Stealth doesnt mean invisible to radar, just harder to track and given that experts predict stealth to eventually become obsolete to future radars and tech , a space travelling civilization surely had that figured it out
I believe the rise in I-45 that they were hiding behind is an elevated overpass of the freeway hence the rise in an otherwise flat terrain. Obviously the implication was that the rise provided some shielding but an elevated section is a terrible place to hide during a nuclear blast. You'd be better off hiding on I-10 which is dug into the ground as it approaches downtown hence always being shown in flood photographs as being flooded.
I saw it in theaters in Irvine, CA right next to the El Toro Marine vase, we all laughed too since it was a couple miles from us. What a great summer at the movies.
Alien: After being parked here for weeks, I finally I get to destroy Houston. I waited my whole life for that promotion. Humans: **Destroys Houston** Alien: OH GOD DAMN IT!
Damn it. I love these "hopeless" scenes in movies when we trying to destroy enemies with ours the most powerful weapons and then we see that all this effort was absolutely useless.
The irony is that interstellar travel at near light speed or greater would've meant the spaceships could easily survive a nuclear attack. No scientist would've advised a direct attack without first finding a way to undermine whatever shielding they had. The display of using the nuclear weapons is just because the general public has no idea of the science involved.
@@moteroargentino7944 Wouldn't you expect some protection be needed against the extreme distortions of space time near the event horizon of a wormhole? Remember such a wormhole would be a sphere, you would have to go through the event horizon. Our theoretical physicists have speculated that if a blackhole was large enough such as maybe the super massive blackhole found at the centers of galaxies then maybe the distortions would be gradual enough to get close and perhaps through the event horizon but the gravity well doesn't just end at the event horizon and the distortions still increase as you get closer to the center and if you are to travel via a wormhole, you need to pass through the center of the singularity. If anything, wormhole travel would not just need an energy forcefield but a negative energy forcefield which affects space time itself and that would be pretty good at deflecting any projectiles or energy tossed at it.
@@stevendeamon The presumption of wormholes is from the math of blackholes. A wormhole is a blackholes or rather two that are connected through the singularity. All the math behind wormholes are the math of blackholes. I am most certainly not confusing the two as wormholes are categorically black holes.
@@nonaurbizniz7440 that and the Chinese-Communist ass kssing. It wasn't just dumb, but it was pretty disgraceful compared to the patriotic overtones of the first movie.
I remember reading somewhere, whether it was official or not, it was written in the perspective of the aliens. Their thoughts and reaction with the nuke attack was one of shock. They didn't realise that Earth had weapons like this. The commentary between the aliens resulted in them prepping their fighter defense for a second attack because their shield capability was at less than 10% after the nuke strike.
@@equusamans Well fortunately we know that Nuclear Winter is bullshit. The only serious issue would be the amount of fallout created which always last for about 2 weeks and follows the path of wind. If it gets into rain clouds, it will be rained down somewhere. Fortunately out of the eight nations that have nukes, only two nations have the ability to delivery the weapon with a tactical missile, the other 6 will have to use strategic rockets or traditional bombing which might be riskier.
It's actually cannon in the universe that, once it was confirmed that the aliens' shields were down, China and Russia nuked a dozen or more of the city destroyers. You can't really blame them, as this was perhaps a one shot chance at taking these things out, so might as well hit them with the sledgehammer.
I love the president's reaction when they thought the ship was destroyed. Everyone was rejoicing but he remained calm and thoughtful, perhaps thinking "It's a hit... but at what cost?".
Max Eisenhardt if the aliens didn’t already destroy Houston during the invasion, it’s been destroyed now. And possibly irradiated to uninhabitable levels forever.
I remember my dad renting this movie from Blockbuster back in the day, ordering pizza and having all of us watch it without any of us kids knowing what it was about. Absolutely blew us away. The whole movie is the perfect balance of action, terror, and humor.
I can't remember where I read it, weather it was a form of novelization of the film or what ever, but I vividly remember reading something from the aliens perspective of this scene. That they were wondering why the humans would fire a single projectile from a single vessel, then flee, only to relise the destructive power of the weapon the humans used. According to to what I read the Aliens sheilds were about to fail. If the humans followed up with a second nuke or an airstrike, it could've crippled the ship. I think it was a legit source that was concurrent with the release of the film as I read it back in 1996.
@@Bacopa68 ICBMs and for that matter cruise missiles, require satellites to guide and track. The movie explained that most of Earth's satellite network is out so it is logical for the USAF to launch nukes via planes.
@@leonedralev3776 In 1993 there were no US ballistic missiles that required help from satellites. And there still aren't any today. And speaking of planes, there are plenty of planes that could have simply loft bombed nukes onto the ships. US stockpiles are lower than they were in the 1990's, but even now the US maintains many nuclear weapons in Germany and Turkey capable of being fitted onto an F-16. And in the early nineties we still had laydown bombs stationed in Europe. If it took five or six nukes in a few minutes, these ships could have easily been taken out.
The way the IFV driver says "Target remains....I repeat, target remains" after this scene only expanded the despair horizon in this movie. At this point humanity was effectively out of options.
Well with the corpses at Area 51 bio weapons could have been developed, given that you had idea what there biochemistry is and how it works. But yeah realisticly speaking besides using the Zar Bomb there was not much else to be done
they are people saying that there is a book that tell the story in the perspective of the aliens. the ship's energy shields were reduced to 10% thanks to the nuclear bomb. we just needed one more nuclear bomb to destroy the alien ship😐
@@ivanelias3916 But at what cost? Talk about a Pyrrhic victory. We beat the aliens and obliterate countless cities while nuking hundreds of millions of people.
manuel ramirez IKR?! Just have the B-2’s escorted by a few fighters while the guys on the mother ship upload the virus. Fire a test missile to make sure the shields are down and then nuke’em. Of course that wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic.
Luke Petersen the second movie should’ve been about how 3rd world countries managed to take down the ships.. since most of them don’t have much of an Air Force
I like how Huston was leveled by one of our own weapons rather than an alien death laser, the sheer devastation of the nuke vs the alien ship floating there unscathed afterwards gives you a sense of hopelessness
When they were on air force one the secretary of defense informs the president that after talking with the Joint Chiefs they military was already asking the president to authorize a nuclear counter attack
@@brummyuk2151 i highly doubt it i know its all fiction but if an alien race actually came to earth (like actually traveled light years to get here) we wouldnt stand a chance in hell a nuke would be like throwing a rock at a tank to an alien race that had to travel probably faster than light speed and dodging black holes and sht we would just get wiped out
That bomb should have been detonated beneath the ship, not at the side or on the topside. A large fraction of the bombs energy was wastefully radiated away into the atmosphere. A bomb exploded beneath would have transferred much more energy onto the alien ship, plus the energy that would have been reflected from the Earths surface. A bit like a banger exploding in your open palm would only cause superficial burns but the same banger exploded with your fingers wrapped round it would cause the loss of your hand.
Of course why would an interstellar spaceship hover so close to the ground is questionable as well. There would be no reason for them to get closer than say geostationary orbit. Indeed, I would expect attacking aliens to still be out in the Oort cloud diverting comets at the Earth.
Since the fighter planes could not penetrate the alien shield that extended to the ground ,which it did according to canon in "The War of the Worlds", the cruise missile likewise would have been stopped by the shield.
Lmao, U killed me,🤣😂probably confused the F and scared the shit out of the Aliens. They were thinking this people are willing to sacripised themselves, WT Hell did we get ourselves into lol.
The bomber could have fired from much further away if the president hadnt took so long to say "deploy." He waited until the last second, by which time the bomber was so close it's likely it was wiped out by the blast.
I love that even when the rest of the war room thinks the nuke strike was successful, the General reserves judgement. Likely because he knows that, even if it worked, it would require nuking the rest of the planet to defeat the aliens...and thus...ourselves. Thank you, this has been my Independence Day TED talk.
After the first alien attack the secretary of defense tells the President he talked with the joint chiefs of staff and the military was immediately asking the president to authorize a nuclear counter-attack against them but President Wittmore quickly dismissed the idea of using American weapons over the US itself
@@badendhappy2903 Saw its launch but I don't feel the Raider can top up the beautiful design of the B-2. B-21 seems like an inexpensive alternative to B-2.
