Independence Day Special Edition

Independence Day
Film - Special Edition - Goofs - Novelization - Comic - Soundtrack - Characters

The Special Edition of Independence Day is an extended version of the 1996 film, first released on DVD in 2000. It contains nine minutes of additional footage not seen in the original theatrical release. The extended cut also include an deleted, alternate scene of Russell's suicide attack.

Differences

• An extended conversation between Constance Spano and President Thomas Whitmore regarding the latter's PR image.

Whitmore: "It's a fine line between standing behind a principle and hiding behind one. You can tolerate a little compromise if you are actually managing to get something accomplished."

Connie: "Well, The Orange County Dispatch has voted you one of the 10 sexiest men of the year."

Whitmore: "That's .. that's accomplishing something."

• A few sentences were added in the scene as Whitmore proposes to go to DefCon 3.

• A scene at Compact Cable shows David explaining to Marty about an unknown signal that is responsible for the broadcasting disruption, and that he may be able to block this signal. Marty reacts in jubilation before kissing David on the mouth.

• An extended conversation between Russell Casse and his sons, Miguel and Troy, after his release from prison. Miguel bitterly tells Russell that he is not coming with his children. An argument then ensues in which Miguel angrily calls out on Russell for not seriously caring for his family, and especially Troy's medically condition. Troy angrily breaks up the argument by dropping his medicine.

• An extended dialogue between Jasmine and Tiffany. While Jasmine tries to urge the latter to leave Los Angeles, she and Tiffany recalls how the latter never got a job in Las Vegas and lost her money on gambling.

• After her conversation with Tiffany, Jasmine is preparing to leave the strip club and picks up Boomer and Dylan who is watching TV. Her boss Mario arrives and warns her that she will be fired if she leave. Jasmine only replies to her boss, "Nice working with you, Mario."

• An extended scene of David and Julius driving to Washington, D.C. As David is looking for Constance's phone number, Julius looks ahead and sees more cars approaching in front of them - the military and police are allowing people escaping from Washington the use of both roadways. Julius is forced to avoid collision.

• An added scene featuring David and Julius in the Oval Office. Julius speaks about the persons who visited the office.

Julius: "Politicians, actors, baseball players, singers...and now me."

David: "Imagine that. Look, a poor immigrant like me, it's a dream!"

Julius: "Shh, Shh, David, please!"

• An extended shot of Russell and Alicia comforting Troy. The former recalls how his wife was stubborn to take her medicine not unlike Troy.

• Jasmine driving through a ruined Los Angeles and comes across a street preacher. She ask the man to come with her to El Toro, but the man refuses and continues to rant about the "end!"

• Dr. Brackish Okun shows David the inside of the captured alien spaceship. He then shows the "configurations" shown on the ship's display screen in which he and the Area 51 staff are left confused of their meanings. David then shows his laptop to Okun and explains to him that the configurations are a frequency used by the aliens to coordinating their ships, just like how they coordinated their countdown signal during their attack on Earth. David and Okun are interrupted by one of Okun's assistants, who informs them about a captured alien. Okun leaves the ship before telling David not to touch anything. After Okun left, David carelessly touches the ship's panel and has his hand cover in sticky goo.

• Dr. Okun meets up with Steve as they follow soldiers and scientists escorting the capture alien. While Okun oversees the alien, Russell demands anyone for help to see Troy. When no one hears Russell's words, he physically confronts one of the physicians and stopping the escort from reaching the elevator. Okun quickly deescalate the situation by telling the physician to help Russell before opening the elevator's door.

Original Theatrical Ending

• In the original ending, Russell was disallowed to fly by Colonel Mitchell and leaving him disappointed and frustrated. However, he arrives at the end of the battle flying his crop duster with a missile strapped to its wing and flying it into the City Destroyer's weapon. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin admitted that this implied that Russell flew into the battle planning to commit suicide since he could not launch the missile from his plane and therefore scrapped it in favor of having Russell making the decision to sacrifice himself after he was in the air helping the cause, both for the emotional reason of allowing the audience to see Russell make the decision to die for the human race and the practical issue that having the biplane keep pace while flying amongst F/A-18s for lack of believability. Emmerich and Devlin reshot the scene two weeks before Independence Day's release date. The scripted version is also included in the film's novelization.