ROLAND EMMERICH: Oh, it starts with the Fox logo.
Fox logo has great memories for me.
First studio picture I ever shot was for Fox.
The first Independence Day.
Before that, I worked for Carolco and they always distributed to TriStar,
Stargate for MGM.
But this was my first real studio I worked for,
so it has some sentimental values to me.
Here is the new Centropolis logo because we had to redo it,
because for 3D, we had to redo the whole thing.
PRESIDENT WHITMORE: Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July.
ROLAND: And opening was not like this in the original script.
While we were testing, we realized all of a sudden,
we have to have some sort of an arc which ties this movie to the first movie.
We came up with this signal traveling through space,
which is, a little bit, our title sequence,
but also something where it tells a little bit of story
or gives a glimpse of what's to come.
- Here it's eating a planet. - (PINGING)
PRESIDENT WHITMORE: We're fighting for our right to live.
ROLAND: This sequence was done by some French guys, they're called BUF.
And here is a planet where actually we see,
already a first glimpse, of what's going to happen on Earth.
It's a Harvester ship latching on, drilling into the core of the planet.
And the camera goes black.
And now we're like the first time in the queen's chamber.
We get only a glimpse of her hand and a signal,
I'll later refer to that when that comes back.
Shows this signal coming from Earth,
tells the alien queen that her troops got defeated by some strange human beings.
PRESIDENT WHITMORE: We're going to survive.
Today, we celebrate our...
- (SCREAMS) - (GASPING)
ROLAND: That was also a good cut because you see Bill Pullman in his prime,
and then he's this broken man who has these nightmares.
And all these people actually
who had some mental connection or physical connection,
they have these images of this circle with a line through it
and that becomes very important the rest of the film.
There's actually Russell Casse.
It's there, one of the names that was the Randy Quaid character.
And here we see the brave new world enhanced by alien technology.
We've rebuilt pretty much, in 20 years, everything, shiny or bigger.
We have helicopters and planes which have anti-gravity engines.
LANFORD ON SPEAKERS: Nations have put their petty differences aside.
United, we rebuilt our families, our cities and our lives.
The fusion of human and alien technology...
not only enabled us to defy gravity and travel with unimaginable speed...
ROLAND: And here we have our female president giving a speech,
with the young lady, she's 22 now. It is Patricia Whitmore, Maika Monroe.
One moment.
And here comes our first nod to Will Smith.
I had the feeling we should immediately make a nod to him.
We're ready for you, sir.
Captain Hiller.
Welcome to the White House.
He comes to the President, Sela Ward, for a photo op,
tells him how proud they are that he's flying.
Your father was a great man.
He'd be so proud.
So what we learn a little bit is that he's going to the moon.
- Sir. - Nice to see you again, son.
Mainly, this scene is there to show that Patricia and Dylan are royalty.
They're probably the most famous two kids growing up in the public eye.
Oh, you're the one that's back in the White House.
Yeah, as an employee I don't quite get the same benefits as when I lived here.
- Captain. - Yeah?
- We're ready for you. - Thank you.
Dylan...
be nice to Jake when you see him up there.
There's immediately something wrong
because they talk about Jake and here he is, Liam Hemsworth,
who is very frustrated.
He's a fighter pilot and he has to fly a moon tug, when they're transported,
it's extremely, extremely slow and they're frustrated.
The slowest trip of my life.
CHARLIE: Hey, cheer up.
There's worse things that you could be doing...
than towing a half trillion dollar weapon.
Here is Charlie, his best friend.
And obviously he's there not out of free will.
They talk about it, and we learn later about that.
I could have been stationed anywhere. Like San Diego, you know?
Beaches, surfing.
You never surfed a day in your life.
This whole sequence was created by MPC.
It's an English company, but they have a dépendance in Vancouver.
I think they did a great job in creating these moon images.
MAN: The tugs and the weapon are on final approach.
ROLAND: This is Chin Han, old friend of mine.
He was already in 2012.
WOMAN: ...one.
ROLAND: All this design was really, really important to me,
that everything looks really human in a way,
but also fantastic with alien technology cut out into space.
It's not like they all rejected me.
I happen to have standards.
- Whoa! What did you do? - Nothing!
ROLAND: Then here things go wrong, which was mainly a character scene.
So we establish that Jake Morrison has his own way to do things,
and he decides single-handedly to save other people.
And everybody else around him is not quite happy with that,
but he does it anyway,
and uses his little moon tug to upright this enormous cannon again.
CHARLIE: This isn't a fighter, Jake.
JAKE: Don't remind me!
Lt. Miller...
what are you idiots doing?
CHARLIE: I don't know, sir!
(SCREAMING) We're gonna die! This is how I die!
(GRUNTS)
(CREAKING)
ROLAND: Then here, he's doing something, which comes three times in the film,
he uses the fusion drive, which was, these alien engines have this fusion drive.
At the end of the film, it will play a big part.
A fusion drive only can actually be used in an airless area, like space,
because it makes an object really fast.
In this case, it's strong enough to lift up this heavy weapon again.
- (ALARMS BLARING) - Yes!
Yes!
It's actually working!
(LAUGHING)
(CLANGING)
I honestly didn't think that was gonna work.
ROLAND: This next scene shows the shuttle bay.
Here you see the whole thing,
and Commander Lao isn't very happy about it
because he thinks they caused this accident.
Later we learn, this is actually power surges which happen.
You almost got us all killed.
Ah, yeah... but then I saved everyone.
You don't get credit for cleaning up your own mess.
And you destroyed one of my tugs.
Uh, actually, sir, if anybody's to blame...
Sir, I lost my focus. It won't happen again.
No, it won't.
You're grounded until further notice.
Can I still watch TV or...?
- You didn't have to take the fall. - Yeah, well...
He already hates me. Why break tradition?
ROLAND: Now, we see something which we saw in the first film.
One of the City Destroyers which went down.
And here, the brave new world of Area 51,
which has grown enormously, has become the Space Defense headquarters.
Here, we see the general who runs the place,
played by Will Fichtner.
And one of the writers.
This young gentleman, James Woods, was one of the last writers on this picture.
BOTH: Sir.
It started a couple of hours ago.
Here we see something that show...
We wanted to do right away, there's strange things happening
because all the aliens start to act up.
It's just like one of the first foreshadowing of things to come.
He's unreachable, sir.
Here, we're now in Albuquerque, but it's a stand-in for Africa.
They actually found an area which totally looks like Africa.
It's the same red soil, it was really amazing.
I was so happy when we found it.
This was a scene shot by Fred North who's a crazy helicopter pilot,
and I still regret today that I was sitting in that helicopter
because he flew, like, five feet over these cars.
Now, we're gonna start with Appendix 2.
I know a lot of people have a negative reaction to being audited.
But I've found it's a constructive experience.
Lloyd. Lloyd, Lloyd.
It's Floyd.
Here's one of the other writers, that's Nick Wright,
and he has his first scene with Jeff Goldblum.
ROSENBERG: Where are we?
Director Levinson.
Who are those men?
It was such a thrill for me to work again with Jeff.
He's such a unique actor and great guy.
Actually, we stayed friends for the last 20 years,
so he always was teasing me since, like, four, five years,
saying, "So, when is the Independence Day sequel coming?"
I said, "It's coming, it's coming."
The one and only, David Levinson.
Here is Charlotte Gainsbourg.
If you like Lars von Trier's movies, you must have seen her.
I am a huge fan of her.
I was already a big fan of her father's, Serge Gainsbourg.
He's one of the most famous French singers,
and she is like royalty in Europe.
We both remember what happened the last time we tried to be professional.
I'm sensing a palpable tension here.
We've bumped into each other at a few conferences.
I bet you have.
What we'll deduce here in this scene is, again, foreshadowing of things to come,
because they, the first time, were allowed in this amazing place,
which was locked off for them for 20 years.
And here we also introduce this theory she has
that this symbol, what we already saw in the Whitmore scene,
has a meaning, and she is after that meaning.
David Levinson is the head of Earth Space Defense,
doesn't believe in it so much.
Your obsession with the human-alien psychic residual condition.
Yeah, you calling me obsessive. That's cute.
ROLAND: And here we see a landed City Destroyer,
which is why the Jeff Goldblum character absolutely wanted to see it.
And behind him is DeObia,
a fantastic actor from England, but is originally from Nigeria.
He's just incredible.
These all scenes were done by one of my favorite companies
called Scanline.
It's a German company.
But for tax reasons...
I mean, most companies do that now.
They went to Canada because they get more work there.
DIKEMBE: They were drilling.
ROLAND: And here we see the first drilling hole,
which later becomes really important in the film,
and we already showed a little bit in the opening shot.
You're not afraid of heights, are you?
How high is it?
ROLAND: Now they decide to climb up there, long walk,
and we enter the first time one of these City Destroyers.
The whole movie was shot in the Albuquerque Studios.
They have fantastic studios there.
(RHYTHMIC PINGING)
ROLAND: Here they see the same signal,
what we later learn the alien Harvester queen senses,
and David recognizes it,
and knows immediately that it is something important.
That's that same pattern.
So the signal was coming from this ship.
20 years ago...
when we destroyed the Mothership we detected a burst...
in an X-band frequency...
directed toward deep space.