The novelization does a great job of describing this scene. Instead of just seeing some ground turbulence, it shows the mushroom cloud climbing into the air above Houston.
one of my most favourite film ever. This is the best and only film of alien invasion that i could truly feel and enjoyed the flow of terror from the very beginning until the end. Didn't found any of similar breathtaking film recently.
@@corkystorky yeah agree. The sequel was horrible. i guess they rushed it too far, far less detailed and absurd leap technology concept which is clearly not their expertise, no terror at all. soo sad.
corkystorky it was indeed rushed because they had a whole other script involving Will smith, only he dropped out in the middle of production, so the writers had no other choise then to rush it.
A fun fact about this scene, I think from a comic or novel released at the time (though I cant find it now, god im old) On approach they basically laughed at the small number of "stealth" aircraft, that they could easily detect, more so after entire airforces were destroyed with relative ease. They didnt even launch fighters, thats how little they thought of our weapons. Their shields were impervious to our guns and missiles. When the blast shook their ship, the aliens had their shields reduced to 10%. They were completley shook and in panic. Especially since there were several other B2's loaded with nukes. They had no idea that humans would have or use such self destructive weapons, weapons that would poison the very world they were used on. To them nuclear science was a stepping stone in their evoloution, a primitive energy source, Never weaponized. This means that on all the worlds they conquered, no matter how advanced or desperate, no one used weapons like these. It would be like starting a fight with a guy in a weelchair, only for him to set a grenade off in his lap. Just pure madness from their point of view. Despite all their advantages, they didnt account for mankinds ability to destroy itsself, because what race would make such terrible weapons to use on themselves?
“In all our years of extermination, violence, slaughter, it was never personal... But we will tell you now, what we're about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet, We're going to enjoy it. Very, very much.”" "Yup we're all kinds of stubborn!"
I have a lot of issues with alien “immunity” from nuclear weapons. I understand it is a huge plot device. But I just can’t open my mind to anything constructed that could take on a even a small tactical nuke as shown. The energy is just..... insane.
When you realise the heat of the blast is several million degrees Celsius unless they have ships like the one on stargate Atlantis it would have at least done some damage.
@@lameroad1569 thats why this movie is sooo good, i remember seeing the first time as a kid thinking the nukes will win, but once i saw those were useless i was like how on earth are they going to win?
I was more pissed off that it literally wasn't even close to Houston on any of the footage, even the freeway signs were wrong... we don't have those here
@@SoldierOfFate I think supplemental material makes it clear the Russians and Chinese used nukes on the alien craft in their territory and used their spare craft to assist other countries
Well also no one else other than Russia has the ability to attack with nukes like we do. Russia is the only other nation who can launch a tactical nuke on a tactical missile with direct results. Everyone else has to rely on strategic rockets or traditional bombing to deliver. Russia certainly has more nukes than the US so it wouldn't be strange if they started using them at any given chance. China for example doesn't even have 100 nukes, they might be more willing to wait because it's more precious to hold onto them.
The amazing part was nobody in 96 had any idea that the finale would be a mission to deactivate the shield allowing for a massive attack to destroy all of the the bad guys.
You can't take down a spaceship the size of a Metropolitan area just with conventional missiles.... Something in the explosive range of the Tsar bomba or a photon torpedo is needed. 50MT TNT equivalent and above.
Fun Fact: The original version of the script had President Whitmore abort the nuclear strike after changing his mind. However whilst filming the scene Bill Pullman improvised and ordered the B-2 stealth bomber to fire a nuclear missile which ended up destroying the city of Houston causing millions of casualties. Roland Emmerich was so impressed he kept the scene in the film.
Can't blame them for losing all hope after this scene. The most powerful weapon in humanity's arsenal............ didn't even scratch the alien vessel.
@@EvaSlayAllDay334 Yeah, it knocked their shield strength down to 10%, could you imagine if the US had used a LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM armed with 11 W87-0 warheads (each 300kt) would have easily annihilated that alien ship.
Apparently there’s a novelization of this film and in it the humans didn’t realize that nuke strike disabled the shield. So in that iteration, a second strike would’ve killed the alien ship. If you think about it it’s surprising no other country tried salvoing nukes at a single target.
Movie Mistakes: 1:36 Plane turns left, but next shot of it on radar shows it turning right 2:38 Wipes eyeball and suddenly we get visual confirmation (This wouldn't change the scope hes using)
@@corkystorky I saw two replies by you but didn't read them, sorry Me and 49 people dont care what you have to say. If your family and lack of friends leaves you feeling lonely, i suggest you go visit a church and make some new friends to help with your insecurities while you troll videos late at night, Good luck :)
@@MerchantIvoryfilms Did you even understand what he or she said? the plane was going left but on the radar it was going right (Maybe the reason why it is going right on the radar was because the mapping was from ground and not on the sky or space Please don't start a conflict Please forgive me about my grammar
@@MerchantIvoryfilms Please don't start a conflict by teasing or making someone annoyed by saying something like "Who are you again? No one" please have a normal conversation and respect people
This was so crippling it's so primal it's like the prehistoric people trying to kill the Bear with their best spears and the Bear's skin is impenetrable and now it can kill them all
Funny thing about this scene, when you realize their ships could probably reach light speed or close to light speed....even running into a spec of dust at that speed would create an insane release of energy, 100000 100 megaton warheads or more...a single warhead would be like shooting an M-1 Abrams with a BB gun. Their shields would be so strong it would be beyond any human comprehension. This is a fun movie but if this really happened humanity would be toast in about 5 minutes
There was a lot of dumb in this movie but the things they did right, they did so well that the bad didn't really matter. It's still a fun movie 25 years later
A Borg cube has 28 cubic kilometers vokume and you need hundreds of photon and quantum torpedoes to "stop" it. A photon torpedo has a TNT equivalent of 60 MT. What do they hope to achieve by firing one single nuke against a much bigger juggernaut than a Borg cube?
@@martinm.1967 Because Star Trek doesn't respect physics all that well. A Borg cube is 3 km along each straight line. By comparison, the Tsar Bomba 50 megaton nuke created a plasma ball some 5 km wide. Meaning a Photon Torpedo would create a miniature sun larger than the Borg Cube itself. As to what it would do to one of those City Destroyers, thats easy. Look at what it did to the ship in orbit that carried all of those City Destroyers. If not for the shields, a nuke would have obliterated those ships.
I never get bored with this scene. Lets put the strategical and tactical realism aside (like using ICBMs), it is a one prety good scene. Nuclear missiles are ultimate weapons of humanity, theoretically with no yield limit. Using them is a last hope act, with nothing more powerfull in arsenal of Earth. Imagine those expectations in hearts of president, general, and all people involved, one day after three major U.S. cities with millions being destroyed in single attack and best jets massacred in a desperate counter-attack. Watching those B2 is terrific, watching nuclear missile being launched and impacted even more. The shock after making none damage to Destroyer is hard to imagine - most powerfull weapon is completely useless. And I can imagine aliens easily tracked those stealth bombers, but they found it useless to send a squadrons of Attackers to intercept, being overriden by self-confidence and shield-reliance. Brutally strong scene.
When I saw this scene for the first time, I didn't think that the atomic bombs were useless, but that the film was unrealistic. A nuclear bomb should have dusted the alien ship. The energy requirement to absorb this energy with shields or at least dissipate it would simply be far too high.
@@OpenGL4ever Another person commented in a different thread that in one of the books, written from the aliens point of view, the nuke knocked down the shields to 10% so a second nuke would have taken them out.
@@majordbag2many overestimate the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons. The basis of the destructive potential of nuclear bombs is a shock wave due to strong air currents. The plasma ball is destructive at the moment of explosion, but it has a small radius and a short lifetime. From the point of view of physics, the explosion of a nuclear bomb is an artificial star that existed for the shortest possible time. A civilization capable of interstellar flights had to master the technologies of protection from supernovae, the gravitational influence of planets, electromagnetic waves of stars and collisions with asteroids. I strongly doubt that a huge spacecraft that managed to enter the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and at the same time experienced enormous loads will not be able to withstand some kind of nuclear bomb. In fact, in this film, humanity did not have a single chance, except for a viral attack and sabotage. That, against an over-developed alien race is impossible and ineffective. Even today, there are fingerprint, eye, and even genetic passwords. The film is beautiful, but unrealistic. Humanity would accept the fate of the indigenous peoples of America.
