Monthly Archives: July 2025

Movie Reviews

The Fantastic Four: First Steps – Review

Marvel has managed to get a remarkable amount of their comic book characters recognized around the world thanks to their movie adaptations.  But it has been a bit more difficult for one of their most popular titles.  Marvel’s first family, The Fantastic Four, started their life on the page in 1961.  Created by legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby and chief Marvel writer Stan Lee, the quartet of super powered beings have become one of Marvel’s best selling properties, managing to top the comic book charts even to this day.  It was also the first time a comic series was built from the ground up on a team dynamic, predating the X-Men and the Avengers.  What also set the Four apart was that they were a family unit as well.  Reed Richards and Sue Storm, known as Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl respectively, were a married couple, and their team also consisted of of Sue’s younger brother Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) and Reed’s best friend since childhood Ben Grimm (The Thing).  With that broad appeal thanks to their comic book success, it should have been very easy for them to translate to the silver screen.  This however has been more difficult than one would imagine.  Legendary B-Movie veteran Roger Corman took his stab at it in the early 90’s, and while earnest it’s safe to say that his version is not exactly an all time classic of the genre.  A decade later, after the comic book genre was finally starting to be taken seriously by Hollywood, 20th Century Fox tried to do their attempt at launching the Fantastic Four in it’s franchise.  There are good things to say about some of their Fantastic Four (2005), particularly with casting choices like Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm, but it also paled in comparison to other comic book films of the time.  It did manage to spawn a 2007 sequel that introduced the Silver Surfer for the first time to the big screen, but it also bombed at the box office and killed any further attempts to grow the franchise.  By this time, Chris Evans had already taken on the role of Captain America as Marvel Studios was starting up their own line of films.  But, Fox still wanted to hold onto the rights to the Fantastic Four and keep it out of the hands of Marvel’s parent company Disney.  Sadly what resulted was one of the worst comic book movies in history.

2015’s Fant4stic is an epically bad movie, and a shining example of how not to adapt a comic book to the big screen.  For some reason, Fox wanted to give the usually bright and colorful Fantastic Four comics a dark and gritty adaptation, akin to what DC was currently doing with their Snyderverse movies.  The result was a movie that pleased no one and ended up destroying Fox’s share of the comic book movie market even more.  The sad thing is, because Fox refused to play ball with Disney, like what Sony did with their special arrangement that allowed Spider-man to be a part of the MCU, it prevented the Fantastic Four from being apart of the Marvel’s on-going story-line leading into the Infinity War arc.  But, things would change once Fox ended up being put on the market and were bought up by Disney in the process.  Now the Fantastic Four were finally home at Marvel Studios and could take their place in the MCU.  But, plans changed due to the Covid pandemic.  Because so many projects got pushed back, the world had to wait a bit longer to see Marvel’s first family make their debut in their new home.  And in those couple of years of waiting, Marvel’s box office track record started to wane.  The studio hadn’t been able to live up to the stellar box office results of the 2010’s, and it prompted Disney to start cutting back on the output of Marvel Studios.  But, thankfully the re-shuffling may have timed out right for the studio because in the last year it seems that a lot of the production woes that plagued the films of the previous couple of years are not dragging Marvel down anymore.  Their last film, Thunderbolts* (2025) had some of the best critical reviews that the studio has seen in many years, and that has helped to build some extra confidence for this new Fantastic Four adaptation heading into theaters right on it’s heels.  But what is interesting is just how exactly Marvel is fitting their first family into their on-going story.  The Fantastic Four are coming into the MCU pretty late into it’s history, which means their introduction can’t just be yet another origin story like all the others before.  The only question is, does The Fantastic Four: First Steps do justice to the comic book icons or does it continue the string of bad luck they’ve had up to now on the big screen.