ROLAND: And he starts touching it. He tells a little bit the backstory.
Roughly after 10 minutes, it closes the first act, we always call it,
and then he sees the same components once again,
then notices something really, really scary and important.
Looks like someone picked up the phone and answered.
ROLAND: Now we cut back to the moon station, where we now realize
that Liam Hemsworth and Maika Monroe are fiancés.
They have a pretty loving relationship.
The only thing what's like a dark cloud over their relationship,
there's something happened between Jake Morrison, who's played by Liam,
and Jessie Usher, who plays Dylan Hiller.
So there is something going on and we deduce this.
Yes, but I would like my fiancé back...
ROLAND: Again, this was shot on the stage, and she was also shot on stage.
We actually shot this together. We had two cameras,
one on Liam in one set, and on the other stage on Maika,
because I always like that you can immediately see if this works.
When you do it in a classical way where you just read off lines,
you cannot see that.
I just think you two need to have a conversation.
So he's shaking hands with the president and I'm stuck on the Moon.
(CHUCKLES) That must be nice.
You nearly killed him, remember?
Give him a little credit, Jake.
(PULSATING)
- P? - (BEEPING)
FEMALE VOICE: Thank you for using QQ.
ROLAND: Here we see them as former pilots,
that shows she was also a pilot,
and here we see the Legacy Squadron.
There's Dylan Hiller again, Jessie Usher.
And the lady next to him is Angelababy. She is a huge star in China,
because we always wanted to have two countries
like America and China take the lead
because they're the two biggest economic powers in the world.
Is there anything you want to say to the folks back home?
(SPEAKING MANDARIN)
I didn't want to text you. I wanted to hear your voice.
ROLAND: And here is Vivica Fox, who plays a small but very important part.
She calls her son and says, "Be careful, "
because what we have just learned in the scene before,
her husband died in a training flight.
DYLAN: Moon Base, this is Legacy Squadron.
We're on final approach, requesting permission to land.
JIANG: Permission granted.
Welcome to the Moon, Captain.
ROLAND: Now they come to the moon, and things heating up.
This is one of my favorite shots here.
Always wanted to do a hangar on the moon, and here it is.
(EXHALES) Just keep it cool.
ROLAND: He's talking to himself.
Here is Charlie, played by Travis Tope.
He's a fantastic young actor. Really, really talented and super-funny,
and he falls in love with Angelababy.
And here is Dylan Hiller.
JIANG: Do I get an autograph, too?
ROLAND: And now to learn that Angelababy is the niece of Chin Han, Uncle Jiang.
(BOTH CONVERSING IN MANDARIN)
You look more and more like your mother.
There is nothing a girl wants to hear more than that.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
FEMALE VOICE: Mengniu Moon Milk.
I've been looking all over for you.
ROLAND: Here is a scene we shot actually in not even one day,
and built a whole set for it. It was a very expensive set, too.
Here, now it comes to the confrontation between Liam and Jessie,
and we'll slowly learn there's more to it than just simple rivalry,
because in the next scene we learn that he nearly killed him in a training flight.
They're just both guys who cannot say "I'm sorry" or something.
It's like the testosterone of young men,
which is still the same in any world, whatever happens.
But overall, the idea was just to put at the center
a very small, little personal story,
because I always believe small personal story
makes everything so real.
And you have to just buy into this world, which is totally different than our world.
After 20 years of rebuilding we made this huge step,
and we all totally united.
Yes, sir, the floor is very slippery.
Be careful if I were you. Great to see you, Dylan.
I was so close to punching him back.
I think you made the right choice.
You did almost kill him...
but that's why they have ejection seats.
No, I went too far.
ROLAND: And these kids, now we'll learn, actually lost their parents.
They were both orphans, that's what actually combines them,
and they have a very deep friendship because of that.
They talk about that he nearly kills Dylan in a training flight,
and Jake is really sorry about it and shows remorse.
And they talk just about 20 years.
This one is actually one of my favorite scenes here,
because it's very personal, very small in big movies like this.
Because you're the only family I got.
MAN ON TABLET: All right, final training hop.
Winner leads the Legacy Squadron.
ROLAND: And then we finally see what really happened.
Jake watches his helmet camera of a training flight
and sees that he was just too overeager to beat Dylan Hiller
for the leadership of the Legacy Squadron and nearly killed him,
and was punished and had to go to the moon and fly a moon tug.
(EXHALES)
WOMAN ON PA: Dr. O'Brien, please report to the surgical theater.
ROLAND: This is John Storey, old, old friend of mine,
was already in the first film.
He was the doctor who actually told Bill Pullman that his wife will not make it.
And here actually comes the biggest surprise.
Dr. Okun, Brent Spiner, is not dead.
He's in a coma and now he wakes up.
DR. ISAACS: Can you believe it? You've been in a coma for 7,300 days.
I made you a gift.
I took a knitting class.
Is it itchy? You'd tell me if it was itchy, right?
(BOTH SCREAM)
(GASPING)
(PANTING) Oh, God.
ROLAND: That's one of my favorite scenes of the whole movie.
I'm always amazed how Brent immediately was back in his character.
When you know Brent Spiner in person, he's totally different than Dr. Okun.
He's not at all like him,
and I think this is an actor who is not working enough.
I was so happy to get him back and get him in front of a camera.
But it was probably because he was Data in Star Trek, that's why.
See, and here, after he saw that his boyfriend had no more hair,
he touched his hair.
It's just like his invention.
But you still look great.
RITTER: This just came in from Hubble.
ROLAND: There was a big part of the film which was cut out
which was what happened on the moon Rhea,
where we also built a defense station.
And it was better to not see it.
We decided after one or two tests because it was too disconnected in a way.
Right away.
Hey, honey.
Listen, I want you to pack up your stuff and go to your sister's right now.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
ROLAND: And here, now we see the outdoor set
we built on the studio area of the Albuquerque Studios.
It looked awesome, it was really one of my favorite sets.
Especially the interior was greatly designed.
No, it's not that I don't see it.
I just feel like right now, there are more pressing matters than analyzing doodles.
Like a giant space ship turning back on.
- Sir. - Yeah?
- We've lost all contact with Saturn. - What?
- We need to notify the president. - COLLINS: Already tried.
Tanner said he'll get back to us after the press tour.
Bypass Tanner however you can. We need to talk to Lanford now.
ROLAND: Here, he learns now that something is wrong.
Now everything comes slowly together
because Charlotte Gainsbourg, Catherine, she is very, very into this symbol,
and we learn that the symbol already appeared in Roswell
which is, in the first movie, Area 51.
Roswell was very important, and we wanted to give a little hint to that.
Then we learn that actually this symbol means, for everybody who sees it, fear.
But for this gentleman, because he has the strongest connection,
he has this incredible dream and he sees it much clearer.
We get a feeling it's not a symbol at all.
And we also learn that because he is so connected,
he deciphered some of their language,
because they had a 10-year war with the aliens after they landed
and they had to kill them one by one.
They were hunting us.
We had to learn how to hunt them.
ROLAND: Here comes a little scene which is more for comedy.
Sometimes important to introduce comedy in these kind of scenes.
And I thought Travis did an amazing job here,
and walks up to Angelababy and says really funny things to her.
- It's happening. - God damn it.
The chemical reaction, the pheromones...
all of the blood in my body, it's rushing to my head.
- (EXHALES) - Your head, huh?
- I'm gonna go introduce myself. - Yeah. No problem.
Ah! Shit!
So, you must be the pilot China sent.
- Did the giant flag give it away? - It was that.
I thought she looks really sexy in that little, short jacket.
Aren't you a little young for that?
I'm 23 and a half.
(RUMBLING)
ROLAND: Now one of these power surges happens again,
and now all of a sudden we see something very similar
what we have seen on the screen in Area 51 command center.
And all of a sudden, things happen.
And a wormhole appears.
This was actually all created by a German company called TRIXTER.
They are in Munich and did a terrific job in creating these images,
which all are, I think, quite amazing.
- Get me the Security Council. - Yes, sir.
JIANG: On screen.
ROLAND: And now it's, "Who is that?"
Because it's pretty much the symbol which Dikembe, the African warlord, drew.
It's pretty much that object that's coming out of the wormhole.
So how this all connected? We don't know at that point.
But the world, under the leadership of the American president,
they have to make a decision.
They have to make a decision, "What are we doing with this thing now?
"Should we shoot? Or should we... "
And David immediately realizes this cannot be the bad aliens,
this has to be something else.
Uh, hold on. Hang on a second. To my eye...
the design and the technology of this ship...
is nothing like the ones that attacked us.
I'm telling you, this is not them.
And what if you're wrong?
DAVID: If you're wrong...
we could be starting a war with a whole new species.
ADAMS: At this point, we know the Saturn base has been destroyed.
ROLAND: But they are not believing him. And it has a lot to do
because the other moon station disappeared mysteriously,
so they think it has to be a part of a big attack.
This discussion back and forth shows that we have actually a world government.
Everybody says yea or nay,
and the American president is the deciding voice of the nine,
and they shoot it down.
Take them out, Commander.
We are locked on.
ROLAND: We see here how Liam Hemsworth,
meaning Jake Morrison, is really watching all this,
and he not really agrees with the politicians.
- (CHEERING) - And neither does David Levinson.
