I know where you're going
with this. Yeah, I think it's like that. Or it's
like when you see somebody yawning, you kind of want

(01:08:32):
to yawn too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Yeah, it's not like a Now I saw that, Luther,
It's like a great He's like interrogating a serial killer
and Yahn's on purpose and lay in the room. He's like,
see that, Yeah, she didn't associate path response. Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
Well, despite the plethora of practical effects, there was some
early CGI used. During a press conference, Bill Pullman recalled
the moment that they were asked to act like they
were seeing a spaceship the size of Washington, DC, when
in fact there was nothing there. He said, we all
looked up at different things for fifteen minutes. We'd say,
are you looking at the telephone pole or that little
gray thing? Wait? What is that little gray thing? Love,

(01:09:11):
Bill Pullman, what you've come around? But one thing that
wasn't CGI Boomer, Will Smith's beautiful Labrador retriever. Will Smith's character,
I should say Boomer was a huge hit with test audiences,
who screamed at the scene where Boomer cheats death with
an expertly executed jump, which not how that works.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
Just imagine all the oxygen being sucked out of that
tunnel at an incredibly high speed and all the living
creature's lungs at the same time, Because that's what happens.
You can't just jump into a side room away from
a fireball. But you know, hey, sorry, I made you
think of that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
With all things great and small, Dan Devil recalls, because
we didn't get to meet the aliens or learn much
about them, Yeah, we didn't. We wanted what they did
to be so terrified and devastating that we would root
for our heroes to defeat them. But no matter how
many people were to be killed or how many buildings
were blown up, it never had the impact of this

(01:10:09):
one simple dog running from the fire. People were more
concerned about this dog than the millions of people in
the cities. That says a lot about us as a culture.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Ranks for me, especially they're from La right. Yeah, I'll
take the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Dog even more than a Labrador retriever. Another beloved figure
in this film is, of course Jeff Goldbloom, who plays
the man I were referred to only as science nerd.
What is his name, like David Levison or something. All
these names don't matter in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
This glomos no names, no names, just imagine something as
racist as but they gave jed.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Hersh As we all know, Jeff Goldbloom can't be tamed,
and much of his dialogue was improvised. According to the
film's DVD commentary, director Role in Emeric and producer Dean
Devlin said that Goldblooms exchanges with Hirsh and Will Smith,
especially during the Alien Mothership mission, we're largely unscripted. This
improvisational approach extended to several comedic beats, including the now

(01:11:10):
famous fat Lady routine. What is this fat lady? You're
obsessed with the fat lady? It's very Seinfeld. That was
all developed spontaneously on set. And he also ad libs
the muscle faster, muscle faster line, which was from his
previous role in Jurassic Park when he was fleeing a
t Rex on a jeep.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
Lib at that point, right, or he co opts going
back to the well.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Apparently this really pissed off Steven Spielberg.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
Yeah, it pisses people off when you add lib on
their movies if you hadn't, Like I remember in his
the Whole Reason, he he's an Annie Hall, right, he
calls someone He's like, I got a cameo role in
Annie Hall where he like calls someone a Jack Napes,
which was like a Shakespearean insult term, and Woody Allen
was like, hell was that? Like that just came out

(01:11:58):
of your head? Read the line written, and then I
guess he ended up keeping it in. But yeah, Jeff
Golblum was like, I've been reading Shakespeare or something and
I picked up on that line the insult, so I
decided to use it in any hall was.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Hee the guy who like calls his gurus like I've
forgotten my mantra or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
No, I think it's it's in one of the movie
theater parts. I think it's a maybe it's someone standing
in a long it's not quite the Marshall. I don't
think it's the Marshall. Mclue here it is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
I think it was during an audition.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Filming was occasionally disrupted by laughter between Jeff Goldbloom and
Will Smith. The google fits got so intense that the
scene inside the alien spaceship had to be postponed for
an entire day because the two actors couldn't stop laughing.
Gobloom c I I agree, Golbloom told The Entertainment Weekly.
We got into a laughing jag that was uncontrollable. Smith added,

