Roland Emmerich talks through the creation of Independence Day's "welcome to Earth" scene
The director stopped by Vanity Fair to break down scenes from Independence Day, Stargate, and Moonfall

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Roland Emmerich(‘s hand) illustrates how to make it look like Will Smith is about to deck an alien. Screenshot: Vanity Fair
Roland Emmerich is best known for destroying things magnificently in his movies but, in order to lend context to so much cinematic disaster, he also has to put in a lot of work building things, too. To illustrate this, Emmerich recently stopped by Vanity Fair to talk about how scenes from Moonfall, Stargate, and, most importantly, Independence Day were put together.
Using Vanity Fair’s trademark “draw on some screens with a cool marker” scene breakdown technology, Emmerich takes a look at that part in Independence Day where Will Smith outflies an alien spaceship before approaching a wrecked UFO to punch its pilot in its creepy alien face and deliver the immortal line, “Welcome to Earth.”