They realize there's no signs of life.
This was, for me, always a pivotal scene,
because this is where more or less 20 years of preparation for something goes wrong,
because once attacked like in the first film,
which characters in this film refer to as the war of '96,
they are extremely, extremely afraid that this happens again,
so they ask no questions, they shoot first.
No. Can we not make this political?
I need to get up there and get answers.
David, you can lead a team up there...
but after the celebration.
TANNER: You heard the president.
I'll expect to see you next to us tomorrow wearing your best smile.
DAVID: You want to see my best smile?
Did he just hang up on me?
It sure sounded that way to me, sir.
ROLAND: Now, Jake Morrison, the wild character he is,
he takes things in his own hands,
because he wants to pick up David Levinson.
Wait, wait, wait!
Our tug's not gonna fly.
That's why we're taking Mike's tug.
Oh. Jiang is not gonna like this.
ROLAND: Now we cut back to Whitmore
because he's also one of these connected ones,
and he realizes this was not them, and he argues with his daughter about it.
We actually had another whole scene which we cut out,
where he talks to his daughter about...
That he's angry at himself that she had to give up her job as a pilot.
And Bill had actually stuck this very cleverly, and because he acted it really,
it felt really harmonious and worked really well.
You shouldn't be wasting your time with a crazy old man.
You gave up flying to take care of me...
and I know how much you loved it.
You should be with Jake.
He's on the Moon, remember?
Then you should be with the president.
It's pretty much, for me, the end of the first act,
because it's when he says, "It's not them, they're coming back."
And this time we won't be able to stop them.
ROLAND: Then it cuts to the African warrior,
and he is getting his machetes out of the box,
which means things now heat up.
Here we learn that he had a twin brother, we saw him a little bit in the living room.
He mentioned it before to David Levinson,
but it's always good to give people a visual reference.
I will avenge you, brother.
Hey, wait! I need a receipt!
ROLAND: Here comes Jake Morrison.
Now, this was the scene which we had to do in many different ways.
This was a really complicated scene,
because we wanted to actually build the moon tug so we can transport it,
but it got too heavy, it weighed like 40 tons.
We not so easily could shoot it,
so whenever we show towards the moon tug,
it's actually shot on a stage and the reverse is shot outside.
So I had to shoot this scene, in a way, twice,
but I think it looks very seamless.
Now I have to say something about this young cameraman I found.
He's also German like me. I think he was 31 when he shot this movie.
I think he is a major talent, and his name is Markus Förderer.
In scenes like this you really know how good your DP is,
because it's super-hard to match two things together.
And especially when one is shot outside and one's shot on stage.
He always does these scenes seamlessly.
We're gonna stay here and we're gonna...
Hi.
I've never been in a space tug before. Is there anything I should know?
There's a lot you should know.
Seatbelts, obviously.
David, why don't you take a seat.
Where? Really?
What's the matter, are you nervous?
ROLAND: Now comes the moment which I was very nervous about,
because I knew I have a lot of scenes with Liam and Jeff Goldblum together,
and here we see them the first time together.
I remember this was the first scene we shot in the moon tug,
and I was very nervous about it.
But then I was really happy how well they had jived together.
I always love to improvise, and this whole thing
that he crashed the moon tug only a couple days before that,
he made up on the set.
I thought it needed something there,
and here we have this motif of Jeff Goldblum afraid of flying, like me.
And now we see the second time, a fusion drive, and it's more for a joke.
(YELLING)
ROLAND: And now comes Judd Hirsch.
Judd Hirsch, who wrote a book, which was a very early idea.
Actually, Dean and I came up with that idea
that he's on a book tour,
and it's not going well, he's not selling well.
And we thought how funny it is if he would do this in a retirement home,
where people fell asleep, like this old gentleman here.
- Sir. - Huh?
ROLAND: Judd Hirsch is just one of the warmest, funniest actors out there.
He's a legend in my book. I love to work with him.
I'm gonna turn 60 this year, and he's 82,
and I think he's fitter than me.
So I was a little bit mad about that.
Dad, you awake?
ROLAND: And here, all of a sudden her dad is gone,
and we know that he wanted to warn the world
that this was not the right aliens.
Matthew!
ROLAND: Now we see them flying through the debris
of the old Mothership which we blew up. All the pieces are still around.
We shot maybe seven, eight, nine days alone inside the moon tug.
Really, really hard work.
You do pretty much every scene in this one set,
and that was a really small set.
Everything when we see it from the outside was always CG,
but we had this thing in full size.
We're coming up to the Van de Graaff crater.
There it is.
That's the crash site.
LANFORD: Today, we are honored...
to be in the presence of some of the brave men and women...
ROLAND: Here comes a shot which is done by a company called LUXX.
They did the opening sequence in White House Down.
And here comes Robert Loggia.
That was a sad story because Robert Loggia passed away.
I already felt it when we had costume fittings.
He was just very, very frail.
Luckily, we could shoot this one scene with him,
and I'm so happy that this worked out.
I'm always, in a way, emotionally involved in that
because he passed away while we finished the film.
Nice tattoos.
That's how many aliens you killed, right?
How did you do it?
You have to get them from behind.
ROLAND: Now, here we learn something which is important later in the film,
that the aliens have a weakness and you can only kill them from behind.
Here now we introduce a big character.
We called it the Sphere, but more with that later.
Charlie, tell command to prep the lab at Area 51.
ROLAND: This was the whole reason why the Legacy Squadron went up there,
for aerial acrobatics.
And this is all purely CG.
I have never shot as much on blue screen like in this film.
If you would see this film without all the visual effects,
you would only see the color blue.
I always shoot blue screen
because green screen, I always get a headache from it.
I don't know what that is.
But I also think blue creates much better skin tones,
so from that perspective I just prefer blue screen.
LANFORD: The one and only, President Thomas Whitmore.
Please say a few words.
Today...
Not going to be...
I came to warn you.
(GASPING AND GRUNTING)
ROLAND: Now comes the big moment,
because all the people who connected,
Dr. Okun and Bill Pullman and DeObia, the African warlord...
(GROANING)
Now, here comes a shot which we labored over for quite a while.
Huge Harvester ship comes out of stealth mode,
and appears on the moon
and is just on a collision course with the moon.
(FAINT RUMBLING)
(DIKEMBE GROANING)
Help me!
That is definitely bigger than the last one.
ROLAND: We had to do the shadows. Here are the shadows.
This was interesting because we had to do work on the moon.
Holy shit.
Charlie, I think you better come and get us.
Sooner the better.
As in right now!
I'm already on it!
Everybody strap in! It's gonna get bumpy!
ROLAND: And then the moon, it's a sixth of gravity,
and it's not so easy, you have to cable the actors.
See here, this is a shot that we did with the actors.
They were on cables and ran. This is digital here.
We did a lot of stuff pure in CG.
This here we will not do with actors anymore
because you can make this so much easier now with computers.
This is again the actors.
JAKE: David!
ROLAND: Whenever you see a closer face, you always go for the actors,
but everything else, you totally go for full CGI.
This just came in from one of our lunar satellites.
The ship's more than 3,000 miles in diameter.
How the hell did we miss this?
ROLAND: The world realizes now that actually the bad aliens came after all,
and nobody can believe it.
Then I asked myself, "How can I create something new onscreen?"
And just the fact that this spaceship is so incredibly big...
The Mothership, which last time stayed up in space,
it seemed still very big, but smaller.
City Destroyer on Earth, this time collides with the moon,
and then comes to Earth because it's so big, it's 3,500 miles big.
I always had this idea that it's so big, it has its own gravity.
Naturally when you have an object like this big coming to Earth,
you want to have some actors witness it, a close-up,
otherwise it's just a big object,
and you don't really get a feel for what's really happening.
That was kind of the idea to have them in their little moon tug
stuck under this enormously big spaceship,
and have to go on this incredible ride, how it lands on Earth.
- (YELLS) - (DAVID GROANING)
JAKE: Oh, shit! I'm losing speed!
Jesus, it has its own gravity.
- What does that mean? - It means we're going for a ride.
ROSENBERG: You mean we're stuck under this thing?
(MEN CLAMORING)
Arm the primary!
We're powered up and locked on.
Fire!
FEMALE VOICE: Negative impact.
Negative impact.
- Permission to engage. - WOMAN ON RADIO: Negative.
All fighters, clear the blast zone.
Arm the primary and fire again!
ROLAND: And here all our efforts to have moon cannons,
which actually could shoot down the spherical spaceship,
but they don't work on this big, amazing Harvester ship.
Evacuate, everyone!
Go!
(SPEAKING MANDARIN)
ROLAND: Angelababy sees her uncle die in front of her eyes.
All these shots are done by MPC.
They did an incredible job. Really, really very nice work.
And now comes one of the signature shots
where you'll see the giant Mothership scraping along the moon
and going towards Earth.
It's projected to enter Earth's atmosphere in 22 minutes.
If it doesn't alter its current velocity...
it's gonna crack the planet in half.
We're not gonna let that happen, Tanner.
- Initiate the Orbital Defense System. - Yes, ma'am.
ROLAND: We haven't seen the Orbital Defense station.
We had a scene where we introduced it, but we thought was not necessary
because it's the same weapons we saw before,
and it's interesting to not prepare it too much.
