Someone I know made the comment of how well this film holds up as a pan-and-scan full screen VHS copy on a tiny television. Seeing as how, at least for a few months, this was the primer for what American Imperial Cinema should look like :: sweeping, bold, clean and richly photographed, densely designed (visually and sonically), with elaborate special-effects [i.e.: explosions], starring the children of the most prosperous and decadent society on the planet, and of a populist mindset — in other words, Hollywood, — it's interesting to consider where the spill-over attraction lies. I suspect part of the appeal is Emmerich's play with forms and shapes; stylish and elementary in his characterization and scenario-design, his aesthetic field is also one of pop-simplicity, following a logic of red / blue / yellow, the frame constantly riddled with distinct and giant squares, rectangles, circles [in the sky], triangles, etc. The device of the Welcome Wagon embodies this ideal — in an attempt to communicate with the alien-ship, an army helicopter is outfitted with a panel of alternating lights, as if anticipating a reaction simply by the threshold of language and intent; meaning before meaning, making visible the drive hidden within meaning: an acknowledgement of the unconscious foundation of communication, the act itself. Utopian-Era American Cinema proved so effective because of its understanding and refining of this knowledge.
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