(01:12:53):
we just made a decision to give up our lives
for the planet, and it was completely hilarious that Jeff
Goldblum and Will Smith had to save the world. The
pair got along extremely well. The first scene they shot
was actually the one at the very end, when gold
Bloom and Smith stroll triumphally across the desert after they
saved the world, smoking their victory cigars. That detail really

(01:13:15):
bothered a DARE officer at my school, and honestly it
kind of bothered me too. But it bothered Jeff Goldblue
most of all because you couldn't handle the smoke. Even
if you don't inhale, it gets in you, he said,
and that gave him a queasy feeling to assist yes
an assistant director to puff the cigar up until the
moment Emmeritt called action to complete the scene. Will Smith

(01:13:39):
also got into the improv.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
Do you remember when in Will Smith's Miami when he
says a Cuban cigar, I don't light it just for
the look. I just bite it a cigar. I don't
light it because my mom and grandma told me I'd
to swear just for the look. I just bite it.
What are jack of napes?

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Will Smith also got in on the improv case in
point the moment when he's dragging an alien carcass through
the desert bellowing, and what the hell is that smell?
At it? That line wasn't in the script. The production
was filming in the Great Salt Lake, and Smith was
reacting to the stench of millions of dead and decaying
Brian shrimp that had sunk below the surface.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
One hundred and twenty three degrees out out there. What
Oh my god?

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
Wowhi, I know how much I love large plane. Do
you want to talk about big speech?

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Oh? Boy, well, I do love this speech speech, it's
what it's the best. Oh. A lot of the films,
the exterior shots of Area fifty one were filmed at
Utah's historic Wendover Airfield.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
And is that the same place where they filmed the
speech for you know, the President's speech? Oh cool?

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
And do you know what it was?

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
The former home of I do, but I don't think
the folks do. Yes, that's correct, Tell the folks no. Oh, yes,
went over.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
Airfield, formerly home of the Inola Gay. Another a bit
on the nose of having a potent symbol of filming
your thing where America is the little guy? The home
of America flexing a display of horrific, unimaginable power that
gets made an entire country.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
Well, tell them what the Anola Gay is, the bomber
that dropped the atomic bomb, the first atomic bomb he
used in war time on Hiroshima during World War Two.
But the craziest part was they filmed the speech in
front of the hangar where the Anola Gay was kept
on the fiftieth anniversary of dropping the bomb. They filmed

(01:15:47):
it on August sixth, nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Oh, Hollywood, don't ever change. You're just perfect what you are.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Yeah, So that speech.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
God bless Complex who did an entire old history of
just that speech, including for some reason interviewing Bill Clinton's
former speech writer Michael Waldman.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
That's correct.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
All Devlin kind of said is it would be great
if we could do a kind of Saint Crispin's Day
speech of like the king rallying his troops. And then
Devlin recalls Roland turning back to him and saying, oh, great,
we only have to write a speech as great as
the Saint Crispin's Day speech. This is from Henry the Fifth.
It's one of the most famous shakespeare In speeches of
all time. You know there's a direct callback to it

(01:16:32):
because Henry the fifth says, this day is called the
Feast of Saint Crispy, and he that outlives this day
comes home safe, will stand a tiptoe when this day
is named. And he says, the whole speech is when
the American prison says July fourth will no longer be
known as an American holiday. I'm getting goosebumps right now. Yeah,
so Devlin said he wrote it in five minutes, saying, well,

(01:16:53):
we can always change that, and then Emeric continued, instead
of Bill Pulman, you know, builds such a and he
knew in a weird way what he had to play.
When we talked about the very beginning of the film,
he said, I'm going to play this president a little
bit like a John Wayne figure, maybe a little bit
of insure of himself, but at the end he's very
sure what he has to do. And so it's important

(01:17:14):
for the character because earlier in the film people are
talking about the criticism that he got them pressed they
what did he say? They elected a warrior and they
got a win something like that. Because he was a
former Air Force pilot. Remember, so Bill Polman started doing
research and had a collection of great speeches from the
twentieth century. One of them was Robert Kennedy's speech two

