30 Years Ago: Independence Day (1996)

"In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution, but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day! "

- President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) delivers an historic address in Independence Day (1996).

Independence Day (1996) remains one of the big “event” movies of the 1990s, a sci-fi blockbuster of monumental, almost unimaginable proportions.  The crowd-pleasing film successfully tapped into the decade’s unending fascination with aliens and UFOs (The X-Files, for example) and significantly augmented that interest too, resulting in a slew of further alien films and TV programs from Dark Skies (1996) to Men in Black (1997).

As an inside-the-industry cautionary tale, Independence Day also represented the (unfortunate) cementing of the Emmerich/Devlin blockbuster “formula” -- a revival of 1970s disaster film tropes.  This format would meet its Waterloo in 1998’s Godzilla, but nonetheless continues right into this decade with films such as the dreadful 2012 (2010).

Of all the Emmerich genre fare, I’m most fond of 1994’s Stargate, as it seems to strike the right balance between spectacle and intelligence.  After that film’s release, the scales in further efforts kept tipping towards spectacle and away from brains, and so the ensuing films suffer mightily for the imbalance. 

That established, I was certainly part of the enthusiastic audience for Independence Day upon its summer release, and I still remember how great the film looked on the big screen.  A recent re-watch confirms how terrific the miniature effects remain.  The scenes of awesome alien saucers lumbering to position over major world cities -- though obviously reminiscent of Kenneth Johnson’s V (1984) -- remain downright staggering.

What ages Independence Day most significantly, instead, is the pervasive shtick and the schmaltzy, sentimentality-drenched characters. At every step of the way during its narrative, Independence Day punctures its end-of-the-world majesty and gravitas with low humor and over-the-top sentimentality, qualities which today render the whole affair close to camp. 

Science fiction fans, of course, experienced conniption fits over Independence Day’s unlikely finale: a third act which sees an Earth-produced computer virus successfully uploaded to an alien computer aboard a mother-ship, thus giving humans the opportunity to strike back…on July 4^th, no less. 

The movie doesn’t pay even lip service to the idea that aliens from another solar system might have developed anti-virus software (!), let alone computer systems totally incompatible with our 20th century Earth technology. 

Given how badly things go for Earth in the first hour of Independence Day, it’s difficult to countenance the film’s final veer into outright fantasy as every heroic campaign – with split-second timing – comes together perfectly.

Despite my misgivings about the film’s humor, sentimentality, and narrative resolution, however, I still find the grave, apocalyptic, anxiety-provoking tone of Independence Day’s first hour worthwhile, especially the President’s grim choice to deploy nuclear weapons in an American city to drive off the aliens.   

It would be absolutely foolish to deny, too, that some of Independence Day’s imagery has become iconic in the annals of cinema history.  We all remember that portentous shot of hovering saucer pulping the White House for instance.  Thus -- even while criticizing this over-sized beast -- I've got to give the Devil his due for getting matters right on a visual terms

In terms of theme, Independence Day works overtime to remind all of us that although we are separated by oceans and other Earthly partitions, we are all nonetheless citizens of the same planet. It’s a laudable message in an age of hyper-partisanship to be certain, even if delivered with little nuance or subtlety.  This through-line in the film is consistently and well-conveyed, both in terms of incident and in the make-up of the diverse dramatis personae.  Who would have imagined our precious Earth could be saved by a war veteran, a drunk crop-duster, a Jewish cable repairman and an African-American fighter pilot?

Movie critics were understandably divided on Independence Day.  At The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote: “Guess what: "Independence Day" lives up to expectations in a rush of gleeful, audience-friendly exhilaration, with inspiring notions of bravery that depart nicely from the macho cynicism of this movie season. Its innocence and enthusiasm are so welcome that this new spin on "Star Wars" is likely to wreak worldwide box-office havoc, the kind that will make the space aliens' onscreen antics look like small change.”

Writing for The Washington Post, Rita Kempley opined: “"Independence Day" is primarily a $70 million kid's toy, a star-spangled excess of Roman candles and commando games designed to draw repeat business from 9- to 12-year-old boys. Little girls won't find any role models among the barnstormers, though a plucky exotic dancer is featured among the heroines. Even with the end of the world in sight, she shakes her booty. It's for her kid. No, really.  Maybe the moviemakers' mission was to boldly go where everyone in Hollywood has gone before: the bank.”

Honestly, I can see both sides of the critical equation in this case. Independence Day is such dumb fun, and yet fun nonetheless.

“A toast...to the end of the world.”

The people of planet Earth watch with anxiety and wonder as three-dozen alien saucers descend from orbital space to take up positions over cities around the globe.  President Whitmore (Bill Pullman), a former jet pilot in Desert Storm, advises calm, but new information from genius cable repair man David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) suggests the alien ships have initiated a countdown and are preparing a coordinated attack.

