With Star Wars: The Force Awakens around the corner, it seems like we’ve been barraged with trailer after trailer. One trailer in particular that dropped over the weekend is the long awaited sequel to possibly the most iconic summer blockbuster of all time – Independence Day (1996).
I’m not going to make any apologies, and I’m not going to call this a guilty pleasure movie. Screw it. I love Independence Day, alright! Yeah, it’s cheesy. It’s ridiculous. But I don’t care. It captured the essence of the nineties beautifully. We saw the emergence of Will Smith, and it was a simpler time when you didn’t have to build franchises. We could appreciate a simple, well made action movie. What separates the visual mastery of Independence Day from crap like Transformers or Battle Los Angeles are actual characters. Were the characters in Independence Day the most well developed or layered? No, but they had personality, and you cared. They felt genuine, which made me appreciate the visual spectacle they were a part of more important. I could talk about this film all day, but it’s time to see what those crazy aliens are up to twenty years later.
The trailer is nothing jaw dropping, and doesn’t have anything that rivals the devastation of the White House, but it does its job of getting us excited about the world again. Jeff Goldblum can be hit or miss for me, but I love him in this franchise, and he’s front and center once again, analyzing the crap out of everything. My favorite returning character though has to be Bill Pullman as President Whitmore, who I assume is long retired at this point. You can’t go wrong with the beard, and the dialogue about him having dreams where the aliens return plays great homage to the first film when they telepathically connected with him. I’ll miss Will Smith, but if one of the big three weren’t going to return, he’d be my pick. It’s also awesome to have Judd Hirsch back! As far as the new characters go, I can’t say I’m excited about Liam Hemsworth taking a lead role. Ugh. Joey King and William Fichtner though are definitely good additions.
The two elements that stuck out for me were the ominous tone, and the almost distorted voice over from President Whitmore’s old speech. That speech is easily one of the more iconic moments of the film, so incorporating that in the trailer was a great call. The ominous nature works great. We don’t see the aliens destroy anything yet, but you can feel them coming, ready to attack at any moment. It felt like the first act of the film (July 2nd) when the aliens arrive and bide their time before unleashing hell.
I’m not expecting this movie to win Oscars, but I can’t wait to see a continuation of a movie that should of had a sequel fifteen years ago. ID4 FOREVER BABY!!!!!!