One of the biggest gambles this movie takes is that it introduces the First Family of Marvel in an entirely separate universe than the one we are familiar with in the MCU.  This Fantastic Four exists on Earth 828, while the MCU is on Earth 616, dubbed the “Sacred Timeline.”  Given that Marvel is currently in it’s Multiverse phase, it stand to reason that these two parallel universes will collide eventually.  In this particular timeline, the Fantastic Four have been around as a team for the last 4 years, reaching a point where they have become the guardians of the Earth.  They are treated like celebrities in this world, which seems to be an advanced version of Mid-20th Century America.  While on break from their crime fighting duties, the Four make their home in the lavish Baxter Building in the heart of Manhattan.  One day, Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) makes an important discovery that she immediately shares with her husband Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), the smarted man in the world.  She has learned that she’s pregnant.  Reed is excited, but also troubled, because he’s worried about the effect that the cosmic radiation that gave them their super powers may have on their unborn child.  The news of the welcome pregnancy is celebrated by both Sue’s brother Johnny (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and the world is collectively excited about the newest addition to the Fantastic family.  But the good times come to an end once a mysterious visitor comes to Earth.  The powerful alien being, named Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), aka the Silver Surfer, has come to deliver a message, heralding the coming of the planet devouring entity known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson).  The Fantastic Four vow to the people of Earth that they will protect them from this Galactus threat, so they head back to space, following the Silver Surfer’s power signature.  They arrive many light years away from home to find the destroyed remains of a planet that’s currently in the process of being consumed by Galactus’ enormous intergalactic ship.  They find the giant super being, who reveals that he has plans for something other than the destruction of Earth.  He gives the Fantastic Four the most difficult of ultimatums; he’ll spare the Earth if they give up their unborn child to him.  Given that impossible choice, which path will the Fantastic Four choose; save their world, or their son?

Up to this point the Fantastic Four were adrift in the old way of doing things with Marvel licenses where the studios had all the creative control and not Marvel themselves.  Now that the Fantastic Four are back in the fold with Marvel Studios firmly established, people are eagerly anticipating how they will be debuting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Considering what has come before, Marvel had a fairly low bar to cross, but this is also a time where Marvel has lost a step from their peak days.  So, how well did the Fantastic Four do in their big debut?  I’d say that the results vary depending on the way you look at it.  As far as Fantastic Four movies go, First Steps is far and away the best film we have seen yet from the super team.  For once we are actually seeing the Fantastic Four as more than just super heroes.  In this movie, they are an actual family and that dynamic is what drives most of the film’s best moments.  But, I also have to look at this film with regards to it’s place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has had a much stronger track record over the years than the Fantastic Four movies.  And viewing it through that, I’d say that First Steps is slightly above average for a MCU film.  It’s certainly a very good movie, and even at times great.  But it doesn’t quite grab a hold of you the same way that Marvel movies at their very best do.  I feel like a big part of that is because First Steps is trying to do a lot of heavy lifting in a short amount of time, and it comes at the cost of having moments where the movie is able to let us sit and absorb the film.  It also hurts the film that it comes so soon after DC’s Superman debuted; another movie that also had to speed through a lot of world-building in a short amount of time.  While I think that both movies are successful at what they set out to do, Superman just slightly beats it out thanks to it’s more graceful landing.  What First Steps manages to do is basically get it’s super hero quartet to be on par with what Marvel has done in the past.

Where the movie succeeds very well is establishing the Fantastic Four and their world which seems to be custom shaped just for them.  It’s an interesting creative choice to have this movie set in an alternate timeline, but it’s one that makes sense because it quickly distinguishes this film from all the other versions of the Fantastic Four that we’ve seen.  The movie is very much a love letter to Jack Kirby, even down to naming their universe Earth 828 (a reference to Kirby’s birthday of August 28).  We see the Four living in a Earth where the mid-century modern aesthetic took hold and continued to influence everything beyond, in architecture and fashion.  It’s a world permanently frozen in the 1960’s, but with all the same technological advances we’ve seen in the same 60 plus years since then.  Every travels in flying cars, but they all have that shiny chrome look of Cadillacs from that era.  The movie also pays homage to the Silver Age origins of the Fantastic Four by making references to all of the different foes that they fought through the years, including the very cheesy ones.  Giganto, the lizard like behemoth that appeared on the cover of Fantastic Four #1 even makes a cameo here.  But, when the movie moves away from the cheese towards heavier stuff, it also does a fairly good job of that too.  One of the biggest upgrades that this film has over past film versions is the villain Galactus.  While still a bit limited in character development, Galactus is nevertheless far better realized here than he was in his last appearance in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, where he was depicted as a giant dust cloud.  Here, we finally get a Galactus that is true to his comic book design, and to the movie’s credit, he is a fairly terrifying presence.  If you see this movie, please choose to watch this in IMAX, purely for the Galactus scenes alone, because he will indeed feel every bit as gargantuan as he’s meant to be.