As the countdown ends, Levinson’s suspicions are confirmed, and the alien ships destroy Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York and other population hubs. President Whitmore survives the attack on the Oval Office and escapes by Air Force One.  He promptly orders a retaliatory strike.  Pilot, top-gun, and would-be astronaut Steven Hiller (Will Smith) downs an alien ship during battle, and captures one of the fearsome aliens for study.  The rest of the fight, however, is a rout, and the U.S. jets are unable to penetrate alien shields.  Humanity stands upon the edge of extinction.

The President visits the secret military base at Area 51, and learns there that scientists there have been experimenting with an alien ship for close to fifty years.  When Hiller arrives, the President attempts to communicate with Hiller's captured alien, but finds the being implacably hostile.  The aliens, he soon learns, are like locusts.  They travel from solar system to solar system using up planetary systems and then moving on…leaving only carnage and waste in their wake.

After nuclear weapons prove ineffective against the aliens, President Whitmore is at a loss how to save the planet, or the human race.  But David comes through again.  He believes he can take the captured alien ship at Area 51 to the mother-ship and upload a computer virus there, thus bringing down alien shields…at least for a few minutes.  When Steven volunteers to fly that risky mission, it’s up to the President himself to coordinate and lead a huge aerial attack against the alien saucers, both in America, and world-wide…

“It's a fine line between standing behind a principle and hiding behind one. You can tolerate a little compromise, if you're actually managing to get something accomplished.”

For a film about such a terrifying topic – an alien invasion – Independence Day frequently plays thing...light.  At least a half-dozen major supporting characters in the film are defined by their shtick. Judd Hirsch plays a nagging Jewish Dad, Julius Levinson, and his lines and delivery are pure Borscht Belt ham-bone.   Harvey Fierstein plays another kitschy character, Marty, who hams it up and makes jokes about his therapist and his (presumably overbearing...) mother.  Harry Connick Jr. portrays a cocksure pilot who provides the film at least one dopey gay joke.

But the worst character is likely Randy Quaid’s Russell Casse, a drunken crop-duster (and alien abductee) who joins the air battle against the aliens during the film's denouement.  Quaid’s dialogue is so incredibly dreadful that it has become the stuff of legend and MST3K fodder.  “I picked the wrong day to stop drinking,” springs immediately to mind. 

Among all these actors hamming it up and stealing time, Brent Spiner likely fares the best as aging ex-hippie and scientist Dr. Okun. Spiner comes off as weird and eccentric, but not so dreadfully hammy that you want to turn away from the screen in shame for watching.  His last scene -- played with alien tentacles pressing against his larynx -- is also genuinely unsettling.

Why do I have a problem with the film's pervasive moments of low humor?  Well, Independence Day already boasts Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith continually cracking wise in leading roles.  Their dialogue is dreadful too, from "Welcome to Earth" to "Now that's what I call a close encounter!"  Given all this material from our leads, do we really need Judd Hirsch, Harvey Fierstein, Harry Connick Jr., Randy Quaid and even Brent Spiner dishing out lame one liners too?  The ubiquitous nature of these characters makes Independence Day, at times, resemble an overblown sitcom.  Maybe if the material were stronger, these characters would not seem so objectionable. I guess what I'm saying, is that these moments are rarely actually funny.

Another weak character is Secretary of Defense Nimzicki (James Rebhorn), a man who in one scene advises the full scale nuking of many American cities, but in a later scene argues against a “risky” maneuver to attack the alien mother-ship and upload the virus.  His objections to the (ultimately) successful plan make no sense, and aren’t consistent with the “war hawk” image he projects in the film all along; a guy who advises going to Def-Con 2 before the President has made his final decision.  Instead, Nimzicki is contradictory simply so the audience can boo at him, and the President can dress him down…thus appearing tough and resolute. 

While I have real disdain for much of the writing and characterization in Independence Day, I do feel that the film's visuals often still shock, and often still carry real emotional resonance.  One shot, set on July 3^rd, reveals the Statue of Liberty toppled, face down in the harbor...a massive saucer hovering low in the sky.  Colored in autumnal browns,  this is a terrifying composition of American culture annihilated.  

It’s tough indeed to compete with the amazing Statue of Liberty imagery of Planet of the Apes, yet this moment in Independence Day remains quite upsetting.    The film is also anxiety-provoking in the way it reveals American military might crushed before a more technologically-advanced enemy.  The battle sequences, the nuclear option, and other heavy moments are all deeply scary because one realizes that if America can’t save the world…the world ain’t getting saved.  Indeed, Independence Day plays up the alien threat so successfully in terms of spectacular visuals and special effects that there’s almost no way the scripted, climactic victory can ring true.  It’s like we’ve slipped into an alternate movie or something.

