Independence Day: Resurgence Trailer

The odd thing about movies being something that’s enjoyed by a wide age group is that while some trends represent genuine progress forward and new tastes nostalgia from the recently moneyed ends up an equally if not more powerful market force.  That particular truth is why the 2010s have ended up such a breeding ground for ‘90s nostalgia, or ‘90stalgia as I lovingly call it.  X-Files is back, Jurassic Park is back, Godzilla is back, Power Rangers is on the way, and now we’ve got the first trailer for the triumphant return of possibly the most important ‘90s blockbuster ever made Independence Day. 

I’ve mentioned previously that one of the strange things about the ‘90s blockbuster scene is that most of the big name hits of the time didn’t really result in a change to the pop culture landscape.  There might be the occasional echo but for the most part there is one Jurassic Park, one Titanic, one Forest Gump, compared to the various inspirations of ‘80s blockbusters like Rocky or Star Wars.  The exception to that is Independence Day, it more or less reshaped the cinematic language of action films and special effects as well as informing what is considered proper blockbuster fodder.  Put simply: Independence Day being such a huge smash is the reason today that superheroes fight alien invasions in their biggest and blockbusteriest films. 

However, this importance is something of a double edged sword; Independence Day has been incredibly impactful and transformative to the national language and conception of blockbuster cinema but that also means its stock and trade have become even more stock and trade.  In 1996, blowing up world monuments in spectacular fashion while military jets fight flying saucers was the hip new thing that put butts in seats but 10 years later it’s all a little over done. 

Additionally, so much of the original film’s groundwork like the President jumping into a fighter jet to shoot bad guys and the spectacular image of leveling national monuments has become somewhat tainted by the last 10 years of recession and the war on terror.  Add to that the fact that Will Smith for some reason chose not to reprise his role in Independence Day: Resurgence and the much darker tone of this trailer and a lot of folks have been skeptical about this sequel.  As for me; I think it looks great.

Part of what I really like about this trailer is how much it feels like a legitimate follow up, the kind we rarely get with alien invasion films.  Part of that is that alien invasion movies in general are actually weirdly rare and even rarer for them to get sequels so the fact that Resurgence has opted for a world that has been legitimately changed by the alien attack is an absolute good in my book.  I especially like the idea that this vision of future Earth has been informed by the ideology of transnational unity that punctuated the end of the first film as well as the reverse engineered alien technology.  Stuff like the UN troops being so prominently featured and the lack of any classically nationalistic iconography in the military designs or bases is a pretty good sign.

 

Additionally the movie just looks awesome visually.  I love the design of the bigger and badder alien ships, I love the augmented fighter jets, I love those creepy alien skull things in the cold open, and I really love that humanity seems to have a moon base with alien laser cannons on it.  Roland Emmerich, for all his insanity and storytelling issues remains a master technician and one of the true kings of shot composition and imaginative destruction and he looks to be firing on all cylinders for this one.  It’s actually pretty impressive, looking back over Emmerich’s entire career, that he’s almost never repeated himself in terms of destructive action scenes.  Despite making Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, and 2012 he’s never managed to smash the same landmarks in the same way, which is no small feat for the king of destruction.

 

What I like the most though, and what I think is putting the most people off this trailer, is the darker tone especially in how well it subverts the famous Independence Day speech by cutting off that last line.  This might just be reading my own ideas into the film but that’s the whole point of opinions on trailers but I actually found this trailer optimistic in its own bizarre way.  The fundamental truth of Independence Day that has made it such a rallying point of optimism is that it’s essentially a fantasy about having an enemy so perfectly massive and evil that we can all unite around, the fantasy is about having a cause that can transcend all artificial barriers crafted between humanity.  Resurgence seems to be pushing a different fantasy but one that’s no less inspiring, just altered for a more modern sensibility. 

The fantasy of Resurgence, as implied by cutting off that speech so succinctly, is that this isn’t a fight about survival at all, at least no in the same “let’s all not die and work out rebuilding the planet later” way the first film was.  In fact, it seems pretty much like we won’t be winning the fight in Resurgence, at least not without so extreme personal sacrifice but even that certainty of defeat is woven into the wish fulfillment of the story.  The fantasy that Resurgence seems to be pushing is that of having built a world that’s worth dying for.  

In a time that’s constantly beset upon by problems of racial violence, rampant economic inequality, injustice on a global scale, and a world with no clear or easy answers the fantasy of having a better world, a world so well build out of the ashes of catastrophe that if it were threatened again we’d prefer to die than slip back into the mistakes of the past, is exactly the kind of fantasy I think a lot of people are looking for right now.


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