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''I know some of it is fairly classic stuff for genre material,'' says Pullman, who will rejoin Emmerich and Devlin this fall as coproducer and star of an action film called Supertanker. ''But [Emmerich and Devlin] never rest until a scene sounds organic and not like a grade-B movie.'' With such a large cast — supported by Robert Loggia, Judd Hirsch, Margaret Colin, Star Trek: The Next Generation's Brent Spiner, and Harry Connick Jr. — and so many special effects, the actors had to put in minimal screen time to receive star billing. ''The amount of work I had is a third of the usual work,'' says Smith. Goldblum and Pullman, who had acted with nonexistent costars in Jurassic Park and Casper, respectively, were ''aware that the movie is bigger than them, so they don't have to carry it along,'' explains Emmerich.

What was carrying the filmmakers along at that moment was largely fear. The difficulties of working with a studio had been brought home to Emmerich and Devlin on StarGate, which was taken back by executive producer Mario Kassar and recut after poor test screenings. When it received even lower scores the next time out, Emmerich and Devlin did another complete edit one week before release. (The filmmakers' unpleasant experience with MGM might account for the suspicious similarity between the name of ID's evil secretary of defense, Albert Nimziki, and that of MGM's head of advertising, Joe Nimziki.)

Even before the first special effect on Independence Day was completed, a big, scary alien craft was hanging over Emmerich's and Devlin's heads, pressuring them to race through preproduction: Director Tim Burton was preparing a similar film — Mars Attacks! — for Warner Bros. Burton, whom Devlin calls ''a genius,'' was sure to attract A-list actors (Jack Nicholson and Annette Bening are among those who signed on). With a relatively new director and no proven box office star, ID had to reach screens first. When the filmmakers mapped out locations in New York, Washington, D.C., Utah, and L.A., Mars Attacks!admitted defeat by moving its release date to next Christmas.

''We're doing something that's more Irwin Allen,'' says Devlin. ''They're going for the humor, so in a sense, they'll become a parody of our film, which is pretty cool.''

Independence Day may not be, as Fox boasts, the end of the world, but for Emmerich and Devlin, the pressure of making two separately shot films — one with actors, one with computer-generated images — come together at the last minute is enough to finish off any chance of a good night's sleep.

Aug. 5, 1995. Pullman, Smith, and Goldblum cross paths for the first time on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah, a wide-open, flat-as-Cindy-Crawford's-stomach desert, where, grumbles Ute Emmerich, Roland's sister and ID's producer, ''Pizza Hut and Subway are listed as restaurants.'' The endlessly upbeat Pullman — who doesn't have to stretch far to fill the monogrammed cuff links of an idealistic President — is awed to be at the Enola Gay training site on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima. Others have more mundane concerns.


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