By the time it is released next summer it will be an astonishing twenty years since Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day was released, grossing ten times its budget, putting Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin firmly on the map and turning Will Smith into a major international star.
Strangely, Smith is one of the few survivors of the first film to not return for this belated sequel, once again directed by Emmerich, though Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A Fox and Brent Spiner will be returning, even though the latter was apparently killed in the first. Joining them will be The Hunger Games’ Liam Hemsworth,It Follows’ Maika Monroe, The Day After Tomorrow’s Sela Ward and Elysium’s William Fichtner.
The first trailer has been released, and the team’s opinions are unambiguous, whichever way they fall.
Hannah Nicol-Rowe – I’m so bored of these apocalyptic ‘Murica! Fuck yea! films. We all know the worst thing to do is believe your own hype, USA, a little humility might do you good. Especially when said hype is increasingly undeserved. I won’t be rushing to see this. The first one was a masturbatory project and this one looks no different. Not even William Fichtner can redeem it, if anything I’m disappointed with him.
I bet it looks epic though. Still not going.
Matthew Rutland – Whilst the 1996 original was hardly “original” it did have the charisma and star power of the then hot and relevant Will Smith to propel it into the stratosphere. Sadly that’s where it should have stayed.
The problem is, in the last twenty years a lot has changed, and we expect a lot more from our intergalactic fare than “oh no, aliens, eek.” The visuals? A sub-par example of bland CGI more suited to a SyFy movie or Asylum brand than Hollywood “blockbuster.” The set pieces are tired and the cheesy dialogue as hackneyed as ever, and yes admittedly most was just the repeat of the originals speeches. We had a better one in Pacific Rim folks, so please, take this away.
And poor Jeff Goldblum. I assume he must be poor after putting his name to this and doing those awful TV ads. Oh, and discount Will Smith is discount.
Must try harder, take it away and work on it. And then bin it. At least then you can be a little more proud of what you’re binning.
Dario Persechino – AWESOME!!!
Ok, I loved the original. It was fun, cheesy, silly, jingoistic, and man did it love its stereotypes. It was more American centric than a bald eagle with its feathers painted red white and blue singing the Star Spangled Banner in the middle of Yankee Stadium with a copy of the constitution stuck to its chest… and I loved it! I loved the brief shot of the rest of the world (easily recognisable by their stereotypical outfits) including the British doing the equivalent of “Tally ho chaps and huzzah, the Americans are going to lead us, what what!”
And of course we all know it’s perfectly easy to get your Macbook to log into the wifi on an alien mothership and upload a virus to its network because SCIENCE!
I frakking loved it! Cheesy, and terrible, and fun and gloriously entertaining in a way that Michael Bay could only dream of, no matter how many flags and explosions he puts in his movies. So yes, I am very, very excited about this.
I love that Goldblum is back in it, but sad that Will Smith turned down the chance to reappear. Other familiar faces returning include the great Judd Hirsch, Bill Pullman, Brent Spiner, and Vivica A Fox. They’ll be joined by William Fichtner who is always worth watching, and Liam Hemsworth seemly taking over the Will Smith “action hero soldier” role.
My only concern is they take this too seriously. The first was brilliant because of its light hearted cheeseball fun. It was a spiced up big budget B-movie, and you need the banter and one liners to keep it fun. You need to have Goldblum’s laptop start up with “Good morning, Dave,” and the flyboys talking about just when that fat lady sings.
Please, please let it be in the wonderful, terrible, joyously cheesy spirit of the original.
Wes May – Wow. A sequel to… let’s be honest… a crap original, with every imaginable genre cliché shoe-horned into it by a hack screenwriter and an even bigger hack director. I’m sure this will continue Emmerich’s non-stop streak of mindless, catastrophic destruction porn, asking us to root for the survival of some broken family of soon-to-be-reunited exes while millions die fiery deaths all around them.
And I’ll be right there in the theatre, shovelling in popcorn and loving every Goldblum-tastic minute of it.
Les Anderson – Nothing remotely original in it but that’s no surprise. All the visuals are recycled from every alien invasion/Transformers film of the past ten years. Hollywood at its most cynical.
Michael Flett – I’m going to be absolutely plain about this – I saw the original Indepencence Day the Friday it opened back in 1996 and I hated it. I tried to watch it once on video and it was so wretched I couldn’t even get through it a second time.
Homophobic, xenophobic, jingoistic, misogynist, a screaming tirade that the foreigners are coming to kill us all, and twenty years later the cry is the same. Reach for your guns! They’re baaaaaack!
Should we have been surprised after Stargate two years before with its celebration of American foreign policy? “Liberate the repressed desert dwellers! With GUNS! And BOMBS! It’s alright, we’re American, so it’s all cool!”
I’ve never been able to comprehend why Harvey Fierstein agreed to be involved in the original, a screaming, effeminate, mother-dominated hideous stereotype, a parody of the character he developed in Torch Song Trilogy, who is then bumped off having served no purpose in the film other than to be another disposable victim? And somehow we’re supposed to be *grateful* for this representation?
While you’re at it, Roland, why not have a black man on cotton farm and call him Uncle Tom and have him burned, too?
Oh, yes, and I had forgotten about the fireproof dog and the weak president who suddenly finds his strength when the woman who held him back and subdued his manliness is killed. It was vulgar and crass and degrading across the board.
