You knew we’d get more explosions, bigger spaceships, and crazier action. But what eases my mind most in this new look at Independence Day: Resurgence (which is the same trailer that was part of Fox’s CinemaCon reel), is that it looks like we’re going to get a new over-the-top speech by Bill Pullman. That tells me the filmmakers understand it’s about more than just blowing up the White House again. It’s also about getting Jeff Goldblum back and telling him to explain what we’re seeing, even when it’s obvious, because his explanations are always better.

Director Roland Emmerich is best when he’s insane. That’s my take, anyway. The Emmerich of 1996 used to boast about making huge movies cheaply by using models instead of CG and featuring long stretches of downtime between action-packed money shots (his Godzilla disappointed many by not having a whole lot of Godzilla in it). But the moment he realized he could use CG to do absolutely anything, all the time, and fully unleashed himself, his movies have been absolutely bananas spectacles of the highest order. The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, for instance.

Never mind how the science works; if he keeps showing you one massive disaster after another, there’s no time to think about it too hard. So I love that instead of setting the Independence Day sequel more or less in our modern world, as he did with the first one, Resurgence is an all-out alternate reality that looks like his version of Star Trek.

Putting real-world timelines into sci-fi can trip you up if your franchise lasts. When the original Star Trek set Khan and the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s, nobody ever imagined the show would still be around in any form by the time that decade actually came to be, and subsequent shows had to try to retcon by saying the Wars were going on in secret, or something. Honestly, nobody really cares if these things totally match our actual reality as long as the stories are good… or as long as stuff blows up real good. And in this trailer, the latter at least is guaranteed.

Can the aliens defend against iPhones? How is Brent Spiner alive? Will Liam Hemsworth exclaim “Welcome to Earth!” as heartily as Will Smith did? Are you as happy as I am that this is set in a crazy alt-present instead of 2016 as it actually is?

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Featured image: 20th Century Fox