A Collider opinion piece argues that Roland Emmerich's 1996 blockbuster Independence Day has been widely misunderstood by the disaster movies that followed it, including several made by Emmerich himself. While the film became famous for its groundbreaking destruction sequences, such as the alien ship obliterating the White House, the author contends its real strength lay in its well-developed characters and human stakes, something later imitators failed to replicate.

The piece traces how Independence Day spends roughly the first act establishing distinct storylines, including Jeff Goldblum's environmentalist, Will Smith's fighter pilot, Randy Quaid's crackpot survivor and Bill Pullman's president, before bringing them together for the climactic attack on Washington DC, Los Angeles and New York. It argues the destruction itself was never meant to be a crowd-pleasing spectacle but a sobering, devastating blow, reflected in the president's line about needless deaths, and that subsequent Emmerich films such as The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 and Moonfall focused on spectacle over character, leading to weaker critical reception.