I was 8 years old when Independence Day came out, and I’ve watched this massive 1996 movie dozens of times over the years. Epic scenes like the destruction of Washington, D.C., Boomer somehow making it through that LA tunnel without being turned into a hot dog, and Bill Pullman’s GOAT presidential speech have been floating around my head ever since. As far as I’m concerned, this is one of the best disaster films of all time, and I’ll die on that hill.
That said, it wasn’t until recently that I learned that the Independence Day ending, or at least the part where Randy Quaid’s Russell Casse flies a jet into an alien ship, wasn’t the original plan, and that there’s an alternate scene. Crazy, right? Well, let me break down the original plans and why director Roland Emmerich decided to make a massive change at the last minute…
