20 Things You Somehow Missed In Independence Day
3. The Virus
Easily the biggest tribute to War of The Worlds is, also, the easiest one to miss. The entire plan to destroy the alien invaders, devised by David, is exactly the same as that from the famous H.G. Wells story, albeit with a modern twist.
There, humanity is unable to overcome the technology of their galactic attackers and is instead saved when the planet's various microbes and bacteria begin to destroy the creatures on a biological level. In Independence Day, with humanity also unable to overcome the technology of their galactic attackers, they devise a way to infect their computers instead.
Both stories seeing the human race saved by a virus.