@@OpenGL4everNot so sure about that. You don't need to absorb or dissipate it, if you can move it away. They could be shielding their ships with the same type of magnetic field that they're using for confinement in a pure fusion reactor. Their weapon seems to be some sort of plasma that explosively disperses. In order to do the level of destruction it does, that's gotta be well into the hundreds of terajoules range. If you can contain that level of energy in a weapons system, then you're capable of enveloping your ship in a field that can shrug off a 750 kiloton nuclear explosion. What I'm basically saying is that they're linking their offensive and defense systems into the same thing: a massive confinement field capable of constraining nearly a petajoule of energy. The ship is a huge magnetic donut that contains a fusion reaction and prevents a fusion reaction from entering.
@@AlxnickWell, that's a nice fan fiction. We don't even know what kind of field is that. However, these kinds of alien "invasions" are quite cheap. Such an advance species doesn't even have to interact with us directly in the process of an invasion. Take a look at The Dark Forest. The aliens from that book sent a single 1 x 3 meters object. :)
That only works on digital systems like the ones we use in earth, Aliens as stated in the movie use technology that differs vastly from our own, hence why the Area 51 scientists were unable to do tests with the Alien Craft they had ; something along these lines "we were unable to run any tests since we could not replicate their power source" ,it could be assumed that their tech is immune or highly resistant to EMP like analog systems used by humans.
@@Optimusprime240 While the virus thing ita a stretch to say the least, David could only do so cause the aliens left a way to convert the languaje from their computers and sytems to ours; the "hidden signal " on the satelites that connected their systems to relay the signal for the countdown to Earth's satelites and once David figures that out he started analyzing that "code" , in a deleted scene you can see that the Area 51 scientists couldnt understand the OS of the craft they had and David pointing out their communications worked in the same way, like i said its by no means a perfect explanation but at least they tried there.
If that were the case, they would never had survived interstellar travel at speeds close to or higher than the speed of light as the sparse amount of electrons and protons scattered through interstellar space would be like an intense wall of radiation and even a grain of sand would impact with greater energy than nuclear weapons.
I'm pretty sure that nukes would be very effective against city destroyers if used correctly. Conventional missiles were ineffective against shielding that protected alien fighters but were strong enough to knock them off course with direct hits. Nuke blast would probably have a somewhat smaller size ratio to the city destroyer than conventional missile blasts had to the alien fighter, but if you pound the destroyer with several nukes at once, maybe it would be possible to knock it off course too. For example, hitting with nukes from above and along the same side of the ship's circumference could "overburden" it from one side, flipping it. And being flipped at this altitude would crash it into the earth, probably destroying it, or at least making this particular day the worst the crew had in their entire lives. There is so much room to slide/fall to your doom in a city-sized vessel. ^^
If Remember Correctly The Aliens Almost Got Fucked,It Takes 2 Nukes to Take Down One city Destroyer,That Cia Guy is a Bitch But He Was right Another nuke Would Have Killed it
The only thing protecting the alien ships was the powerful shields. The nukes wouldn’t even be able to penetrate it. They would just end up nuking themselves trying to destroy the destroyer ships. When the shields were disabled, they were able to bring them down. But that was without the shields. So there’s no doubt the nuked would of worked but only without their shields. So no it wouldn’t of been effective. It’s technology far more advanced than human capabilities. They were only able to figure out how to get through it. A simple computer virus.
They put in the sequel that a multi sided 'drone' attack was sufficient to knock out capital ship shields with almost trivial ease... so I'd expect the City Destroyers to go down if they were hit with a sufficiently large nuke. If the Destroyers were truely invulnerable, they wouldn't have ever bothered launching their fighter ships in defence. The movie calls the small ships 'Attackers' but we only see them used to defend against enemy fighter threats.
And the observation crew at the bottom. The EMP from the nuke should have fried all their electronics thus rending their vehicle in-operable which would lead them to travel outside and be exposed to radiation..
I'm sure we all noticed the blast radius showed up on that screen and they very clearly cut the instant it took out the B-2. I mean what was the President waiting for and did those pilots fire knowing they were going to die?
imagine detonating a nuke beneath the mothership. since its shields can repel the force of a nuke it would reflect so much of the energy of the blast into the ground. like a nuclear echo
How can a 15 mile wide city size interstellar spaceship not have any sort of long range radars and weapons? Heck those bombers would even have trouble attacking a single carrier battle group.
alien ship had been through interstellar travel , passing to harsh environment such as gamma ray and radiation zones, so its pretty obvious that nuke was just nothing to it.
Actually, in the original version of the script, the nuke was effective in deactivating the shield due to the EMP effect. The aliens were deploying attack crafts to engage the B2s because another nuke would actually succeed in destroying the spaceship.
Fun fact. The Aliens were shitting their pants in fear of a follow up nuke attack because a single air-launched nuke nearly overwhelmed the shield system on their destroyer ships. Another nuke following closely after would've punched right through the shield and destroyed the ship. Basically two of these nukes per destroyer would've been enough to wipe out the destroyer fleet.
0:37 Was always weird for me to go to U of H down 45 and reach that spot. Obviously they used a model here since they didn't close down that highway at the time of filming (that I'm aware of) but still nice to see that someone was paying some good attention to make it look like the right spot.
I love how at 1:16 President Whitmore lightly nods and reaches at air after General Gray soberly says that if he wishes to deploy the nuclear weapons, "the time is now." Pullman and Loggia are a masterclass in this film.
They should have dressed up the nuke like a pizza delivery man and rang the doorbell and took off. When the aliens open the shield to get their pizza….BOOM!
😳. F**k me! I never thought of that! Uhhh - hey wait! One of the bomb pilots could be a ventriloquist! He could throw his voice when the aliens come out & say “vegetarians rock!” If the aliens say “No they don’t!” Then we give them the pepperoni pizza & BOOM!” If the aliens say “damn right! Vegetarians Rock!” …. The the ventriloquist bomber say” WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE!!!!! When the aliens look away somebody jumps in and picks off all the pepperoni & repaces it with tomatoes! World saved.
That kind of reminds me of the War of the Worlds scene where the aliens opened up the hatch and took Tom Cruise’s grenade belt which then exploded inside
Actually, that was the plan - Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum both thought delivering a pizza but said "let's pretend we are delivering a virus" when in actual fact they uploaded a pizza menu and all the aliens were squabbling over the 2-4-1 deal and who wanted stuffed crust that they lost their shit and both Jeff and Will bounced leaving a nuke behind with a pizza oven.
Perhaps it was a visual tribute, but the twisted lamp post in the foreground of the night vision shot after the attack resembles the Martian heat ray weapon from 1953's The War of the Worlds.
Had Whitmore known just how dangerously close that Destroyer was to being crippled after a single nuke, he would have followed it up with a second strike and vaporized it. IIRC, the novelizations stated that a single nuke dropped the Destroyers shields to 10% power, which means a second strike would've incapacitated it, if not outright blew it out of the sky. If only he'd known. At this moment, before Levinson realized they could use the Aliens own communications against them with a computer virus, Whitmore and the entire panel at Area 51 must've been feeling an overwhelming sense of dread. If even Nukes weren't enough to bring it down, then they must have felt absolutely hopeless in that moment, because they had nothing else to fight back with.
@@matheus5230 The novelization of the first movie. In the part with the nuke, its written from the aliens POV. They had no idea that we had nuclear weapons (apparently its a very rare technology for races to create) and were confused when a single Human aircraft launched a single projectile. They were genuinely wondering what the sense was in it before it detonated. It took the shields down to 10%, and the aliens were starting to panic over it. A second nuke would have destroyed it completely.
The cynicism of the person who wrote the script is amazing. Did he seriously believe that a nuclear strike would be carried out on a ship that was hovering over a city that had not yet been destroyed? Or does he think that this is what the US government will actually do?
after they learned how to disable their shields, using nukes would cost earth defeat, since other countries had to fight as well, it will destroy the fighter jets and the civilians below, they had to face the alien assholes mano y mano
@@corkystorky if the ships were moving from city to city it would be less of a risk. Also given the 'exisrential threat' alien assholes would be, killing a few million civilians is CERTAINLY much better than letting the species be annihilated in totality.
