Tag Archives: Independence Day Resurgence

Mapping the War of 1996 [Independence Day] – Map-It

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TL;DR – We map the carnage over four days of July in 1996 on Independence Day.

The Aliens arrive over New York.

Mapping Independence –

Well, I had been feeling off, and when that happens, one of the best remedies is to go back to one of your comfort films. While everyone has their own list of comfort films, mine include Ever After, 10 Things I Hate About You, and today’s focus Independence Day.     

As I was watching the film, I wondered what the global extent of the attack would be because the film’s focus is America, but it was an international event, given what we can see in snippets throughout the film. I went through the original movie with a fine-toothed comb and any references in Independence Day Resurgence to get the locations here. However, this only painted part of the picture, and the novel of the first film differs from the movie in places, so that is an issue.

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Movie Review – Occupation

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TL;DR – Occupation is an Aussie take on the Alien Invasion genre, with a fantastic setup and ending, though it does meander a bit in the middle.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Occupation. Image Credit: Pinnacle Films/Sparkefilms

Review –

For those who have read my work before you would likely know that I am a big fan of the Science Fiction genre, and one of the types of media that falls under that banner is Alien Invasions. They can be on the small scale like Predator, or on the large scale like Independence Day and X-Com, or that one time with Battleship where it was weirdly mid-scale, that was an odd film. However, the basic premise of all these films is that one day everything is normal, you are going about your day without a care in the world and then everything changes. I really enjoy the Alien Invasion sub-genre, indeed I count Independence Day as one of my favourite films of all time, however, a lot of the recent films have been well disappointing, sorry Independence Day Resurgence (see review). Well, today I take a look at a film that is taking the genre in the right direction with an Aussie twist.

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Movie Review – Pacific Rim Uprising

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TL;DR – Bombastic as always, but it doesn’t set itself apart from what came before, and the story struggles to find its voice.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post title scene at the start of the credits

Pacific Rim Uprising banner

Review –

As we talked about in our look back at the first Pacific Rim (see review), I was a real big fan of the original. Guillermo del Toro’s film about giant monsters called Kaijus attacking the cities around the Pacific Ocean being stopped by giant mechas called Jaegers. There was something easy and yet compelling with the setup and the world they created. With Pacific Rim Uprising we get more of the same as the first film yet somehow it feels like something got lost along the way, and that, unfortunately, it just does not work as well as the first film. So with that in mind, we are going to dive into Pacific Rim Uprising to look at what worked and what didn’t.

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My Bottom 10 Films of 2016

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It’s the end of one year and the start of another and among the fireworks, booze and celebrations there is one tradition that transcends all and that is the tradition of end of year lists and who would I be to buck this trend. So over the next three days, we will be seeing the best and worst that 2016 had to offer with regards to movies (so we can have at least some positive things to say about 2016). Tomorrow we will have the movies I class in the ‘highly commended’ category and the day after we will have the all-important ‘best films of 2016’. However today we start with the opposite, with the worse or most disappointing films of 2016.

Ben-Hur 2.jpg
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Movie Review – Independence Day Resurgence

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TL;DR – If you want spectacle, it has it, and indeed it still has a really good message which I think we need now more than ever, but it just does not hit the same mark as the first film.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Independence Day Resurgence. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

The original Independence Day is a masterpiece of cinema, it was technically quite brilliant for its time with the effects, it reinvigorated the genre in a time of stagnation, it blew the roof off the standard of what a blockbuster is, and at the heart of it, it had a really good story and theme. Seriously, go watch that speech at the end, I’ll link it below, it still is amazing.

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