I dug out an old video of Independence Day, which has some dodgy physics, (In the adverts prior on the tape it had an advert for a Independance Day computer game compatible on windows 95!!! but I digress)

While watching it, it seemed like a re-working of the first film War of the Worlds, (Not the Tom Cruise mangling). In that you have an airforce that does not seem to work out at first. There is a nuke which does not work, but ultimately the alien's are dealt with by a virus (natural in WOTW but a computer virus in ID) I realise in the book it was microbes.

Did anyone else seem any similarities between WOTW and ID?

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Moderations in purple

Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

Wikipedia: The War of the Worlds (1953 film)

Fictional influences

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Let's see.

There's the impenetrable shields.
Military cannot do anything in the beginning.
The love story between main characters.
The story occurs primarily in the Western US.
Main cities attacked.
Both have groups of people praying when the end is near and then almost miraculously the aliens are destroyed.

When I saw it is I said "This is War of the Worlds with a computer virus instead of a biological agent." Absolutely it is the same theme.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

About the only difference is that the humans in ID took an active part in getting the virus into the aliens, while in WotW it just happens.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Yeah, this is what I like about WotW. Humans are completely powerless, but we're ultimately saved by microbes. It has a nice and clever twist of the concept of "power" in there...

ID4 just wipes that out and makes us the heroes once again. But basically, I agree it's the same story.

Hah, so it was intentional. I always wondered...

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When I saw the B2 attack I thought "They're even using the flying wing!"

For years after I saw the George Pal "War of the Worlds" I wondered what the heck that plane was. At the time flying wings were impractical, and it was a long time before I learned anything about that plane (which was undoubtedly used because it looked good).

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

There are also some minor bits lifted from the movie Earth vs. The Flying Saucers. I can't remember which parts, but I do remember watching ID, and thinking this part is just like Earth vs. The Flying Saucers

Pfftt, finding what films ID4 ripped off is far too easy. Try finding something in ID4 that is not lifted from another source. Now that's a challenge!

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Time cube is evil.

The non-smoker becomes a smoker?

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Moderations in purple

Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

Seen it.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

"I picked a bad week to quit sniffin' glue."

You know, the odd thing is that I sometimes have a hard time remembering which scenes were in ID4 and which were in Mars Attacks.

(Note to self: ID4 is the one with Adam Baldwin in it. Too bad he wasn't cast as the President; he would have been way more convincing than Bill Pullman.)

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"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

That was from Airplane that quote, and yes I did spot that one.

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Moderations in purple

Fame, glory adventure, a cyber warrior craves not these things.

You are all missing the obvious difference between WotW and ID4: WotW was a pretty good movie...

On the plus side, ID4 could have been worse. Watch the deleted scenes on the DVD if you don't believe me.

Oh, and ID4 did spawn a couple of interesting books, including Silent Zone, about Dr. Oken and Area 51. The CT believers out there might even consider it non-fiction.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

I just thought it completely improbable that our computer discs (yes, they probably did use floppies, although I can't remember) would even fit into their slots.

And would our viruses even work in an alien computer? I mean, the code is in an alien language, right??

My take on these kind of movies is "please spare us the mawkish patriotism!" Did anyone see Deep Impact? Don't even get me started on what was wrong with that movie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

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"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address

* gets greenfeather started *

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Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Independance Day is one of my favourite films ......

Of course the biggest difference between it and WotW is that it's not set in SE England....

(btw I don't recall a flying wing in the original Although there was an ironclad warship - the Thunder Child - which attemped to ram the Martians off the Essex marshes, and which was destroyed in its final attack)

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Andy

Manager Ukweatherworld

ID4 has a lot of flaws; still, it's a fun movie if you don't take it too seriously.

(Besides, who says alien computers don't run on Windows? Bill Gates is everywhere!)

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Well, no, but as previously noted, the flying wing was in the George Pal "War of the Worlds."

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Heck, how do we know an alien computer is even based on 1's and 0's?