Some call him America’s sweetheart. Some call him a teen heartthrob. Diehard fans of Independence Day call him David Levinson. But most of us just call him Jeff Goldblum, thespian extraordinaire, jazz musician par excellence, and friend to the animals. This summer will see His Jeffiness reprising his role from Independence Day in Roland Emmerich’s highly anticipated Independence Day: Resurgence, which invades theaters on June 24, 2016.
Taking place some twenty years after the original, humanity once again finds itself on the precipice of intergalactic war — this time they’re a little more prepared. Or at least they thought they were. Judging by the size of the spaceships in those trailers, it looks damn near impossible to prepare for an assault on this scale. Then again, former President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is still around, so you can bet your bottom dollar that we aren’t going gentle into that good night.
Last year, I had the chance to visit the set of Independence Day: Resurgence in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I sat down with veteran cast members Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox, Brent Spiner, Bill Pullman, and newcomers like Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe, and Jessie Usher, as well as director Roland Emmerich. Those will be posted on the site throughout the week, but we would be remiss in our duties if we didn’t share Jeff Goldblum’s dulcet tones singing an improvised theme song to Independence Day: Resurgence. Sure, it may sound awfully similar to the Jurassic Park theme he has been known to bust out at his weekly jazz performances in Los Angeles, but part of me hopes that it’ll work its way into the film’s closing credits.
In addition to Goldblum’s musical stylings, the actor shared with us what exactly his character has been up to during these past two decades, as well as what we can expect from the finished film.
Speaking of the film, while on set, we were able to watch a scene being filmed on the movie’s Moon Base set, specifically in the hangar that houses a formidable-looking “Moon Tug,” which you can see above. The Tug, as producer Dean Devlin informed us, is essentially a space forklift, a.k.a. the truck of the future. Hemsworth’s character, Jake, is a cocky pilot who has been relegated to essentially working in an intergalactic warehouse — it obviously grinds his gears.
One additional piece of cool filming information: they are shooting on high quality RED digital cameras in 6K, and they’re using technology known as Ncam to render the digital set in real time on the director’s monitor. This way, the filmmakers can see how the practical effects look opposite the digital environments in real time, rather than waiting to see how things shake out in post.
In the scene we saw, Liam Hemsworth’s cocky space jockey Jake is being chewed out by a superior officer in the Earth Space Defense organization. During a risky maneuver, Jake managed to save several of his colleagues’ lives, but did some major property damage in the process. The scene began with Hemsworth commiserating with his pal, Charlie (Travis Tope), and assessing the extent of the damage when they are suddenly beset by a superior officer. Though Jake tries to nonchalantly breeze through the exchange with cool-guy ripostes like “I was kind of hoping for a pat on the back,” the officer isn’t having any of it. “You don’t get credit for cleaning up your own mess,” he shoots back coldly. Charlie tried to intervene, which made it seem as though Jake was taking the fall for something or someone, but Jake stopped him. “He already hates me,” Jake tells Charlie. “Why break tradition?” Why indeed, Jake, why indeed?
Based on this exchange, something tells me that Jake will make a nice, cocky companion to Goldblum’s David Levinson, who is now running the ESD. And based on what we’ve seen so far in the trailers, we know they’re going to be spending some quality time together trying to save the world from another onslaught of alien invaders.
Are you excited for Independence Day: Resurgence? What other theme songs would you like to hear Jeff Goldblum sing? Let us know in the comments below.
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Images: Fox
Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star Wars and the Avengers. You can follow him on Twitter (@Osteoferocious).