Now, the same thing happens again, what happened on the moon.
We have no chance against this absolutely gigantic cannon,
which can even shoot multiple targets at once.
And now we realize that we're really in big trouble.
WOMAN: General...
the Asian Pacific Defense System went offline before they could fire.
Yes, sir. Copy that.
Jake's alive!
ROLAND: Here, this whole scene was shot on stage
because if you would shoot this in real,
you would still need to exchange all the planes anyway,
because all these planes have anti-gravity engines,
and obviously I think it's better to shoot them on stage.
I'm going with you, Patty.
Dad!
You're gonna need me.
Wish us luck.
Ma'am, we have to go.
ROLAND: So here comes, again, one of the first signature shots I had in mind.
We see how this thing enters Earth's atmosphere.
It has these huge anti-gravity thrusters.
It was the first idea, actually, which came to my mind,
because this thing has so much gravity that it sucks up Asia,
and then when it lands, dumps it on Europe.
This one was the first pitch I had to all my friends.
Said, "What is Independence Day: Resurgence about?"
"It's pretty much a ship so big, it sucks up Asia and dumps it on Europe, "
was always my answer. It always worked really well.
It always put a smile on people's faces.
Here is Singapore.
I get asked, whenever I'm on promotion tour,
how I choose certain cities.
But I was, actually, in this hotel on the left side.
It has a swimming pool on top,
and I said, "Well, that's a very attractive city, "
and it stuck in my mind.
And then when we chose Singapore...
Again, one of the fantastic shots of Scanline.
They're one of my favorite companies because they do shots which are so real.
This is really, really difficult to have shots like this created.
TANNER: The ship will touch down over the Atlantic.
- Which part? - All of it, ma'am.
LANFORD: Issue an evacuation order for every coastline.
I don't think there's time.
So, what's the plan?
We have less than 20 minutes to get every patient out of here.
- Move! - Yes, Ma'am.
ROLAND: Here, there was the scene where this girl gave birth,
but it didn't test so well, so we put a baby in her arms digitally.
I got you, honey. I'm not gonna leave you.
Here, this is one of the big signature shots.
This was probably one of the most complicated and complex sequences
I ever produced.
And here, Asia and Middle East falls on London.
And it was funny because I've had to go to Dubai.
They were super-excited, and I slept in the Burj Khalifa.
That was just this idea.
There is still traffic on the bridges. I don't know why we did that.
It was too late to cut that.
The Petronas Tower make a little appearance for a couple of seconds.
(JAKE AND DAVID EXCLAIMING)
Nice, nice.
Jesus.
(YELLING)
They like to get the landmarks.
(GRUNTS)
(PANTING)
Are we dead?
We're okay.
(SIGHS)
Pee your pants?
Yeah!
ROLAND: This whole peeing bit was totally invented on the set
because we felt there was a joke missing.
I said to the guy, "So, do something."
And actually Liam, all of a sudden, asks Jeff, "Did you pee in your pants?"
And he said, "Yeah!"
And then he says, "Me, too."
And that was just so funny that it ended up in the movie.
There's a hundred million dollars' worth of gold on that ship.
They think we're gonna leave it? They're out of their minds.
Capitaine...
you better come and see this.
ROLAND: Here now comes the storyline, which is, later, really important,
which was added really late to the movie
because we had the feeling we need characters who can witness something,
but I'll talk about it later, what they witness,
but here they get introduced.
Now we see Judd Hirsch again who lives in a boat
and is not the best fisherman because he did a steak.
We had another little scene
where he starts fishing but it doesn't really work,
and then he says, "Well, I'll have a steak."
And here he sees what he saw in the first film before,
but it's just much bigger.
We later learn that what he sees is actually
only one of the feet of this incredible big spaceship here.
The thing is so big that it stands in different continents,
which is a pretty cool idea when you think about it.
I gotta see about someone.
Good luck.
Are you okay?
My mother lives in London.
Maybe she made it out.
Yeah, maybe.
(CELLPHONE RINGING)
Dad, where are you?
JULIUS ON PHONE: On my boat. Where else?
ROLAND: Now, here we have a small, little, private scene.
It's like a father-son.
What I like about these kind of films,
when you face a big disaster, your first thoughts are really your family.
This was a shot which I always had in my head,
and I was really happy that it turned out so well,
these feet digging into the ground.
Wait!
(SOBBING)
ROLAND: This was a sequence all done by Scanline. I think they did a terrific job.
MAN ON RADIO: Marine 3, clear.
ROLAND: First we saw Jeff Goldblum and his father,
now we see Dylan and his mother.
Yes! Yes, come on! Let's go!
ROLAND: Vivica did an amazing job here.
She was very nervous about it because she had to hang on a cable,
but she did it great.
And here, her building got destroyed, she saves the girl.
Look here, she hangs.
DYLAN: Pull her up!
Pull her up!
ROLAND: And falls to her death.
DYLAN: No!
Now, we cut back to Judd Hirsch who is in real trouble.
I made these big drawings at the very beginning of the film,
so everybody knew what I envisioned, and it was one of them.
It was the feet in Washington,
and this was the other one where you see this thing creating a huge wave.
Here, everybody thinks the White House gets destroyed, but it doesn't.
Here we see just how big this spaceship really is.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Now, we come to a storyline which was from the beginning, actually, in the film,
because it's a very pivotal scene,
because now the first characters come together in Area 51.
Little bit different than in the first film. In the first film it was in a different point,
but we see several characters come together in Area 51.
Here, we now, again, have this whole thing
that people who have a connection with aliens
see these images of these writings in their head, and can write it.
We always wanted to make a scene very similar to the scene
where Okun got snatched by an alien, and the alien talks through him,
and I thought it was great to do it with Bill Pullman,
because these two people recognize each other here,
and we don't know yet what Bill Pullman will do.
Mr. President?
Dr. Okun.
You're awake.
Very much so.
Why are they screaming?
ROLAND: This is my favorite line of the whole film.
They're not screaming.
They're celebrating.
ROLAND: "They're not screaming, they're celebrating."
That also got a really good reaction
when we showed the first time, that line, in a TV commercial.
The whole Internet was abuzz.
Not only that Okun is alive, but they really, really loved that line.
- Get the weapons! - Let's go!
Let's go!
We have alien guns?
ROLAND: So, here now, all of a sudden, Bill Pullman is doing something,
and we realize he is sacrificing himself
as being the person the aliens speak through,
knowing how dangerous this is, that you can end up in a coma,
but he thinks it's necessary.
He overrode the system.
Sir, please unlock the door!
Don't you worry about me.
Just get as many answers as you can.
No, don't!
ROLAND: This was all a set.
Whenever you see an alien, it's CGI.
Some of the smoke is CGI, too, here.
For example, this was just an empty frame and they put smoke and the alien in.
That was a company called Image Engine that also did the aliens for District 9.
They got all the smaller aliens.
And what we had... We had a real tentacle,
because when you have something that's in the foreground,
what you see is a real mechanical tentacle, and the rest is all CG.
This was probably the only mechanical effect we had, was this tentacle.
We just thought it was better to do as a mechanical effect.
PRESIDENT WHITMORE: She...
is all.
What does she want?
(GRUNTING)
ROLAND: Here comes the symbol again.
Why are you afraid of it?
It's killing him!
That's enough!
- Move! - Kill it now!
ROLAND: Now, we learn something really, really important,
that you actually can kill these aliens if you get them from behind,
and Jake Morrison witnesses it.
This was one of my favorite visual effects in this.
I thought it looked absolutely awesome.
I mean, that's what computers can do these days.
That was actually probably one of my biggest reasons
why I wanted to do a sequel,
because I realized all of a sudden just how far visual effects had come.
And I said to myself,
"Oh, my God. What could I do in Independence Day in a sequel?"
And I felt...
Mainly I thought I could do all the images which I always had in my head
but couldn't do then.
I always felt very frustrated and restricted in the first Independence Day,
and this time, I could do all these images because of computers.
- SAM: Daisy, stop crying. - FELIX: She's scared.
MAN ON RADIO: An evacuation order of the southern
- and eastern coastal regions... - I want Mommy.
- Of the United States is in effect. - We'll find her.
They're both dead.
Just shut up, okay? That's enough.
FELIX: You don't even have your license!
ROLAND: This girl, Joey King, she is...
It's the third movie I'm doing with this lovely young actress.
She became a friend of mine.
I pretty much saw her grow up in movies.
I, first time, cast her in White House Down, and she was 12 or 13, and now she is 16.
Hurry up, okay?
I think he's just knocked out!
CATHERINE: I don't think it's a coincidence...
that this thing showed up just before they did.
- No, I think you're right. - Brakish, you should be in bed, babe.
ROLAND: We see now this object they recovered.
They don't know what it is, but they know that they feel just how important this is.
Again, everything what you see with this object and the moon tug
is all done in CG.
There was only a blue screen there
because we couldn't transport this moon tug anywhere,
and I just used a facility in Albuquerque,
which was called Nova which looked awesome,
and just put a blue screen on one wall.
WOMAN: We have infrared of the alien ship, sir.
CATHERINE: Are those dots...
They all must be aliens.
What's that mass?
Enlarge this section, please.
ROLAND: We learn through Whitmore that actually we're dealing with the alien queen.
