Brush up on your world history before you see Independence Day: Resurgence and find out what’s happened in the last 20 years before Independence Day 2.
Independence Day saw the Earth invaded by aliens in 1996. Thanks to a few brave souls, namely Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) and David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), their attack was thwarted and the mother ship was blown to smithereens.
But as Resurgence has shown us, these creatures are far from extinct. We’ve had 20 years to use the technology we salvaged from the first attack to prepare for a second one, and we put that time to good use. Will it be enough?
Between the prequel novel Independence Day: Crucible and the website WarOf1996.com, we can piece together the events of the last 20 years to find out how we got to where we are today, in 2016, for Independence Day: Resurgence.
The world rebuilds (1997)
Don’t expect to see the world you’re used to in Resurgence. It took a year, but the rebuilding began in earnest and I’m hoping we’ll get updated versions of all those famous landmarks that were destroyed in 1996. Before they’re destroyed again, that is. It would be cool to see an Earth that looks alien to us (pun intended), and it’ll help show how the world has changed since the first movie.
The Earth Space Defense program is established (1998)
The United Nations created the ESD to prevent any more alien attacks. The program is a global effort and world-wide recruitment launched at the same time. Here’s to hoping this means there will be plenty of diversity in the sequel. It will be nice to see the world working together in a concentrated effort against the aliens, especially given our own global issues, though don’t expect everyone to get along. We’re only human, after all.
New weapons are developed from alien technology (2003)
Though there was some push against developing weapons using alien technology, they eventually proved fruitful. We defeated them once before without the use of this technology, so now that we have it, we should be better prepared, right? What I want to know is if they’ll have better control over the weaponry than we will, and if we’ll have to go back to the basics. All that time and effort wasted would be a disappointment, but we banded together using a simple virus and Morse code once before. We can do it again.
Rumors of an alien prison are circulating (2005)
In the original movie, a secret base was revealed to President Whitmore, who was shocked this sort of information had been kept from him. The ESD offers no comment on these rumors, making me think they’re not only true, but that the government is definitely involved. The trailer certainly provides footage that supports this idea. It’s good to know that a facility like this could provide valuable intel for Levinson and his fellow humans, but could this backfire on them too?
The last of the aliens are killed (2006)
The African Congo held the final alien invaders, who fought for their lives for 10 years until they were defeated by the local government. This also proves that not everyone was on board with the ESD. It also raises the questions, what were those aliens doing for 10 years and how will this impact what goes on in Resurgence? We see that they had set up a little base of operations there, so it’s likely they were continuing to call for assistance.
Captain Steven Hiller dies (2007)
This is probably the most important piece of information you’ll need to know going into the movie. Will Smith’s character won’t be present — though his wife and son will be! — because he was killed testing a new fighter pilot with anti-gravity technology. The book implies that if more tests were run and David Levinson had been more involved, the accident could’ve been prevented. This is, perhaps, the saddest part about this development.
David Levinson is the director of ESD (2009)
David Levinson is the newly appointed Director of Earth Space Defense, and there is a new base on the moon, whose headquarters reside in China. The Moonbase’s purpose is to monitor space for potential alien threats, and new bases also crop up on Mars and one of Saturn’s moons. Resurgence already feels like a bigger movie than the first, given the human race has expanded beyond Earth.
Elizabeth Lanford becomes president of the United States (2013)
President Lanford is the current president of the United States, though it looks like Whitmore is still involved in the fight against the aliens. Lanford looks like a decisive, intelligent, strong-willed president. Plus, it’s pretty cool she’s being heralded as a forward-thinking president who also happens to become the first woman to take the Oval Office.
Hybrid fighter planes become a reality (2014)
Despite Hiller’s death and initial issues with the technology, these jets are now being used as part of global defense efforts. With two years of working with these planes under their belt, the movie should see our heroes having no trouble using the machines to the best of their advantage.
We celebrate 20 years without incident (2016)
But all good things must come to an end. The aliens are back in Resurgence, and we can only hope that the new world leaders will put all this new technology to good use as we fight off the next wave of attack.
