Roland Emmerich

Part of what makes the moviegoing experience so great is that we all interpret things differently. For instance, you might think giant alien spaceships blowing up landmarks while the fate of humanity rests in the hands of Jeff Goldblum is silly, or maybe, if you’re like disasterpiece director Roland Emmerich, you think the whole concept of superheroes is absurd. And you’re entitled to feel that way, but that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Independence Day: Resurgence hits theaters this week, though you wouldn’t necessarily know it unless you’ve been keeping a close eye on this month’s new releases. Fox has no plans to screen the film for press in advance, so if you’re waiting to read some reviews before committing to see the sequel this weekend, you can go ahead and stop now. But Fox is still hoping to lure audiences in even without some positive early buzz, mostly via fun viral videos like these.

The trend in trailers right now is to make things shorter. Teasers for trailers. Vines for teasers for trailers. Even full-length trailers on YouTube now often start with a five-second tease of the trailer you are about to watch five seconds later. It’s hard to conceive of ways content can be chopped any smaller, but studios keep finding ways.

The original Independence Day wasn’t exactly subtle. It trashed the White House, the Empire State Building, and the Capitol Records building. It laid waste to huge swaths of the planet, all for the amusement of summer moviegoers. So how do you top that?

Surprise! 20th Century Fox has delivered the first full trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence (not related to Toho’s Godzilla: Resurgence, unfortunately) a wee bit earlier than previously planned. The trailer was going to debut in front of Star Wars: The Force Awakens later this week, but early Christmas has come early, and our ol’ alien pals are back.

20th Century Fox appropriately released the first Independence Day: Resurgence teaser on the Fourth of July, but since director Roland Emmerich was still in production on the long-awaited sequel, there was no actual footage in the teaser. And while we do know a few things about where Emmerich is heading with the new film, we still don’t have the slightest clue what to expect — but the director promises we’ll know a lot more around Christmas.

Stonewall is definitely a change of pace for Roland Emmerich, a director who primarily deals in mass destruction blockbusters. I guess you could say he’s blowing up marriage inequality in his latest film, which reflects on the Stonewall riots in 1969 and the birth of the LGBT rights movement.

Will Smith returning for an Independence Day sequel seemed like a real no-brainer: director Roland Emmerich’s original film, released in 1996, established Smith as a legitimate blockbuster star and helped earn him the nickname Mr. July. So why didn’t the actor return for Independence Day: Resurgence? Rumors have swirled about scheduling and pay, but Emmerich has the real answer, and it’s kind of…anticlimactic?

Director Roland Emmerich and the stars of the upcoming Independence Day sequel are currently participating in a livestream Q&A, which you can watch in the YouTube player above. One of the details recently revealed: Independence Day 2 is officially called Independence Day: Resurgence, and you can expect a lot more fighter pilot action, apparently.

Independence Day helped define the modern summer blockbuster and earned Will Smith the nickname Mr. July (for a while, anyway). It’s easy to forget that there was a time when summer movies weren’t always superhero flicks and action movies and disasterpieces. And now the man who gave us Independence Day is back again with Independence Day 2, the long-awaited, long-developing sequel which will finally arrive in theaters next summer. We know who’s in it, but what is it about, exactly?