The first half of Independence Day is undeniably the strongest, as alien saucers push through storm and cloud fronts, and emerge over our cities, casting dark shadows upon bewildered and amazed populations.  These moments continue to impress, and pack an almost visceral gut punch.  We’ve all wondered if, one day, we’ll wake up to something like this imagery…a new dawn in which we learn definitively we are no longer alone.   As much as I deride Independence Day’s silly humor and bad dialogue, I have no quibbles whatsoever with the way that these scenes of “arrival” are vetted.  As I said in my introduction, many of these scenes still carry a staggering punch.

From its first shots to its final ones, Independence Day also makes an interesting point about mankind being unified by a threat from the outside.  The film opens with imagery of a plaque on the moon which reads “We came in peace for all mankind.” That’s a wonderful thought, the movie seems to suggest, but then the filmmakers set up a paradigm by which that hopeful expression of common cause is tested.  Suddenly, all mankind must work together to defeat the alien threat, putting competition and petty differences aside.  This idea is expressed through scenes set in Iraq, the location of America’s most recent war (Gulf War I).  There, in the desert, British and Iraqi soldiers join the battle against the mother ships.  The implication of such scenes is that mankind is indeed capable of working together.

The same idea is presented in the film in the (positive) character of President Whitmore.  Before the alien crisis, he is viewed not as a warrior, but as a “wimp.”  He can’t even get his Crime Bill passed by a hostile Congress. Whitmore laments that “it’s just not simple, anymore” and that people don’t seem to understand that compromise is the only path towards moving everyone ahead, together.  He then works with the nations of the world to defeat the aliens, and in the process transforms an American holiday into an Earth holiday.  Again, the message implicit in Independence Day is that we can apply ourselves to solve big problems, not just alien invasions. Why can’t we all band together to keep our neighbors and our neighbors' children from starving? Or to eliminate poverty? Once we acknowledge our common humanity, petty partisan differences shouldn’t really matter, should they?

In this sense, Independence Day -- set in part on July 4^th -- acknowledges a new, evolved brand of patriotism.  It is a patriotism not merely to party or to one nation, but to all of humanity. As a fan of Star Trek and a person who believes we can achieve great things if we sometimes accept compromise, I appreciate the film’s ultimate message of hope about human nature. This consistently-applied theme almost mollifies my concerns about the film’s ridiculous and ill-conceived conclusion, and the surfeit of characters who spew cliché after cliché, bad joke after bad joke. Almost, but not quite.  Still, I know I'm spitting in the wind against an 800 million dollar blockbuster, a veritable entertainment machine.

So am I a hopeless sentimental for recognizing Independence Day’s entertainment and social value, even amidst so many stupid groaners and moments of cynical, calculated humor?  

Or, like Randy Quaid's character...did I just pick the wrong day to stop drinking?

30 Years Ago: Mission: Impossible (1996)

Created by the late Bruce Geller, the TV series Mission: Impossible ran for seven high-rated seasons -- from 1966 - 1973 -- and was followed by a sequel series of the same title that ran for two years, beginning in 1988. 

Each TV iteration of the espionage series depicted the top-secret and dangerous activities of the American IMF (Impossible Missions Force) Team as it brought low bad guys foreign and domestic utilizing a combination of high-tech and low-tech trickery. 

Gun play was rarely involved in the series, and instead the IMF agents often waged a kind of psychological warfare against enemies in order to make the evil doers bring themselves to ruin. All told, star Peter Graves played IMF team leader Jim Phelps in a whopping 178 hour-long episodes (accounting for both series).

Director Brian De Palma came to the Mission: Impossible franchise in the 1990s after he had successfully revived another classic TV series at the box office, 1987's The Untouchables.

In many ways, the Geller 1960s creation was a perfect property for a director who believes that "the camera lies 24 times a second," since that axiom is the underlying essence of Mission: Impossible: the "lie" committed against the villain that makes him believe something false. That lie may involve a prosthetic mask that cloaks the identity of an IMF agent, or that lie may involve a camera broadcasting images that are believed to be real (like the death of an operative...), but which, are, in fact, lies. Our perception of reality -- according to De Palma and the IMF force -- can be manipulated by the dedicated (and cunning) use of technical inventions.

And for the tech-obsessed De Palma -- who in his youth had won a science fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations" -- the focus in Mission: Impossible on gimmicks, devices and high-tech toys (like cameras embedded in eye glasses and TV screens on wristwatches...) also appeared a perfect fit.

"My Team is Gone!" -- TV Series vs. Film Series

Where the new Mission: Impossible film of the Clinton Era diverges most dramatically from the 1960s TV series heritage is in the nature of the protagonists. The series universally featured a team of IMF operatives, each one flawlessly and emotionlessly fulfilling a designated role in a large, complex plot. 

But because box office sensation Tom Cruise was attached to star in the new movie, the updated Brian De Palma Mission: Impossible was designed instead as a star vehicle. That means one man at the forefront of the action...not an ensemble piece, like the original. Cruise's new character, Ethan Hunt, survives the massacre of the team in the film's dynamic first act and then spends the bulk of the narrative working on an unofficial mission to clear his name from the "disavowed" list.

