This is one of my Top 10 movies of all time - a perfect popcorn film 🍿
My 10 year old daughter had a great time watching it and actually told me the following piece of trivia. Apparently, when Will Smith was dragging the alien across the desert, there was a funky smell on set that day and he ad-libbed the line, “And what’s that smell?”, which they kept in the film.
Me - 9.95/10
Daughter 9.5/10
Don't remember who said it, but I once heard a comment saying (not a literal quote, I only remember the sense of it),
"If aliens can be beaten by earthly computer viruses, I want nothing to do with those aliens".
Before I had heard that comment I found the movie quite entertaining myself, but once I knew how ridiculous the storyline actually is I can't watch it anymore without cracking up.
You have to embrace the insanity.
shareI love that movie too :D I've been trying to make it a tradition for 4th of July celebrations, but it hasn't caught on with the family yet.
It's true, I remember reading about that scene. You see, they were filming on location in the Nevada desert when Will had to drag the alien prop in the parachute, and apparently there were some salt flats less than a few miles away that had dead, rotting brine shrimp in them. The wind happened to change and blow over the filming spot, and poor Will got to smell that rank odor, and that's what caused him to improvise and yell that line on film. They left it in because it played into the story part about how the bio-mechanical suit the alien was wearing smelled nasty.
Nice cover story. The truth is that Will Smith has a reputation for being quite flatulent.
shareAh, so that was the smell.
shareReally? I got that trivia from IMDB:
(at around 1h 7 mins) The scene in which Will Smith drags the unconscious alien across the desert was filmed on the salt flats near Great Salt Lake in Utah. Smith's line, "And what the hell is that *smell*?" was unscripted. Great Salt Lake is home to tiny crustaceans called brine shrimp. When they die, the bodies sink to the bottom of the lake (which isn't very deep) and decompose. When the wind kicks up just right, the bottom mud is disturbed and the smell of millions of decaying brine shrimp can be very, very bad. Apparently, nobody warned Will.
It sounds like it would make a great tradition.
shareYeah :D Also barbecuing in the backyard, making a cake modeled after the American flag, and playing with small fireworks on the back patio (preferably the concrete part). We've had some issues trying to find a place to watch fireworks around town, but we did what we could. TV has some spectacular fireworks shows in the major cities.
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