And the fact that they're not like locusts,
they're more like bees and have a hive mind.
That was originally in the very, very first script
that we're dealing with the alien queen,
which I thought was very appropriate for our kind of aliens
because we always had them very insect-like.
Then later, when we see the alien queen,
you'll realize what I mean with "insect-like."
Now comes what we, already in the very first shot,
showed them drilling into the Earth's core and
David Levinson... Jeff Goldblum figures it out
they want to suck out Earth's core.
He makes the plan that when we kill her, maybe it'll make them go away.
DAVID: ...which means no magnetic fields...
our atmosphere would evaporate.
Basically, the end of life on this planet.
So, you're saying we're already finished.
Not necessarily.
Back in '96, the drilling in Africa stopped when we blew up their Mothership.
There must have been a queen up there that we didn't know about.
Assuming that this hive theory holds true...
General, if we could blow up this queen, maybe it could work again.
LANFORD: All right, then I'm authorizing an immediate retaliatory strike.
Let's do it.
- Scramble the fighters. - Right away.
MAN ON PA: Attention, all pilots, report to mission briefing in T minus 10.
I repeat, all pilots report to mission briefing in T minus 10.
JAKE: Hey.
ROLAND: We see that Bill Pullman is in a coma like Okun was,
and he says good-bye to her because he has to fly,
because they asked for all available pilots now.
What's really interesting for me here is we had once, in the script,
the whole payoff of these two characters later in the script.
But then we actually learned that we have to pay off earlier.
So we inserted this scene here,
because it's a scene where they, all of a sudden, are on the same level.
They're both orphans now.
They have, all of a sudden, an understanding
and they can talk to each other.
And they overcame their stubbornness on both sides,
and are, all of a sudden, on the same level, because they both lost their parents.
I know I'm probably the last person you want to hear from right now...
but I've been where you are.
I know how deep it hurts.
She wouldn't want you to give up now.
Come on, man. You got to lead us.
ROLAND: It's also great when Jake Morrison gives him the right lines
and pushes him to do what he has to do, and he goes for it.
Naturally, he now is very happy to do what he really always wanted to do,
which is be a fighter pilot and kill aliens,
because I think, when you lose your parents in an attack,
you probably have a very, very good reason to hate them.
And now we take it, like, they're briefing,
and this hangar was never existing, actually.
We had very big stages, but even the biggest stage
which is very big, in Albuquerque, was not nearly as big a space as I envisioned,
because I wanted to show how far we had come as humans
and how many planes we have, and we reveal this place bit by bit.
We saw it a little bit already when the Legacy Squadron was interviewed.
We all lost someone that we love.
So, let's do it for them.
ROLAND: But now we have this big moment of them all getting into their planes,
and he says good-bye to his fiancée.
And they all have reasons to fight these aliens,
because she has lost her mom and her dad is in a coma,
and so it all comes together.
Make them pay.
We're not going up there to make friends, right?
I looked at the houses.
The one on Harrison Street...
with the stone walkway.
If it's still there.
Okay, it's getting real.
It's getting real real.
DYLAN: All right, form up. On me.
ROLAND: When you shoot these scenes,
nobody, most of the time, of the crew has a real idea what's going on
and what are we shooting,
but I'm always just plowing through them,
because I always have a pretty exact idea of what shots I need.
And this scene was never, in any way, previs-ed or anything,
which is like in my head and I always envision it like that,
and I always wanted to do a scene like that.
And here we have Rosenberg, Nick Wright, the writer and actor extraordinaire,
and he wants to be, naturally, part of it.
You know what? I'll figure something out.
(MEN CHEERING AND LAUGHING)
ROLAND: Now we come to the storyline which I talked before,
which now becomes really important because they get asked to monitor the drill.
And they're like a salvage ship, and it was a cool idea
to have other characters which are not military-connected,
involved in this whole story.
They're all really fun actors.
...for a hundred million dollars.
(CHEERING AND LAUGHTER)
ROLAND: And here they make a deal, $100 million.
Who can say no to that even if it's the end of the world?
MAN: He's drunk.
They said, "It's a deal."
(INDISTINCT MUTTERING)
I got it. I got it.
(HORNS BLARING)
ROLAND: Here now we see the storyline with Judd Hirsch again
who's now rescued by the kids.
They, naturally, like probably everybody in this world, knows his son,
and they're more interested in meeting his son.
Then we learn, actually a quite sad part,
because Jeff Goldblum was in the first film like an underachiever.
Now he's so busy, he has no time for his dad anymore.
And he learns that these kids lost their parents and
he always wanted to have grandchildren and now he magically gets grandchildren.
Visiting our grandparents in Florida.
Oh, I see.
Where should we go, Mr. Levinson?
I think the safest place for all of us to be right now is by my David.
ROLAND: Here, we tell the storyline of the warlords, in a way, and Okun,
because now we learn that Okun doesn't even remember
having drawn these things.
And I can reveal it here, all these markings on the wall were done by myself.
In between shooting, I was always channeling aliens.
Okay, let's try this baby on for size.
You know, I helped bring that thing back from space.
Is there anything I can do?
Yeah. Back off.
Yeah. Of course.
(SAW WHIRRING)
(EXHALES)
Command, we have visual.
ROLAND: Now we see them all attacking this big alien ship.
It's suspense, but also with a little bit of humor intersected with the Okun storyline,
who is here looking for the right instruments
to open this alien artifact they found on the moon.
And here we see the Okun laser,
which actually on the set we called it the "Okun laser."
It had some number. But we said,
"Isn't this funnier, when it's his own laser and the laser is really dangerous?"
Why aren't they attacking us?
Careful what you wish for.
DYLAN: There's the queen's ship. Bombers, prepare to drop.
ROLAND: And now we come to a sequence which was done by Digital Domain.
I saw their work in Ender's Game, and I really thought
they did an amazing job there with the air battles.
We decided to hire them.
I cast or hire visual effects houses
a little bit like actors, for their special talents.
And every visual effects house has certain talents for certain scenes.
Or at least they worked on certain scenes and you can see that they pulled it off.
So you know, you're buying their expertise,
because you cannot so easily do something like that.
And when they have done it before, they can do it again,
and then you can actually force them to do it even better.
It was a very complicated sequence,
and I think they did an incredible job and make this all look real and fun.
In the first film, all the cockpit scenes were done with painted backgrounds.
We actually shot three, four weeks on them.
And, actually, Dean Devlin was the second unit director for that.
I've always had only a monitor, and every actor had to go into this flying unit.
This time around, it was actually a work of three and a half days,
and we had all these scenes,
because you don't need the backgrounds, you have blue screen,
and it's more seamless than what you could do with a painted background.
You can still control it, and that's what I like about digital technology.
You can conceptualize a shot,
and then you can make it better and better and better and better.
You can get out of these companies really excellent work,
because they also like it to go in stages and run things by you.
During the post-production, I sometimes spent four, five, six hours,
sometimes in a screening room or in front of a television monitor
and have a Skype call.
It's what I really enjoy about this whole change in our industry
that we can now do everything in computers.
And I think we can do it really, really good and it will only get better.
Do it!
We'll detonate the bombs from the Command Center...
and we'll give you enough time to get the hell out of there.
DYLAN: Copy that.
Jake, follow my lead.
JAKE: I'm on your wing.
DYLAN: All bombers, we're going in.
They didn't follow us.
MAN: Form up on your leads.
JAKE: Charlie, look at those fields down there.
They have their own ecosystem.
(GRUNTING)
- Sir? - Dad?
You have to warn them.
She knows that they're coming.
We got eyes on the target.
Tally-ho.
ROLAND: Now they're inside the ship
which I always envisioned, this whole world, in a way,
and now we learn that
they're actually only in there because she wanted them in there.
And now she shows how powerful she is
because she can just switch off all the engines.
Command, I have engine failure.
We have engine failure.
Attempt to restart.
We're going down, we're going down!
(GRUNTING)
ROLAND: And now comes one of my favorite shots.
I said to Volker Engel, who was the visual effects supervisor,
"We have to shoot this all in one shot,
"otherwise people don't understand really what's going on."
And these objects attach themselves to the fusion bombs
and create this little shield.
Command, you have to trigger the bombs!
It's the only way!
Don't let us die for nothing.
ROLAND: We had them also eject at one point,
but we felt it was better not to have them eject,
and we cut all these shots out, even though they were nearly done,
because we thought it was more dramatic
when you really thought they're all gonna die.
RITTER: ...three, two...
one.
ROLAND: These little things the alien queen sent their way
actually made the bombs ineffective,
which then later will be a trick we use on her.
The bombs were contained by an energy shield!
The bombs were contained by an energy...
We lost the signal, sir.
Wait.
Something's happening.
ROLAND: Yeah, and then we had something,
which was invented very early by Dean and me.
We had this beam which destroys all their satellites and makes them blind.
No satellites, meaning no cellphones work anymore.
She baited us.
Tanner, we have to have a status report.
ROLAND: And here we cut to our President who learns the same thing,
and, all of a sudden, here the aliens come.
And we don't know really yet how they know all these things,
but we learn later quite a bit about that.
(PEOPLE SCREAMING)
We see here, the first time, new aliens.
They're a little bit bigger than the colonists, that's how we called them.
This one is the soldier alien.