(01:17:36):
minutes after he'd been informed that Martin Luther had been shot.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Oh yeah, that speech is incredible, right after MLKA was shot. Really,
it's just totally off the top of his head. It's
really amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
Devil said. I came running to the set the day
was supposed to film and panic, thinking, this see is
a scene we were supposed to spend weeks on. You
never got around to it. And then when I got there,
they were already rehearsing the speech. I was so nervous
about it. But when he got to the end of
the speech, all the extras went crazy and screaming. I
looked Roland, he looked at me and were like, I
guess this is pretty darn good. Bill Pullman does not

(01:18:07):
recall being given very much direction. This was a night shoot,
so everyone was a little bit, you know, crazy. He said,
there wasn't a lot of discussion about give me more
or do less. The next night after shooting, Pullman said,
it seemed like Dean came into my trailer. We were
shooting nights. We were still in the White House set,
and he brought in a VHS and said take a
look at this. It was a quick edit of the speech,

(01:18:27):
and he said it didn't change that much from the
first edit rolland Emerick added it was never really recut.
The only thing they added was an insert shot over
anybody in the kids. Bill Pullman later goes on to
describe its capra esque kind of engagement with humanity Vivica A. Fox.
I got chills when he delivered it. People do it
at weddings, they do it at bars. Oh yeah. And

(01:18:49):
the speech is one of the things that helped name
the movie, I should say, because Fox was considering pushing
the title Doomsday onto Independence Day and so it probably
would have sucked. So it was urgent to get the
words today we celebrate our Independence Day, to make it
a lynch pin of the speech and they could hang
a movie title on it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
Well. Part of the problem was that the title Independence
Day was actually already owned by another studio, Warner Brothers,
who made a movie in nineteen eighty three, which is
about an artist living in a small town or some
like you know, Norman Rockwell type tale. It had made
less than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars at the
box office, so this was not much of a success,

(01:19:31):
but still they owned the title. Fox suggested that Emeric
and Devilon changed the title of their movie too, as
you said, Doomsday Invasion or Sky on Fire, all of
which are terrible.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
One on Fire, Fire in the Sky is the is
an abduction movie that like traumatizes people with its probing scene.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
Yes, yes, but as you mentioned, once they inserted the
phrase Independence Day into the speech, they helped convince Fox
Execs that that needed to be the title, and so
they engaged in a two week long legal battle with
Warner Brothers in order to win the rights to the
film's name. And they also wanted to have the name
the Independence Day so that they could secure that release

(01:20:13):
date on the fourth of July, thus beating Mars attacks
to the big screen. Tim Burton got cold feet and
moved his movie release from August to December of nineteen
ninety six, when it bombed and no one ever spoke
of it again.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
Did you want to mention the Spruce Goose? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Yes, that's right. Speaking of historical hangars as I so
often do. The hangars where many of the models and
miniatures were made for this production was the hangar where
Howard Hughes built his famous Spruce Goose aircraft in the
late forties.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
The funniest thing about that Bullman speech is that Royal
Emerick is so convinced that George W. Bush saw it.
At some point it was like, I'm stealing that did
the air for the mission accomplished on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
I spent probably about twenty minutes this afternoon trying to
seek out the whereabouts of that mission accomplished banner. Apparently, Well,
I was like, is this in the Smithsonian? Apparently it's
still in the possession of the US Navy at an
undisclosed location, but they recognized its historical significance and it's
being preserved for future generations. We're gonna take a quick break,

(01:21:26):
but we'll be right back with more too much information
in just a moment. Here's an interesting fact on the
score to this movie that I couldn't really find any
other place for, but here you go. Composer David Arnold

(01:21:46):
wrote some of the music cues literally on location with
the crew. Yeah, it sounds about right, he told the
outlet Sci Fi Bulletin. I got sent the script and
started sending in my ideas and themes right from the
start before they'd even shot. I was on the set
with them when they were shooting, writing some of the
music on the set and getting the people in the
shot to do certain things that were composed. That's interesting,

(01:22:08):
it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
He also did Jesus. He did five James Bond movies. Man,
I was wrong. He's done a lot. None of it's
very good.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
What Bomb movies he.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Did ninety seven to two thousand and eight.

