Bookshelf Battle

From the far reaches of space, aliens travel to Earth…

…to remind me that I am now old as f%&kT and have accomplished very little in 20 years.

Although in my defense, neither has the world! So there’s that.

SPOILERS abound.

BQB here with a review of Independence Day: Resurgence.

The year was 1996.

Bill Clinton was in the White House, chasing interns around the Oval Office with his pants around his ankles and turning Monica Lewinsky into a human humidor (Google it, millennials. It’s too disgusting to go into further detail.)

The Beastie Boys were laying down some of their ill-est shit.

The sentence “Bill Cosby gave that lady his pudding pop” could only have been construed as “that nice comedic father figure was kind enough to give a woman the delicious frozen snack treat that he endorses.”

The Internet was in its infancy.  It was a cute toy but other than that no one saw a glaring need to pay a fee to tie up your phone line while your computer screeched at you.

People who took pictures of their lunch and then demanded that you a) look at the pictures of their lunch and b) make comments about their lunch were considered assholes.

Technically, those people didn’t even exist, or if they did, not in high numbers. Again, the Internet was in its infancy.  If you wanted your own website you needed coding knowledge and technical know-how.  It was just too much work to post pictures of your lunch.

And at the box office was a movie called Independence Day.

Yes, in a pure marketing move, it was released on July 4th. Independence Day.

Those aliens know how to screw up a barbecue.

In the original, aliens invade Earth.  In a far flung story line, various groups and people react to the alien attack.

To the best of my recollection, you had Bill Pullman as the president, who was also a fighter pilot, for no other reason really than he got to make inspiring speeches and then fly around in a fighter jet and shoot at alien spaceships.

Oh and there was Randy Quaid as a guy who appeared to be a drunk jackass who was crazy for believing he’d been abducted by aliens as a kid only to be vindicated.  Humorous. Also, he was, coincidentally, a pilot as well so he too enjoyed the alien shooting fun.

Of course, the big star was Will Smith as Capt. Hiller, the pilot/hero who saves the day.

(SPOILER ALERT – he and Jeff Goldblum fly a stolen alien fighter craft into the mothership, fooling the aliens just long enough for them to upload a virus with the help of a 90’s era Mac and a floppy disk.)

Seemed ingenious at the time.

Twenty years have now passed.

Holy f%&king butt nuggets.  Twenty years.

3.5 readers, here’s my first criticism of this highly unnecessary sequel.

It made me think too much about my life – how quickly the past two decades went by. Mistakes made. Things I could have done differently.

How is it possible that I went from a wide-eyed young lad thinking this new fangled CGI movie was pretty cool (CGI effects were fairly new to the movie scene in those days so as a movie goer, they were a treat. I feel bad for you millennials as you have nothing to look forward to now, unless virtual reality actually ends up being as big as they claim it will be).

Where was I? Ah yes. How did I go from that young kid wowed by CGI to a jaded adult who has now seen so much CGI that it just doesn’t have them same wow factor that it did when it was new?

Shit. Then there’s me in general. Twenty years ago I thought by now I’d be a really amazing, fabulous person.

Had you told me back then that in 20 years my greatest achievement would be starting a blog with 3.5 readers my response would be a) “What’s a blog?” and then b) “Oh, it’s a website that any asshole with $10 and rudimentary typing skills can start? Excuse me while I GO STICK MY HEAD IN THE MOVIE THEATER RESTROOM TOILET AND FLUSH IT UNTIL I DROWN TO SPARE MYSELF THIS INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING FUTURE!!!”

Nah. I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have just vowed that I’d work harder and make a difference. You millennials weren’t the first generation to view yourselves as special snowflakes.

At any rate, I spent most of this movie paying little attention to the action on screen. Instead, I went over the multitude of mistakes I made, opportunities missed, warning signs avoided, paths not taken and so on that led me to a point where the highlight of my day is writing a review of a highly unnecessary sequel to a movie that was dumb twenty years ago.

Even worse, so little has changed in the world since then when you think about it:

• A Bush had recently been president before Clinton became president.

• Since then, another Bush became president. Then a third Bush recently tried to become president. Also, another Clinton wants to be president. At least if the Clintons end up back in the White House, the interns will have a head start this time. Bill isn’t looking as spry as he used to be.

