Independence Day - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[alyssa]

Originally Russell Casse (Randy Quaid) flew his crop duster in the final battle, because the military had rejected him as a pilot. He appeared with a missile attached to the crop duster, then flew the crop duster into the alien ship. But when it was screened to test audiences, they felt it was too comedic, so they re-filmed the scene.

[lena]

According to producer/co-writer Dean Devlin, the U.S. military had agreed to support the film by allowing the crew to film at military bases, consulting the actors who have military roles, etc. However, after learning of the Area 51 references in the script, they withdrew their support.

[kyle]

The second film to cross the 500 million dollar mark at the international box-office.

[claude]

According to the What Culture website, "Independence Day modernized the disaster movie premise, replacing natural disasters with extraterrestrial ones and slathering on the fun. It borrowed a trend of blowing up famed national monuments from the B Movie genre and gave it steroids on screen, something that would continue over the next two decades."

[miriam]

According to a back-story established by the cast and crew, Dr. Okun was recruited by the military out of Berkeley in the 1960s, and due to the top-secret nature of his work, has been isolated at Area 51 since. Although never revealed in the film, his first name was established as Brackish, a word meaning "unappealing" or "repulsive".

[sara]

The phrases said by the pilots when firing their missiles is NATO brevity code for the types of missiles being launched. "Fox One" means a semi-active radar-guided missile (AIM-7 Sparrow), "Fox Two" is an infrared-guided (heat-seeking) missile (AIM-9 Sidewinder), and "Fox Three" is is an active radar-guided missile (AIM-120 AMRAAM).