Independence Day: Resurgence **SPOILERS FROM POST 266 ONWARD**

Yep.

Impression seems to be it's just as "bad" as the first one... without any of the fun :-(

Ah well, I'll still be going along to see it and hoping the critics are just being overly cynical... But I find Peter Bradshaw is usually fairly good at giving a light hearted movie a pass when it deserves one.

Seems like it's mixed reviews which is kind of what the first one was to so looks like it will be a worthy sequel. Looking forward to it

PTH2009 wrote: »

Worried about this movie a bit. Loved the first one but what can they do different in this one ???

What's stopping the aliens coming back a third time ???

Nothing, because if they did, they couldn't cash in on a third film

The premise appears to be "they got a distress call out", so in reality it'll just be about, "Oh crap, that ship wasn't their entire civilisation, it was just a prep ship designed to create a beach-head. The real terraforming ships are coming".

In proper sci-fi terms it's actually pretty consistent - a civilisation who specialised in conquering and consuming worlds wouldn't load their entire population onto a single ship and would have plenty of experience of hitting snags in an invasion - be that a species that is resistant or whatever - and so would have a plan B for dealing with those problems.

If anything, the assumption that humanity "won" in the first movie is a glaring plot hole.

Seen it today. Terrible.

syklops wrote: »

Care to elaborate?

Hard to elaborate without getting into spoilers...

Basically, the film seemed a mess... not only a mess in terms of plot but messy in a literal sense... it looked and felt messy. The special effects were bad, the cuts between scenes seemed awkward and ham fisted, all the scenes with people seemed to either be green screen or really crappy sets, nothing seemed "real". The entire thing is presented in a sort of dark tone, I wanted to adjust the brightness of the screen but apparently this is a look Emmerich goes for. Even the music was jarring with parts of the original score added between the new, and totally different - and worse, score.

The look and feel of the movie were really different to the first, to the extent that it didn't really feel like a sequel at all.

The first movie had a sort of warm underbelly, it had a sort of "nice" feeling to it. It had a heart, this film, to me at least, did not.

I'll be interested to see what other people thought of it.

I'll likely go see it again in a few days. I was enjoying the match a bit too much last night so watching this early might not have been wise... But I'd be surprised if my opinion changes on second viewing.

Cantstandsya wrote: »

The first movie had a sort of warm underbelly, it had a sort of "nice" feeling to it. It had a heart

I agree. This one had no heart. It was sterile, soulless and just not much fun.

Seen this with the brother this evening. We both thought it was very disappointing. Its just no where near as good as the first one its just basically a woo lets do this bigger and that louder. Its a pity as it started out promising but goes downhill from there. Its a film that you are better of just leaving your brain at the door before you go in. The special effects are good thats about it really. The acting is terrible Id say Brent Spiner was delighted to do it a nice easy gig for him. The story is terrible to a pity as it could have been brilliant if done right. It just seems rushed a bit more thought and time into it and it could have been so much better. There is loads of mistakes in it. 2 out of 5 for the film. There is loads I would like to talk about but do not want to spoil it for anyone so will leave it for now.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

The only part of the film that interested me was the all too brief shot of Robert Loggia. It's credited on IMDB as being one of his last films (two others to be released dated 2016). The shot looked like CGI though. I wonder was it perhaps shot green screen. Anyway, genuinely the only thing of interest in the film for me.

I honestly thought that shot was CG... amazed it wasn't. Just shows how bad the film looked.

Seen it last night, it was what it was, the primary plot of this movie doesn't make much sense in context of the first film e.g.

Deleted User wrote: »

That's why the 10 year war doesn't make sense. They theorize that there must have been a queen on the ship they destroyed, yet who were they fighting for 10 years? And why was there so many prisoners?

Ok, now that spoilers are allowed I'll say a little more...

People have already mentioned the 10 year war thing. This annoyed me while watching the movie. The alien prisoners in Area 51 are described as being "catatonic" since the destruction of the mother ship and we learn that this was because there was a queen on board. We're told that the key to victory is killing the queen as this will stop the aliens in their tracks... but then we're simultaneously told that a group of holdouts fought a war for 10 years after the death of their queen... Further, we're told that the beam cutting down to the "molten core" will magically turn off the second the queen is killed and the ship will fly away. This is all inconsistent nonsense and not even worth picking apart.

In the prequel novel and the movie novelisation (which yes, I read) some of the rubbish in the film is fleshed out a bit more... not to the extent that it is any good but it at least makes some sense. Some examples:

1) The President does nothing in this movie, simply going to a bunker which the aliens then attack. In the novelisation she's involved in the plot with the queen searching for the sphere. The reason the aliens attack her bunker is so that the queen can personally interrogate her to find the location of the sphere... The President stands up to the queen before being killed (indeed, one of the trailers shows this confrontation with the President addressing the queen... it was obviously cut out). It's still a fairly pointless plot but at least gives the character something to do.

2) David's father driving across the country in a school bus is completely pointless in the movie, resolving with the bus being chased by the queen for no reason. In the novel the bus arrives just as the queen is shot down, same as the movie, but she then begins to stumble out of her suit only for David to drive the school bus into her head, killing her... it reminded me of the deleted ending for the original where Russell Case flies his crop duster into the alien weapon.

Okay, neither of these cut down plots are any good but at least they make some sense in the novel, as opposed to the movie where their half inclusion is jarring and senseless. I have to wonder why they were left in at all considering their incomplete state? The President does nothing and David's father does nothing. Both of these plot lines should have been completely removed and the new characters fleshed out some more.

On the topic of new characters... what was the point of Will Smith's son? He has no charisma at all. His character and Liam Hemsworth's should have been combined into one. If you need a Chinese presence for that market then make Hemsworth's friend Chinese. There were 4 pilots in that plot line, there only needed to be one, maybe two for marketing in China.

Thing is that even if all of this stuff were cleaved out of the movie what was left would still be junk. I really think this was an awful, awful film.

It was alright? I dunno. It wasn't unpleasant to watch, but I wasn't terribly passionate about it either.

I haven't seen the first one, but how does the 1996 war work with that 10 year war in africa?