I want those of you who are old enough to close your eyes and think back to the summer of 1996. The summer Olympics were in full swing, grunge and alternative music were all the rage, extreme sports were gaining popularity, and everyone was sporting a collective hard on for Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Oh and advertisements for Independence Day were everywhere! They were simpler times, some may say better times. I could definitely continue my little jaunt down memory lane, but that’s not why you’re here, is it? You’re most likely here because I won’t stop pestering you to read my blog, but tangentially, you’ probably want to see what I have to say about the next piece in my review line up. Let me just preface with this: This is not the film that was alluded to last week. I mislead you and I’m sorry. I will get to that particular film, however, the timing on this one was pretty important and I figured if a bad Bond film could promise the wrong followup movie and get away with it, then so could I.
I mentioned that the timing on this review was important and it totally is. See, today in a lot of places Independence Day: Resurgence debuts in theaters. This is the first of two sequels to the original 1996 blockbuster that director Roland Emmerich has promised to shove down our throats, or in other orifices if that’s what does it for you. I won’t judge. The fact of the impending release got me wondering just how well the original film holds up against the nostalgia that we’ve all inevitably created around it, and from there I decided to infer as to whether or not we actually needed a sequel to a 20 year old film. Strap into your cockpit and light your cigar as we look at Independence Day.
Right off the bat, the film starts by showing the moon landing site and all of the paraphernalia that was left behind in the wake of that event. I realized at this point that this movie has probably been the driving creative inspiration behind about 90% of Michael Bay’s movies as he’s used that exact setup at least twice that I can remember off the top of my head. The very next frame, REM’s “It’s the End of the World...:” is playing in the background as we’re shown a SETI lab. Talk about some blatant foreshadowing. There’s some mysterious signal over some speakers and then a bunch of scientists are scrambling to process some data, which leads to the conclusion that said signal is coming from the moon. The say 175,000 km and I looked it up. That’s actually right in the neighborhood of the moon so kudos for doing a little homework. Some scenes are shown to get the audience in a confused and curious state of mind and then we jump into some main character development as we see the POTUS getting his every breath analyzed into oblivion via TV, newspaper and his PR person. In keeping with the tried and true disaster movie formula, this really is an ensemble effort. This movie does excel at establishing a few main characters to follow that drive the story and in that regards, I have to give it praise. There are a number of disaster movies that miss that mark.
Our president is played by Bill Pullman. The character is young, idealistic, and critically panned. It’s established that he’s got a strong marital relationship and that he’s a Gulf War veteran. Okay, I can get behind this type of character. And at the very least, it’s not being played by Kevin James. I’m looking at you Pixels. He’s experiencing the same kind of BS drama that anyone who’s been elected to lead a large body of childish politicians might experience. I’ve never been president before, but as far as presidents go, I like the way this one is used for the most part, especially since it’s established that he’s extremely new to the job. They give the character a lot of leeway in that fashion.
Next we get introduced to the second of our main characters, a TV cable guy played by *ah* Jeff *um* *ah* Goldblum. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Jeff Goldblum as an actor. I’d even be willing to say he’s actually got some decent acting range, but here, he’s mostly recycling his Dr. Malcolm character from Jurassic Park. Everyone knew it then and no one will really dispute it now. It does make some sense. That character was wildly popular when that movie came out, and it was only three years removed from the release of Independence Day so it actually makes an odd kind of sense to capitalize on that quirky and eccentric intellectual archetype again. Also, if we’re being absolutely fair, Emmerich knew when enough was enough. He didn’t overuse the character to the point where he got terribly annoying, except when he blatantly reuses the, “Must go faster,” dialog from Jurassic Park. That’s a pretty big SNAFU in my opinion. But it was the 90s and we forgave so much more back then.
After that we get a pretty lengthy introduction to a less major character, who serves more as a major supporting character, maybe. Russell Case, played by Randy Quaid is simultaneously one of the most and least entertaining things about this film. On the one hand, it seems like they just pumped him full of whiskey each day and then let him bumble through his scenes, but on the other hand, because of that, a lot of his scenes are way over played and he gets some absolutely dismal one liners. He’s also portraying a pretty insensitive stereotype of drunken, damaged war veterans, but take it or leave it. He’s in the film Fortunately, he’s not in it more than what he is, but unfortunately, when he is on screen, he’s saying some pretty cringe worthy stuff. I will say that if time had been taken to develop the character more, it might have actually made him more interesting. His family dynamics could have been cool to glimpse, but that wasn’t the goal of the movie.
