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Did Russell Casse's missile jam because he almost accidentally fired it prior to the attack?

posted 7 years ago by TMC-4 (20494)
4 replies | jump to latest

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/6x8nto/in_independence_day_did_russell_casses_missle_jam/

I'm talking about the scene where he gets himself settled in the pilot's seat and looks at a photo of his kids. Then, he almost fires a missile by accident before cancelling it, thus he "picked a hell of a day to quit drinking." It came to my attention that this small accident is probably what led to the missile malfunction, and his soon to be sacrifice/suicide.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7993) 7 years ago

I hadn't thought of that. You are right.

[–] strntz (12773) 7 years ago

No. The missile wouldn't fire on the ground in the real world, and in this movie adaptation of the craft, the command was cancelled anyway. When he attempts to fire the missile in flight, you can see the explosive bolts fire but the missile jams in the carrier. When it jams, there is an error message on the data screen. If this happened on the ground, Casse would have gotten an error message before he took off.

If you want to pick on something; the missile wouldn't arm until it actually launched, so the only possibility of the big explosion taking down the alien ship is the actual collision between the Hornet and the primary weapons bay, which would seem highly dubious.

[–] bigbadwolf666 (4707) 4 years ago

yea I always thought so. Even with the missle. It was such a huge and highly tech ship it couldve easily either shut it down or handle the explosion. They just wanted to fit the narrative and prove a human can beat aliens.

[–] lolkatz (498) 6 years ago

I think yes. There are such 'plant & payoffs' throughout the movie: Wil Smith gets the NASA letter, so we learn of his desire to fly to space - and eventually he does; Bill Pullman is taking the flak for his indecisiveness early in the movie so that we can witness him transforming into a responsible leader; etc.