One of the movie’s other strong points is it’s cast.  One thing that the movie had to get right was the line-up of actors who had to play the iconic characters, and I’d say that they did a great job with casting all of them.  The stand out here is Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm.  In all the past versions, Sue was often the least defined character of the group, because back when those movies were made we hadn’t really seen the genre define how to write for female super heroes.  Now in a world where both Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel have broken down barriers in the genre, we’re able to see the writers of these movie bring more depth to a character like Sue.  Vanessa Kirby has to do a lot of the dramatic heavy lifting in this movie and she really excels at portraying Sue as a mother who will move heaven and earth to protect her child.  Another character that also gets a lot more depth this time around is Johnny Storm.  It’s interesting how the movie portrays his brash personality and shows how it acts as a shield for some of his insecurity.  In the film, we learn that he wants to show his worth to the team beyond his super power to generate fire from his body, particularly when it comes to his intelligence.  Joseph Quinn does a great job of portraying this aspect, and he also still manages to successfully capture the playful side of Johnny too; which is pretty impressive considering the big shoes he had to fill inheriting the role from Chris Evans and Michael B. Jordan.  Ebon Moss-Bachrach had a bit of an easier time considering that he’s playing the affable Ben Grimm, the movie’s most light hearted character.  At the same time, he’s also got to act through a CGI shell which is not easy, but somehow his personality manages to shine through the motion capture performance and he makes an instantly lovable Thing.  Unfortunately, with a cast of lead characters this big, one is inevitably going to get the short end of the stick, and that would be Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards.  Pedro’s performance is naturally very strong, but Reed is not really focused on in this movie.  He’s the guy who comes up with the solutions, but we don’t explore that much of his character beyond that.  It makes me think that a lot of his character development is being saved for future sequels, and of course the Avengers films.

The other spotlight of the movie is the way that it looks.  Of course the mid-century modern aesthetic is a bold choice on Marvel’s part, and it’s a great way to try something new and different with this property.  One of the biggest complaints levied at Marvel in recent years is that all their movies look the same, and it’s a criticism that is not unwarranted.  I can still remember just how bland and unremarkable Captain America: Brave New World (2025) was, and this is a vast improvement over that movie in every way.  The visual effects are also better utilized here than some of Marvel’s other recent movies.  The Thing in particular is a great achievement.  He looks so much like the Jack Kirby design, but you can still see the actor’s mannerisms shine through in the model without it looking off.  He very much looks like he’s occupying the same space with his live action co-stars, which is what the best CGI animated Marvel characters like Thanos and Rocket Raccoon have managed to do.  Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer is also beautifully realized.  I especially like that her silver skin is now perfectly polished either; that there’s tarnish in there as well, indicating that she’s a being of very advanced age as well.  The movie also does a great job of filling every scene with a lot of creative details.  It will probably take quite a few watches to spot all the little mid-century style touches they added to fill out their alternate timeline Manhattan skyline.  But, if there is one thing that I think will be far more memorable from this movie, it’s the musical score from Michael Giacchino.  The award winning composer (who’s also responsible for the Marvel Studios fanfare by the way) delivers some of his best work here, creating a score that could very well be as iconic as John Williams’ Superman them or Danny Elfman’s Batman theme.  Marvel has struggled to find music themes that become as iconic as the ones from DC, other than Alan Silvestri’s Avengers theme itself, but I think Giacchino may have struck gold here with an epic score that not only feels right with the mid-century aesthetic, but also fits perfectly with these particular heroes.