Next we’re given a recap of the current situation: Unknown object is on intelligent approach to Earth. And in the follow up scene we’re told about a foreign signal that recycling into non-existence. Then we get another ‘character building’ moment with Randy Quaid, and THEN we finally get introduced to our final main character, Steven Hiller who is played by Will Smith. Smith had gotten his big-ihs break in the late 80s with his rap career, which he was able to parlay into The Fresh Prince TV show. He’d also been in a big budget Hollywood film the previous year with Bad Boys. However, Independence Day really solidified his status as a hot ticket item in Hollywood. We’re about 20 minutes in before the character and actor are actually introduced, but I can give a little bit of a pass here because at least we’re not having all of this information awkwardly thrown at us in just a few minutes. It’s established that Hiller is in a nonmarital relationship with Vivica A. Fox and there’s a kid involved, but that’s alright because Hiller is actually a pretty cool dude and I mean that quite sincerely. I’m kind of impressed with how down-to-Earth this character, and indeed, most of the characters in this movie are. Randy Quaid’s abducted by aliens character is the most out there and it really makes him stand out, but when you’re dealing with an alien invasion film, that’s definitely one approach to the storytelling, maybe not the one that I would use, but one nevertheless.
I’ll not bore you further with a blow-by-blow. Let’s break down the formula a little and see just how well it was implemented here. We’ve got the ensemble cast, although it reads kind of like a list of 90s has beens, but they were popular then so that works. Included in the roster are names like Margaret Colin, Robert Loggia, Judd Hirsch James Rebhorn, Adam Baldwin, and Brent Spiner, to name a few. I do want to say a few words about James Rebhorn. Even if you don’t recognize the name, you know the actor. Every time I see him on screen I reflexively yell, “Hey it’s needledick!” The man plays the perfect snivelling, weaselling, conniving butthole every time he’s cast in that sort of role. It’s the type of role he was born to play. Along that line, pretty much all of the cast in this film were cast brilliantly. Even the minor supporting characters are utilized well.
We cover the several romantic subplots point well here. There’s the president and his wife, Hiller and his girlfriend, and Jeff Goldblum’s character even has a rekindling of love subplot so that base get great coverage. We’ve got a vast array of character types being used to cover that whole old-and-young characters criteria. The president has a young daughter, Vivica A. Fox has a young son, and Randy Quaid has three children just for good measure. Our plot is pretty implausible so that’s covered. And the sacrifice of self is covered as well, when at the end, Randy Quaid rams his F-18(?) into the alien ship’s main weapon in order to destroy it. There isn’t a pop song written exclusively for the movie, but as I stated previously, that’s a negotiable thing.
Okay so all the elements are there. Then what more is there to say about this movie? Well, at the time, it was a pretty harmless romp in the disaster genre sandbox and if you just watch it for its action elements, then you’ll get a good film experience out of it. I however, am obligated to look past the slick exterior and into the cold alien eyes of the plot below the plot. It’s not a huge secret that Roland Emmerich has kind of a hard on for environmental issues. This movie was rife with it. Jeff Goldblum’s character was an active environmentalist, but there’s more brewing below the surface it you look at things just right. First, let’s look at a couple of other disaster movies that Roland Emmerich made. He did The Day After Tomorrow in 2004, 2012 in 2009, and oh yeah, who could 1998’s super stinker, Godzilla. They were all overtly pro-environmentalism and they were all pretty terribly executed. Now, I’m not saying that caring about our home is bad, but I am saying that getting super fanatical about it can be, and I really feel like Emmerich drank a bit more Kool Aid than he probably should have with these other films. By comparison, Independence Day seems pretty innocuous. Not so! Next item, let’s take a look at some of the themes. It’s obvious that Emmerich wants us to be eco conscious, but it really doesn’t end there. With the lead up to the reveal that the object approaching Earth is an advanced alien species, Emmerich is pointing out the arrogance and the hubris of our belief as a species that we’re the most advanced thing in the galaxy. Second, if you swap humans in for the aliens, he’s pretty much calling our entire race a parasite, locusts if you will. He’s saying that all we do is strip our environment of all the usable resources and then move on to the next locale in order to repeat the process. I’m not sure that anyone else has looked at this movie in quite this way in the last 20 years, but it’s a pretty harsh review of the human condition. That’s not to say that it’s wrong, or even bad. Sometimes we need a social slap to the face in order to get on a less malevolent course.
