8 Reasons Independence Day Is The 90s' Star Wars

One of the stranger points about Independence Day in retrospect is the introduction of its hero; Steven Hiller doesn't turn up until twenty minutes into the film, after we've met all the other main characters and had the major threat set up; a threat he initially pays no mind to (dismissing it as an earthquake). Now I'm not saying it's not a good intro (so good, in fact, it was used for the film's teaser), but doesn't it seem a bit strange that Randy Quaid's incorrect crop-dusting gets preferential treatment over the main character?

Well, that's very similar with Star Wars; we follow Leia, Vader, R2-D2 and C-3PO for about twenty minutes before getting introduced to Luke Skywalker. Of course, In Star Wars it's about the gradual expansion of the story - a character isn't introduced until we've already had a character we already know introduced to them - so repeating the trick doesn't quite work as well in Independence Day (Quaid's introduction in particular is pretty random).

It's more than just a stylistic parallel though; establishing an ensemble in this way gives ID4 (like Star Wars) a band of rebels brought together from all corners rather just being generic heroes.