It's much taller, as you can see, and has huge guns.
This tentacle was all done in CG.
Careful! You'll agitate the crystals!
ROLAND: So here we go now to one of the funnier scenes of the movie,
because Brent is just incredible in his role.
And a lot of that stuff really was a little bit written on the set,
because I felt there has to be more to it
and because we had the writers in the movie as actors.
It was very convenient.
They always had to read off lines
and constantly rewrite the script, which is a good thing sometimes.
- Seven percent? - Yes, sir.
General, Cheyenne Mountain is gone.
All members of the presidential line of succession are presumed dead.
ROLAND: So here comes the moment when somebody gets sworn in.
I don't know how many of these scenes I shot,
because in White House Down, there were three scenes like that.
So I kept this one really short.
Please repeat after me.
I, Joshua T. Adams.
- Do solemnly swear. - Do solemnly swear.
ROLAND: So now comes a moment which I felt was really heartfelt,
because, in the beginning, he says that,
"We're not gonna make it. They will beat us this time."
And now his daughter also loses hope and it feels like the lowest point in the film.
You were right.
We're not gonna beat them this time.
SAM: God, look at the line. There's a thousand cars.
We're never gonna get gas.
ROLAND: Now we also see Joey and her brothers.
Everybody is on the absolute down point,
which you always have to have in these kind of films.
There's no down point...
This was just a normal street in Albuquerque,
which turned into some other country road.
Felix!
Why don't you pull over here?
Let me drive and you take a little break.
Okay.
MAN: Not many. I'm gonna try to get what I can and salvage these.
David, you should be in the Command Center.
President Whitmore.
Thank God you're okay.
It's been a while.
ROLAND: Here comes, now, something which I wanted to do
but is very difficult in a way.
You don't want to repeat yourself, so I thought I'll make a scene
where it's not really a speech but it is a speech.
Bill Pullman, who plays this broken character,
now comes to himself after he talked to his daughter,
and tries to rally the spirits of everybody.
At that point, only 7% of the troops have returned,
so it's a dark moment, but it also has hope in it.
That's sacred.
That's worth fighting for.
We convinced an entire generation that this is a battle that we could win...
and they believed us.
We can't let them down.
And it wasn't luck last time.
It was our resolve.
We all have to fight...
till our last breath.
And that is gonna lead us to victory.
You understand some of their language.
I'd like you to tell me if any of these writings mean anything to you.
ROLAND: And here, we tell the storyline of Dikembe and Catherine,
because he can actually read that stuff
and that's only like a pre-shadow of what we pretty soon see.
That we finally realize that what this object they found really is.
That's like another big McGuffin of the whole movie.
That sphere is actually their worst enemy.
And because of that our ally...
By the way, the close-up of that was shot in my garage.
Called it the La Brea Studios.
The La Brea Terrace Studios.
Of course.
Their enemy is our ally.
Your laser's smoking.
ROLAND: This is a big moment where... Because we cut inside the Sphere,
we know there's more to this thing than what meets the eye.
And there was also, like, very early in the script,
"Let's make this a real character and make it the mystery of this film."
Hello, gorgeous.
Time to find out what secrets you're hiding.
All right, let's go get everyone. Bring them here.
MAN: Yes, sir.
ROLAND: We see that actually our young pilots have survived
because they've parachuted down.
They're in this hellish surrounding and get rounded up and killed.
Our two former enemies, they save each other's lives.
One saves the other's life in the aerial battle,
now Dylan saves Jake's life.
This was actually... There was nothing really there.
We had a little tank, but it was 30 by 30 feet.
And there was nothing in it.
Everybody in the crew said, "What is he shooting?"
You know? (CHUCKLING)
BRAKISH: Guys...
you really need to see this.
I've run every possible scan. It's not giving off any kind of signal.
I mean, nothing.
It's like it doesn't even exist.
It's almost like it's trying to hide itself.
It's really smooth.
Hey, whoa! You're not wearing gloves!
- You'll contaminate it. - Remove your hands, Floyd.
ROLAND: And here comes a scene which I really like,
because the Rosenberg character is just a guy who touches everything.
His hands sink into this and it gets activated.
And that solves a lot of mysteries,
because now, because of that, it starts to hover.
The queen feels the activation, we see it here.
The hologram, there's a warning signal,
and now she knows the position of the Sphere and it's in Area 51.
(GRUNTING)
She also has a biomechanical suit, like all these aliens have,
which is just enormous,
and when you see her, she is very insect-like from the inside
and her biomechanical suit is super-frightening.
(ALARM BLARING)
Now they hear the alarms going off. They have found some other soldiers.
And now they see the queen's ship they were supposed to destroy
leaving the Mothership, and all these little things there.
I wanted to do a lot of swarm kind of feel with these alien attackers.
You will see later, why,
because she wants to have that Sphere.
David, please tell me this isn't some kind of a Trojan horse.
ROLAND: Now comes the scene which brings everything together in the film.
SPHERE: I activated myself...
when I detected your biological signature...
ROLAND: By the way, the voice is one of our assistants, Jenna.
We have, right now, two assistants, both called Jenna.
So we always think that they should form a rock group, the Jennas.
And one of them is the voice of Sphere,
because we actually only used it because she's an actress.
We wanted to use it for layout, but we just fell in love with her voice.
And so, she was chosen as the voice of the Sphere.
SPHERE: But you attacked me with the same weapons they used on us.
ROLAND: And we now learn the whole story behind the symbol,
why they drill into Earth's core.
And this was done by TRIXTER.
They did all the holograms and all the Sphere scenes,
and I think they did an incredible job here.
It's very hard to do things like this
because you don't want to be really photo-real but also not too simple,
because I was really concerned
that these things don't look sophisticated enough,
because the first film actually was holding up quite well,
besides the video graphics.
They looked like Pac-Man to me.
So I was very into that all the computer graphics,
the holograms look really sophisticated and modern,
but also not too photo-real, that would make 'em also not right.
So I think that we found the right mix here.
SPHERE: ...the queen will detect my signature...
and hunt me down.
It's too late.
She's already on her way.
Yeah.
She's coming.
Hey, what would happen...
if we were able to kill her?
No one has ever killed a Harvester queen.
That's encouraging.
SPHERE: But as a hive...
her fighters will fall, and her ship will leave your planet.
Recalled by other Harvester queens.
But it's too late now.
ROLAND: Again here, Jeff Goldblum has the idea of what to do,
because he now realizes that when they kill the queen,
everything will be good.
But nobody has ever done that so he says,
"Well, she tricked us. She trapped us. Why don't we build a trap for her?"
So typical David Levinson thing,
because also in the first film, he also had the idea of the virus.
Here, he has the idea of the trap.
And here, they're trying to explain this to a very disbelieving General Adams
who's now the president.
But he sees it's their only chance.
And now the real third act starts,
because there's a glimmer of hope.
"Maybe we kill her, and because we kill her, we save Earth."
So they try to figure out how to do it.
...you're gonna kill everyone from here to Houston.
Not if we use the shield generators from this base to contain the blast.
Without our shields, you better put a blaster in every able bodied hand...
and get them ready to shoot some aliens.
RITTER: Yes, sir.
Now, we just need a way to see her coming.
Follow me.
Do your thing.
ROLAND: Now comes an element which also was in the first film.
In the first film, you may remember,
they went to a very World War II kind of thing, Morse code.
And here, they go to old radar.
They find they had this old radar truck,
they have it somewhere in storage and they now use it.
And it's almost like this element of invention,
and here now they have shortwave radios.
It's like, all of a sudden, low-tech in the middle of high-tech,
which I always really, really like.
And here they realize that we have much less time, actually,
to do what we have to do.
The drill is cracking the outer mantle...
but that shouldn't happen for another...
We were wrong.
We do not have seven hours until the Earth core breach.
We only have...
one.
Call it in.
Area 51, do you copy?
ROLAND: And now comes a scene which I really like very much,
because it shows a little bit what these movies are about,
because the character starts at one point. He starts as this totally broken man.
And now, they tell all the pilots that this is like a suicide mission,
because they lost their satellites, and somebody has to do it.
...our cold fusion bombs can go to town.
It's a Hail Mary!
But it can work.
ADAMS: There's a catch.
As you know, they took out all of our satellites...
which means that somebody...
ROLAND: Now we'll see, actually, daughter and father come through.
They're both from the same stock.
They both... She, because she thinks Jake is dead,
and she volunteers for it.
And I need a volunteer.
Let's get it done.
I'll fly it in.
PRESIDENT WHITMORE: No, you won't.
I'll do it.
ROLAND: And then, here comes Dad, shaved now.
Looking like the old Bill Pullman.
And we discussed this for the longest time and we went for it,
and I think it really works well.
Especially because he has this amazing haircut.
(CHUCKLING) Almost like he's like some...
One of our fans hit him from the right.
But he does such an amazing job.
I love Bill Pullman as an actor, he's such a grounded guy.
And Maika, she's just awesome, too.
Matthew...
do not let him get on that tug.
Do you understand me?
ROLAND: The salt flats, which featured prominently in the first film,
are this time the battleground.
The salt flats are on the border of Nevada and Utah
and there's this gambling town called Wendover,
which I always called Bendover, but don't tell them.
Hopefully, don't listen to this here.
