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Message no. 1
From: "Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@*******.mankato.msus.edu>
Subject: Off Topic: ID4
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 00:00:49 -0500 (CDT)
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Welp, I saw it tonight in a packed (but non-THX :( ) theatre.

There may be spoilers here, to proceed at own risk.

















I'll give it 4 out of five stars. The biggest problem is that they
tried to cram far too much story into a 150 or so minute movie. They
really needed about another 15 minutes of character development
(especially of the President and Jeff Goldblum's character) as well as a
less cliche' way to to discover the alien's reason for being on earth.

In addition, the ending was a little weak. The Achille's heal of a
computer virus was, shall we say, poorly developed. It takes a lot more
to design a virus for an unknown technology. While a quick trek-like
solution was needed, it felt forced and weak.

In addition, I was VERY unhappy with the explosion of the space-based
mother ship. A sudden flash of light coupled with that lame-assed-shape
detonation spoiled a lot of believability for me. At least we saw the
little mother ships go out with little explosions all over, in a fairly
realistic manner. Considering that the Momma ship was supposed to be 1/4
the mass of our moon, a single nuke don't cause it to explode that way.
Buzz.

Finally, i was very very very disappointed in the music. I was hoping
with their choice of music from Crimson Tide for the trailer, that the
actual music in the movie would be likewise memorable and heart
pounding. Nothing in this file was memorable or heart-pounding. It just
filled the sound void as needed.

I know these might be weak-assed nits. But when I go to a science
fiction movie, if it attempts to be realistic, I want nothing to remind
me otherwise. if I was fantasy sci-fi, I'll watch trek or star wars.

Oh well. Good flick. I do recommend seeing it for the SPFX and a solid
story. However, there were a lot of rooms for improvement. Given the
hype and the pre-release hysteria about how good this movie was going to
be in terms of story and SPFX quality, I was disappointed that the former
was lacking a bit.

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____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden@*******.mankato.msus.edu
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\/ / -=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-
\/ http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/Welcome.html

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Message no. 2
From: Luc <rjwate01@*****.louisville.edu>
Subject: Re: Off Topic: ID4
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 04:05:26 -0500 (EDT)
>
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>
> Welp, I saw it tonight in a packed (but non-THX :( ) theatre.

Same here...they had to cancel the showing of Eddie cause the first theatre
sold out before we got there (First opening I've been to I didn't think
anything of us getting there half an hour early).

> There may be spoilers here, to proceed at own risk.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I'll give it 4 out of five stars. The biggest problem is that they
> tried to cram far too much story into a 150 or so minute movie. They
> really needed about another 15 minutes of character development
> (especially of the President and Jeff Goldblum's character) as well as a
> less cliche' way to to discover the alien's reason for being on earth.

I give it 5 out of 5 because I love the concept and implementation of it, I
have a low expectation of sci-fi movies since the creme de la creme are very
few and very far between (just a bunch with very awesome aspects), and I have
an excellent ability to suspend disbelief when it comes to books, movies, and
series of sci-fi origin (somethin to do with my dad heckling Dr. Who as I
watched it as a kid). As for length I thaught the story could have easily
been split into multiple movies and kept the same effect if not produced a
more awe inspiring result.

> In addition, the ending was a little weak. The Achille's heal of a
> computer virus was, shall we say, poorly developed. It takes a lot more
> to design a virus for an unknown technology. While a quick trek-like
> solution was needed, it felt forced and weak.

Given the technology difference there was really no plausable way to defeat
the aliens. The time it would take to decypher the alien language and what
ever programming archetecture the aliens used would take time in the span of
months. I don't totally understand what ya meant by Trek-like answer me only
being a (GASP! don't tell my friends) minor fan of Star Trek.

> In addition, I was VERY unhappy with the explosion of the space-based
> mother ship. A sudden flash of light coupled with that lame-assed-shape
> detonation spoiled a lot of believability for me. At least we saw the

It took you pointing it out to remind me of that fact :P. I love those type
special effects exposions but you are right that a ship 1/4th the mass of the
moon would go BANg like that.

> little mother ships go out with little explosions all over, in a fairly
> realistic manner. Considering that the Momma ship was supposed to be 1/4
> the mass of our moon, a single nuke don't cause it to explode that way.
> Buzz.
>
> Finally, i was very very very disappointed in the music. I was hoping
> with their choice of music from Crimson Tide for the trailer, that the
> actual music in the movie would be likewise memorable and heart
> pounding. Nothing in this file was memorable or heart-pounding. It just
> filled the sound void as needed.

