It’s been a while since we’ve heard any word on Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s plans to bring a pair of sequels to their 1996 blockbuster Independence Day – titled Independence Day Forever Part I and Part II – to theaters.
Entertainment Weekly caught up with Emmerich who stated that the pair have finished their draft of the screenplays for the two films and that James Vanderbilt, who wrote Emmerich’s White House Down due out later this summer, is now doing polish. And what will the world be like two decades after the repelling of an alien invasion. Emmerich explains –
The humans knew that one day the aliens would come back. And they know that the only way you can really travel in space is through wormholes. So for the aliens, it could take two or three weeks, but for us that’s 20 or 25 years….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.
Now I know that Emmerich and Devlin often get flack for turning out brainless blockbusters, but it sounds like they’ve put a bit of thought as to what a post-defeated-alien-invasion world would be like. Hopefully, they’ll have put the same amount of thought into how the characters have changed from the experience. And speaking of characters, Emmerich gives a hint as to whom we may see in the sequels –
It’s still some of the same characters, but also new younger characters; it’s a little bit like the sons take over. The first one ends on a little success, but only enough to give the humans hope. And then in the second one they free themselves again [from the aliens].
Am I seeing yet another role for Jaiden Smith?