This deliberate change in focus riled some long-time fans of the classic series (as well as the former stars...) because Mission: Impossible had always concerned cooperation and team work; the sublimation of the personal for the greater cause or mission. Indeed, on the TV series, audiences knew virtually nothing of the characters' lives outside of the job. Emotions, personal connections, even humanity itself were downplayed and the "con" was everything. As producer Herb Solow described Mission: Impossible in Patrick J. White's excellent The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier (Avon, 1991 pages 10 and 11): "The story was always what pushed the program forward, not the characters." 

When I interviewed original series star Martin Landau (Rollin Hand) for Cinescape in 2000 (November/December, Volume 6, Number 8, page 79, ) he was not particularly enamored with the re-direction of the continuing film series (particular after John Woo's MI:2). "The TV show was about a team getting in and out and no one ever knowing it was there," he reminds us. "They've turned it into an action-adventure with fireballs and chases...It's Mission: Impossible in name only."

Another reason the new film adaptation angered some longtime fans of the popular series: Jim Phelps (here played by Jon Voight) is actually the film's villain, not the hero. Original star Peter Graves had been offered the opportunity to resurrect the beloved character, but turned it down rather than participate in a film that would see the character transformed into a disloyal mercenary and, ultimately, killed while conducting an illicit, personal mission. 

The other original team members, including Landau, were offered a chance to participate in the film too, and -- down to the very last actor (Emmy winner Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, and Peter Lupus) -- they all turned it down. "They wanted the old team in the first movie..to kill 'em off," Oscar-winner Landau reported, and he was all too-glad not to accept that particular mission. "I said, 'no way.' Rollin Hand will live on in reruns."

Despite this controversy, the 1996 Mission: Impossible film remains one of De Palma's mainstream blockbuster masterpieces. It was the third-highest grossing film of 1996, and the highest-grossing film of De Palma's career. It is true that the thrust of the movie version of Mission: Impossible is quite different from the predecessor series (featuring an individual James Bond-style hero rather than a team effort...), and it is also true that Jim Phelps is featured as a double-agent/villain. And yet -- to some extent -- that latter development serves its purpose well in De Palma's snake-like narrative: proving itself the king of all surprise twists.

I submit that this climactic twist would have worked even better had Graves returned to the TV role he originated...because then nobody at all would have seen the villainous turn coming. I am sympathetic to the fans who decry the transformation of the property into a Tom Cruise vehicle, but in the case of the first Mission: Impossible, it is difficult to deny that the film is a thrilling, kinetic, invigorating experience, regardless of the perceived fidelity to the TV source material.

And -- after 178 "missions" in two TV series -- you might even wish to commend De Palma (and his writers, Steve Zaillian, Robert Towne and David Koepp) for featuring something the audience had never seen before: "IMF blow back." Here -- for the first time -- we see a mission go disastrously, catastrophically, irrevocably off-track and desperate agents forced to improvise on the spot, under fire and in constant life-threatening dangers. Perhaps that's not the core principle of the long-standing Mission: Impossible franchise, but as a one-off adventure, it's an intriguing tale. I can defend the artistic integrity of M:I as a film -- and as a De Palma film -- till the cows come home. I just don't know if I can do the same for MI:2 or MI:3 which have -- essentially -- become James Bond films on (Tom) Cruise control.

Homage, McGuffins and Lies: Avowing The De Palma Touches

One of the qualities I most admire in Brian De Palma is his unswerving ability to enliven material not his own (such as The Untouchables or Mission: Impossible) with his unique and individual film sensibilities. 

In Mission: Impossible, we get another classic, familiar De Palma touch: the tribute or homage. 

First off, Mission: Impossible pays tribute to one of De Palma's enduring inspirations: Alfred Hitchcock. Much of the hullabaloo in the film involves something called "The NOC List." In short, this list of clandestine American operatives -- which seems to change hands frequently -- serves as a modern variation on Hitchcock's favorite thriller device, the McGuffin (a plot element that drives a narrative in terms of structure, and is generic enough for easy, quick comprehension). In Mission: Impossible, everybody wants the NOC List, everybody is obsessed with the NOC List, and it is the raison d'etre for each character's behavior and misbehavior. 

Another object of homage here is clearly the film canon and stylistic conceits of filmmaker Jules Dassin, who directed two of the all-time great heist films, Rififi (1955) and Topkapi (1964). Indeed, the trademark "black vault" heist in Mission: Impossible has been described as a direct updating of the scene in Topkapi involving the theft of an emerald dagger in a glass case. And the exquisite, meticulous attention to detail during the course of the central crime in Rififi (a film that eschewed sound, music and dialogue for a focus on the details of a jewel heist) is also mirrored in De Palma's exhaustive direction of the film's three impossible missions (in Kiev, in Langley, and in London, respectively). Ironically, it was these two films (Topkapi and Rififi) that reputedly inspired Bruce Geller to create Mission: Impossible in the first place.

