Independence Day 2 has been busily filling out its cast over the past few weeks, recruiting a mixture of fresh faces and old faithfuls to power the second entry in what is planned as a blockbuster franchise. Now, a information sheet for Fox’s upcoming schedule has shed some light on the plot of the follow-up.
Though the information sheet synopsis isn’t quite an official one, it does give an idea of what fans can expect from the sequel:
After Independence Day redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens’ advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.
What’s most interesting about the ID2 project is that when director Roland Emmerich (who helmed the 1996 original) and producer Dean Devlin first conceived the sequel a few years ago, it was in two parts and titled Independence Day Forever. The two films would be set 20 years after the first and center on humans using alien technology to fend off the next wave of invaders.
[zerg]Emmerich made mention back in 2013 of the idea that aliens could go through wormholes, meaning that their journey to Earth could appear to take a small amount of time for them but actually take decades from our perspective. The director also explained of the sequel:
“It’s a changed world. It’s like parallel history. [Humans] have harnessed all this alien technology. We don’t know how to duplicate it because it’s organically-grown technology, but we know how to take an antigravity device and put it in a human airplane.”
Of course, Independence Day 2 has gone through various stages of rewrites since then, so the plot might not quite line up with wormholes and parallel history, but the synopsis does reveal a certain re-appropriation of alien tech.
The pic currently stars franchise newcomers Maika Monroe (The Guest, It Follows), Jessie Usher (Starz’s Survivor’s Remorse), Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), Sela Ward (The Day After Tomorrow), Travis Tope (The Town That Dreaded Sundown), Garrett Wareing (Boychoir), William Fichtner (Drive Angry), Chin Han (Marco Polo) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (Nymphomaniac) alongside returning actors Judd Hirsch, Bill Pullman, Vivica A. Fox and Jeff Goldblum.
Independence Day 2 opens June 24, 2016.