Independence Day 4; Audience 0

Sunday, 15 September 1996

I decided a while ago that I was not going to bother seeing Independence Day, which probably marks me for a communist or something. I don't care. I can't bring myself to waste good money and two hours of my life on a movie which doesn't seem to have anything to recommend it other than good special effects and a plot that isn't too bad if one refrains from thinking about it.

One thing that annoys me about this movie is the way the studio has assigned it an abbreviation, and the press seems to have rolled over and adopted it uncritically. The fan community, as well. We're talking about the same people who used to argue on Usenet about whether the appropriate abbreviation for the Star Trek spin-off Deep Space Nine was "DS9" or "DSN." Granted, I don't look to Star Trek fans for finely honed critical sensibilities, but I expect at the very least a certain pedantic literal-mindedness.

"T2" made sense for the sequel to Terminator, but "ID4"? Where did that number come from? I've seen at least one fan magazine expand it out to "Independence Day 4," implying a trio of nonexistent predecessors. Maybe it's the studio's sneaky way of acknowledging the extent to which they've ripped off previous films for ideas, but surely the sources number far more than three.

I've heard rumors of a sequel. How will they abbreviate that? "ID5"? "ID4.2"? Chris suggests that they might choose a different holiday. I can see it now: Labor Day. Space aliens enslave humanity, and force us to work 80-hour weeks for below-subsistence-level wages, picking fruit and stitching logos on sneakers and designer clothes for them to market to the rest of the galaxy. A courageous band of labor unionists throw a sabot into the aliens' plans by organizing a global strike. Coming soon to a theater near you.