• Trump’s hair defied gravity and laws of physics, back in the 1990s and today.

• Cars don’t fly yet. We have yet to meet real space aliens. Oh, and the Simpsons are still on the air.

And yet, despite all of these similarities, there were some differences between then and now that made the original film more enjoyable…then.

Specifically:

• I was young and more willing to suspend disbelief. (Bill Pullman as a President/Alien Fighter seemed perfectly plausible.)

• Seeing landmarks getting blown up by aliens seemed like harmless fantasy drivel back in the day.  As I recall, the aliens in the original film blow up the White House so as to illustrate to you, the viewer that they were evil ass aliens who meant business and were not to be f%&ked with.  Since 9/11, such scenes just seems to hit too close to home.

• And like I said before, CGI was in its early stages, so it was awesome to see. Then George Lucas came along and made those cartoonish Star Wars prequels.

OK. Shit. 1,000 words in, let’s talk about the sequel itself.

It’s twenty years later and the world has become a Utopia. A casino magnate with gravity defying hair and the lady who ran the country in the 90’s by shoving her hand up her husband’s ass and working his mouth like a puppet (oh come on, you know she did) aren’t vying for control of the Free World.

Rather, the entire world is free and humanity works together as humans have set aside their differences in order to keep a watchful eye out for future alien invasions.

Alien tech has been used to create all sorts of wonderful inventions that improve life and make people happy.

And then, you know, aliens invade again. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, some people do some shit over here, some other people do some shit over there, cut in some scenes of shit getting blown up around the world, and so on.

There are new cast members like Liam Hemsworth, but mostly the film consists of the actors from the original who never did anything better than this bullshit.

Thus, Jeff Goldblum is back, as is Judd Hirsch as his father.  Bill Pullman is back though I wish he wasn’t because I feel like it was just yesterday that I saw him in Spaceballs as Lone Star and now he’s old as f%&k.

And in general, that’s my main complaint.  Will Smith didn’t return, I assume, because the studio didn’t want to shell out the cash now that he’s a big box office draw (you might remember the original Independence Day plus Men in Black made Will a celebrity icon.)

So Will is nowhere to be found.  But everyone without anything better to do is back, and they are all old as shit, which makes me feel old as shit.

I literally think this movie was made for the sole purpose of making me feel old as shit.

HOLLYWOOD SUIT 1 – Should we make a sequel to Independence Day?

HOLLYWOOD SUIT 2 – Yes! It will make BQB feel old as shit!

There are many references to the original, shit that you probably wouldn’t get unless you saw the first one (and also if you’re a nerd like me who has seen it a few more times over the years so you remember what happened.)

The aliens are still slapping Bill Pullman’s face up against the glass and speaking through him as if he’s their puppet (I assume they got the idea by watching Hillary work Bill).

Jeff and Judd are still the unlikely father/son hero duo, except Judd’s still alive which is surprising as I thought he was old as shit twenty years ago.

Eat your Wheaties kids and you too can aspire to Judd Hirsch’s longevity!

Robert Loggia has a quick cameo though I think it might have been a CGI Loggia.  Someone tell me if you have the details on that one.

Oh and Brent Spiner (aka Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation) is back as the eccentric Dr. Brakish Okun.

The plot is basically the same bullshit about aliens invading and their invasion happens to be coincidentally timed on Independence Day so Americans can feel very patriotic while watching a movie about Americans defeating aliens on the same day that the British were told to go pound sand.

Although, I have to point out, some Hollywood suit must have decided this sequel didn’t have the gusto to put butts in seats on the Fourth of July, seeing as how it was released in June.

You’ll know this franchise has hit the wall when they release an Independence Day sequel that hits theaters in January.

Oh and FYI – there will be another sequel.  It will also be unnecessary and serve as little more than a reminder that 20 years have passed, your life sucks more than you thought it would and the world doesn’t even have flying cars.

Shit. Stop remaking 90s shit, Hollywood.

Next you’ll tell me there’s a Mallrats TV show in the works.

Wait? What?

STATUS: Semi-shelf worthy. The effects are worth a trip to the theater. Otherwise, if you miss it, you didn’t miss much.