So, while I would say that it just falls a bit short of top tier Marvel, I will without question also say that the Fantastic Four have finally broken their cinematic curse.  This is a movie that does justice to this super hero team, particularly the version of the team dreamed up by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee.  I just think that there is room for improvement, and I have a feeling that we’ve got a lot to look forward to with regards to the Four in Marvel’s future.  We already know that they have a part to play in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday (2026), and the teaser at the end of Thunderbolts* hinted at just how they’ll be making their way into the MCU proper.  I would certainly like to see them explore Reed Richards as a character more in the Avengers movies, because it seemed to me that a talent as big as Pedro Pascal was underutilized in this movie.  But, nitpicks aside, there is still a lot to like about this movie.  The visuals are top notch, and the cast is likable and well-suited to their characters.  I also like the fact that even if you aren’t familiar with Silver Age Fantastic Four, you can still easily get into the flow of this movie.  Like James Gunn’s Superman, it foregoes the origin story and just throws you into the fray with the Fantastic Four already firmly established as a super hero team.  All we need is a short little montage to catch us up to speed, which this movie cleverly does through a TV special package, and then it’s all fun from there.  A lot of credit goes to director Matt Shakman for getting the tone of this film right.  He carried over his expertise of handling classic genres on television, including Marvel’s own Wandavision series, and helped give First Steps an authentic feel of the mid-century world it was supposed to convey.  Riding off the critical success of Thunderbolts*, as well as the strong responses to their TV properties Daredevil: Born Again and Ironheart, it seems that Marvel has gotten a bit of their mojo back, and The Fantastic Four is continuing that win streak.  It’s coming at a good time too, as Avengers: Doomsday is just around the corner, as well as Secret Wars, which is supposed to culminate this current era of Marvel.  Marvel needed to find it’s footing again, and while First Steps isn’t top tier Marvel, it’s still a solid effort that shows they still got it, and that things are looking up as they head into the home stretch.  And that is just fantastic for all of us.

Rating: 8/10

Editorials

The Happiest Place – 70 Years of Disneyland and the Crossroads of Cinema and Theme Parks

On July 17, 1955, the gates were opened to a place that would change the world of entertainment forever.  After a full year of construction and over $17 million in costs (over $200 million adjusted for inflation) the happiest place on Earth known as Disneyland was ready to meet the world.  In the 70 years since that day, the theme park industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry that has been not just been a boon for tourism and leisure, but also a place to showcase new technological advancements.  Nestled in a Southern Californian suburb called Anaheim, Disneyland may no longer hold the title of the world’s most visited theme park (which is held by Disneyland’s Florida based equivalent Walt Disney World), but it still stands out as a trailblazer and trendsetter in the parks industry.  The Disney company not only looks at the original park as a proving ground for the layouts and implementation of all of the worldwide theme parks they have created, but nearly all other theme parks out there also take a page from the Disneyland textbook.  But, even with all that success, Disneyland was not a success overnight.  It took several years for the park to finally recoup it’s costs, and it almost went under in it’s opening months. The survival of the park is a testament to Walt Disney’s original intent for vision.  In his own words, “As long as there is imagination left in the world, Disneyland will never be finished.”  The park has evolved over the years, replacing outdated attractions with new cutting edge experiences, and in 70 years they have managed to make use of every inch of those 63 original acres of land, and even after all this time they are still not done.  What looked at the time to be Walt Disney’s greatest gamble has turned into his greatest achievement, and perhaps the greatest gift he left for the world in his lifetime.  Of course, beyond just being any old amusement park, Disneyland brought the art of cinema to life, as Walt Disney used his showmanship skills to telling stories in a new way that allowed all of us to visit to actual be a part of the adventure.

Of course Walt Disney didn’t invent the idea of theme parks altogether.  Amusement parks had long been a staple of American culture, dating back to the turn of the century.  The Grand Expositions, including the one held in Chicago in 1893, became these extravagant playgrounds for visitors of all ages, as well as places to demonstrate cutting edge technology.  In the early 20th century, new attractions like the roller coaster started to be become staples of these amusement parks.  While Walt Disney was starting up his fledgling studio in early Hollywood, Californians were frequently going to the beachfront piers, where roller coasters and Ferris wheels were built over the water.  One of the most famous of these, the Santa Monica Pier still operates today, though the original wooden coaster has long been replaced by a newer steel coaster.  Similar parks of that era like Coney Island in New York and Kennywood in Pittsburgh have also withstood the test of time.  But, there were a few specific inspirations that fed into Walt Disney’s imagination when he first conceived of his own park.  One was a trip he made to the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark.  On his trip there, he was stunned by the way that the gardens incorporated it’s rides and attractions around carefully cultivated landscaping; a far cry from the carnival atmosphere of the amusement parks in America.  The second inspiration was Griffith Park in Los Angeles.  The large green space that lies just south of the city of Burbank, where the Disney Studios is located, is nestled on the slopes of Mt. Lee, the mountain that’s home to the Hollywood Sign.  In addition to numerous hiking trails and the Los Angeles Zoo, the park is also home to a now century old carousel.  Walt would frequently bring his two daughters to the park and watch them ride on the carousel.  Walt stated in interviews that while he was happy to see his daughters having fun in the park, he also found that he was bored just sitting on a nearby bench watching them have all the fun.  This prompted him to dream of a place where both the kids and the adults could have fun together.  Now, what Walt was dreaming of making was not impossible to make a reality; but was he the right person to do it.  He was a movie maker; what did he know about how to build theme park?  But as the world would soon learn, theme parks had a lot to learn from him.