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
So oh, you can see Royale.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
I think he stopped. No, I think he stopped at
that point, unless.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Well, let me see Royal was six and quants On
wasoe eight.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
No, yeah, you're right. Sorry. He did Stargate, he did Godzilla.
He did Shaft Too Fast Too, Furious four Brothers starring
Mark Rohlberg, Tyrese Gibson, Andre three thousand and Garrett Hedlund
as the titular Brothers. He got a Grammy for Independence Day.
I can't sing a single second of that soundtrack. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
No, Well, as you mentioned at the top of the episode,
Rolling Emeric and Dean Devil and were extremely hands on
with the marketing for Independence Day because they'd had such
a bad experience with the ad positioning for Stargate. The
previous movie. At their instigation, Fox pioneered the approach of
buying a Super Bowl ad, even though the release was
about half a year off, for the princely fee of

(01:23:13):
one point three million dollars and that's in ninety six dollars.
They aired a now legendary teaser that depicted the White
House explosion scene, followed with the ominous tagline enjoy the
super Bowl, it may be your last, followed by the
words the world ends July fourth. That's great, that's some
great marketing. This was truly sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Did you get the O. J. Simpson thing in here?
From now reporter?

Speaker 1 (01:23:39):
Huh uh?

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
This is a quote from Bill Pullman. They were standing
around their base camp waiting for a shot when the
verdict to the OJ Simpson trial was announced, and so
people were walking around and all these small groups know
it's talking like literally they announced the verdict when they
knocked on the door. He says, it's all quiet and
set still waiting, so quiet, waiting for Roland. And then
Will Smith just goes standing out here with a lot

(01:24:01):
of angry white folks, which he says, the whole set
first in the laughter. So I did I did have
to give him that one's that's fun.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
But yeah, these ads were truly groundbreaking in the world
of movie promotion, paving the way for grassroots stuff like
Cloverfield and eight and other gorilla marketing tactics. I know
this wasn't really gorilla, but still is that sense of
like the slow burn in advance of the movie. Unfortunately,
one of these groundbreaking ads caused a bit of mass hysteria.

(01:24:31):
You're gonna get a little bit of mass hysteria with
these campaigns. That's just that's the cost of doing business.
As you mentioned at the top of the episode, the
plot of Independence Day borrows heavily from HG. Wells War
of the Worlds, and so the producers for Independence Day
decided to borrow from the legendary nineteen thirty eight Mercury
Players radio play of War of the World's, starring and

(01:24:52):
directed by Orson Wells, no relation to HG. Framed is
a series of increasingly frantic news bulletins and direupting a
dance music program. The broadcast described a Martian invasion of
Earth unfolding in real time, beginning with strange explosions on
Mars in the sky and culminating an alien tripod machines

(01:25:13):
wreaking havoc across New Jersey and New York, and though
the program was prefaced with a disclaimer stating that it
was a work of fiction, many listeners tuned in late
and believed the events were real, leading to widespread panic
in some parts of the country. The aftermath of the
broadcast was immediate and intense. Newspapers reported cases of terrified
citizens fleeing their homes, jamming highways, and overwhelming police stations

(01:25:37):
with calls. While later scholarship has questioned the extent of
the hysteria, suggesting that the panic may have been exaggerated
by the press, which viewed radio as a growing competitor,
it remains one of the most infamous moments in broadcast history.
And then, unfortunately, this sort of happened again with Independence Day,
a fake news spot in Spain caused a real life

(01:26:00):
World of World style panic when footage of the film's
massive ships hovering over New York at the airwaves. A
label at the bottom of the screen read advertisement, But
according to one ad executive, apparently people can't watch footage, listen,
and read at the same time. Enjoy your first week
on the job, man like yeah exactly. The innovative promo

