July 2nd. On Earth's Moon we hear the address that Neil Armstrong gave at the landing site of Apollo 11. The footprints left behind begin to vibrate and dissolve and a shadow falls across the surface of the moon. A giant ship moves over the moon and heads toward Earth orbit. The military reports that the Mothership has a diameter of over 550 Kilometers and a mass roughly 1/4th of the moon. It releases several smaller but immense ships that each measure 24 Kilometers in diameter. Observers at the SETI site in New Mexico have discovered a signal coming from the Mothership. David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) works in the TV media as a technical systems engineer. He discovers a countdown being relayed across Earth's satellites. Realizing he must report the findings to the highest government authorities, he has his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) drive him to Washington DC. He hopes to have a White House connection he has get him a meeting with U.S. President Tom Whitmore (Bill Pullman). The military response is led by General William Grey (Robert Loggia), the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps. Albert Nimzicki (James Rebhorn) is the Secretary of Defense. Nimzicki advises President Whitmore to attack the alien ships, but Whitmore recommends going to DefCon 3 status instead until he knows more. As the saucers appear all over the world, they cause widespread panic, forcing Whitmore to evacuate his Vice President and his Cabinet to a secure location, but he stays in Washington to assure the nation. U.S. Marine Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and his unit, the Black Knights F-18 fighter squadron out of MCAS El Toro, are called back from their July 4th leave to defend Los Angeles; his girlfriend, Jasmine Dubrow (Vivica A. Fox), decides to flee the city with her son, Dylan (Ross Bagley). Hiller reports back to his unit to find that his application to NASA has been rejected. Retired combat pilot Russell Casse (Randy Quaid), now an alcoholic single father and crop duster in Southern California, sees this as vindication of the alien abduction he has been claiming for 10 years. Constance Spano (Margaret Colin), the White House press secretary and David's former wife, gets David a private meeting with President Thomas J. Whitmore of the countdown. David explains how the alien visitors have commandeered Earth's satellite systems and are coordinating the immense saucers for what David thinks will be an initial attack. David and Julius accompany the President, Constance, and Whitmore's closest staff on Air Force One. The saucers attack the respective cities simultaneously by discharging their primary weapon, a blue-beamed cannon affixed to the bottom of each ship that sends a larger more destructive blast into it's target. The weapon unleashes a cascading wall of fire that travels through the city, destroying everything in its path. The White House in DC, Empire State Building in Manhattan and the First Interstate Bank Tower are all struck first, turning each into columns of flame. In DC, Air Force One narrowly escapes the inferno. Thomas's wife, First Lady Marilyn (Mary McDonnell) is in LA at the time of the attack and was injured in the blasts when her helicopter crashed. Marilyn is found and rescued by Jasmine, who is also trapped in the city with Dylan. They survive by hiding in the maintenance room of a tunnel. July 3. Hiller's squadron is called up to join dozens of others to launch a counterattack against the saucer over LA. They quickly find out that the invader's vehicles are protected by an advanced shielding technology, making their missiles useless. The saucers launch smaller fighters of their own -- with the same shield technology -- that instantly outnumber and rapidly destroy most of the human fleet. Hiller's wing-man, Jimmy Wilder (Harry Connick Jr.) is pursued and destroyed by one of the alien attackers. Hiller leads his attacker into a system of canyons and brings the ship down when he launches his F-18's parachute at its windshield and forces his plane to crash into a canyon wall. The attacker crashes into the same cliff and skids to a stop on the ground. Undaunted, Hiller marches to the alien craft as it opens its hatch. Hiller sees the craft's pilot, a bizarre bipedal being, and punches it, knocking it out. As Hiller is dragging the alien across the desert, he is picked up by Russell Casse and a fleet of mobile home owners who take Hiller and the unconscious alien to Area 51, commanded by Major Mitchell (Adam Baldwin). A few hours before the President and his entourage arrived, news comes in that NORAD was hit in retaliatory strikes by the aliens. Nimzicki advocates for a nuclear strike on the alien ships. Nimzicki knew about the existence of Area 51 and admits that the information was hidden from the President. Area 51 conceals a top-secret facility housing a repaired alien ship and three dead alien bodies