At first, Walt Disney looked to build the park in the strip of land between his Burbank studio and the nearby Los Angeles River.  However, it became very evident right away that the land itself would’ve been too small for what Walt Disney had in mind.  Instead, Disney looked across the entire Los Angeles metro area for a plot of land big enough for his park.  He found that piece of land 40 miles away in Anaheim, where an orange grove was being put up for sale by the Dominguez family that owned and operated it for many years.  The grove was just in the right spot, with the construction of what would be the Santa Ana Freeway passing just north of the property.  The land was also big enough for future expansion and a colossal parking lot.  Though it undoubtedly made Walt’s brother Roy nervous, given that he was in charge of all the company’s finances, he nevertheless did what he could to make his brother’s dreams a reality.  The Dominguez farm was purchased and Walt was ready to build.  But he needed something to help get the banks behind his proposal.  Thankfully, being in charge of an animation studio was a great benefit to Walt because he had some of the greatest artists in the world on his staff.  In 1953, he selected one of his artists named Herb Ryman to draft up a rough concept of what this park would look like.  While there are some key differences, it is astounding just how much Ryman’s early concept actually translated into the park we see today.  It’s an ingenious design.  The park is shaped much like a wheel, with one entry lane (which would become Main Street U.S.A.) that leads guests into a central hub and then the spokes of the wheel would be lanes extending from that hub out into all the other sections of the park; or as they would be called Lands.  And at the north end of the hub, a Castle that would be the centerpiece of the park.  The overview map that Herb Ryman drew up would be the blueprint for everything that followed.  While Disney was busy getting things ready for the construction of his park, he realized that things were quickly going to outgrow his operations at the Burbank studio.  So, he set up shop for a new department of his company in nearby Glendale that would solely be devoted to the design and development of his theme park.  This new department would be called WED Enterprises, but over the years we’ve come to know it by it’s newer name, Walt Disney Imagineering.

Construction began in earnest in the Summer of 1954.  Not a moment was wasted as Disney was hoping to have the gates open the following summer.  For the residents of Anaheim that would pass by, they were seeing strange sights as they were seeing things like castle turrets and space rockets appearing in the skyline.  But while construction moved at a frantic pace, Walt Disney needed to ensure that there were going to be people lined up to see his new park.  It just so happened at the same time that he was approached by ABC television to consider producing something for this new medium called television.  They certainly hit Walt at the right time, since he was eager to get the word out about his park.  What came about from this new deal was that Disney would produce a weekly anthology series that broadcast new and classic productions from the Disney studios.  And while Disney was filling that airtime, he could also bring awareness to the public of his park project.  This was one of the first ever examples of cross promotion ever on television.  But, Disney didn’t just treat this show like an hour long advertisement.  Each program would be made under the highest quality standards that Walt himself would approve.  In addition, he would be personally involved, acting as the host of the show himself.  Naturally, he would name this show Disneyland, and it would themed around the different lands that he was planning for his park.  Episodes themed around Fantasyland would be where classic Disney cartoons and feature films would be broadcast as part of the show.  Adventureland would present nature documentaries, including Oscar winning ones that Walt had previously produced.  Frontierland would present new original stories based on historical legends and tall tales, including the story of Davy Crockett which in itself became a cultural phenomenon when it first broadcast.  And Tomorrowland would be a showcase for scientific explorations, including shows that presented ideas about how to get us to the moon.  The show premiered in October 1954 and was a huge success.  Over the years it would go by many different names in it’s long run including The Wonderful World of Color and Walt Disney Presents.  But, the original title of Disneyland did the trick, because by the time the Summer of 1955 rolled around, people were already aware of the name Disneyland, and the many lands it housed.  Towards the end of the first season. Walt finally used his opportunity to showcase what was in store for Disneyland, and the world was ready to finally see it.

