Amph ID4: Resurgence kicks the tires and lights the fires in 2016 (ID4 3 to follow?)

I just saw this diss from a few months back.
I kinda liked Lone Ranger. It was fun enough. I have no comment on whether Depp being an Indian was racist. That's a game for you Americans.
It was very Pirates of the Caribbean, setting up big ridiculous stunt action scenes.

Wild Wild West? Western Steampunk was a fun idea, but failed in the execution. There are things to appreciate in it, but it didn't work out.

And I liked Speed Racer, and John Carter. And Avatar. And the new Ghostbusters. What else can I like that is hated by the Internet?

 

I liked Speed Racer but thought it needed to be edited down to a 90-110 min movie. John Carter gets a bad rap too. It's not awful. Just not amazing. Taylor Kitsch curse.

 

This was better than SR, TLR & JC. But so much stupidity. Where to start?

1. Alien ship shows up. Moon gun blows up ship. Panic? Prepare? Nope just act like nothing has happened.

2. Big City Destroyer lands in Africa. Study it? Use it? Nope can't violate some warlords little thief domain.

3. Let's put the VP, the SOTH, and all the cabinet members in the same location so some unelected jar head becomes POTUS!

4. Earth rebuilt too fast.

5. Alien ship goes away instead of being destroyed.

6. Unlikable next generation actors.

7. Predictable plot for next movie. A.I. aliens infact started the war with the Harvester aliens.

8. David's father no longer acts like a "stereotypical funny jew" from ID 1 movie so the movie can do better in Muslim markets.

9. China pandering.

10. Romance. These are not to be romantic movies. Gay or straight it don't matter.

 

No kidding but this was one of the biggest disappointment over these years. The first one was just awesome(especially in 1996) and the 2nd one was so silly.

 

Well then in that case, I guess it's a good thing I didn't pay money to see it in theaters. Instead, I'm about 56th in line for a hold on a DVD copy from the library, after which I'll be able to find out just how bad this movie is!

 

My friend and I both enjoyed the hell out this. We knew going in there was no way it would be a fraction as good as 1 but we didn't regret paying to see it on big screen. Sure it's cheesy but it was a fun popcorn movie. We liked how much it expanded the galaxy and look foward to 3. My only complaint was even though the guy I could have done without

Spoiler

Brent Spiner being in it and the comedic Duo stuff

other then that I had fun watching it.

 

These two points took me out of the film. Yes, it's Independence Day but the sequel was expanding the universe of the series in such a way that we were meant to be taking it seriously given the Mass Effect style drama that was going on beneath the core narrative. The action wasn't fun, it was stupid. ID4 may have had an abundance of stupidity, but it was always fun and has aged gracefully.

 

I mean really right now if some UFO landed in say The Sudan you can bet your last $ we will secure it with or without The Sudan's permission. DebonaireNerd

 

He doesn't? perhaps the direct jewish references with him were cutout but if anything if would say he's even more the "stereotypical funny jew" in this film.

Indeed I'd say this might well be the candidate for the most jewish action blockbuster ever made with Brent Spiner given a lot more time to ham it up and Goldblum going that route more as well plus Nicolas Wright's(if he's not Jewish the character is certainly played to that cliché) character as well. That stuff and the action/design is I'd really say the main thing to watch the film for, indeed it seems to me that at some stage during production the film cottoned onto the idea that its younger nominal new leads were actually painfully bland and sidelined them as much as possible.

 

If an alien ship landed in Sudan the area would be quarantined, locals would be silenced by some means and the media would never know about it.

 

Also that Warlord is extremely stupid. He could of made trillions of $ if he let nations come in and study the City Destroyer.

 

My opinion towards this film has softened enough where I can say that I enjoyed it thanks to Star Trek Beyond and Suicide Squad.

 

I enjoyed Beyond more than this. At least Beyond was entertaining. This was silly and boring.

Suicide Squad I did not watch.

 

Again I kind of got the impression they started off thinking they might make an ID4 TNG film with a more serious edge but realised just how bland that would be and put more of a focus on letting the original cast "jew it up".

 

Personally I would say Beyond was actually the most enjoyable of the recent Trek films due to dialing back the nostalgia somewhat, its still pretty slight in terms of having much depth to its story/setting but enjoyable and quite original visually.

 

As stupid as IDR was. At least they didn't use a Beastie Boys song to save the day.

 

Wasn't the first movie criticized for its America-saves-the-world portrayal, but now that they've added in some Chinese contribution it's China pandering?

Anyway, just finished watching this last night. I actually rather enjoyed it...didn't think I would. I originally thought "wow, they didn't need to make a sequel...this is going to be stupid" but it turns out I actually did enjoy seeing all the old faces return, and humanity reverse-engineering the high-tech alien gear. Funnily enough, I also thought the same of The Force Awakens before seeing that, and well, I didn't change my mind after watching it >_>

*runs away*

 

You know it's amazing to me how people like you make this charge. The vast majority of blockbuster movies are full America pandering.

1) American troops are near universally presented as heroes, and in the instances they're not, it's either a) made clear that they're bad apples and the institution itself is still "good" or b) it's been infiltrated by Russians or Muslims or whatever is the villain group of the day.

2) Non-Americans will get killed on screen far more often than Americans in an international setting. Non-American troops are the literal definition of cannon fodder, whose lives will be sacrificed making a distraction so the main group of Americans can complete their mission.

3) Americans are nearly always saving the day while non-Americans are practically either useless or cannon fodder.

4) The is no bigger military porn than American movies. Russian once a year parades don't hold a candle to how much we obsess over our military strength.

Are there exceptions to this? Sure. Sometimes it's a non American westerner, like James Bond. But for the first time, you're starting to see a slight decrease in America pandering (and I mean very slight) because movie studious are starting to reap a whole lot of money in third world markets, and boom, out come the "China pandering" accusations. But the truth is that you've been pandered to for so long that it's the normal for you and anything less must mean pandering to others.

You know what'll be refreshing? A big budget movie from the eyes of some Arab youngster having to fight off the cartoonishly evil American soldiers that are invading his home, where Americans are all depicted as cheering the killing of his neighbors and friends and family. But that's never gonna get made, because 1) Americans would be outraged and 2) they'd not watch something like this. But this is how we've depicted the third world in film for as long as movie-making has existed.

 

So no sequel?

 

In retrospect, I was way too harsh on this movie when I originally saw it. Mainly because of Star Trek Beyond and Suicide Squad. ID4 2 is dumb fun and aspires to be nothing more (unlike SS) nor does it make empty promises (STB).

 

The main problem I had with it was the aliens' strategy vs the first film. In the original film, it was implied they were, in a way, like locusts that swarmed over their target, consuming everything than moving on. We saw that in the mother ship when the alien troops were amassing. So, why the need for that if they were just drilling to access the core?

The only answer I can think of was that the aliens hadn't intended to use a larger harvester ship, using their other ships as distraction while the harvester did its work.

 

"China pandering" is rather silly as a criticism in a sequel to a massively pro American original or indeed the general US focus of Hollywood as a whole, ironically I think a US focus actually tends to do quite well in the far east with films like Marvel and the Transformers, its more the European market that's a little less keen on it IMHO.

It did to me seem like a film that had a pretty good idea of what its strengths were, alien tech, big action and allowing the original cast to ham it up, did also have a few new ideas which is rather more than we got with The Force Awakens. Knowing it was basically as good a film as it probably could have been made for a more enjoyable watch than TFA for me which always had me regretting it wasn't something more that it had the potential to be.