from the 1940s when the ship crash-landed on Earth. Attempts have been underway since the late 1960s to repair the ship. Upon arrival of the alien Mother Ship, the systems on-board the alien ship have activated. Dr Okun (Brent Spiner) is the chief scientist of the facility. Okun shows the group the bodies of 3 of the alien species that had arrived along with the attack ship. Okun explains that the aliens are similar to humans in terms of physical tolerances and weaknesses. However, they plainly are more technologically advanced. Whitmore asks David to work with Okun to try and figure out a way to defeat the alien technology. The alien captured by Steven is brought to a lab where Okun and his team begin to examine it, cutting away an exoskeletal armored suit. It suddenly awakens, telepathically invades Okun's mind, and launches a psychic attack against Whitmore before being killed by Secret Service agents and military personnel. Whitmore reveals what he learned when they linked: the invaders' plan to annihilate Earth's inhabitants and harvest its natural resources, as they have already done to other planetary civilizations. The military calculates that the rate at which the saucers are moving will destroy every major city on Earth in the next 36 hours. The President decides to launch a nuclear attack using B2 stealth bombers but the nuclear warheads also fail against the alien force field over Houston, destroying much of the city. Jasmine and Dylan commandeer a highway maintenance truck and rescue a handful of survivors, including the critically injured First Lady. Though Hiller rescues them in a helicopter that he borrows from the base, and takes them to Area 51, Marilyn's injuries are too severe, and she dies after reuniting with her family. David, distraught over the use of the nuclear missile and its failure, plans to use the operable attacker ship to enter the interior of the alien mothership in space and dock with it, gaining access to its operating system. Working all night with the facility's tech team, he produces a computer virus that he will upload to disable the protective shields around the destroyers and attackers. David says that by infiltrating the mother ship, he will disorient the saucers, and buy a window of a few minutes during which a counterattack can be launched against the aliens. Nimzicki is staunchly opposed to the idea, and Whitmore fires him from his position. Hiller volunteers to be pilot the ship, with Levinson accompanying him to upload the virus. With satellite communications knocked out, the Americans use Morse code to coordinate an attack with the remaining forces around the world, timed to occur when the invaders' shields are set to fail. Casse volunteers to pilot an F-18 in the counterattack, despite his shaky nature. Whitmore, a former combat fighter pilot leads a squadron over Grey's mild objections. Whitmore gives the small squadron of pilots they've scraped together a rousing speech, citing that it's July 4th and that the Earth is again fighting for its survival. Hiller and Levinson successfully reach the mothership and implant the virus. On the way they see preparations being made for a ground invasion. President Whitmore leads the American jet fighters against the alien destroyer that is approaching Area 51. David uploads the virus as planned and sees results when the screens on the Mother Ship begin to flicker. However, the two are soon discovered by a dispatcher alien in the immense ship, and the two humans are forced to hide. Although the aliens now lack shields, the F-18 fighters' supply of missiles is quickly exhausted against the colossal craft and its large complement of assault ships. The underside of the alien craft opens up as its directed energy weapon prepares to fire on the Area 51 base. After the President's last missile launch fails to destroy the saucer's cannon, Casse rejoins the remains of the President's squadron, possessing the last remaining missile, but his firing mechanism jams when he tries to launch. Casse decides to pilot his aircraft into the alien weapon in a kamikaze attack. He tells the officials on the ground to relay his goodbyes to his children and jovially flies his ship straight into the cannon's beam, colliding with the cannon. The explosion causes a chain reaction that annihilates the ship, forcing it to the ground nearby. Human resistance forces around the world use the same weak point to destroy the remainder of the alien saucers, while the nuclear device planted by Hiller and Levinson destroys the alien mothership soon after the duo escape. Hiller and Levinson are caught up in the aftereffects of the mothership's explosion but are able to return to Earth unharmed, crash-landing the alien fighter in the desert close to Area 51. As they all watch the remnants of the Mother Ship burn up in the atmosphere, Hiller tells Dylan that he promised him fireworks for the holiday.
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