So the environmental themes abound on multiple levels. That’s actually a good thing. It shows a great deal of competence on the director’s part. I did also notice that there were a few jabs at Russia thrown in the film that seemed a little out of place until I looked at where Emmerich grew up. He was born in West Germany so he’s naturally going to have a bit of an anti-Russia bend to this point of view. I can actually forgive that since it’s impossible to not be biased in one way or another. Anyway, these are just really random things that I noticed this go round. There was also a blatant ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ joke in there, and I got a few chuckles out of the technology being implemented, but I digress.
If you look at the movie overall, I think it holds up well. The structure and pacing are solid. The premise is totally outlandish, but in the right kind of way. The characters, although not always interesting, are well presented. The special effects! Boy, I’m not usually one to get too excited over special effects, but I have to mention them here because this is one of those movies where the special effects aspect of it actually had a big influence on me. I remember watching a behind-the-scenes show on TV and the type of problem solving that went into creating some of the sequences in this film got me really interested not only in film, but things like models, and computers. It had a huge impact on my life and rightfully so. The effects in this movie are larger than life! For using minimal computer graphics, they present these situations extremely well. Along those lines, I’m not sure the exact harmonic frequency, or decibel level that’s necessary in order to make concrete vibrate, but the explosions do just that in my house so props to the sound guys for making a soundtrack that you can really feel.
I could give more praise to this movie, but I think you get the point. The question now it, does it really need a sequel? It’s a question that’s been on a lot of minds with the ‘lead up’ to Resurgence. First, I’d like to point out that Bill Pullman explicitly says that their whole civilization moves planet to planet stripping said planets of resources. This implies that when they kill all of the aliens at the end of the movie, they kill all of the aliens. As in they commit an act of genocide and wipe out an entire civilization. So unless this is a new race of aliens, there’s not really an opening for further story development in my mind. You may try to argue that perhaps the aliens don’t commit their whole population to just one planet, but the use of the exact phrase “whole civilization” makes that argument pretty flimsy. Second, look at the face that Adam Baldwin makes when he takes Brent Spiner’s pulse. I’ve been a Trekkie for about 30 years and I know the “He’s dead, Jim” look and that is totally that look. Third, go back to 1996. The marketing blitz for the first movie was insane. You couldn’t turn 90 degrees without bumping into something advertising the film. There were commercials all over the TV, promotional sweepstakes, food product tie-ins, a book, a line of toys… It was everywhere. I don’t have cable, but I live pretty much exclusively connected to the Internet and all I’ve actually seen as far as advertising goes for Resurgence is maybe a dozen instances where my friends on Facebook have shared that one trailer. What I’m saying is that there really hasn’t been nearly as much advertising thrown at this movie, and why should there be? It’s a sequel to a twenty year old film that was entirely self-contained in its story. Some of the main characters are back, but the bulk have moved on and distanced themselves from this entry. It just seems really blatant. Fox and Emmerich want to cash in on nostalgia in order to make a buck at our expense and they’re willing to tarnish the reputation of another good film in order to do so. I sincerely hope that the movie isn’t outright terrible, but it’s been developed on extremely shaky ground and I don’t think it’s going to perform very well, at least in the US. It will probably recoup costs in Asia, though, which means we all might as well brace ourselves for the third movie anyway.
In all, the original was a standout movie viewing experience that I think will continue to dazzle people for a long time to come. The sequel can kiss my behind because I have zero hope for it. Tell me what you think once you’ve seen it, or speculate blindly with me! Either way, we’ll have a lot to talk about! Next week, we’ll actually get to that uber depressing disaster movie that was a joint effort by several countries as disaster month rounds the halfway mark!
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