I don't think they moved that fast city to city, mostly when there's already an engagement they just slowly move by coordinating with the smaller fighters. But on hindsight what you said is correct, if earth just sent B2 bombers right there
Two problems with that: -the B2 is extremely unwieldy compared to a jet fighter. It would be a sitting duck for the Alien's attacker craft if they saw it coming. -During humanity's second attempt to destroy them, the destroyers were above populated areas. A nuke would be suicide considering the countless civilian casualties and any fighter craft trying to fight off the attackers. -The last battle was a desperate assault planned within less than 3 hours prior to dawn. There was no time to coordinate anything effective, not to mention the lack of trained pilots and the reliance on volunteers.
Logically, you should know that you don't destroy a city sized ship with a few hundred missiles (final fight scene). These nuclear missiles used by the B-2s should have been used when the shields came down.
Anyone think it's weird that they didn't try launching the nuke so that it blew up above the spaceship thereby limiting damage to civilians on the ground level?
At 1:36 the plane drops a missile and turns left... When you're watching it on radar it turns right... Could you they hire at these movie companies? They have no attention to detail!
A Stealthbomber who was locked at the Radar isnt a Stealthbomber😁
The Alien leadership must have thought 'these guys are so stupid they just nuked their own people for no reason in self defense.'
1.28 I never knew Ray Liotta had a cameo
Active beacon?!
@@patriceaqa288 heh. never saw the resemblance.
Stealth doesnt mean invisible to radar, just harder to track and given that experts predict stealth to eventually become obsolete to future radars and tech , a space travelling civilization surely had that figured it out
Sitting in the theater back in day, we all laughed in Houston. We’re just happy to be included.
Hahaha
I believe the rise in I-45 that they were hiding behind is an elevated overpass of the freeway hence the rise in an otherwise flat terrain. Obviously the implication was that the rise provided some shielding but an elevated section is a terrible place to hide during a nuclear blast. You'd be better off hiding on I-10 which is dug into the ground as it approaches downtown hence always being shown in flood photographs as being flooded.
I saw it in theaters in Irvine, CA right next to the El Toro Marine vase, we all laughed too since it was a couple miles from us. What a great summer at the movies.
ME TOO! Texas! We took one for the team! Lolol
Why bro?
"May our children forgive us." Say what you want about Bill Pullman in this film, but he sold that line for a million dollars.
Bill was NOT presidential material. Poor casting, in my opinion.
@@chrispile3878 he was actually supposed to be a poor president who didn't know how to respond
Forgive them for what?
Leonid Saykin for being a stupid human being haha
@@LeonidSaykin For the nuclear ions that would be in the air and cause skin diseases and other infirmities
Alien: After being parked here for weeks, I finally I get to destroy Houston. I waited my whole life for that promotion.
Humans: **Destroys Houston**
Alien: OH GOD DAMN IT!
For some reason, I'm hearing that last line in Tom Hank's voice from "Catch Me if You Can"
Houston is quickly turning into a shithole, It wouldn't be missed by many.
Alien 0259403: There's always Seattle, bro!
Alien 0584329: ThErE's AlWaYs SeAtTlE >:(
Makes you wonder I the aliens still fired since they were already there to make double sure. Lol
DAMN IT!!! DAMN IT!!! DAMN IT!!!
Damn it. I love these "hopeless" scenes in movies when we trying to destroy enemies with ours the most powerful weapons and then we see that all this effort was absolutely useless.
The irony is that interstellar travel at near light speed or greater would've meant the spaceships could easily survive a nuclear attack. No scientist would've advised a direct attack without first finding a way to undermine whatever shielding they had. The display of using the nuclear weapons is just because the general public has no idea of the science involved.
@@johnwang9914 Yeah. The armor or shielding required to stop a mere dust particle at relativistic speeds is massive.
@@moteroargentino7944 Wouldn't you expect some protection be needed against the extreme distortions of space time near the event horizon of a wormhole? Remember such a wormhole would be a sphere, you would have to go through the event horizon. Our theoretical physicists have speculated that if a blackhole was large enough such as maybe the super massive blackhole found at the centers of galaxies then maybe the distortions would be gradual enough to get close and perhaps through the event horizon but the gravity well doesn't just end at the event horizon and the distortions still increase as you get closer to the center and if you are to travel via a wormhole, you need to pass through the center of the singularity. If anything, wormhole travel would not just need an energy forcefield but a negative energy forcefield which affects space time itself and that would be pretty good at deflecting any projectiles or energy tossed at it.
@@johnwang9914 You're confusing black holes to wormholes.
@@stevendeamon The presumption of wormholes is from the math of blackholes. A wormhole is a blackholes or rather two that are connected through the singularity. All the math behind wormholes are the math of blackholes. I am most certainly not confusing the two as wormholes are categorically black holes.
The static from the nuke was better than this movies sequel.
The sequel was dumb but fun to watch. Too much back office woke going on when it was made.
there are dumb movies but still fun and entertaining to watch. what is the point of watching a movie ?
@@nonaurbizniz7440 that and the Chinese-Communist ass kssing. It wasn't just dumb, but it was pretty disgraceful compared to the patriotic overtones of the first movie.
lmao i spat out my food
True that!
I was in Houston when this happened! Plants still haven't grown there
Love these little gems XD
And the heat?
Sorry for it
That's South Houston by the University, it always looks like that.
LOL nice joke The Mouse
Alien reading a newspaper, notices his coffee cup jiggle a little... is like "Da fuq was that?" shrugs, goes back to reading his paper.
They still have newspapers? How primitive.
@@johnwang9914 or maybe they are hyper advanced but didn't want to leave the old fashioned newspaper out of the tech tree
@@DehyasHusband26651 When was the last time you purchased a paper newspaper?
@@johnwang9914 about a year ago
@@DehyasHusband26651 A It's ear ago for a product that comes out daily... I rest my case.
I remember reading somewhere, whether it was official or not, it was written in the perspective of the aliens. Their thoughts and reaction with the nuke attack was one of shock. They didn't realise that Earth had weapons like this. The commentary between the aliens resulted in them prepping their fighter defense for a second attack because their shield capability was at less than 10% after the nuke strike.
Fanfiction net?
@@marinistXXX could be, but it's plausible
@@marinistXXX no. Canon from the book. A 2nd nuke would of killed it but remember that we believe a nuke is a 1 time killer.
@@equusamans Well fortunately we know that Nuclear Winter is bullshit. The only serious issue would be the amount of fallout created which always last for about 2 weeks and follows the path of wind. If it gets into rain clouds, it will be rained down somewhere. Fortunately out of the eight nations that have nukes, only two nations have the ability to delivery the weapon with a tactical missile, the other 6 will have to use strategic rockets or traditional bombing which might be riskier.
It's actually cannon in the universe that, once it was confirmed that the aliens' shields were down, China and Russia nuked a dozen or more of the city destroyers. You can't really blame them, as this was perhaps a one shot chance at taking these things out, so might as well hit them with the sledgehammer.
“Here we go.”
Just the way the pilot quietly says that sentence tells you the tension of using a nuclear warhead.
With that click of a button, you know he has the same emotions as the President: may I be forgiven for my actions.
I like the way Major Kong used nukes in Dr Strangelove
Even when he says locked on and his facial expression. He played this part to perfection
That was Ryan Reynolds.
@@RJ_MacReady
Nope.
I love the president's reaction when they thought the ship was destroyed. Everyone was rejoicing but he remained calm and thoughtful, perhaps thinking "It's a hit... but at what cost?".
And then it’s revealed that they may as well have just farted on it.
Talk about rubbing salt in the wound lol
And General William Grey wasn't celebrating either
Max Eisenhardt if the aliens didn’t already destroy Houston during the invasion, it’s been destroyed now. And possibly irradiated to uninhabitable levels forever.
TheNw1218 not forever. Radiation naturally decreases over time.
The Stalker that’s still not forever.
I remember my dad renting this movie from Blockbuster back in the day, ordering pizza and having all of us watch it without any of us kids knowing what it was about. Absolutely blew us away. The whole movie is the perfect balance of action, terror, and humor.
Sounded like a great time!
Was that when you knew you wanted to be a fascist
@tradtke101 Excuse you?
@@mikedemirdjian9976 your profile picture. Sparta was a fascist society built on slave labor. Surely you're aware of helotage?