The park opened to the world on July 17, 1955, with a nationwide live broadcast to celebrate the occasion, hosted by Art Linklater and future president Ronald Reagan.  In the Town Square of Main Street, Walt delivered his address to officially open the park to guests, declaring, “To all who come to this Happy place, welcome.  Disneyland is your land.”  From then on, the park earned it’s nickname as the happiest place on Earth.  But, it wasn’t all happy at the beginning.  Opening day saw the park overwhelmed by guests, many of whom got in with counterfeit tickets.  There were also a lot of parts of the park that remained unfinished, including spots where the cement pavement hadn’t quite dried.  But, Disney was able to get over the hump of it’s bumpy opening, and in a couple of years Disneyland was one of Southern California’s biggest tourist destinations.  In 1959, Disneyland saw it’s first of many upgrades, with an overhaul of it’s East end that saw the introduction of iconic attractions like the Monorail and the world’s first tubular steel coaster, Matterhorn Mountain.  But Walt Disney wanted to do more than just have Disneyland be an amusement park like so many others across America.  He wanted to use the park to experiment with new technologies that not only would enhance guests’ experience, but would also be useful in the movie making process as well.  A big opportunity came when WED Enterprises was given a commission to develop attractions for the 1964 New York World’s Fair.  This not only gave a huge boost to the budget for WED, but it also granted them a perfect testing ground for a new experimental technology they were developing; Audio-Animatronics.  These Audio-Animatronics gave the Disney Imagineers the chance to program robotic figures with incredible lifelike movement, and have their movements programed onto an automated computer system that ran on audio cues.  The audio-animatronic characters were a huge leap forward in theme park engineering, and after the World’s Fair concluded, Walt brought the attractions home and implemented them into Disneyland.  They included the shows Carousel of Progress and Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln, as well as a true icon with the catchiest of theme songs, It’s a Small World.  But Walt Disney had even bigger plans.  An expansion of the park’s west side themed to the city of New Orleans was being planned, which would included two massive rides that heavily featured the audio-animatronic technology; Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion.  And then there was his most ambitious plan yet for a “Florida Project.”  But sadly, in December 1966, Walt Disney passed away after a losing battle against cancer.

By the time of Walt’s death, there was no doubt in the world that Disneyland was a resounding success.  And the theme park industry was never going to be the same ever again.  Walt’s brother Roy guided the company through the years immediately after his passing and saw his final dream become a reality when Walt Disney World opened in Orlando, Florida in October 1971.  Shortly after that Roy himself would be gone.  But Disney’s Imagineering never stopped working through all the changes, and since then the Disney company has opened four more resorts around the world, located in Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong and Shanghai respectively.  Disney World has also seen 3 more theme parks added to it’s sprawling property, including Epcot, the Disney Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.  Meanwhile, Disneyland itself gained a sister park built in what used to be the parking lot called Disney’s California Adventure, opened in 2001.  But, the Disneyland effect would be felt industry wide.  Amusement parks like those wooden pier beachfront attractions fell out of style, especially in California with the Santa Monica Pier being a rare survivor.  Now parks had to be carefully planned and themed, offering not just a place for cheap thrills, but rather a true escape from the outside world.  A great example of this was just up the road from Disneyland.  Boysenberry farmer Walter Knott saw his little farm grow in popularity over the years, especially after his wife Cordelia’s Chicken Dinner restaurant became a huge draw for the community.  To accommodate the crowds, he built a themed western town attraction next to the restaurant which he called Ghost Town.  After several years, Ghost Town expanded to include rides, including a mine train and log flume, designed by some former Imagineers from Disney.  Further expansions added more and more rides, and soon there was no berry farm left, but instead a theme park in it’s place.  But the name still stayed and today Knott’s Berry Farm has become a beloved theme park in it’s own right.  But the interesting thing about Disneyland’s influence is that more movie studios didn’t jump into the theme park industry like Walt did; instead choosing to license out their IP rather than build a park itself.  The exception though was Universal.  Universal, which long had drawn tourists to it’s studio lot for tours, expanded out and created a theme park of it’s own adjacent to the studio in Hollywood.  It’s also been a catch all for all the IP properties not held by Disney, including Harry Potter (Warner Brothers) Transformers (Paramount) and The Simpsons (formerly Fox and now ironically held today by Disney).  In the theme park industry, Universal has become second only to Disney and are continuing to grow; even in Disney’s back yard nearby in Orlando.

