8 Reasons Independence Day Is The 90s' Star Wars

Independence Day still looks pretty good. Sure, you can tell what's fake and what's a miniature, but despite that it's all so well conceived you can buy into it regardless (a major part of my affection for it may come from a love of practical effects).

Even at the time some critics took umbrage with the visual effects, yet still found the action involving, and that's because of the palpable sense of scale. From the very first shot where the mothership's shadow covers the moon, the film conveys the sheer size of the attack, something that is reinforced throughout the movie, with the alien cruisers always presented in contrast to Earth and humans, planes or even cities dwarfed in the foreground.

Do I even need to highlight how Lucas did almost exactly the same thing with Star Wars? Scale was his ace, and it's here, on an aesthetic level, where Independence Day feels most like a cousin to his work. When Hiller and Levinson enter the mothership and fly through its bowels, with hoards of aliens lining up to invade, it's like we're in the same world.