The aliens were defeated too easily

I always thought the primary weapon was exposed and not shielded no matter what and if the aliens got the shields back up, the humans could still get them from there. And I want to say once they (Steven and David) blew up the main ship, the smaller ships could still find a way to bring up their own shields and had some backup system in them. And the shields were supposed to be down for a matter of minutes (like 5-10 minutes is what I'm guessing) since the aliens' technology was so advanced, it would take minutes to use some antivirus program against the virus. And by the time the other countries got word on how to take the ships down, the shields should've been back up. But by the looks of it, they were successful on bringing down every alien ship. So with that, I always believed that the ships could be taken down no matter what if there was a shield or not. I always considered the primary weapon's shield to be the doors/hatches. And once the doors/hatches were open, the primary weapon was naked/exposed. I always thought of Star Fox 64. There is an Independence Day like mission in that game. The ship was shielded, but when the hatches opened ("the hatches are open" was the major quote from that mission), the primary weapon was exposed and could be shot at and that's how you defeated the ship. So since that level/mission screamed Independence Day, I just figured the logic in that applied to what happens in the movie. But maybe I am wrong and the shields went back up after a few minutes and David would have to resend the virus or create a stronger one to bring them down again to expose the primary weapon, but he solved that problem when he and Steven blew up the main ship in space. But I always thought each individual ship on the planet had their own backup system to fight the virus even if the main ship went down. The aliens were supposed to be highly advanced. And someone had to be piloting those smaller ships and weren't drone-like.

Indeed, what a joke.

I don't know about that. David was the one that came up with the virus idea. And he was Jewish. Plus Steven Hiller/Will Smith was black, and President Whitmore didn't look like a redneck to me. I wouldn't classify Russell Casse and his children to be rednecks either. Sure, they lived in an RV/trailer, but I don't categorize everyone that lives in those as a redneck or trailer trash. I happen to have a friend that is into RVs and all that, and he's no redneck or trailer trash. He's far from it.

The tie-in novel also has that as well. I was a little confused by stuff until I looked into it and saw they changed it. Mostly in post-production. But I think they did have some minor reshoots to show Russell Casse in the cockpit of an actual military plane. But the plane we see in the movie is pretty much CGI or a model they could swap in. It looked CGI to me. I think the original footage is on YouTube. I remember seeing it once or twice.