(01:26:24):
continued with a half hour special on the film, which
aired on Fox a week before the film's release, which
again featured copious amounts of spoof footage and also stars
Jeff Goldbloom, Bill Pullman, and Brett Spiner, along with twentieth
Century Fox Studio Brass journey to the town of Rachel, Nevada,
the closest inhabited place to Area fifty one, to join

(01:26:45):
the then governor who declared the ninety eight mile two
lane stretch of State Route three seventy five quote the
Extraterrestrial Highway. In honor of the occasion, a time capsule
was buried nearby, not far from the Little Aay Inn restaurant,
bar and motel, which I visited during the storming of

(01:27:05):
Area fifty one in twenty nineteen. Rachel, Nevada. I think
it's like population eight or something. Hell yeah, oh yeah.
Independence Day was released on July third, Psich, nineteen ninety six.
It earned three hundred and six million dollars domestically and
eight hundred and seventeen million dollars internationally, making it the

(01:27:28):
second highest grossing movie of all time up to that point.
Like Jurassic Park was the top back then. That total
was reportedly more than all of the films released in
nineteen ninety five by Sony Universal and Paramount combined. Devilin
knew he had lightning in a bottle during an early
test screening, the film and audio was out of sync,

(01:27:48):
leading to a lengthy delay, but the crowd cheered for
ten minutes straight as technicians worked strenuously to get it
all working again. According to Emeric, Spielberg paid them a
visit soon after the film's release and said, you guys
change something. There's something different now. Everybody is to see
a summer movie differently. He also claimed that Spielberg told

(01:28:10):
them that they were changing the script to Jurassic Park
Lost World, which is already in production.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
Yeah, I mean, shut up, German guy, Like, you can
tell Stephen Spielberger to put that quote in his mouth, Jaws, Jaws.
Steven Spielberg gonna be like, Oh, he came and told
us that we flipped the script on making blockbusters in Hollywood,
German putts.

Speaker 1 (01:28:34):
He also claimed that Spielberg offered some sobering advice. Enjoy it,
they claim, he said, because in six months they're going
to turn on you in six months, they're not going
to remember the movie. They're just going to remember the hype,
all the toys, the commercialization of your films, but they're
gonna forget the film itself. He was right about that,
That's exactly he said. I thought that was sour grapes.
But six months later we're being called everything that's wrong

(01:28:57):
with Hollywood. All that year headline were the year of
the independent film, because all the movies nominated for Oscars
were independent movies. But the reality is when these movies
do well, the studios are flush, and when they're flush,
they're willing to take chances on more interesting films. In Europe,
it was so misunderstood. The American government throughout the years

(01:29:18):
has angered eighty percent of Europe. So by the time
our movie came out, every single place I went to
promote the movie, the first question was, don't you think
this movie is promoting the idea that America is the
world's policeman. Interestingly, independence, they face backlash and censorship in Lebanon.

Speaker 4 (01:29:35):
Oh Interestingly, Jordan during the nineties piece talks we're seeing
David scene. Sorry, that's interesting that it was a coincidence
that Lebanon didn't like that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
Yeah, it shows them digging ditches aside next to the
idea or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:29:54):
Yeah. They did not like the scene with a Hebrew
prayer and the scene where Israeli troops are cooperating with
air forces, and both scenes were cut. The Los Angeles
Times criticized the film for leaning on stereotypes, as we
mentioned earlier, including his betrayals of Jews, gays, scientists, alcoholics,
and Los Angeles residents. In Lebanon, however, reactions are more severe.

(01:30:16):
Hesbla condemned the movie as quote propaganda for the so
called genius of the Jews and called for a boycott.
Despite this, Lebanon became the film's second largest Middle Eastern
market after Israel. Reflecting on the controversy, Jeff Goldwin remarked
that Hesbula missed the film's broader message of global unity

(01:30:37):
and teamwork across religious and national lines.

Speaker 2 (01:30:41):
Yeah. I just want to point out how wrong Dean
Devlin is. When blockbuster movies do well, the studios are
flush and they're willing to take chances on more interesting films.
That's not true anymore, buddy.

