ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

We had a thread simply titled "Independence Day 2" pertaining to this movie which was started over a year ago, with just these two posts by our good friends Ralfy and Butch.

[Gord Green]

Not a terrible movie as a stand alone, but it seemed to pander to the memory of the original.

It also relied too much on the use of coincidence to bring the characters together in the plot. This was OK in the first movie , but seemed a real stretch here.

One thing I noticed was the inclusion of a lot of Chinese characters. It seemed to me it was not for diversity but to appeal to the vast Asian market.

All and all it was a tolerable film, but nowhere the classic that the first one was.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Well, I'm glad to hear to that this movie has some redeeming value. I'm eager to love it, but all the comments I've read about it so far have warned me that it fails to measure up to greatness of the original.

Damn . . . what a bummer.

But with proper expectations, I'm hopin' I'll enjoy this one based entirely on it's own merits.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

Altogether, I feel safe waiting for the DVD rental, rather than taking out a second mortgage to see it in the theater.
_________________
...or not...

WayneO
-----------

[Bud Brewster]

[Gord Green]

Actually, I first watched this in Imax 3-d and paid the fare because I had high hopes that it would be worth it.

Now I've watched it a dozen times on dvd and the attempt of the producers to recapture the thrill of the original is obvious.

Still, it was good to see Jeff Goldblum and his "dad" again!

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

DVD? How did get a DVD of it already?
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

There is a kinda secret site called PUTLOCKER that has most movies as soon as released. I've got BvS, ultimate cut, Legend of Tarzan (Good movie!) CA Civil War, and many others. Beware : LOTS of pop ups etc. I just disable them before they hit,

I've also got a lot of semi-classics too, like The Last Starfighter.

Also TV series. I've got full seasons of Flash and Legends from there too.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Hey, Putlocker and Watchfree.to are both run by the same folks, and I use Watchfree.to almost daily!

Unfortunately the videos they have of movies that have not yet been released on DVD are usually those low-grade versions made with video cameras in a theater. I'll think I'll just wait until October when the DVD is released.

Here's the link to the Watchfree.to listing for Independence Day: Resurgence. Which of the sites on the list on the right did you use?
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

As a rule I use the first on the list and if I have a problem I just come back a few days later. They upgrade movies frequently and you can often get a better quality later.

I use my Realplayer to download as mp4 and I can burn to a data dvd which works great on my Blu ray player. If I want to put it on a dvd as a dvd file I use a video conversion program to change it.

In any regard the movies are usually watchable and I can always get the real dvd when released.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Gord, you've definitely gotten a handle on the situation, and I envy you for it. I'll just have to wait until it comes on DVD, I guess.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

___________________________________________

With 182 IMDB trivia items to choose from, I could probably find 20 or 30 that are worth posting here, but I think I'll be real choosy and just post the seven best ones (in blue text), followed by my own witty and fascinating comments.

Let me . . . entertain you! (Hit it, Gypsy.)

________ Natalie Wood as Gypsy Rose Lee Gypsy


__________

___________________________________________

Soon after the success of the first film, 20th Century Fox paid Dean Devlin a large sum of money to write a script for a sequel. However, after completing the script, Devlin didn't turn in the script and instead gave the money back to the studio, as he felt the story didn't live up to the first film. It was only approximately 15 years later, that Devlin met up with Roland Emmerich to try again, having felt that they had "cracked" a story for a sequel.

Note from me: I'd really like to know what the first version was like. I was entertained by this movie, but not as much as by the first one. Perhaps the first version was actually better!

The movie is dedicated to actor Robert Loggia, who appears in both Independence Day (1996) and Independence Day: Resurgence, and passed away in 2015. The film's closing credits dedication reads: "In Memoriam: Robert Loggia".

Note from me: And one of my favorite lines in the whole movie was when the general says to the Morse Code radio operators in that gravely voice of his, "Tell 'em how to bring those sons 'a bitches down!"

________

The length of the massive diameter of the alien craft spaceship is about the same as Jupiter's moon Europa and spans approximately 3,000 miles (4,830 kilometers) in width. The character of Director David Levinson in the film defines the new mothership's size as being so big that "it has its own gravity."

Note from me: Well, heck, why didn't I think of this? We don't need to invent artificial gravity, and we don't have to spin wheel-shaped sections of our interplanetary spacecraft to provide weight for the crew! We just need to make the spaceships so freakin' big they create their own gravity!

And before somebody points out that a spaceship that massive would be hard to propel because of its tendency to be a bit . . . overweight . . . I suggest we adopt the NASA can-do attitude by saying, "We'll solve THAT problem when we get to it!"

A television commercial for the U.S. Army was made and broadcast to promote the picture by pretending to be an ad for the fictitious ESD (Earth Space Defense program).

Note from me: I"m not sure the video below is the one referred to above, but I like it, so here it is.

______________________ United We Survive


__________


According to the Guardian newspaper, "the website promoting the sequel Independence Day: Resurgence has been criticized for its disturbingly realistic Street View-style images . . . The widely publicized Independence Day: My Street website asks visitors to type in a street address, and then shows pseudo-news footage of an alien bombing attack using Google Street View-style photography."

Note from me: Is this legitimate? Has anybody tried this? I'd LOVE to see my subdivision destroyed by aliens!

According to Movieweb, regarding Independence Day: Resurgence and Independence Day 3, "It is said both sequels will tell a single story, and are being crafted much like Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Back to the Future Part III (1990)."

Note from me: Well, now . . . if this turns out to be true, I'm looking forward to!

Humanity's utilization of alien technology points to one of the film's bigger themes. Production Designer Barry Chusid said: "One of the things we are trying to portray was the idea that all the world's nations are now united against a common enemy. They've done it once before, they will do it again. Moreover, there's no longer a divide between civilians and military, and between countries. We will use whatever we can get our hands on, to fight the aliens."

Note from me: This is one of the film's chief strengths. The scenes of the various military fragments from different nations becoming allies in the first movie are taken to the next level in this sequel. The nations of the world have united, and the salvaged alien technology has catapulted mankind technology forward a few hundred years. This is EXACTLY what I would have done with the sequel if somebody put me in charge of writing it.

In fact, years before ID4 came out, I came up with a similar concept for a sequel to Earth versus the Flying Saucers . . . with the whimsical working title, Earth USES the Flying Saucers. In my story, America recovers, repairs, and reproduces the crashed saucers after the "Battle of Washing D.C.", and they prepare to launch a counter attack against a 2nd alien fleet which they find out has conquered a planet in a star system a few light years away.

In other words, Earth is taking the fight to the aliens — just like the 3rd ID4 movie plans to do!

I created the picture below to illustrate my concept several years before Independence Day: Resurrection was even in preproduction. It shows test flights of Earth-created saucers, with advanced jet fighter escorts, before the Earth fleet of saucers leaves to take on the aliens.

Cool, eh?



_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

What did you not understand about my reply to the IMDB trivia item?
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

O-o-o-oh . . . You're wondering what the first version of the sequel script was like! I got lost in the antecedents. I guess I got distracted by Natalie.
_________________
...or not...

WayneO
-----------