@@tradtke101 go back to Fortnite ret4rd3d zoomer
I was 9 when i first saw this scene and didn't realize how much of a deal nukes were at the time.
They still are
They’ll always be a big deal.
@@lucash.7793 thanks I'll use my time machine and go back in time to tell myself.
@@2024Blue. yup.
@@thegooseman90 XD
I can't remember where I read it, weather it was a form of novelization of the film or what ever, but I vividly remember reading something from the aliens perspective of this scene. That they were wondering why the humans would fire a single projectile from a single vessel, then flee, only to relise the destructive power of the weapon the humans used. According to to what I read the Aliens sheilds were about to fail. If the humans followed up with a second nuke or an airstrike, it could've crippled the ship. I think it was a legit source that was concurrent with the release of the film as I read it back in 1996.
I would have destroyed that ship
So we could have simply lobbed ICBMS at the ships and destroyed them? I wonder why no one tried?
@@Bacopa68 ICBMs and for that matter cruise missiles, require satellites to guide and track. The movie explained that most of Earth's satellite network is out so it is logical for the USAF to launch nukes via planes.
@@leonedralev3776 In 1993 there were no US ballistic missiles that required help from satellites. And there still aren't any today.
And speaking of planes, there are plenty of planes that could have simply loft bombed nukes onto the ships. US stockpiles are lower than they were in the 1990's, but even now the US maintains many nuclear weapons in Germany and Turkey capable of being fitted onto an F-16. And in the early nineties we still had laydown bombs stationed in Europe. If it took five or six nukes in a few minutes, these ships could have easily been taken out.
@@leonedralev3776 ICBMs and cruise missiles are GPS guided
The way the IFV driver says "Target remains....I repeat, target remains" after this scene only expanded the despair horizon in this movie. At this point humanity was effectively out of options.
Well with the corpses at Area 51 bio weapons could have been developed, given that you had idea what there biochemistry is and how it works. But yeah realisticly speaking besides using the Zar Bomb there was not much else to be done
they are people saying that there is a book that tell the story in the perspective of the aliens.
the ship's energy shields were reduced to 10% thanks to the nuclear bomb.
we just needed one more nuclear bomb to destroy the alien ship😐
@@ivanelias3916 But at what cost? Talk about a Pyrrhic victory. We beat the aliens and obliterate countless cities while nuking hundreds of millions of people.
@@crispinjulius5032 war is that way really cruel.
we were facing annahilation👽
@@crispinjulius5032Then evacuate the people i think Its not that hard to run to a bunker
"Negative" one word brought everyones mood down
Enter Coronavirus.
@@sucktitles Negative
This is a textbook example of how to end Act 2 in a screenplay. Total despair. Love this movie.
Legit
100% historically accurate
War of 1996, never forget
Lmfao!
Corny asf
RIP Russell Casse. 1950-1996.
You saved us all with your sacrifice.
@@calvinnickel9995 $%^& those alien assholes!
They shoulda used nukes when the shields were knocked out
manuel ramirez IKR?!
Just have the B-2’s escorted by a few fighters while the guys on the mother ship upload the virus. Fire a test missile to make sure the shields are down and then nuke’em.
Of course that wouldn’t have been nearly as dramatic.
Luke Petersen the second movie should’ve been about how 3rd world countries managed to take down the ships.. since most of them don’t have much of an Air Force
And make earth a nuclear waste?
just use a high altitude plane and carpet bombing the alien craft... best use a MOAB bomb
Czar bomba!
I like how Huston was leveled by one of our own weapons rather than an alien death laser, the sheer devastation of the nuke vs the alien ship floating there unscathed afterwards gives you a sense of hopelessness
@RubiiX I'm pretty sure that's not canon.
@RubiiX i read it and nothing like that ever comes. Can you point me the page, chapter or paragraph?
When they were on air force one the secretary of defense informs the president that after talking with the Joint Chiefs they military was already asking the president to authorize a nuclear counter attack
@@brummyuk2151 i highly doubt it i know its all fiction but if an alien race actually came to earth (like actually traveled light years to get here) we wouldnt stand a chance in hell a nuke would be like throwing a rock at a tank to an alien race that had to travel probably faster than light speed and dodging black holes and sht we would just get wiped out
That bomb should have been detonated beneath the ship, not at the side or on the topside. A large fraction of the bombs energy was wastefully radiated away into the atmosphere. A bomb exploded beneath would have transferred much more energy onto the alien ship, plus the energy that would have been reflected from the Earths surface. A bit like a banger exploding in your open palm would only cause superficial burns but the same banger exploded with your fingers wrapped round it would cause the loss of your hand.
Of course why would an interstellar spaceship hover so close to the ground is questionable as well. There would be no reason for them to get closer than say geostationary orbit. Indeed, I would expect attacking aliens to still be out in the Oort cloud diverting comets at the Earth.
Alan Brown Armageddon Reference ?
“imagine a Firecracker..
I got the Armageddon reference here!
DUDE IS A FUCKING MOVIE NOT REAL FUCKING LIFE
Since the fighter planes could not penetrate the alien shield that extended to the ground ,which it did according to canon in "The War of the Worlds", the cruise missile likewise would have been stopped by the shield.
Humans: [destroy their own city]
Aliens: Didn't expect that reaction, but that's ok
Lmao, U killed me,🤣😂probably confused the F and scared the shit out of the Aliens. They were thinking this people are willing to sacripised themselves, WT Hell did we get ourselves into lol.
WHAT? Aliens didn't had attacked that city yet?
😂😂😂😂😂
LMAO, !! priceless
Aliens: "A suprise to be sure but a welcome one."
I like how that bomber launched a nuke from like half a mile away and then really slowly turned around to fly away from it.
HAHAHAHAHHA EXACTLY
The slow turning is why they fire their missiles from beyond the horizon in real life.
The bomber could have fired from much further away if the president hadnt took so long to say "deploy." He waited until the last second, by which time the bomber was so close it's likely it was wiped out by the blast.
@@RighteousPursuitMinistries I think the bomber survived
@@JustRememberWhoYoureWorkingFor i think its cgi and isn't real
I love that even when the rest of the war room thinks the nuke strike was successful, the General reserves judgement. Likely because he knows that, even if it worked, it would require nuking the rest of the planet to defeat the aliens...and thus...ourselves. Thank you, this has been my Independence Day TED talk.
Your observation is way clever than any TED talk
After the first alien attack the secretary of defense tells the President he talked with the joint chiefs of staff and the military was immediately asking the president to authorize a nuclear counter-attack against them but President Wittmore quickly dismissed the idea of using American weapons over the US itself
Loggia was great in this film. Next to Whitmore the general was my favourite character.
There's been over 2000 nuclear tests on Earth and we're still here. 36 nuclear attacks to kill of the destroyers would be worth it
@@Lucky-nv2ph "This comment brought to you by the Office of Nuclear Energy & Department of Defense."
The aliens where like thank for destroying the city for us
The alien that was supposed to get the job of shooting the plasma cannon was probably like "DAMN IT! I WANTED TO BLOW UP THE PLACE MYSELF!"
Belka would: [] Like to know your location
@@wayfarer3535 *AVE BELKA*
We wasted a multi billion dollar missile/warhead and an entire city was destroyed in the process, within a matter of minutes.
I love the way the president hesitates before giving the final order to authorise the use of nuclear weapons.
I think any US President would hesitate at the use of a Nuclear Weapon in any circumstance
@@garyhisgun4996
One would hope ...
@@garyhisgun4996 not Trump...
It's the most powerful weapon a humanities disposal. Any decent human being in a position of leadership would hesitate to using nukes
@@garyhisgun4996 I don't know about Hillary Clinton (if she is president)
God, the B-2 is such an awesome plane.
Wait till you see the B-21, it's successor.
@@badendhappy2903 Saw its launch but I don't feel the Raider can top up the beautiful design of the B-2. B-21 seems like an inexpensive alternative to B-2.
The novelization does a great job of describing this scene. Instead of just seeing some ground turbulence, it shows the mushroom cloud climbing into the air above Houston.
Did they mention if civilians died ?
@@edercortes1960 Did they mention if aliens still bomb Huston?
@@麥可傑克森-t6r No …not really but the movie implies that New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta and Philly were destroyed
@@edercortes1960 So, nothing of value was lost. :)
This was so much better than the sequel.
