A Note from Derek: Hi, everyone. First off, sorry it took so long to get this episode up. There were all kinds of audio issues with it--Larry's mic didn't sound like it was working, the movie's volume was all over the place, so there are moments where you can't hear anything followed by ear-shattering blasts of high volume, etc.--so I had to spend a lot of time trying to clean it up. We're a low-budget setup here, so it's not really easy. Still, I did the best I could.
Second, I want to remind everybody that this episode, like the previous one, is a commentary, so you're going to want to watch the movie while you listen to get the full effect. If you're not feeling that, jump to the last half hour to listen to us talk a bit about it after watching. I get unnecessarily mad at Roland Emmerich. It's fun!
Anyway, just wanted to give you all a heads-up on the issues with this episode. Also, if you get a chance, wish Larry a Happy Birthday. His birthday is this coming Thursday!
Now let's get on with this! I'll just push play and--
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| Whoops! |
Bad news, guys; aliens have decided to come to Earth. And not the friendly, magical E.T.-types that look like a friendly pile of glow-in-the-dark foreskin. No, these are the other kind: Tentacle-wielding evil calamari with designs on destroying all of humanity in order to milk the planet dry of resources and then leave.
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| Ladies and gentlemen...DESTINY'S CHILD! |
And although they have thousands of spaceships and lots of "pew-pew" lasers, we have a Will Smith and a Jeff Goldblum! Throw in a Bill Pullman, the leathery goodness that is Robert Loggia, and a pre-meltdown Randy Quaid, and that pretty much evens us up.
Let's try to get this in some sort of order, shall we?
Randy Quaid is Russell Casse, a drunk pilot. He gets fired after dusting the wrong field, and spends a good portion of the movie ignoring his three children (James Duval, Lisa Jakub, and Joseph Gordon Levitt) and being sauced in a diner while local hillbillies harass him about his stories of being abducted by aliens.
Meanwhile, Jeff Goldblum is David Levinson, a recently divorced guy who runs a cable company that has a built-in Harvey Fierstein. David also has an elderly father, Julius (Judd Hirsch), who plays chess and lectures his son about forgetting about his ex-wife.
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| Really, all of these people are secondary characters. |
David's ex-wife, Constance (Margaret Colin), works for President Bill Pullman, who is popular, but too young, apparently. He has wife (Mary McDonnell) and a daughter, and is trying to make it all work while running the free world when the aliens arrive.
Over in California, Captain Stephen Hiller (Will Smith) and his girlfriend Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox) are doing what a modern, unmarried movie couple does: Being smarmy and allowing the child that lives with them do whatever he wishes, unsupervised.
When Hiller is recalled to his base to see what these aliens are all about, he is met by a rogue Harry Connick, Jr., who is his best friend.
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| Best friend...for now. |
After the White House first attempts to make friendly contact with the aliens and it goes bad, they decide to be a bit more stern the next time around, scrambling Hiller, Connick, and the rest of their Top Gun leftovers to attack the big ship over L.A. It does not go well, but at least Harry Connick, Jr. gets blown up, so it's not a total loss. Also, Stephen does manage to cause an alien ship to crash so he can punch its pilot.
The aliens, having been picked up on enough, open up their big lasers and destroy every major city around the world, turning the landscape into smoking piles of rubble. The White House, now severely disappointed, decides to try nuking the ship over Houston, Texas. When that doesn't work, they can't figure out what to do next.
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| Karaoke, maybe? |
Fortunately, David has figured out how the aliens are communicating, and he goes to Washington, D.C. to tell his ex-wife and the president about it before the aliens destroy everything, and he and his father manage to hitch a ride on Air Force One when everything goes banana-shaped.
With Stephen at the Air Force Base, Jasmine is left to get out of town with her son and manages to do so just in time. But after the attack, her car is destroyed and she has to steal a fire engine to get around, which is handy, because she starts picking up survivors, including the First Lady, whose helicopter didn't take off quick enough. They begin heading toward the airbase, hoping to find some help, only to find nobody.
Stephen, worried about Jasmine and her son, commandeers a helicopter (because if you're a fighter pilot, you can apparently fly anything) and goes looking for them, finding them at the airbase. There is much rejoicing.
Meanwhile, Air Force One and its passengers head to the mysterious Area 51, where it turns out that there actually is an alien spaceship that was recovered from Roswell, much to the president's surprise.
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| Even more surprising is that they left this guy in charge of it. |
Once the entire cast is in the same place (along with thousands of other people), David comes up with a plan to set a computer virus loose in the mothership, which Stephen will fly him to in the captured alien ship. At the same time, President Pullman and Randy Quaid will join forces with all the other pilots and attack the ship heading toward Area 51.
But will the plan work? Do the aliens have an operating system that is compatible with David's laptop? Will President Pullman save the day? Or will Randy Quaid sober up enough to do it? You'll have to listen to find out!
Derek is angry that Emmerich and Dean Devlin tried to put some sort of jingoistic rallying cry in the middle of an otherwise fun movie about blowing up aliens. But he gives it a miss because Jeff Goldblum is there, saving the world, just as he was meant to.
Larry loves the movie unabashedly and acknowledges that he is the prime target for a film like this: A male who likes lasers and spaceships and things getting blown-up. And he really digs the casting, arguing that this is really a great film.
Jake is impressed by the practical effects, of which there were many. A record-setting amount, possibly. Models were built...scaled cities were exploded...rubbery monsters were covered in mucus and released upon the cast. Good times all around!
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