I kinda hate how they marketed it initially as ID4 like that was the title, with no mention of the title. What even was that?
Awesome movie. Sequel sucked.
I hate the abbreviation for this movie. Like just call it Independence Day, or ID. The 4 is entirely unnecessary imo.
And yes, I watched the director’s cut recently and enjoyed that much more than the theatrical version.
I kinda get it, Independence Day (the American holiday) is on the 4th. But, I think a lot of people don’t realise, or forgot, the movie did not release on the 4th. It released on 3 July 1996. So it was out a day early. You could watch it on the 4th. I don’t recall what day I watched it. It was within the first week, I do know that much. So ID is the film’s initials, 4 is for the 4th of July (sidebar: odd that Americans cling to “month, day” as opposed to every sane country that separates the numerical date and year with the named month, but for their independence from Great Britain, they adopt the date format used in that country and say “4th of July”), which is not the date the movie released on, nor is it the fourth movie in the series (there have only been two, and again, the second one sucked).
I feel like I’m aware that there’s a director’s cut, but I’m not sure I’ve seen it. I only (fairly) recently saw the director’s cut (or “Ulysses Cut”) of Waterworld. I know Dances With Wolves has one, but the base film is long enough. I am a big fan of the director’s cut of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (mostly because it expands almost entirely on Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham character). So, the relevance being that a lot of 1990s blockbusters had director’s cuts that changed the film. Oh, and who could forget Terminator 2: Judgment Day with the ending where they actually won that had to be buried when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines came out? The bright and sunny “Michael Jackson turned 40” monologue (there was way more than that, and John Connor having a child and becoming a Senator) as opposed to the gloomy road. But, Independence Day director’s cut? I’ll have to look into that. I will say that I did love the theatrical version as I saw it. You could name any of the main characters as a favourite, but I enjoyed seeing Brent Spiner (who played Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the four movies based on it, and its spinoff Star Trek Picard) as the Area 51 scientist. That wig was something else, though.
I saw this in NYC on opening night. The insane anudience energy make it into a 4D experience.