More important than either of these two tributes, however, is De Palma's return to his common thesis that the camera lies 24 times a second. In Mission: Impossible, the duplicitous Jim Phelps secretly runs a mission op within a mission op, so-to-speak, in Kiev. His operatives are running one mission; and Phelps is actually working against them, right under their noses. But the camera lies about this fact: we don't see Phelps' hands in-frame as he operates the computer that sends IMF agent Jack (Emilio Estevez) to his death in an elevator shaft. We don't see Phelps douse himself in stage blood before his eye-glass-mounted camera registers a shot of his bloody hands, fumbling at an apparent gunshot wound near his abdomen. Instead, we see Phelps apparently get shot by an independent assailant (on Ethan's wristwatch screen...) and then -- in master shot -- he fall offs a bridge into a river (a death that forecasts a similar scene in De Palma's Femme Fatale).

Next, during a splendid, third-act sequence involving Hunt and Phelps, we get the truth for the first time, or at least one possible version of the truth. We see the images of Phelp's nefarious activities -- depicted as Hunt's thoughts; his unvoiced suspicions. On this pass of the events, we see Phelps operating the computer to murderous effect. This time, we see him "act out" his own death for the glasses-camera (and Ethan's benefit). Meanwhile, in the dialogue itself, Phelps lies to us again about what actually occurred and who might be behind it. He fingers IMF supervisor, Kittredge (Henry Czerny)

In another brilliantly vetted moment, Hunt even "re-thinks" the moment that one agent's car was destroyed, first imagining Claire (Phelp's wife) detonating the bomb; and then -- in more palatablefashion -- imagining Phelps doing the deed himself. In this case, we never know the exact truth. This is in keeping with the ambiguous characterization of Claire (Emmanuelle Beart), who is either -- in another typical De Palma move -- a Madonna or a whore.

The Mount Everest of Hacks, (Or a Simple Game For Four Players...): The Black Vault Sequence

The Langley interlude in Mission: Impossible, or the so-called "Black Vault Sequence," remains so accomplished, so tense, so remembered that it has emerged, perhaps, as the most parodied scene in mainstream movies over the last decade.

Basically, this harrowing scene involves four operatives breaking into CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia. Their mission: to download the NOC List from a small chamber called The Black Vault.

First, De Palma lays out the specifics of the difficult operation, showing the audience all the relevant information while Hunt describes it in voice over. For instance, we learn that the console is a standalone mainframe...which means that the expert hacker Luther (Ving Rhames) can't access it from outside. Furthermore, the security checks (voice-print ID, 6-digit access code, retinal scan, and intrusion counter-measure key cards...) prevent conventional access.

Therefore, Hunt, "our point man," must enter the vault through the ceiling, positioned some 30-feet above the console. But the vault itself is wired with counter-measures to prevent just such an invasion. The room is sound sensitive, meaning that if the sound goes up even a few decibels, an alarm will be tripped. A sensor also registers body heat, meaning that if heat rises in the room just a single degree -- again -- the alarm is tripped. And finally, the floors are pressure sensitive, and if they are tripped by any additional weight at all, an "automatic lock down" is initiated.

That's the mountain to climb, and in the film's second act, subtitled "Langley," Hunt and his team broach the impossible mission of accessing the Black Vault console. Hunt is lowered via harness, upside down, through a ceiling vent (initially protected by lasers...), wearing his camera/eye-glasses.

And then, once he's inside, De Palma puts the screws to him and to us. The console operator, William Donloe, for instance, interrupts Hunt in the vault, and the agent is forced to dangle just feet over his head. Donloe need to glance upwards but once, and the mission fails. Importantly, De Palma positions Hunt and Donloe in the same shot to cycle up the anxiety factor: the close-proximity between men becomes plain (and terrifying) as they share space within the same frame.

Secondly, a rat (first viewed in a rack focus, distracting our attention), enters the vent shaft and causes Jean Reno's character to lose a grip on Hunt's harness. Accordingly, Hunt plummets downward and nearly smashes into the pressure-sensitive floor. Hunt then swings uselessly and impotently, trying to maintain equilibrium (an act revealed in long shot, so we can note his spatial relationship to the dangerous floor). And then, in close-up, we see a single, glistening drop of sweat fall down across Hunt's harried face. We trace it down his eye glasses, and down towards the floor....

At the last second, Hunt catches the drop in his open palm...

The punch-line is a humdinger. As a successful Hunt climbs out of the vault, with Reno's help...a knife falls down (in agonizing slow-motion) towards the pressure-sensitive floor below. Miraculously (and humorously) it lands on the console, point down...avoiding immediate detection. At least until Donloe re-enters the room. This is a perfect example of De Palma's wicked sense of humor, the knife functioning as a kind of unintentional "flag" planting by Hunt and his team in the conquered territory.