Speaker 1 (01:30:51):
Was it true in thatteen ninety six I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
Maybe more so. I think that used to be the conventionalisdom,
conventional wisdom. But now the big blockbuster film cost so
much that they got to make a billion dollars. They
cost so much that they have to you know, do
anything and every just like that Indian Jones movie. And
the most reason Andian and Jones had to make like
a billion dollars just employee even, you know, and they
sure aren't funding many more. A whole bunch of creative,

(01:31:16):
independent character driven in dramas these days, so but hey,
it is really for variety. Todd McCarthy described Independence Day
as the biggest b movie ever made accurate and the
mother of all doomsday dramas. A spectacularly scaled mikes of
fifty style Alien Invader, science fiction, seventies disaster epics and
all seasoned gung ho military action era, this airborne leviathan

(01:31:41):
features a bunch of agreeably cardboard characters saving the human
race from massive termination in a way that proves as
unavoidably entertaining as it is hopelessly cornballe Do they getting
paid by the syllable? But what McCarthy, that's all correct,
by the way, But what McCarthy called a quote definitive
popcorn picture also ultimately became an Academy Award winner, with

(01:32:02):
hair vocal or Angel Douglas Smith, Clay Penny, and Joseph Fisokill,
earning the prize for Best Visual Effects. Has acknowledged, however,
that there are aspects of Independence Day he's entirely happy with.
Put it out that plot hinges on several major coincidences,
with characters conveniently crossing paths in the middle of an
alien devastated healscape. Still, he maintains that these contrivances are

(01:32:23):
not a major flaw, noting that the film is ultimately
meant to be quote a fable, a fable. Do you
think it's a fable?

Speaker 1 (01:32:29):
It's a popcorn movie, hey, yeah, and a damn good one.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
I know, it really is so good. Yeah, literally the
only movie to ever like make me. There's two things
that make me flash my American signals and it's that
and whenever the British start talking about us.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
One fan of the film, among many millions, was a
little guy you may know called the President of the
United States at the time, William what's his middle name?
Jonathan Jefferson Jefferson, Oh yeah, William Jefferson, Jonathan Clinton.

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
He's kind of like permanently the president in my mind,
you know, like he got in at like that point
in my in my consciousness.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
If you have a stroke and we're like and we're like, Jordan,
who's the president, You're like Bill Clinton, I'm he's clear, yes, yeah,
uh so. American his grew were on a press tour
in these states when suddenly a bunch of men in
suits arrived to call an end to their day. When
the director asked what was going on, one of the
men told him, you have to stop now. There's a
jet waiting to take you to the White House. The Clintons,

(01:33:38):
the aforementioned William John and Hillary j Jay Swank, wanted
a private viewing of the film. Bill Pulman recalled his
real life counterpart, inviting him to take a seat in
front of him in the screening room. It was a
terrible nerve wrecking experience because you can't go, am I
good in this part, Holman recalled. I was waiting for

(01:33:59):
him to do that, to.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Say you were you were very presidential here, Wow, that's nice,
that's or something, But none of that happened.

Speaker 2 (01:34:08):
Emeric would describe the moment as completely surreal to watch
the White House blowing up inside the White House the
most unreal moment of my career. He would recall Hillary
approaching him and saying, well, it looks like Bill has
to get his pilot license. Sorry to her Men's regret.
Vivica A Fox could not make the screening. But Bill
Clinton never forgets a pretty face, and he strode up

(01:34:31):
to k A Fox at an event and told her,
I loved you an Independence Day of Vivica. It's like
my favorite John Mulaney bit about like his mom talking
about meeting Bill Clinton on like the steps of the
library at their like at University of Arkansas or whatever.
When he was a kid. They went to some like

(01:34:52):
Chicago era, like fundraiser for Bill Clinton or whatever. I
think his dad was like razing her for like Bill
Clinton doesn't remember you or whatever, and sure enough they
like get up and she's like mister Clinton, and he's like, oh,
hey Hill whatever her name is, Oh hey Beth, great
to see you again. A Milanie's punchline is because Bill
Clinton never forgets a bit. Then of course nine to

