ID4 Dissent

Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 02:26:57 -0800
From: Mike Wilmot <rwilmot@ptialaska.net>
Subject: Re: real sci-fi
Status: R

I don't suggest that you guys aren't "real" sci-fi fans and I don't claim to be an expert on sci-fi. I just don't see how sci-fi lovers, such as yourselves, could stomach such a poorly done "sci-fi" movie. I do believe they had a good premise for the movie, but they just screwed it all up in my opinion. I'm sorry if I pissed you off, but that's just what ID4 did to me. I thought the Arrival was better. I'm tired of Hollywood insulting me by thinking all I need is some cool special effects to keep me happy. I'm not a child and I'm not impressed by stupid, worked-over, cliche-filled plots just because they look cool. The definition of science fiction is that which is out of the ordinary; this movie, and all the other special effects flicks this summer are not out of the ordinary, and are hard to really call "sci-fi" anymore. Yes I do watch the X-files because it is so different and original. ID4 was not different and was not original and I was not at all impressed and I guarantee you that in 10 years no one will even remember this movie because special effects get old, as will this movie. As I said, I'm sorry that I seemed like such a dickhead in the previous letter, but it was right after I saw it and I was PISSED! I stood in line for over an hour in the rain and my exceedingly high expectations were let down pretty hard.

Ok, I was rude, so I feel I have to back up my previous statements. Here are my reason why ID4 was such a bad movie. Judge for yourself.

1) Will Smith's wife lives? Please! She would be SOOOOOOOO dead, as would the president's wife, the minute the blast came through. Spare me the happy ending bullshit! They would be dead and you know it.

2) The world has been almost totally destroyed.....and the pilots are joking and laughing about facing a 15km wide spacecraft with an f-18! I would be shitting my pants if I had to go up against that thing and they're all excited! Whatever! No pilot in his right mind would go up with that attitude, if he went up at all!

3) They've fired every missle they can at this thing, and now they want to nuke it? What the hell for! It was pretty obvious conventional weapons don't penetrate, who would be dumb enough to fire a nuke at it?

4) Will Smith. That's all! He is an idiot and all his parts were stupid. He jokes about attacking the craft, he punches an ARMOR COVERED alien one time and it's passed out for hours, he knows how to fly an alien craft? What part of flight school do you suppose that was in? Alien Aviation 101?

5) A virus? With all it's technology, the Alien computer can't resist a virus? My computer can resist any virus just with Norton Disk Doctor and this alien craft can't? Pretty stupid aliens. Which brings me to the next one.

6) A THIRTY YEAR OLD craft flies right into the ship. I dunno. If a thirty year old plane tried to land on a modern day aircraft carrier I doubt it would get clearance. Yet they are just welcomed in, no code, no clearace, just fly on in! They might as well have just sent in the Endeavor.

7) One Kamakaze or missle into the main gun and those crafts are finished? Wow! Great defense! These aliens really ARE stupid if they can't make something that won't go down after ONE HIT!!!! Give me a break!

8) The scene when they flew out of the mothership. Again I don't know. I don't know about you, but I wasn't exactly on the edge of my seat wondering if they would make it before it closed. When they were flying straight to the hole, the aliens would have been able to take perfect aim. Instead they just crashed into the wall....REALLY stupid aliens.

9) A bunch of loser prop pilots, thrown into F-18s. Now at first, I thought this was ok. But watch the movie again and see. The planes fly in PERFECT formation. No mistakes, total understanding of the workings of the plane, and no problems firing any of the weapons. Have you ever seen the cockpit of a fighter jet? I still haven't figured out all the controls of EF2000, a flight sim I have, yet. They would be fucking up everywhere. And not to mention, many people can die or pass out when exposed to such high g's. That is why the physical requirements for fighter pilots are so high. A bunch of fat slobs would not be able to take the physical pressure supersonic jets put out.

10) Jeff Goldblum's character, super-genius as usual, figures out what NASA and the military doesn't? Yeah right. If it were that easy, they would have figured it out before he had even heard it.

11) THE ONE LINERS!! "Now that's what I call a close encounter"...."Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"...among others. Come on, this is old. There was a MST3K episode about one-liners that I instantly thought of. Perhaps ID4 will be on MST3K one day....it's chessy enough.

12) All through the movie they say that it's about joining the world, so how come we only saw America? I had no sense of the world, even the country, coming together. It just felt like all of Nevada got together and saved the world.

**** Hey we thought we saw some foreign nationals in the desert somewhere, and a large number of cities in the beginning...but I guess it was a little hammy to have good old USA going in there to make it happen. That doesn't happen in real life...huh? Well not in real scifi.

All these facts, combined with the basic predictability and bad acting, made for a bomb in my opinion. As I said, judge for yourself. Call me a nitpicker, but I like detail. Feel free to post this up if you like (though I don't expect it). Thanks.

scifi@mcint.com
Last Updated: July 15, 1996