All throughout this sequence, De Palma utilizes the Dassin motif as seen in Rififi, minimizing dialogue, music and sound effects to great impact. The idea is that the movie -- like the audience itself - is virtually holding its breath throughout the Black Vault Sequence, focusing on the details of the operations with a singular sense of focus, and nail-biting.

The Black Vault Sequence is superlative film style, the trademark De Palma set-piece we have come to expect and cherish in his films (and the climactic equivalent, essentially, to the Odessa Steps scene in The Untouchables). Every shot, every camera move -- every technical parry and every thrust -- is perfectly calibrated to play the audience like a piano.

I had not seen Mission: Impossible in thirteen years before screening it again last night, and I must admit, it was a much stronger, cleverer, and witty film than I recalled from my single theatrical viewing in 1996. De Palma gives us three distinctive impossible missions here, makes clever use of technology and gadgets, and admirable downplays conventional violence (such as gun battles) in the same fashion as the classic series did. Indeed, watching De Palma's tale of a rogue, "disavowed" agent trying to clear his name and outwit his own intelligence superiors reminded me a great deal of the popular Bourne films. It makes you wonder if this movie was somehow a template or inspiration for those (great) movies.

Although fans may certainly feel justified in quibbling over the fact that their beloved series was handed over lock-stock-and-barrel to action-star Cruise, for Brian De Palma Mission: Impossible is Mission Accomplished. No need to disavow the film -- or the director for that matter -- for a job capably and stylishly done.

30 Years Ago: The X-Files: "War of the Coprophages" (January 5, 1996)

Thirty years ago, writer Darin Morgan returned to The X-Files (1993 - 2002) with "The War of the Coprophages," a humorous installment of the series that gazes at humanity with unblinking and unromantic eyes. In particular, the story involves the “insect mind” as it relates to cockroaches.

However, “The War of the Coprophages” also compares the relative purity and simplicity of the insect mind to the “over-developed” human mind, a biological machine which permits for non-useful responses or “reactions” to threats; responses such as paranoia or hysteria, for example.  

These mad human responses are highlighted specifically in the episode’s townspeople of Miller’s Grove, MA, who display ignorance, the mob mentality, and terror in the face of the impossible: an apparent concentrated attack on the town by cockroaches.

Importantly, and humorously, all the gruesome deaths in the episode are a result not of roach attacks at all, but irrational human responses to the proximity of roaches, creatures that our eyes and minds register as “monsters.”  In fact, the gory deaths in the episode have the same effect on us, as viewers, as they do the townspeople.  We are not able to put aside our discomfort with the bugs long enough to take them out of the “suspect pool.” This fact gives the episode a highly reflexive quality: we are squirming in our seats at the grotesque bug swarms while the characters on the screen do approximately the same thing.

Finally, the last piece of this complex and funny puzzle is the fact that some of the roaches featured in the episode are actually outside observers of mankind, alien probes who are visiting our world…and find us with all our over-developed neuroses and psychoses on full display.

What, "The War of the Coprophages" wonders, must aliens make of this strange human species?

The tiny town of Miller’s Grove, Massachusetts has a bad bug problem.  It is teeming with cockroaches, and murderous ones at that.  Mulder (David Duchovny) is in town to investigate reports of UFO activity, but the roach attacks merit his full attention soon enough.

Although Scully (Gillian Anderson) scuttles the notion of swarming, attacking cockroaches, Mulder learns of a top secret Department of Agriculture experiment in town examining a new breed of roaches.  

More curious than that, however, is evidence that suggests the roaches may be metallic, perhaps alien probes sent from another world to examine this planet…

In Morgan’s “War of the Coprophages,” the gorgeous and intelligent Dr. Bambi Berenbaum (Bobbie Phillips) notes that cockroaches “eat, sleep, defecate, and procreate” and yet have no sense of romance, mythology, or exaggerated sense of importance about these rudimentary biological activities.  

This dialogue is a deliberate voicing of Morgan’s theme in the episode, that beings such as cockroaches see life in a clear, practical, and real way that human beings simply do not.  This thesis applies as well to our treatment of insects, as the episode’s final "squashing" scene reveals in spades.

To wit, even intelligent, educated, sensitive Fox Mulder can’t overcome his irrational human programming of terror when confronted with an insect.  In the end -- and even in light of everything he now believes about the cockroaches of Miller’s Grove -- he can’t resist the temptation to squash a bug.

The (defensive) violence is ingrained. It’s hard-wired.  And it is absolutely, patently irrational.  Mulder's head may want to offer "greetings from Planet Earth" to the possibly extra-terrestrial bugs, but his heart wants to destroy that which is different, and that which has terrified him since childhood (when he first saw, up close, a preying mantis).

Importantly, “War of the Coprophages” twice makes mention of my all-time favorite science fiction film: Planet of the Apes (1968), and in particular, the final dialogue on the beach shared between Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) and Colonel Taylor (Charlton Heston).  The discussion there is explicitly about destiny, and how it concretely exists, whether Taylor will “like what he finds” or not. 