They knew how to make films in the 90's.
That was a sequel? I always thought it was a parody.
I never saw the sequel yet I know lol
@@EvanXDev I imagine that they know how to make movies now as well.
The sequel is the reason why the aliens don't visit us.
Love how the overhead computer view has the B2 banking away to the right when it went to the left.
The cameras who gave them position of bomber was on the ground I think.
@@sum9796 :))) Sry buddy, a left turn is a left turn...no matter what perspective.
LMAO
one of my most favourite film ever. This is the best and only film of alien invasion that i could truly feel and enjoyed the flow of terror from the very beginning until the end. Didn't found any of similar breathtaking film recently.
True. And then they made a ridiculous sequel that we never asked for.
@@corkystorky yeah agree. The sequel was horrible. i guess they rushed it too far, far less detailed and absurd leap technology concept which is clearly not their expertise, no terror at all. soo sad.
corkystorky it was indeed rushed because they had a whole other script involving Will smith, only he dropped out in the middle of production, so the writers had no other choise then to rush it.
Second Renaissance has a similar vibe of complete hopelessness in a war against machines.
This is one of the best movies from my childhood i am 28 and i still love this movie i watch this movie every 4th of July.
A fun fact about this scene, I think from a comic or novel released at the time (though I cant find it now, god im old)
On approach they basically laughed at the small number of "stealth" aircraft, that they could easily detect, more so after entire airforces were destroyed with relative ease. They didnt even launch fighters, thats how little they thought of our weapons. Their shields were impervious to our guns and missiles.
When the blast shook their ship, the aliens had their shields reduced to 10%. They were completley shook and in panic. Especially since there were several other B2's loaded with nukes. They had no idea that humans would have or use such self destructive weapons, weapons that would poison the very world they were used on. To them nuclear science was a stepping stone in their evoloution, a primitive energy source, Never weaponized.
This means that on all the worlds they conquered, no matter how advanced or desperate, no one used weapons like these.
It would be like starting a fight with a guy in a weelchair, only for him to set a grenade off in his lap. Just pure madness from their point of view.
Despite all their advantages, they didnt account for mankinds ability to destroy itsself, because what race would make such terrible weapons to use on themselves?
“In all our years of extermination, violence, slaughter, it was never personal... But we will tell you now, what we're about to do to your stubborn, annoying little planet,
We're going to enjoy it. Very, very much.”"
"Yup we're all kinds of stubborn!"
I have a lot of issues with alien “immunity” from nuclear weapons.
I understand it is a huge plot device. But I just can’t open my mind to anything constructed that could take on a even a small tactical nuke as shown.
The energy is just..... insane.
Comment above says apparently the nuke actually did knockout a large portion of the ship's shield. A second nuke would have destroyed it.
When you realise the heat of the blast is several million degrees Celsius unless they have ships like the one on stargate Atlantis it would have at least done some damage.
Shut up you mug
Once the aliens spotted the Stealth bombers and knew their payload they probably thought " thats cute" knowing full well they could tank it.
Hell a the B2 bomber is some if not our best machinery that's like 2 billion dollars in the air yet these aliens barely get a scratch on their paint 😅
@@lameroad1569 thats why this movie is sooo good, i remember seeing the first time as a kid thinking the nukes will win, but once i saw those were useless i was like how on earth are they going to win?
@@lameroad1569 wrong $500million. that $2b was thr RND ammount
Much more hilarious was mars attack scene where the martians makes a laughing gas out of the nuclear explosion
It's possible the aliens didn't see the bombers.
I used to live in Houston when this was filmed. I was like, "Finally, a movie is doing something in Houston"
Well 👁👄👁
"Houston we have a problem."
-Tom Hanks
Apollo 13
That movie was actually released around the same time as Independence Day. Both good movies 👌
I was more pissed off that it literally wasn't even close to Houston on any of the footage, even the freeway signs were wrong... we don't have those here
I love that in the book the other nuclear powers agreed to wait until the results came in before launching their own
"let's allow the americans to destroy their own cities this time" lmao
You'd think the Russians would go ahead with using nukes first lol.
@@SoldierOfFate I think supplemental material makes it clear the Russians and Chinese used nukes on the alien craft in their territory and used their spare craft to assist other countries
Well also no one else other than Russia has the ability to attack with nukes like we do. Russia is the only other nation who can launch a tactical nuke on a tactical missile with direct results. Everyone else has to rely on strategic rockets or traditional bombing to deliver. Russia certainly has more nukes than the US so it wouldn't be strange if they started using them at any given chance. China for example doesn't even have 100 nukes, they might be more willing to wait because it's more precious to hold onto them.
The amazing part was nobody in 96 had any idea that the finale would be a mission to deactivate the shield allowing for a massive attack to destroy all of the the bad guys.
You can't take down a spaceship the size of a Metropolitan area just with conventional missiles.... Something in the explosive range of the Tsar bomba or a photon torpedo is needed. 50MT TNT equivalent and above.
Fun Fact: The original version of the script had President Whitmore abort the nuclear strike after changing his mind. However whilst filming the scene Bill Pullman improvised and ordered the B-2 stealth bomber to fire a nuclear missile which ended up destroying the city of Houston causing millions of casualties. Roland Emmerich was so impressed he kept the scene in the film.
Can't blame them for losing all hope after this scene. The most powerful weapon in humanity's arsenal............ didn't even scratch the alien vessel.
That didn’t look like the B83, the largest nuke the B2 uses, and the USA has even bigger nukes at the time.
Fire some more before the shield recovers.
According to novelization, it did actually. It effectively annihilated their shields, and the aliens were in a state of pure shock when it hit.
@@EvaSlayAllDay334 Yeah, it knocked their shield strength down to 10%, could you imagine if the US had used a LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM armed with 11 W87-0 warheads (each 300kt) would have easily annihilated that alien ship.
Apparently there’s a novelization of this film and in it the humans didn’t realize that nuke strike disabled the shield. So in that iteration, a second strike would’ve killed the alien ship.
If you think about it it’s surprising no other country tried salvoing nukes at a single target.
Movie Mistakes:
1:36 Plane turns left, but next shot of it on radar shows it turning right
2:38 Wipes eyeball and suddenly we get visual confirmation (This wouldn't change the scope hes using)
@@corkystorky Talk all you want, its never going to change the mistake :)
@@corkystorky Sadly your found my comment because 49 people agree with me...who are you again? No one :)
@@corkystorky I saw two replies by you but didn't read them, sorry Me and 49 people dont care what you have to say. If your family and lack of friends leaves you feeling lonely, i suggest you go visit a church and make some new friends to help with your insecurities while you troll videos late at night, Good luck :)
@@MerchantIvoryfilms Did you even understand what he or she said? the plane was going left but on the radar it was going right (Maybe the reason why it is going right on the radar was because the mapping was from ground and not on the sky or space
Please don't start a conflict
Please forgive me about my grammar
@@MerchantIvoryfilms Please don't start a conflict by teasing or making someone annoyed by saying something like "Who are you again? No one" please have a normal conversation and respect people
This was so crippling it's so primal it's like the prehistoric people trying to kill the Bear with their best spears and the Bear's skin is impenetrable and now it can kill them all
This scene redefine the phrase: "Houston we have a problem"
The actor who plays the B-2 pilot is Jeff Philips who starred in Brisco County Jr. as Whip Morgan
Funny thing about this scene, when you realize their ships could probably reach light speed or close to light speed....even running into a spec of dust at that speed would create
an insane release of energy, 100000 100 megaton warheads or more...a single warhead would be like shooting an M-1 Abrams with a BB gun. Their shields would be so strong it would be beyond any human comprehension. This is a fun movie but if this really happened humanity would be toast in about 5 minutes
asuming they move over lightspeed in real space and not in some short of alternate space or dimension (ie: hyperspace in scifi lore)
There is absolutely nothing in this film that indicates they can hit light speed.
@@EvaSlayAllDay334 They do. The novel and sequel confirm it.
Don't they use a worm hole in the sequel? So they may not actually be anywhere near lightspeed@@NorthernNorthdude91749
Don't they travel through wormholes ??
I remember when I first saw this at about 12 years old, I was like "wtf, they survived a nuclear bomb!? Oh shit, we're dead!"
