The director of 'Independence Day,' 'Godzilla' and 'The Patriot'

Hear the sharp voice of Stephen Hunter, critic and chronicler of cinema, whose words strike not with malice but with the precision of a craftsman’s chisel: “The director of ‘Independence Day,’ ‘Godzilla,’ and ‘The Patriot’ has certain attributes, all of which are given full vent in ‘The Day After Tomorrow.’ He's crude, stupid, slick, cornball, predictable, laughable, relentless, trivial and, the sum of all these, ridiculous. He's never made a movie you could believe and he still hasn't.” In these lines, scathing and unflinching, Hunter does not merely mock — he warns. He speaks to the hollowness of spectacle without soul, of creation without conviction, of art that seeks to dazzle but forgets to mean. For the ancient truth remains: that art without truth is noise, and story without belief is an illusion destined to vanish like smoke.

In the old world, poets and sculptors understood that to create was to bear witness to the divine. A statue of marble, if shaped without spirit, was a corpse; a song sung without truth was but an echo in the void. So too, in the modern age, the storyteller of the screen must serve not only the eye, but the heart. When Hunter speaks of crudeness, slickness, and triviality, he condemns not merely poor taste, but the surrender of art to machinery — the victory of spectacle over sincerity. He looks upon the films of Roland Emmerich, and sees a craftsman who builds towers of destruction, yet forgets to build belief. The images may roar, but the soul is silent.

Think of the parable of the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the wonders of the ancient world. It was vast and mighty, a statue that touched the heavens — but within a few decades it fell, broken by the tremors of the earth. It had been made to impress, not to endure. And so too with the art that Hunter decries — colossal in appearance, but fragile in truth. Such works may draw multitudes to marvel, yet leave no trace in memory. For art that endures is not measured by its noise or its size, but by its honesty, by the quiet pulse of humanity within it.

Yet let us not mistake his harshness for cruelty. In his ridicule, Hunter performs the sacred duty of the critic — the guardian of meaning. His anger is not against the artist alone, but against a world that mistakes distraction for beauty. He grieves that cinema, once the mirror of the human condition, has become a carnival of explosions and clichés. In his eyes, the tragedy is not that Emmerich is predictable or cornball, but that he is capable and yet content to be so. The critic’s fire is the fire of a disappointed believer, one who knows what art could be, and mourns what it has become.

Consider the tale of Sophocles, whose plays stirred both gods and mortals. His tragedies were not built on grandeur alone, but on the trembling truth of human frailty. He showed kings brought low by pride, and mortals redeemed through suffering. Centuries later, his words still breathe because they are not mere performance, but reflection. They remind us that the duty of the artist is not to dazzle the eyes, but to awaken the soul. The same is true for any craft — to pursue depth over display, truth over approval, substance over speed.

There is a deeper wisdom hidden in Hunter’s condemnation. He teaches us that even talent, when not disciplined by truth, becomes hollow. To be relentless is not enough, if what one pursues is emptiness. To be slick is not skill, if it hides the absence of sincerity. The artist, like the philosopher, must learn humility before truth — to create not for applause, but for meaning. The ancients called this virtue arete, the excellence that comes when purpose and passion align. Without it, all art, no matter how grand, decays into ridiculousness — impressive, perhaps, but forgotten.

So, my listener, take this as your inheritance: in all your labors, seek not to impress, but to believe. Let your work, whatever form it takes, spring from conviction, not from vanity. If you build, let it be strong in meaning; if you write, let it be honest in heart. Remember always that truth is the foundation of art, and belief its crown. The critic’s harsh words, though wrapped in fire, carry this eternal lesson — that to create without sincerity is to betray both oneself and one’s audience.

And thus, as the echo of Stephen Hunter’s judgment fades, it leaves behind not scorn but challenge: Do not be content to dazzle the world with sound and fury. Build something that endures. Speak something that matters. For the measure of art — and of life — is not in how loudly it moves the senses, but in how deeply it stirs the soul.