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Independence Day Scenes 16-20 Summary

Scene 16

  • Back in California, Russ is in a diner drinking something from a coffee cup (coffee, we can hope?).
  • Some other guys come in and start teasing him about his general befuddlement—and for thinking that he'd been kidnapped by aliens a few years back.
  • As the men are laughing and Russ starts to leave, the whole place starts shaking. One of the alien ships is moving over the area.
  • Suddenly, Russ's whole alien story might not seem so stupid.
  • Russ's family watches the ships appearing from outside their trailer.

Scene 17

  • Now we're elsewhere again, and we see another new character—a young boy running into his mother's bedroom to tell her about the ships appearing in the sky.
  • He finds her and another dude asleep. They feel the rumbling the ships are making, but they think it's just an earthquake. Ah, California.
  • Since they don't think anything is really wrong, they go back to sleep, and the kid disappears.
  • Around the world, the ships are appearing over major cities, and people watch amazed…and start to panic.
  • In New York, David finally realizes something about the signal and rushes back inside his building from his lookout on the roof.
  • On TV, the President gets ready to address the nation. The action is definitely starting to pick up.

Scene 18

  • We're back with the California family, the dude who was sleeping—who turns out to be Steve Hiller—is finally getting out of bed.
  • As he uses the bathroom, he sees the neighbors rushing to move out of their house. He assumes it's about the "quake."
  • Steve goes out to get the paper. He suddenly realizes all of the neighbors are moving out. He looks up at a passing helicopter and follows it toward…the alien spaceship in the sky.

Scene 19

  • Back in New York City, David's talking to Marty. He tells Marty that the aliens are about to strike.
  • He explains his big discovering about the signal: it's all about synchronizing the aliens' movements as the ships move into position, and when they are, he says, it'll be "Checkmate."
  • That does not sound like the good kind of checkmate to us. Ugh, now that nice scene with his father in the park takes on all kinds of foreshadow-y meaning.
  • David calls the White House. Apparently his ex-wife is the President's communications director—so, that's handy.
  • He tries to warn her to leave Washington, but she doesn't want to hear it and hangs up on him.
  • On the TV, the President asks people to leave cities in an "orderly" fashion if they want to flee. Yeah, because that's going to happen.
  • David seems interested in the fact that the President says he and the staff are going to remain in the White House.
  • We then cut to shots of chaos in the streets of New York (see, we knew "orderly" wasn't in the cards), as David rides through on his bike.

Scene 20

  • Steve's getting ready to leave for the El Toro military base, since he's a Marine pilot, and his holiday leave has just been cancelled because of, you know, the aliens.
  • His girlfriend Jasmine isn't pleased that he's heading into danger, as opposed to away from it, so they argue…but they make up before he heads out.
  • These two just can't stay mad at each other.
  • Steve tells Jasmine to get some stuff together and join him on the base. She seems pretty relieved by the idea of being with him in a safe place.