(01:35:15):
eleven happened, and then several years went by. Is that accurate.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
I mean that's chronologically accurate.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
Yes. Bill Devon said that after September eleventh, there were
a lot of interviews where Roland emeric and he did
because the imagery looked so familiar, and they were doing
interviews about it and saying that reframing it and saying
that the more interesting story of Independence Day is how
the world comes together in the aftermath. And then Dean
Devlin continues saying things like how people who had been

(01:35:44):
arguing stopped arguing and started working together. I think our
world did the same thing shortly before September eleventh. China
was suddenly our enemy and there was a huge war
of words between us in China. Right after September eleventh,
we're holding hands trying to fight hair together. I think
a lot of Americans were doing that, dumbass.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
I won't say.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
Anyway, they made a sequel then after nine to eleven,
in defiance of God and man, they made a sequel
Independence Day. So yes, that's right, folks. It's called what
was it called ID, It's just called ID four two,
ID forty two.

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):
I think it's all an Independence Day resurgence. I think
it's a dance stay Resurgence, Synergy.

Speaker 2 (01:36:29):
Emeric's Old Empire magazine. I never planned to make sequel.
I always felt that Independence Day was a standalone film.
But over the years I realized how iconic the film
had become for people, and I was repeatedly asked by
twentieth Century Fox to do it. That's just Werner Herd
salg I like the original. The idea for the sequel
reportedly came to genius at Large Dean Devlin during a

(01:36:52):
press junket interview. He does all his best thinking on jumping,
he said. Roland and I've always said that we didn't
want to do a sequel. To just do a sequel
of that movie, it meant a lot to us, and
we thought if we ever did one, it would have
to be as as original to the first film as
James Cameron's Aliens was to the first one. So we
put a pretty high standard on what kind of story

(01:37:12):
we would do. We didn't want to just remake the
first movie again. But post nine to eleven, he began
saying things like, we started thinking about how the world
came together, and a story popped up, and Roland and
I got very excited and said, wait a minute, finally
out of the ashes of nine to eleven, we have
a pitch for our Independence Day sequel. I'm paraphrasing, of course.

(01:37:35):
So they this is a quote from two thousand and
two that mentioned they were developing a story and then
sometime in the next year we can write it down
as a script, and if the script comes out good,
we will definitely do the sequel. So Devlin and Emeriic
made Godzilla the Patriot eight Legged Freaks together, and then
Emmeriic finally broke with him. Things went sour after they

(01:37:57):
don't have Mexico anymore. I'll just say that. And then
Emeric broke and went and did The Day After Tomorrow
in White House down. But plans for a proposed seek
A trilogy, My gosh, plans were proposed trilogy finally got
off the ground, and in twenty sixteen, twenty years after
the original, they released Independence Day, Sinsurgeons, Independence Day, The

(01:38:19):
Force Awakens, Independence Day, The Rise of Harry Connick Junior.

Speaker 1 (01:38:25):
Independence Day, Boomer's Back and We're Back.

Speaker 2 (01:38:30):
I'm back boys, or Hello Boys, Independence Day colon ID four,
colon two, colon Hello boys, I'm back.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
Look who's back too, Look Who's.

Speaker 2 (01:38:44):
Talking now to Independence Day, and it's just the alien
choking Brent Spiner beneath Independence Day, beneath the planet of
the Independence Day. Escape from beneath the planet Independence Stay
two ID four to two, Independence harder day, harder, A
good day, Independent stayed four to two, A good day

(01:39:05):
to die hard. And then they get John McLean in
there because Bruce, you know, Bruce was they were just
pushing him around and putting a gun over his hands.
By that too soon, Hollywood. Anyway, it was twenty sixteen,
and the movie also sucked. It starred the lesser Hemsworth. Yeah,
it made half as much money as the original film,

(01:39:26):
and it did not make back its production budget. So
obviously they did not do a third one. Of course,
now Disney owns Fox, and this might be the exact
piece of that they're looking to throw money at instead
of you know whatever else. You're the one who said
you can't reheat a sooup fle.

