Directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day was an epic film about an apocalyptic invasion of the Earth by extraterrestrials. The film opened in July of 1996 to enormous box-office profits. It benefitted from a canny advertising campaign featuring as its centerpiece a shot of the destruction of the White House and set a record by collecting $100 million in six days. Independence Day went on to earn $306 million, putting it among the top ten highest grossing films ever. Most critics were less kind to the film, pointing to its stereotypical ethnic characters, an implausible deus ex machina ending, and a rather nationalistic subtext disingenuously cloaked behind its multicultural pretensions. Others pointed to the extremely derivative nature of the film, including not-so-subtle science fiction borrowings from The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Alien, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, V, and The...