There was a lot of dumb in this movie but the things they did right, they did so well that the bad didn't really matter. It's still a fun movie 25 years later
A Borg cube has 28 cubic kilometers vokume and you need hundreds of photon and quantum torpedoes to "stop" it. A photon torpedo has a TNT equivalent of 60 MT.
What do they hope to achieve by firing one single nuke against a much bigger juggernaut than a Borg cube?
@@martinm.1967 Because Star Trek doesn't respect physics all that well. A Borg cube is 3 km along each straight line. By comparison, the Tsar Bomba 50 megaton nuke created a plasma ball some 5 km wide. Meaning a Photon Torpedo would create a miniature sun larger than the Borg Cube itself.
As to what it would do to one of those City Destroyers, thats easy. Look at what it did to the ship in orbit that carried all of those City Destroyers. If not for the shields, a nuke would have obliterated those ships.
That bomber was way too close even for a tactical nuclear weapon
Because clearly they were seeking military realism when making this movie.
Only because the president took so long to order "deploy."
I never get bored with this scene. Lets put the strategical and tactical realism aside (like using ICBMs), it is a one prety good scene. Nuclear missiles are ultimate weapons of humanity, theoretically with no yield limit. Using them is a last hope act, with nothing more powerfull in arsenal of Earth. Imagine those expectations in hearts of president, general, and all people involved, one day after three major U.S. cities with millions being destroyed in single attack and best jets massacred in a desperate counter-attack. Watching those B2 is terrific, watching nuclear missile being launched and impacted even more. The shock after making none damage to Destroyer is hard to imagine - most powerfull weapon is completely useless. And I can imagine aliens easily tracked those stealth bombers, but they found it useless to send a squadrons of Attackers to intercept, being overriden by self-confidence and shield-reliance. Brutally strong scene.
When I saw this scene for the first time, I didn't think that the atomic bombs were useless, but that the film was unrealistic. A nuclear bomb should have dusted the alien ship. The energy requirement to absorb this energy with shields or at least dissipate it would simply be far too high.
@@OpenGL4ever Another person commented in a different thread that in one of the books, written from the aliens point of view, the nuke knocked down the shields to 10% so a second nuke would have taken them out.
@@majordbag2many overestimate the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons. The basis of the destructive potential of nuclear bombs is a shock wave due to strong air currents. The plasma ball is destructive at the moment of explosion, but it has a small radius and a short lifetime. From the point of view of physics, the explosion of a nuclear bomb is an artificial star that existed for the shortest possible time. A civilization capable of interstellar flights had to master the technologies of protection from supernovae, the gravitational influence of planets, electromagnetic waves of stars and collisions with asteroids. I strongly doubt that a huge spacecraft that managed to enter the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and at the same time experienced enormous loads will not be able to withstand some kind of nuclear bomb. In fact, in this film, humanity did not have a single chance, except for a viral attack and sabotage. That, against an over-developed alien race is impossible and ineffective. Even today, there are fingerprint, eye, and even genetic passwords. The film is beautiful, but unrealistic. Humanity would accept the fate of the indigenous peoples of America.
@@OpenGL4everNot so sure about that. You don't need to absorb or dissipate it, if you can move it away. They could be shielding their ships with the same type of magnetic field that they're using for confinement in a pure fusion reactor. Their weapon seems to be some sort of plasma that explosively disperses. In order to do the level of destruction it does, that's gotta be well into the hundreds of terajoules range. If you can contain that level of energy in a weapons system, then you're capable of enveloping your ship in a field that can shrug off a 750 kiloton nuclear explosion.
What I'm basically saying is that they're linking their offensive and defense systems into the same thing: a massive confinement field capable of constraining nearly a petajoule of energy.
The ship is a huge magnetic donut that contains a fusion reaction and prevents a fusion reaction from entering.
@@AlxnickWell, that's a nice fan fiction. We don't even know what kind of field is that. However, these kinds of alien "invasions" are quite cheap. Such an advance species doesn't even have to interact with us directly in the process of an invasion. Take a look at The Dark Forest. The aliens from that book sent a single 1 x 3 meters object. :)
Wouldn't the nuclear detonation could have temporary wipe their shields out from the EMP?
Space OdJobs not if you have alien technology, cmon...
That only works on digital systems like the ones we use in earth, Aliens as stated in the movie use technology that differs vastly from our own, hence why the Area 51 scientists were unable to do tests with the Alien Craft they had ; something along these lines "we were unable to run any tests since we could not replicate their power source" ,it could be assumed that their tech is immune or highly resistant to EMP like analog systems used by humans.
And yet David wrote a human computer virus that affected THEIR systems XD
Love the movie... but seriously that is so stupid
@@Optimusprime240 While the virus thing ita a stretch to say the least, David could only do so cause the aliens left a way to convert the languaje from their computers and sytems to ours; the "hidden signal " on the satelites that connected their systems to relay the signal for the countdown to Earth's satelites and once David figures that out he started analyzing that "code" , in a deleted scene you can see that the Area 51 scientists couldnt understand the OS of the craft they had and David pointing out their communications worked in the same way, like i said its by no means a perfect explanation but at least they tried there.
If that were the case, they would never had survived interstellar travel at speeds close to or higher than the speed of light as the sparse amount of electrons and protons scattered through interstellar space would be like an intense wall of radiation and even a grain of sand would impact with greater energy than nuclear weapons.
“Confirm that new deploy fixed this annoying bug”
-“Negative”
Aliens: "Well, they destroyed the city for us, guess I'll head out."
Nuke explodes
Alien on ship: did you hear something?
Other alien: no mate
Another alien: Captain, that explosion has done our job by destroying the city below.
Captain: Then let’s go to destroy the other cities.
I'm pretty sure that nukes would be very effective against city destroyers if used correctly. Conventional missiles were ineffective against shielding that protected alien fighters but were strong enough to knock them off course with direct hits. Nuke blast would probably have a somewhat smaller size ratio to the city destroyer than conventional missile blasts had to the alien fighter, but if you pound the destroyer with several nukes at once, maybe it would be possible to knock it off course too. For example, hitting with nukes from above and along the same side of the ship's circumference could "overburden" it from one side, flipping it. And being flipped at this altitude would crash it into the earth, probably destroying it, or at least making this particular day the worst the crew had in their entire lives. There is so much room to slide/fall to your doom in a city-sized vessel. ^^
It would have destroyed the shields with that many nukes.
If Remember Correctly The Aliens Almost Got Fucked,It Takes 2 Nukes to Take Down One city Destroyer,That Cia Guy is a Bitch But He Was right Another nuke Would Have Killed it
The only thing protecting the alien ships was the powerful shields. The nukes wouldn’t even be able to penetrate it. They would just end up nuking themselves trying to destroy the destroyer ships. When the shields were disabled, they were able to bring them down. But that was without the shields. So there’s no doubt the nuked would of worked but only without their shields. So no it wouldn’t of been effective. It’s technology far more advanced than human capabilities. They were only able to figure out how to get through it. A simple computer virus.
They put in the sequel that a multi sided 'drone' attack was sufficient to knock out capital ship shields with almost trivial ease... so I'd expect the City Destroyers to go down if they were hit with a sufficiently large nuke.
If the Destroyers were truely invulnerable, they wouldn't have ever bothered launching their fighter ships in defence. The movie calls the small ships 'Attackers' but we only see them used to defend against enemy fighter threats.
@@mrpineapple3942 no it wouldn’t.
. . ''my our children forgive us'' . . EPIC LINE !!
I heard it as "May our children forget us"
@@AnonymousViewer sorry my bad u got better hearing than I do thank you
It is "may our children forgive us."
@@masere Thank you.
B2 was too close, poor pilots
And the observation crew at the bottom. The EMP from the nuke should have fried all their electronics thus rending their vehicle in-operable which would lead them to travel outside and be exposed to radiation..
I like how the plane banks left and the satellite feed has it going right.
"May our children forgive us...and our grandchildren...and our great grandchildren...and..."
I'm sure we all noticed the blast radius showed up on that screen and they very clearly cut the instant it took out the B-2. I mean what was the President waiting for and did those pilots fire knowing they were going to die?
You know hearts had to have just sunk when the alien's shield just shrugged off the nuclear detonation.