So, Wendover, Utah is where this takes place.
Who's in charge here?
No one.
Our driver left us to take a ride to Minnesota.
Just like that? He just left?
He went to go have sex with his girlfriend.
Yes! All aboard!
Wait! What about our car?
We'll get a new one when you get your license.
On the bus, everybody!
ROLAND: And see, this is the salt flats.
Here we see that radar,
and now they can watch what's happening in this area,
which is very important, you'll see pretty soon.
Again, I like old technology mixed with new stuff,
absolute cutting-edge stuff.
So, that shows a little bit how we humans are just an amazing species.
Give me numbers, Mr. President.
Nine minutes to the queen's ship's arrival...
roughly 22 minutes before the drill reaches our molten core.
Jesus Christ. Take your positions.
We don't have a second to lose.
Are we gonna make it, sir?
You bet your ass we will.
MAN: All right, here we go, men.
Get up on that barricade.
ROLAND: This was shot on stage,
because you more and more do that because you cannot afford, actually,
to do this all real.
Yes, the truck and everything and the actors are real,
but everything else is CGI and it works pretty well.
Now we come to, for me, the most difficult thing to shoot
because it needed the most imagination because there was nothing there.
It was a blue platform.
And I'm actually quite proud that this all worked out
because this is a big sequence,
because all these actors all acted in blue surrounding, everything.
And it looks pretty real.
And it shows you a little bit, you know, what you can do these days
with digital technologies.
So, what now? Go in guns blazing?
Hey, what are you doing?
You guys get to those fighters and don't leave me hanging.
Wait!
Excuse me!
Down here!
There you go.
ROLAND: Also, it shows what we had in the first film,
humans do funny things, and here he distracts them, peeing in front of them,
which I always thought was funny.
Then, even the pee is digital,
because, naturally, you don't want to have the actor really pee.
So you create the pee.
Their technology hasn't changed at all!
Get the weapons ready.
New interface.
(GRUNTS) Shit.
The cockpit was real.
That was the only thing... The inside of the cockpit was real.
Everything else is CGI.
Getting a little low there, Rain.
ROLAND: The interesting part about it is
I didn't even have a previs for all this.
So I had to really make it up in my head, which has a good thing and a bad thing.
The good thing is I know always exactly where to put the camera,
but the bad thing is I have to always explain everything.
And then I, at one point, get so angry,
I said, "Guys, just trust me. I'm doing the right thing."
And I always told Markus, "Okay, key light from the right, "
and he said, "Are you sure?" "Absolutely."
And I think it all worked out.
You guys go ahead. We'll cover the rear.
ROLAND: This was a sequence here which was created by Uncharted.
This is actually the company owned by Volker Engel,
who is the visual effects supervisor and visual effects producer in this film,
and by Marc Weigert.
And they have a very tight little group of people.
There's this thing we have these days, which is very, very good for me,
it's called Ncam,
where you actually can, like, in a very rudimentary form,
see what's on the blue screen.
And you can line up things, and that's very helpful to me.
Anyhow, so, this is the last thing that we shot in the film,
it's another alien cockpit,
because we felt if there's anything which we want to change,
then we can change it in these scenes,
because when you have a movie already, all shot,
most of the time, you cut, you edit on the side
and you know pretty much what you have.
We actually made a little break and shot this scene two, three months later
in Los Angeles.
And it was good that we did it later
because we could react to certain things
and massage the characters a little bit better.
Here's, for example, where they really explain a little bit
how good friends they really are.
- (GRUNTING) - Hang on to your seat, buddy!
- (PANTING) - Jake, did you make it?
Rain...
did you see him come out of there?
I'm not sure.
Jake?
- JAKE: Did you miss me? - (EXHALES)
(PANTING) You can't do that to me.
I told you you'd get lonely without me.
DYLAN: All right, aviators, let's turn and burn.
Clock's ticking, we gotta get out of here.
MAN ON RADIO: Stand by for a broadcast from the United States...
ROLAND: So, now we show, a little bit, how worldwide this all is.
Here, we cut to Morocco.
And we do a little bit like a very classic scene
where somebody tells everybody
that if we don't pull this one off, this is the end.
What we do in the next 12 minutes...
will either define the human race or finish it.
To those of you listening...
ROLAND: This was all shot, actually, together with the last scenes of the cockpit,
because we felt when we have the whole film already cut,
we can really massage this much better, and I think we were right.
...succeed or fail...
we will face it together...
standing as one.
WOMAN ON PA: Decoy mission launch, T-minus 60 seconds.
TRAVIS: Patricia!
Patricia!
- What is it? - It's your dad.
He collapsed. Come with me quick.
WOMAN ON PA: Mission is fueled, loaded and ready for launch.
Where is he?
He asked me as a friend.
ROLAND: That is the main shoot again, in Albuquerque.
Dad!
ROLAND: There was not much there, I tell you.
This all looks really big, but there was not much there.
It's sometimes even astonishing for me.
So, now, her dad is doing this suicide mission.
Here comes one of the funny little scenes which you always need in movies like that.
Which Judd Hirsch is the best at.
Oh, yeah?
Your father's a putz.
(FAINT WHIZZING)
Wait.
Do you hear that?
ROLAND: Now, here comes a shot which was a real shot of the bus,
but we only put the shadows in.
One of the few shots we really, really shot in the salt flats.
We shot a lot in the salt flats because we could shoot plates there
for backgrounds and stuff.
But it's also great when you see real shots of the bus in the salt flats,
because then you can have reference material
for everybody else who has to create this in CGI.
On my command...
fire!
ROLAND: This is all CGI.
Only the guys in the foreground are real.
This was when our cannons...
It's a brave new world in filmmaking these days.
(ALL GRUNTING)
I have to take this fighter.
We're still priming the fusion drive.
It's only at 32%.
ROLAND: Now, comes the storyline which was very important for us
that you understand that this is a trap, you have to show both sides of it.
We showed on Okun's side, that they isolate the Sphere,
and then Whitmore switches on this transmitter.
VOICE: Isolation chamber activated.
ROLAND: You have to be very exact in movies like this
because everything rides on that people really can understand it,
we do endless tests to test that we did everything right.
CATHERINE: It's working.
She's following the decoy.
Wait, what are you doing?
ROLAND: I had so much fun with Brent because he's like a mad scientist
with the long, gray hair and he just wants to know more.
Sir, there's a school bus headed directly towards the trap.
No, no, no.
ROLAND: And here now comes a scene which we also shot on a stage.
Not this shot, this was real.
This was also shot real, but the truck was put in,
because it was too expensive to put this truck to Wendover, Utah.
So, it is CG, too.
That's a lot what you do these days, you say, "What is cheaper?"
"What is cheaper, do it in visual effects or should we do it in real?"
And most of the time, actually, we do it in visual effects
because it's faster to shoot and you just do it.
...by thousands of years.
Our understanding of physics...
wormholes, everything, everything!
Hey, calm down. Calm down!
I don't want to calm down!
Ah! David!
What, we have to wait for the end of the world for us to get together?
ROLAND: Here, it's one of my favorite scenes,
because he doesn't even see the big spaceship
because he's so excited to be reunited with his son, and then he sees it.
Yeah, I see...
ROLAND: All these shots, they're all full CG.
ADAMS: Tom, it looks like the plan is working.
She thinks you've got the Sphere.
- She's only going after the fighters. - We gotta get these kids to cover. Go, go!
ROLAND: Here is that moment between father and daughter,
and it's just this moment you need in a movie like that,
where it goes a little deeper into the characters
and you have some emotional pull.
You should've let me do this.
By the way, this scene we were not happy with,
so we also reshot a little bit of it.
And we didn't have the moon tug anymore, nor the cockpit,
so we just put them in chairs.
And that was it.
And that works because today we can make things work,
because you have other shots which were really done in a cockpit
and wider shots of the moon tug, so you can totally get away with it.
Follow me.
Come on.
ROLAND: This is a real shot in the cockpits. This, too. This is really in the moon tug.
Now, now! Activate the shield!
Shield engaged.
ADAMS: Lt. Whitmore, clear the blast zone.
ROLAND: You try to figure this all out in post.
Surprised to see me?
ROLAND: This is one of these moments in a movie where I'm always very nervous.
"Will people really understand it and get it?"
And we did a lot of testing to make this really right.
Happy Fourth of July.
ROLAND: I always thought that the visual effects were done incredible.
Especially this shot, it's one of my favorite shots,
where you can see the shield and you'll see all the impacts.
Do we have confirmation, David?
ROLAND: Now, we also play original music.
It's like doubting in a way.
The music is done by my old partner, Harald.
He's like a Renaissance man.
Not only producing, writing, he's also a very, very talented film composer.
It's beyond belief for me how somebody can do all these kind of things.
(ALL GASPING)
(ALL GRUNTING)
Wait, if she's dead, why are her fighters still attacking us?
ROLAND: This gentleman on the right is my house manager, Matt,
who's also an actor.
I was pretty much talked to by everybody to hire him.
And I was so happy with his performance, I said, "Oh, my God."
He actually is a great actor, and now we're super-excited
because he was also in the first trailer.
So, he's looking forward to the release of this film.
- Um, sir... - There's Bobby.
Is that supposed to happen?
Not good.
Oh, my God.
She has her own shield.