In the case of “War of the Coprophages,” Morgan's point may very well be that biology is our destiny. 

Therefore -- to some extent, our destiny is irrationality: a fear of that which is different.  We look at bugs (or any creature) across a vast gulf of suspicion and fear and can't make peace with them.  This gulf is explicitly visualized in the episode during one impressive composition, which features Mulder and a police detective staring down a sink drain at an escaping bug.  This shot transforms the drain into a kind of a tunnel, and so subtly suggests mankind's "tunnel vision" when viewing things which are "alien" to us.  

Somehow, we are always looking at these"alien" things over a vast, irreconcilable distance...

The theme “irrationality is our destiny” plays out in other aspects of the tale as well.  Mulder lies and claims that he loves insects, all in an attempt to woo the desirable Bambi.  He has thus placed great importance on “winning” this attractive woman, so much so that he would betray his own core principles, and friendships (as we see in his curt telephone responses to Scully, once Bambi has arrived in the picture).  

Meanwhile, Scully -- who provides a lecture on rationality to the townspeople of Miller’s Grove -- is equally irrational and unable to overcome her hard-wiring. She has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the deaths in the Massachusetts town are unrelated, and that there is no need for her to travel to the burg to check things out.  But when Mulder mentions Dr. “Bambi” on the telephone, Scully races up to the scene of the crime, intensely jealous and afraid of being outclassed by the entomologist.  Her hard-wiring tells her to fight for the man with whom she has invested so much love, support and time: Mulder.

Again, the inference is that we place unnecessary importance on (and mythology around) simple acts, like procreation, so much so that we don't even understand why, sometimes, we do the things that we do.

The “War of the Coprophages” also returns The X-Files to its epistolary roots (harking back to Stoker's Dracula and Shelley's Frankenstein...), by prominently featuring Mulder’s written (and voice-over narrated) summation of the tale. His computer report concerns man’s apparent inability to rise above his hard-wired fears and irrationality and Mulder is clear-headed and thoughtful in his presentation.  He wonders what aliens must make of us, and our emotional, nonsensical acts.  He sympathizes with the "other," which is his gift as investigator.

Then, acting emotionally and nonsensically, Mulder squashes a nearby bug with his case report file.  This is a perfect Morgan-style ending to the episode.  The writer often delves into nihilism and absurdity, and here he positions Mulder -- our heroic protagonist -- as someone totally incapable of growth, no matter the power of his intellect.   The final destruction of the (harmless) insect by psychologist Mulder is all the evidence anyone needs that man's destiny, his programming, is most difficult to overcome.

30 Years Ago: Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)

To the uninitiated -- or perhaps the un-converted -- my next sentence may read as silly. But I’m writing it anyway.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) is an emotional and heart-breaking film. 

The movie -- the last of the Godzilla Heisei run -- charts, in very stirring terms the final battle of the great green monster.   

But even as this battle occurs, Godzilla also grapples with his mortality in the form of his own bum ticker.  

His heart, much like a nuclear reactor is constantly threatening to melt-down.

His hours are numbered, and his body is coming apart, but before he dies, Godzilla gives it all up for his son, for his family.

If one goes back to Raymond Burr’s canny description of Godzilla as a “strangely” innocent and tragic creature, these circumstances take on a very human weight.  We all grapple with our mortality, and there is very little we wouldn’t do for our children.

Thus, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah suggests that Godzilla and humanity have much in common.

The final scene of the film, after Godzilla’s rage over the death of his son, sees the monster transferring his own mortal energy to his son’s broken body in a (successful) attempt resurrect his boy.  

And then, without pretense, Godzilla melts down. He dies. His reign is over.

Honestly, I haven’t had a lump in my throat this big since Spock died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

“I can’t believe it! Now we have two monsters!”

Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka), who gained insight into the minds of Godzilla and his son during the Space Godzilla incident, returns to the monsters’ island to check on the family, but finds it missing…destroyed.   

Meanwhile, Godzilla comes ashore in Hong Kong in a strange condition, his body pocked with strange discolorations.  He doesn’t seem himself, and causes massive destruction to the city.

The grandson of Dr. Yamane, Kenichi (Yasufumi Hayashi ), is hired by the JSDF (Japanese Self Defense Force), and reports that Godzilla’s heart -- in essence a nuclear reactor -- is rapidly melting down. 

When the monster reaches a certain temperature threshold, his destruction will cause a shock wave that will rip apart the atmosphere of Earth, and destroy all life on the planet.  Kenichi does believe, however, it is possible to freeze Godzilla and thus forestall the meltdown.  To this end, the new Super X, mark III, is deployed.

Meanwhile, Miki searches for Little Godzilla and finds that the same force that destroyed the island and super-infused Godzilla’s heart has transformed the kindly kaiju into a young adult who more closely resembles his father.

