Getting Under the Alien Skin of the New 'Independence Day'

The aliens are back and everything is cranked up to 11 in Independence Day: Resurgence, a 20-years-later sequel. (Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation) If you are looking for cerebral science fiction stories that meticulously explore the outer limits of known science, Roland Emmerich is not your guy. The auteur behind the 1996 alien-invasion movie Independence Day and its new sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, is all about spectacle over subtlety. (2012 and The Day After Tomorrow are also his handiwork.) Blowing up cities? Check. Sciencing the sh*t out of things? Not so much. Taken on its own terms, though, the first Independence Day was a lot of fun and—beneath the popcorn-chewing action—smarter than it looked. Emmerich’s best idea was not trying to give his aliens convoluted, ludicrous motivations. Instead he envisioned them as a rapacious swarm, roaming instinctively from planet to planet in search of resources. The sequel maintains that premise and supersizes it, in the inevitable Hollywood style. I spoke with Emmerich to find out more about his aliens, his vision of a post-invasion Earth, and the challenges of trying to top a movie that was already rather over-the-top.