GIRL: What is that?
ROLAND: And now we come to all the big queen shots,
where we asked ourselves, "So, which company do we give this?"
We all were, like, in sync in one thing, it has to be Weta.
Weta, in New Zealand, Peter Jackson's company.
They're just the best when it comes to creature
and all these incredible images which are really super-hard to do.
They did such an amazing job in making this all work,
because it's not easy to make shots like this look real
and a lot of work goes into that.
All remaining pilots, target the queen.
Unload everything you've got!
Did you hear that?
ROLAND: And here is Matt, he's really scared, plays this very well,
and he calls for help.
We got aliens on the loose. We need back up now!
ROLAND: But to no avail,
because the aliens are coming and they have these mean tentacles.
(BOTH SCREAM)
ROLAND: The idea was to never fully see her in a way
or if only for very short.
Because, I mean, it gets old very fast, stuff like that.
And, especially, when you're in the bus, you can only see, sometimes, the feet,
there's this smoke and everything, so you never really quite fully see her.
I think the boys from Weta did an amazing job here.
Now comes one of my favorite shots here. Look, here, all CG, even the bus.
We did for all of these shots, to just be safe, also shots with a real bus.
See, this is not a real bus.
And that's the thing you learn
that you can sometimes create it easier, more convincing in a computer now
than when you would do it in real.
And real, naturally, means
you have to have a huge crew out in the salt flats.
It's just simpler that way.
It's a little bit nerve-racking,
because we rely on other people, but results are great.
And, I think, in the future more and more will be done like that.
Figure out ways, how to shoot these movies fast and simpler.
It's also, for the actors, much better,
because they don't have to endlessly wait around for stuff.
(GASPING)
(GROWLING)
ROLAND: See, this was all shot on a stage, only with blue screen.
She's, naturally, real, parachute is real but it's all full CG.
All these shots are full CG.
I got you, baby!
(GRUNTS)
ROLAND: Imagine how much relief this is for a director,
because I had to always come up with very clever ideas
and I had sleepless nights about it, how to shoot stuff like that.
Actually, most of the time, I said, "Let's not shoot it, "
because it's too complex and too difficult, and now you can shoot stuff like that.
Shoot her down!
ADAMS: Whitmore destroyed the queen's ship
and his daughter knocked out her shield.
ROLAND: So, here comes this moment where they get told
that if they don't do it, world's coming to an end
because the drill reaches the Earth's core.
(ALIENS CHITTERING)
We're really running into an alien prison.
This is the one!
ROLAND: The other aliens see the Sphere and that's what she's after.
One of my favorite shots of that alien close-up is awesome.
And our guys, naturally, who have connection, totally realize what's going on.
She now knows where the Sphere is and the trap didn't work
because now she knows.
(GRUNTING)
(SCREAMING)
ROLAND: On top of it, she takes over all the fighters because she has lost her shield.
That shows a little bit that she's a hive mind,
what she can do and she can create some sort of shield out of all her fighters,
and they protect her.
And now she's on her way, and they cannot stop her.
The hell?
She's taking us straight to Area 51.
(ALL GASP)
What are you doing? You're not going to follow her!
- Stay behind the yellow line, please, Dad. - There is no yellow line.
Imagine one!
ROLAND: Now comes a moment which I'm quite proud of,
because I said to Dean very early...
I said, "Dean, we need some gay characters."
And we decided to make it Brent and John Storey.
They're both straight and they were good sports about it.
I think the coming scene is one of the most emotional scenes of the film,
because Brent is super-happy because they got saved.
But then he learns, all of a sudden, that his boyfriend is wounded or is hit.
It's really interesting how sometimes things work out in films.
Brent has these little wooden things around his neck,
and that was actually the idea of Lisy Christl, the costume designer,
and she said, "What do you think about this little thing?"
And I said, "It's awesome."
Then the writers come to me and say, "What is this thing around his neck?"
And I said, "Lisy thought it was great, I think it's great...
"Come up with something."
And what they came up with is this scene here.
I've got something I gotta tell you.
What?
This!
That was supposed to be a sweater.
(BOTH LAUGHING)
ROLAND: And when you're not open in these films, not playful...
These little personal things,
sometimes in the middle of all the big imagery,
is very important for movies like that, at least, I think.
Now comes the scene which I had nightmares about,
because there was nothing there.
There was a bus and a cockpit, and that was it.
Everything else is created.
For a director, it can be a good thing or a bad thing,
but in this instance it turned out, really, all great.
It's one of my favorite showdowns I ever shot.
That's close enough, David.
I think they're trying to protect her.
DIKEMBE: More are coming.
Give me that thing.
- Take that. - (BRAKISH YELLING)
Two minutes, sir.
Two minutes until core breach.
Captain Hiller, you've got two minutes.
Two minutes.
Man, we gotta get out of this tornado.
JAKE: Every tornado has an eye, right?
I think if we want to get a shot at her, we gotta get up there.
ROLAND: Now we come to fusion drive again because Jake is crazy,
they're out of options and they try it.
I always thought it was a really fun and cool idea.
Very, very fun and cool images.
All done in the computer.
It's these kind of things where you obsess about for ages,
but then at the end, when it's all said and done,
it's always fun to see it, that it all worked out.
And it actually was really good that we shot all the cockpit at the very end,
because it was just one of these things, when you have the whole film done
and then you do the last thing, the cockpit,
then you can really react to things and make things happen.
(SCREAMING)
(PANTING) Still alive.
- You all right? - Man!
I got the controls back.
JAKE: And our weapons are working!
Yeah, but our engines are fried.
All right. It's gotta be a controlled dive, then.
JAKE: There she is!
Everybody, we got one shot at this.
Let's make it count.
Thanks for always looking out for me, Jake.
You got it, buddy.
Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!
- It's over. - You got 'em all.
Okay.
ROLAND: The queen is very close to the Sphere, so she finally got it.
And now, it's lost, you think.
Oh, my God. She's got it.
ROLAND: But here are our heroes and...
Because Jake has, earlier, seen Dikembe kill the smaller alien,
he thinks maybe shoot her in the back, where the tentacles are,
this could maybe work.
And it actually works, and something amazing happens.
Charlie!
Go for her back right where the tentacles are! That's her weak spot.
(GRUNTING)
- (GRUNTS) - Yoo-hoo!
ROLAND: And now, the first time, actually, the big Independence Day theme plays
because it's, dramatically, the right moment to use it.
CHARLIE: What do you think I'm doing?
Shit!
This thing got ejection seats?
CHARLIE: Negative.
BOY: Look out!
ROLAND: I was totally obsessing about this fluid.
I had two companies do this fluid.
I thought outside fluid has to be...
Because it's the queen, it has to be a little bit different.
I think Weta really pulled it off, and the slight greenness of it is perfect.
By the way, now, what you see here, all the fluids is digital.
In old days, you would've done it practically,
but it's better today to do it digitally
because you can alter the color, you can do all these things,
and it's not such a big deal anymore.
We're alive!
ROLAND: So, here now, we come to the conclusion.
Our guys who monitor the drill
see that the drill retracts and everybody is happy
and there's a celebration going on.
That's kind of what we call "the mop-up."
You always have to be careful that "the mop-up" doesn't get too long.
For example, we never had the plan to have these fighters crash,
but then we thought,
"Isn't this cool to do something like in the first film that they crash?"
And then we, afterwards, made them crash.
JAKE: Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Baby, put the gun down.
Jake?
Jake!
ROLAND: I'm glad that worked out, and now they're together.
Maybe we should try that.
Here comes one of the biggest laughs,
because he's after her and she says, "Dinner, first."
Dinner, first!
ROLAND: This is, again, a Weta shot that's just incredible.
How they do this kind of stuff and make it look real.
This was actually a scene where we shot one day,
and I thought, "That's too blue and too dark."
I said to everybody, "Guys, we have to reshoot it."
So we reshot it the next day.
And they said, "Who tells the actors?" I said, "Probably I will."
I showed them some images and said,
"Look, this is just too dark.
"It's not the friendly tone this should have at the end.
"Because of that we want to reshoot it."
And they were all super-understanding and they said, "Okay, let's reshoot it."
Listen, maybe you guys should stay with me for a while...
I think that we'd really like that.
Yeah, so would I.
ROLAND: Here we see Brent again and says a little bit what I always wanted to do,
have people of today sent out into space, sent through a wormhole,
and if this is successful then we will do that.
I hope so, because I always wanted to do that.
You think they'll let me keep this thing?
You have the heart of a warrior.
That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.
Hell of a job.
ROLAND: And here comes the final moment, this huge ship is lifting off.
We actually wanted to have Paris be hit by stuff,
but then after the attacks, we didn't want to do that anymore,
so it all ended up being done in London.
We are rich! We're wealthy!
ROLAND: The spaceship lifts off.
And here, then, comes the final moment.
Kind of a setup if there will be another part
that they will go out into space
and try to connect with these other refugees.
And I always had the feeling that it was very important to do this part
as a hand-off to a younger generation,
because I thought it was like a cool mix between old and new characters.
Bill Pullman, Jeff and Brent, we're all roughly the same age.
And we said this is like a cool thing, to see a new generation
being introduced in this film and they have a bridge to audiences today,
because 20 years is a long time.
So, we hope this will work.