None of this is even touching how stupid it was, the absolute idiocy of what could not even generously be called a plot without a single original idea and those stolen from previous works badly presented, so this has a lot to live down to for me. A hugely advanced spacefaring race whose entire fleet is controlled from a single central computer which can be hacked and catastrophically brought down by a single program thrown together in a matter of hours by a species who cannot even approach their level of technology. That’s not entertaining, it’s insulting to anyone with a brain.
This new trailer looks like a cross between the original, Battleship and Transformers. It’s like they’ve taken the worst parts of the worst films of the past decade. Why would you do this to anyone?
The whole basis of the trailer seems to be “it’s exactly the same as the last one only BIGGER!” for which you can read louder and emptier. It will be nice to see Jeff Goldblum, and having just caught Liam Hemsworth in The Dresser I’m sure he will be excellent and easy on the eyes. And that is as generous as I’m going to be.
Adam Dworak – The king of summer blockbusters is back! When I first saw Independence Day I thought it was excellent, it had everything what a good Hollywood sci-fi should have – a great cast, suspense, action with a pinch of humour. It was light, it was fast and it was cheesy. The sequel looks fantastic but feels much darker, heavier and serious than its predecessor. For me it’s a “must see” of next year.
Independence Day: Resurgence is scheduled for release on 24th June 2016
Independence Day: Resurgence trailer – reaction
Strangely, Smith is one of the few survivors of the first film to not return for this belated sequel, once again directed by Emmerich, though Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch, Vivica A Fox and Brent Spiner will be returning, even though the latter was apparently killed in the first. Joining them will be The Hunger Games’ Liam Hemsworth, It Follows’ Maika Monroe, The Day After Tomorrow’s Sela Ward and Elysium’s William Fichtner.
The first trailer has been released, and the team’s opinions are unambiguous, whichever way they fall.
I bet it looks epic though. Still not going.
Matthew Rutland – Whilst the 1996 original was hardly “original” it did have the charisma and star power of the then hot and relevant Will Smith to propel it into the stratosphere. Sadly that’s where it should have stayed.
And poor Jeff Goldblum. I assume he must be poor after putting his name to this and doing those awful TV ads. Oh, and discount Will Smith is discount.
Must try harder, take it away and work on it. And then bin it. At least then you can be a little more proud of what you’re binning.
Ok, I loved the original. It was fun, cheesy, silly, jingoistic, and man did it love its stereotypes. It was more American centric than a bald eagle with its feathers painted red white and blue singing the Star Spangled Banner in the middle of Yankee Stadium with a copy of the constitution stuck to its chest… and I loved it! I loved the brief shot of the rest of the world (easily recognisable by their stereotypical outfits) including the British doing the equivalent of “Tally ho chaps and huzzah, the Americans are going to lead us, what what!”
And of course we all know it’s perfectly easy to get your Macbook to log into the wifi on an alien mothership and upload a virus to its network because SCIENCE!
I love that Goldblum is back in it, but sad that Will Smith turned down the chance to reappear. Other familiar faces returning include the great Judd Hirsch, Bill Pullman, Brent Spiner, and Vivica A Fox. They’ll be joined by William Fichtner who is always worth watching, and Liam Hemsworth seemly taking over the Will Smith “action hero soldier” role.
My only concern is they take this too seriously. The first was brilliant because of its light hearted cheeseball fun. It was a spiced up big budget B-movie, and you need the banter and one liners to keep it fun. You need to have Goldblum’s laptop start up with “Good morning, Dave,” and the flyboys talking about just when that fat lady sings.
Wes May – Wow. A sequel to… let’s be honest… a crap original, with every imaginable genre cliché shoe-horned into it by a hack screenwriter and an even bigger hack director. I’m sure this will continue Emmerich’s non-stop streak of mindless, catastrophic destruction porn, asking us to root for the survival of some broken family of soon-to-be-reunited exes while millions die fiery deaths all around them.
And I’ll be right there in the theatre, shovelling in popcorn and loving every Goldblum-tastic minute of it.
Les Anderson – Nothing remotely original in it but that’s no surprise. All the visuals are recycled from every alien invasion/Transformers film of the past ten years. Hollywood at its most cynical.
Homophobic, xenophobic, jingoistic, misogynist, a screaming tirade that the foreigners are coming to kill us all, and twenty years later the cry is the same. Reach for your guns! They’re baaaaaack!
Should we have been surprised after Stargate two years before with its celebration of American foreign policy? “Liberate the repressed desert dwellers! With GUNS! And BOMBS! It’s alright, we’re American, so it’s all cool!”
While you’re at it, Roland, why not have a black man on cotton farm and call him Uncle Tom and have him burned, too?
Oh, yes, and I had forgotten about the fireproof dog and the weak president who suddenly finds his strength when the woman who held him back and subdued his manliness is killed. It was vulgar and crass and degrading across the board.
The whole basis of the trailer seems to be “it’s exactly the same as the last one only BIGGER!” for which you can read louder and emptier. It will be nice to see Jeff Goldblum, and having just caught Liam Hemsworth in The Dresser I’m sure he will be excellent and easy on the eyes. And that is as generous as I’m going to be.
Adam Dworak – The king of summer blockbusters is back! When I first saw Independence Day I thought it was excellent, it had everything what a good Hollywood sci-fi should have – a great cast, suspense, action with a pinch of humour. It was light, it was fast and it was cheesy. The sequel looks fantastic but feels much darker, heavier and serious than its predecessor. For me it’s a “must see” of next year.
Independence Day: Resurgence is scheduled for release on 24th June 2016
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