But one thing that Universal’s competition with Disney has managed to do is to increase the presence of IP based themed attractions across the theme park industry; which has been both a good and bad thing.  One thing that unfortunately has been sacrificed over time is the way that theme parks could create their own unique stories; ones that didn’t have to be based on a familiar movie or television show.  But, in recent years, theme parks have increasingly latched themselves onto characters that already have a built in familiarity in order to spotlight their new rides and attractions.  Disney of course drew upon it’s own vast library of titles to inspire new attractions; including one unfortunate case where they used one of their most controversial movies, Song of the South (1946) as the inspiration for one of their most popular rides; Splash Mountain.  And while their new park technology was advancing even further, the studio executives were more comfortable trying the tech out on brands with built in recognition rather than giving it to original ideas.  Disney even sought outside their company for potential brands to take a chance on their new tech.  One of those interested parties was filmmaker George Lucas, who was very interested in a flight simulator concept being devised for the park.  He believed that it was a perfect way to bring his Star Wars universe to life by having guests feel like they are really flying through space.  In 1987, Star Tours officially brought George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise to life at Disneyland.  A few years later, Lucas would collaborate with Disney again on an enhanced motion vehicle concept that would of course be developed for an Indiana Jones ride in Adventureland.  The worlds crafted by George Lucas seemed to perfectly fit within Disneyland, and after Disney gained control of Lucasfilm in 2012, it wasn’t long before an entire land was designed to fully immerse guests into the world of Star Wars, which became Galaxy’s Edge, opened in 2019.  Other sectors of the Disney company have also been given lands of their own in Disney Parks, including Marvel and Pixar.  But there has been a decline over time for attractions that stand on their own independent of IP influence.  Even the stuff that was developed as original ideas for Disney theme parks have inspired their own movies, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle Cruise.  Over time, parks have become less worlds of their own and more living advertisements for the sake of corporate synergy.

But there is no denying that Disneyland is more than just any theme park.  There is an aura about the place that still endures even after all the changes it’s gone through over time.  You can still feel the love and care that went into every wall, every pathway, and every little surprise around the corner.  It’s a place for all of the senses.  The way the texture of the faux rock work feels on your skin as you place your hand on it while waiting in line for Big Thunder Mountain.  The sound of the Mark Twain’s bell and whistle echoing throughout the park.  The smell of popcorn wafting in the air from the carts along the pathways.  The taste of churro or a Dole Whip on a hot summer day.  And of course all of the sights that our fondest memories are built on.  This is what sets Disneyland apart.  It’s the one and only park with Walt Disney’s personal touch.  And though many parts of it was recreated in parks around the world, you can definitely tell that Walt’s inspirations were what made this park special to him.  His favorite hobby was building model trains, and what else would be encircling the park than a full sized steam locomotive.  There of course is a carousel at the center of Fantasyland, just like the one Walt took his girls to in Griffith Park.  And if you look above the fire station in Main Street, as well as above the entrance to Pirates of the Caribbean, you’ll see secret apartments that Walt built just for himself when he would pay a personal visit.  Though the man is long gone, his influence still reigns over both the Disney parks as well as theme parks around the world.  And the world is better for it.  Theme parks are escapes, and the better the illusion the better the fun.  Walt Disney and his Imagineers used their know how from the world of film-making to improve the theme park experience, from set design influencing the architecture of the parks to using visual effects tricks like animatronics to make the rides all that more immersive.  It helped that many of Walt’s favorite film artists managed to transition so seamlessly into working on projects for Disneyland, like Mary Blair, Marc Davis and of course the songwriting team of the Sherman Brothers.  70 years and still going strong, Disneyland truly has earned that title of the happiest place on Earth.  Though there are many like it, Disneyland is still the gold standard on which all other theme parks today are judged by.  It’s both a place for cutting edge advancement, but also a shrine to a much simpler time.  You can still see much of the original park still standing there today, including the iconic Sleeping Beauty Castle that still sits in the heart of it all.  As a long time guest myself, having gone there almost every year since I was little, it still hasn’t lost it’s aura for me.  Above it’s entrance a plaque reads, “Here you leave today and enter the worlds of Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Fantasy.”  For me and many others, Disneyland is the closest place we can get to seeing the impossible become possible.

