A Completely Random Thought

I have no idea when exactly this came to me, though I'd vaguely pinpoint last weekend. However, I can't recall seeing, doing, or hearing anything that would have touched off this thought. It's strange.

You may have seen the movie Independence Day. If you have, you may recall Randy Quaid's character, the drunken crop duster. He believed he was abducted by aliens, the same aliens that attack Earth in the movie. At the end of the movie he sacrifices his life to destroy the warship that's about to blast Area 51, and it's supposed to be a triumphant, heroic moment, where he strikes back at those that traumatized him and are trying to destroy his world.

Here's what I wondered: Is there any possibility that he wasn't abducted by aliens? That it was the result of drinking bad homemade moonshine, or perhaps a symptom of some neurological disease? I could see those doofuses that were heckling him in the diner at the beginning of the movie getting him totally wasted, then messing with him and convincing him that he was abducted. It'd make all the teasing that gave him even funnier (to them).

What would that mean for the story? It doesn't change the fact he gave his life to save a large group of people from annihilation, including his children, but still. It seems likely it was this "abduction" that wrecked his life, and for it to turn out there was no abduction? That it was just a joke played on him by some local jackasses, or a figment of a mind that doesn't quite work right*? And here he is, bellieving that he's getting some payback on the creatures that destroyed his life, when really, he was the one that ruined his life (or it was his neighbors, or just bad luck)? Would that be the universe playing a cosmic joke on somone, and if so, is it being played on him, or the aliens who would have no clue who this loon that flew his fighter jet into their giant cannon was?

Or, if we accept he was abducted, why does it have to be the same extra-terrestrials that were attacking the Earth at that moment? The aliens plan seem to largely involve wiping out centers of population with death beams, then sending a massive land force down to eliminate the survivors. What does abducting Randy Quaid teach you there, that he can actually return alive from? If you're testing to see whether he can withstand your weapons or the effects of your city-destroying blast, he's probably not going to still be alive after that, right? Frankly, a simple "catch and release" sounds too gentle for a group that told Bill Pullman that what the human race could do was 'die'.

So. There it is. Do with it what you will.

*If he had a separate personality, that could explain it, right? Because he wouldn't have any awareness of what that personality was doing, so when he reasserted control, he'd have to try and explain what he was seeing and feeling at the moment as best he could. I know there's no evidence he has a multiple personality, but other than him saying so, there's no actual evidence he was abducted either.