Speaker 1 (01:39:47):
I think Paul McCartney said that in relation to reuniting
the Beatles. But I did write that, yes, do you
want to do that again?

Speaker 2 (01:39:55):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:39:56):
I thought that was fine.

Speaker 2 (01:39:57):
Okay, Uh, what did you do for Independence State Jordan?

Speaker 1 (01:40:02):
I actually went down to the Brooklyn waterfront and watched
the fireworks at the Brooklyn Bridge, which was kind of
look like a disaster area because you had to get
their hours early and we were still like walking home
at like one p thirty. But it was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
Oh you had a good time, though wholesome, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
I a friend of a friend of Loew's actually through
a fiftieth birthday party to Jaws, the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:40:28):
That's awesome and the character.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
So I watched Jaws on fourth of July as God.

Speaker 1 (01:40:34):
Intended it to be.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
And that puts a neat little bow on this story
because Steven Spielberg did not tell Roland Emerick you changed
the game. Thank you for listening. This has been too
much information. After dark tonight, this will be our Independence
Day tonight, Robert Loggio will be our Independence Day. Oh,

(01:40:58):
this is hilarious. This is my case. The scene where
a wounded alien is shot in the head at point
blank range was not in the script and was added
at the last minute. And this was done after test
audience's notes that the aliens were not suffering enough, to
which I say, that's America. Let me see there's a

(01:41:20):
fun line that I can go out with. Let me
see what did you do? You have any lines you
wanted to see that you like, you think would make
a good kicker.

Speaker 1 (01:41:27):
You actually wrote this, not off top of my head,
but let me check.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
For Oh here's something that's cool. The world saved by
two Pennsylvania natives, Jeff Goldbloom from Pittsburgh and Will Smith
in Philadelphia. Oh yeah, So on this anniversary of Independence Day,
I would like to say from Pennsylvania, you're welcome Earth.
You can use that one if you want. Let me
find it, let you find it, let me find it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
Some quotes, higo. I would just like to say, must
go faster, must go faster.

Speaker 2 (01:41:58):
Must go faster, must go faster.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
We will not go quietly into the night. We will
not vanish without a fuss.

Speaker 2 (01:42:03):
This will be our Independence Day.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
I'm hearing the fat lady.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09):
I'm hearing the fat lady. They're chasing us. You think.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
Next time without the oops?

Speaker 2 (01:42:16):
Oh no, you did not just shoot that green me.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
He does not say.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
He does not say welcome to Earth, as people have racistly,
racistly attributed to him. I would like to pint out.

Speaker 1 (01:42:32):
We just welcome to Earth. Oh yeah, yes, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
Been turned into like aave online because people.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Oh oh, I didn't know. I can hear him say
earth very clearly in my mind's ear.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
Okay, well enough with the virtue signal. I would like
to go out by saying I have got to get
me one of these.

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
And I am just wondering what the hell is that smell?

Speaker 2 (01:42:54):
Ah, this has been too much information. I'm the guy,
I'm the other guy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
Times up.

Speaker 2 (01:42:58):
Oh I thought you were cutting me.

Speaker 1 (01:43:00):
Oh no, no, no, that's what he says.

Speaker 2 (01:43:02):
No more kickers for you. This is you've made a
hash of this. Yeah, you're Jordan, Jordan your Jordan run.

Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
Talk and I helped.

Speaker 2 (01:43:11):
And we'll catch you next time. Sorry it's been.

Speaker 1 (01:43:14):
So late, and I'm Jordan run Talk. We'll catch you
next time.

Speaker 2 (01:43:18):
Love to give you options, just love to give you options.

Speaker 1 (01:43:21):
Lots to work with, lots to work with.

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
Just have fun with it.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
Too Much Information was a production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk.

Speaker 1 (01:43:35):
The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

Speaker 2 (01:43:38):
The show was.

Speaker 1 (01:43:39):
Researched, written, and hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Heigel,
with original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.
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Speaker 2 (01:44:00):
The Fattack, Patimo and Ta

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Jordan Runtagh

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