The president's speech just before the independence day battle was very
memorable to me, tho i really dont know why.

> I know these might be weak-assed nits. But when I go to a science
> fiction movie, if it attempts to be realistic, I want nothing to remind
> me otherwise. if I was fantasy sci-fi, I'll watch trek or star wars.
>
> Oh well. Good flick. I do recommend seeing it for the SPFX and a solid
> story. However, there were a lot of rooms for improvement. Given the
> hype and the pre-release hysteria about how good this movie was going to
> be in terms of story and SPFX quality, I was disappointed that the former
> was lacking a bit.

my rule of thumb is ignore all pre-release BS cause in the last 5 or so years
the movie advertisement business tends to give away too much of the movie with
the ads. The show on Independence Day that was shown on the Sci-Fi channel
though turned out to be an excellent tease as the actors basically told
nothing about the movie except the basic concept and a little (sentence or
two) about their characters.

--
Luc AKA BobW

EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!
BUT THE CORPSE STILL HAS THE FLOOR!
--Kevin Spacey as Lloyd in The Ref (1994)

EMail: rjwate01@*****.louisville.edu
Web : http://www.louisville.edu/~rjwate01/
Message no. 3
From: "Gurth" <gurth@******.nl>
Subject: Re: Off Topic: ID4
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 12:08:05 +0100
Luc said on 4:05/ 3 Jul 96...

> > In addition, the ending was a little weak. The Achille's heal of a
> > computer virus was, shall we say, poorly developed. It takes a lot more
> > to design a virus for an unknown technology. While a quick trek-like
> > solution was needed, it felt forced and weak.
>
> I don't totally understand what ya meant by Trek-like answer me only
> being a (GASP! don't tell my friends) minor fan of Star Trek.

Although I haven't seen this movie (won't be out in Europe for at least a
few months, probably half a year of so...), my guess is that Rob means
that a few minutes before the end they suddenly come up with the ultimate
solution for dealing with the problem. They usually do in Star Trek...
Probably one of the reason why I like B5 better (but why that damn RTL5
stopped showing it...?! ^@%@^&$@!!)

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
You never looked so sane.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Character Mortuary: http://huizen.dds.nl/~mortuary/mortuary.html <-

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Message no. 4
From: mbroadwa@*******.glenayre.com (Mike Broadwater)
Subject: Re: Off Topic: ID4
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:56:38 -0500
>Welp, I saw it tonight in a packed (but non-THX :( ) theatre.
Please don't tell me you expected to find a THX theatre in Mankato :)

>There may be spoilers here, to proceed at own risk.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>In addition, the ending was a little weak. The Achille's heal of a
>computer virus was, shall we say, poorly developed. It takes a lot more
>to design a virus for an unknown technology. While a quick trek-like
>solution was needed, it felt forced and weak.
True. They did, in their defense, at least spend a couple hours on it. Me,
I'm just glad that no matter where you are, the carrier detection signal for
modem's will always be the same.


>In addition, I was VERY unhappy with the explosion of the space-based
>mother ship. A sudden flash of light coupled with that lame-assed-shape
>detonation spoiled a lot of believability for me. At least we saw the
>little mother ships go out with little explosions all over, in a fairly
>realistic manner. Considering that the Momma ship was supposed to be 1/4
>the mass of our moon, a single nuke don't cause it to explode that way.
>Buzz.
Well, when you think about the fact that they fired it into the center of
the ship, most likely somewhere near a main power source, the explosion
makes more sense. Oh, and for nuke power, Hiroshima/Nagasaki were 20-30
kiloton, standard size now is 20-30 megaton. (don't even start an argument
about this. I don't want to hear it.)



Mike Broadwater
"God does not play dice with the Universe. It's more like Poker. In the
dark. With blank cards for infinite stakes. And the dealer is always
smiling." - _Good_Omens_
http://www.olemiss.edu/~neon
Message no. 5
From: "Robert A. Hayden" <hayden@*******.mankato.msus.edu>
Subject: Re: Off Topic: ID4
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:01:45 -0500 (CDT)
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On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, Mike Broadwater wrote:

> >Welp, I saw it tonight in a packed (but non-THX :( ) theatre.
> Please don't tell me you expected to find a THX theatre in Mankato :)

Actually, we have a THX theatre, but it is a different movie syndicate,
and is currently showing Hunchback.


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____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden@*******.mankato.msus.edu
\ /__ Finger for Geek Code Info <=> Finger for PGP Public Key
\/ / -=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-
\/ http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/Welcome.html

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