This was one of the biggest "oh crap" moments in cinema. We hit them with everything and they aren't even scratched. What's left to do except to die?
this is a like a more realistic version of the part in ace combat 7 where destroying the arsenal bird failed the first time.
From what I remembered the bomb heavily damaged their shields. They would have needed another 1 or 2 bombs to damage or destroy the ship itself.
This is probably the one time where movies insinuated that a nuke totally renders my hometown of Houston, TX uninhabitable.
You could see for a brief moment the bomb hitting the shield before being blinded. Nice effects.
They give up only after one missile.
Stargate guys: this is cute. Pulls out several mark 8 nukes.
I bet their shields were designed for more defense against missiles. There is Cosmic radiation in space that is lethal to us.
Or worse yet
Halo guys: UNSC navy uses all of theirs!
@@zonnodon163 If humanity in this movie were as advanced as the UNSC, we'd swat them like flies in the first battle.
@@SoldierOfFate I'd love to one of the UNSC's planet killer NOVAs being used, that's probably overkill though. One MAC cannon would do it.
Or the Mark IX Gatebuster warheads used by the SGC.
i saw it 50 times, and always i love it, this movie with Armageddon were the best of 90s
1:36...B2 Spirit banks left. 1:43...B2 shown banking right.
2:42 the music gets me every time in this scene...
I honestly would have loved seeing different nations reaction to these aliens xD
imagine detonating a nuke beneath the mothership. since its shields can repel the force of a nuke it would reflect so much of the energy of the blast into the ground. like a nuclear echo
How can a 15 mile wide city size interstellar spaceship not have any sort of long range radars and weapons? Heck those bombers would even have trouble attacking a single carrier battle group.
there is no way that plane that dropped the bomb survived
They filmed the scene that shows a devastated Houston in Detroit they just started filming a random street at night.
Or a frozen cityscape with no power and ice everywhere.
@@armandomercado2248 Except the winter storm in Texas was a natural disaster, and Detroit is a Demotard disaster.
@@charlesferdinand422 Well... In a way they're both man made disasters. Your hatred of Detroit and dems prevents you from seeing it.
alien ship had been through interstellar travel , passing to harsh environment such as gamma ray and radiation zones, so its pretty obvious that nuke was just nothing to it.
Brilliant film, i love the way the plane releases the nuke and moves to the left!
Actually, in the original version of the script, the nuke was effective in deactivating the shield due to the EMP effect. The aliens were deploying attack crafts to engage the B2s because another nuke would actually succeed in destroying the spaceship.
Fun fact. The Aliens were shitting their pants in fear of a follow up nuke attack because a single air-launched nuke nearly overwhelmed the shield system on their destroyer ships. Another nuke following closely after would've punched right through the shield and destroyed the ship. Basically two of these nukes per destroyer would've been enough to wipe out the destroyer fleet.
0:37 Was always weird for me to go to U of H down 45 and reach that spot. Obviously they used a model here since they didn't close down that highway at the time of filming (that I'm aware of) but still nice to see that someone was paying some good attention to make it look like the right spot.
The crazy thing is this didn't even break the summer high temperature record for Houston
Funny how they basically destroyed houston for them, the aliens didnt even have to fire 😂
I love how at 1:16 President Whitmore lightly nods and reaches at air after General Gray soberly says that if he wishes to deploy the nuclear weapons, "the time is now." Pullman and Loggia are a masterclass in this film.
They should have dressed up the nuke like a pizza delivery man and rang the doorbell and took off.
When the aliens open the shield to get their pizza….BOOM!
But what if they are vegietarians, and the pizza is sent right back!!!!!!!!!!
end of humanity cuz some fucking pepperoni
😳. F**k me!
I never thought of that!
Uhhh - hey wait! One of the bomb pilots could be a ventriloquist! He could throw his voice when the aliens come out & say “vegetarians rock!”
If the aliens say “No they don’t!” Then we give them the pepperoni pizza & BOOM!”
If the aliens say “damn right! Vegetarians Rock!” …. The the ventriloquist bomber say” WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE!!!!!
When the aliens look away somebody jumps in and picks off all the pepperoni & repaces it with tomatoes!
World saved.
That kind of reminds me of the War of the Worlds scene where the aliens opened up the hatch and took Tom Cruise’s grenade belt which then exploded inside
Actually, that was the plan - Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum both thought delivering a pizza but said "let's pretend we are delivering a virus" when in actual fact they uploaded a pizza menu and all the aliens were squabbling over the 2-4-1 deal and who wanted stuffed crust that they lost their shit and both Jeff and Will bounced leaving a nuke behind with a pizza oven.
@@rubix4195 Whoooooaaaa! Dude! The shear genius of that strategy has me awestruck!
Perhaps it was a visual tribute, but the twisted lamp post in the foreground of the night vision shot after the attack resembles the Martian heat ray weapon from 1953's The War of the Worlds.
The shear hopelessness they must have felt after deploying the most powerful weapon know to humans.
Anyone else notice the plane banked to the left but the computer screen shows it turning to the right?
Man. Those shields are strong
The armored car’s radio is even stronger.
How much Megatons was that nuke?
Had Whitmore known just how dangerously close that Destroyer was to being crippled after a single nuke, he would have followed it up with a second strike and vaporized it. IIRC, the novelizations stated that a single nuke dropped the Destroyers shields to 10% power, which means a second strike would've incapacitated it, if not outright blew it out of the sky.
If only he'd known. At this moment, before Levinson realized they could use the Aliens own communications against them with a computer virus, Whitmore and the entire panel at Area 51 must've been feeling an overwhelming sense of dread. If even Nukes weren't enough to bring it down, then they must have felt absolutely hopeless in that moment, because they had nothing else to fight back with.
In which novel is that?
@@matheus5230 The novelization of the first movie. In the part with the nuke, its written from the aliens POV. They had no idea that we had nuclear weapons (apparently its a very rare technology for races to create) and were confused when a single Human aircraft launched a single projectile. They were genuinely wondering what the sense was in it before it detonated. It took the shields down to 10%, and the aliens were starting to panic over it. A second nuke would have destroyed it completely.
Even back when it was first in theaters people were saying "why not drop the nuke on top of it? That would protect the city from most of the blast."
Wouldn't matter as the ship would still survive
@@armorpro573
Way to miss the point.
@@DjVortex-w If they tried flying a bomber, it'd probably get shot down.
Weird that they didn’t just try to hit it again.
The cynicism of the person who wrote the script is amazing. Did he seriously believe that a nuclear strike would be carried out on a ship that was hovering over a city that had not yet been destroyed? Or does he think that this is what the US government will actually do?
Never get bored watching this classic!!
1:52 I looked more like a dad watching sports on the weekend than I was feeling the joy of being hit by a missile.😂
Hey that's a solid way of taking them down after they learned how to disable their shields
after they learned how to disable their shields, using nukes would cost earth defeat, since other countries had to fight as well, it will destroy the fighter jets and the civilians below, they had to face the alien assholes mano y mano
@@corkystorky if the ships were moving from city to city it would be less of a risk. Also given the 'exisrential threat' alien assholes would be, killing a few million civilians is CERTAINLY much better than letting the species be annihilated in totality.
I don't think they moved that fast city to city, mostly when there's already an engagement they just slowly move by coordinating with the smaller fighters. But on hindsight what you said is correct, if earth just sent B2 bombers right there
Two problems with that:
-the B2 is extremely unwieldy compared to a jet fighter. It would be a sitting duck for the Alien's attacker craft if they saw it coming.
-During humanity's second attempt to destroy them, the destroyers were above populated areas. A nuke would be suicide considering the countless civilian casualties and any fighter craft trying to fight off the attackers.
-The last battle was a desperate assault planned within less than 3 hours prior to dawn. There was no time to coordinate anything effective, not to mention the lack of trained pilots and the reliance on volunteers.
But did the B2 survive launching that close.
And what would several in a row, or larger ones, have done.
Logically, you should know that you don't destroy a city sized ship with a few hundred missiles (final fight scene). These nuclear missiles used by the B-2s should have been used when the shields came down.
Anyone think it's weird that they didn't try launching the nuke so that it blew up above the spaceship thereby limiting damage to civilians on the ground level?
At 1:36 the plane drops a missile and turns left... When you're watching it on radar it turns right... Could you they hire at these movie companies? They have no attention to detail!