As cheesy and ridiculous as Roland Emmerich’s 1996 sci-fi blockbuster “Independence Day” is at times in retrospect, there was an undeniable allure to it in the mid-’90s. Ranking among the best alien invasion movies of all time, it had Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Mary McDonnell, and the kind of disaster spectacle that easily seduced us into theaters to stuff our mouths full of warm popcorn.
Many of us who saw the film back then, either as kids or adults, may struggle to recall specific plot details beyond the intriguing “UFOs attack Earth” premise. But there was an important element essential to Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s screenplay about halfway through: We learn that Area 51 — the highly classified United States Air Force base that was “stormed” by a bunch of stupid people in 2019 — exists when Smith’s protagonist transports an alien there after surviving a near-lethal aerial battle with it.
In 1996, the existence of that military facility wasn’t acknowledged in an official capacity yet. And according to Devlin and Emmerich’s DVD commentary (via Cinemablend), the U.S. military planned to support “Independence Day” with various offerings, but had a condition that entailed changing a key plot point in the story. As Devlin recalled, “The United States military was going to support this and supply us with a lot of costumes and airplanes and stuff. Their one demand was that we remove Area 51 from the film, and we didn’t want to do that. So they withdrew their support.”
Area 51 stayed in the script, and Independence Day became a box office juggernaut
Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were adamant about keeping Area 51 in the story (even if its depiction was pretty exaggerated) because without it, frankly, the movie wouldn’t have worked as well. Plus, it was a great way to reignite conspiracy theories about the government and its secret operations involving UFOs and whatnot — building on the momentum “The X-Files” (which Ryan Coogler is rebooting for Disney+) started three years earlier. As Emmerich explained in the DVD commentary, “This is probably one of the biggest twists of the movie. In the middle of the movie, all of a sudden, you come up with Area 51. There’s this mythology about this place where they keep spaceships. For Dean and I, it was the most important part because it ties together this mythology that people believe in to the movie. So it feels more real.”
It’s safe to say that it worked since “Independence Day” blew up the box office that summer, making a whopping $817 million worldwide against its $75 million budget and becoming the highest-grossing movie in 1996 (despite fierce competition including such classics as “Scream,” “The Rock,” and “Jerry Maguire”). Although critics were kind of ambivalent about it (Roger Ebert gave it two and a half stars out of four), moviegoers ate it up, and the film even managed to take home the Oscar for best visual effects in 1997. One thing’s for sure, Emmerich and Devlin made the right choice sticking with their vision, even if that meant losing the blessing and backing of the military.