Elsewhere in Japan, a terrifying side-effect of the Oxygen Destroyer’s use in 1954 is discovered. Strange, mutated Precambrian crabs unite to create a giant malevolent beast, dubbed “Destoroyah.”  

Because Destoroyah is born of the Oxygen Destroyer, Japanese authorities believe it can be used to destroy the rampaging Godzilla, and neutralize the threat of global annihilation.

In order to make Godzilla and Destoroyah fight, however, Little Godzilla must be utilized as a decoy, a tactic that Miki deeply disapproves of, but must take part in, nonetheless…

.

“I have a feeling this is going to be Godzilla’s last fight.”

In significant part, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah succeeds so ably because it is in equal parts uncompromising and sentimental.  

And no, that isn’t a paradox.

On one hand, the movie plays as a relentless ticking-clock or countdown movie.  

As time elapses for Godzilla, we are left with one foregone conclusion: he is going to die. When Godzilla first appears in the film, he is sick, “boiling over” from his nuclear reactor heart, and it’s just a matter of time before he expires.  

The movie doesn’t play any games with that reality, or devise any last-minute Hollywood bullshit that saves his life.  

Instead Godzilla gets -- as I hope we all deserve -- a good death, and one in service of his beloved child, Little Godzilla.

Yet the movie also proves remarkably sentimental in the sense that we are asked to feel sympathy for Godzilla.  

He sees Destoroyah scoop up his child, carry him away, and drop the young one from a great height, breaking his back and killing him in the process. Godzilla roars with anger, and a human bystander seems to translate his emotional state.  

She says that Godzilla doesn’t understand why he has “lost his family.”

Death -- more than Biollante, Gigan, or Hedorah -- is the one force in the universe that none of us, not even Godzilla, can conquer, or undo. Seeing Godzilla cope with this tremendous loss, and choose his own death over his son’s death, reminds us of all that is good about humanity.  

The film also boasts a brilliant final shot that validates Godzilla’s selection.  Little Godzilla -- now fully grown and the spitting image of his Dad -- rises from the radioactive mists of Tokyo, and as the camera moves in, ever closer, we see that iconic, spiked silhouette more clearly, and hear that trademark roar bellow.

The torch has been passed.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah also succeeds because Destoroyah is one malevolent son-of-a-bitch. Godzilla movies work best when the villain is memorable and distinctive. In this case, Godzilla battles a monster that was created, in essence, out of the original Godzilla’s destruction in 1954

Therefore, Destoroyah is the son of the Oxygen Destroyer much as Godzilla is the son of the atom bomb. It makes for an interesting, interconnected dynamic.  

But rather unlike Godzilla, Destoroyah is just a horribly evil creature.  He does seem to be Godzilla’s most menacing foe, historically speaking, and remains the one monster, I believe, that Godzilla has not defeated.  Instead, the Japanese Army and the Super X-3 finish the job, while Godzilla, on his last legs, watches.

I also appreciate the film because there is an atmosphere of life coming full circle in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah that implies finality, or perhaps winter coming.  

Not only does Tokyo suffer a literal nuclear winter at the film’s climax, but the reign of Godzilla ends.  At the same time, we meet Emiko Yamane (Monoko Kochi [1932 – 1998]) for the first time since Godzilla (1954), as she nears the end of her life, and wishes to pass on wisdom to the next generation about Serizawa and the Oxygen Destroyer. The re-appearance of this actress sort of closes a loop, or book-ends the Godzilla series (as of 1995…), as does the re-appearance of the Oxygen Destroyer and the unexpected reveal of that ultimate weapon’s “progeny.”

Even the film’s dialogue seems obsessed with endings as Godzilla battles his inevitable mortality. We are reminded that “Tokyo would have become a cemetery,” if not for the Oxygen Destroyer, for instance. 

Later a character notes, portentously, “I have a feeling that this is going to be Godzilla’s last fight.”

I don’t believe I can write objectively that the battle scenes between monsters are necessarily technically better in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah than in the other films of the franchise.  Yet I can note that they seem more effective and impactful because of the film’s clever set-up: Godzilla’s mortality, and his need to defend his son. 

There is some genuine tension here as the Japanese government uses Little Godzilla as a decoy to attract Destoroyah, and the young monster is left to fight the creature on his own.  Meanwhile, Dad approaches as quickly as he can, but ultimately, too late to help.

If you’re a parent, it would certainly be your worst fear to arrive too late to help your child in a crisis, and that’s Godzilla’s burden here. Failing in a parent’s most sacred task -- protecting your young -- is much worse than facing one’s own death, and reckoning with that truth is Godzilla’s final odyssey in the film.

Godzilla vs. Destoroyah ends the Heisei Era in fine, heart-breaking form, and thus succeeds as one of the very best Godzilla films ever made. This is the one Godzilla movie that my son, now 19, won't watch, because he simply can't stand to see Godzilla die like this.  I get it.