Movie Reviews

Superman (2025) – Review

It’s surprising that one of the characters that’s been the hardest for DC Comics to bring to the big screen is also their most iconic on the page.  Superman is undeniably one of the most well known comic book characters ever created, and probably the most famous one of all worldwide.  But, bringing him faithfully to the big screen has been somewhat of a challenge.  This is perhaps due to the fact that his first cinematic outing was just too hard of an act to follow.  Richard Donner’s Superman (1978) captured the character perfectly in a movie that honestly was the catalyst for the super hero boom that has happened in cinema over the last few decades.  While Donner’s direction was certainly a big part of making the film a success, the even bigger reason the movie worked as well as it did was because actor Christopher Reeve flawlessly embodied the character of Superman and made him a hero worth rooting for.  Reeve’s charm mixed in with his incredible physical presence really made us all believe that a man could fly.  And the part rightly came to define Reeve’s career, as well as his own life thereafter, especially after the tragic accident that left him paralyzed.  Over the years, DC and their parent company Warner Brothers came to realize that it was going to be very hard filling those bright red boots that Reeve wore on screen.  After the box office failure of the Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), it would be a whole 19 years before we would see Superman on the big screen again.  Unfortunately, Bryan Singer’s attempt at rebooting the franchise with Superman Returns (2006) was a pale imitation of Richard Donner’s original, despite a game performance from Brandon Routh taking over from Christopher Reeve.  While Superman was struggling to find his footing on film, his DC colleague Batman was taking charge at the box office thanks to Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy.  In order to capitalize on Batman’s success, Warner Brothers decided to apply it’s more gritty style to adaptations of all their Super Heroes, starting with Superman himself.  The studio looked to filmmaker Zach Snyder to revamp their iconic hero into something as iconic as their Batman, but this unfortunately didn’t work out as well as they hoped.

While Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013) did deliver some strong box office numbers, it was also sharply criticized for missing the point about the character.  In Man of Steel, Superman resorts to killing the villainous General Zod in order to save people who were in the supervillain’s line of fire.  This was antithetical to the many years of comic book lore that showed Superman as being pure of heart and never once resorting to murder, even in justifiable cases.  It was a case where Snyder was conforming the character to his own storytelling sensibilities, which fell into a gloomier and hard edged viewing of the world.  This kind of grit is fine for heroes like Batman, but just feels wrong for the character of Superman.  Unfortunately, DC and Warner Brothers meant for Man of Steel to be the launching off point for a cinematic universe akin to their rivals over at Marvel.  The fact that they started off with such a divisive film like Man of Steel as their foundation is a testament to why the DCEU (also known as the Snyderverse) ultimately failed.  And this was truly unfortunate given that they had cast an actor like Henry Cavill who if placed in a more faithful adaptation of Superman on the big screen could’ve been as great as Christopher Reeve.  But, with Snyder out at DC, it’s time to take another shot at bringing Superman to life on screen.  After his departure from Marvel, director James Gunn found a new and welcome home at DC, where he was granted the opportunity to do his take on The Suicide Squad (2021).  Though the movie’s box office was dampened due to the Covid pandemic, Gunn nevertheless received high marks for Suicide Squad, and DC was eager to work with him again.  He was granted a quick return to Marvel to close out his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy before moving on this his next assignment, which became more than just one movie.  DC and Warner Brothers wanted him to take over as the Creative Director of their entire Cinematic Universe, becoming essentially DC’s equivalent of Kevin Feige over at Marvel.  Gunn would be the one who would decide which projects would be getting made, and it’s only natural that he would choose Superman to be the one who would help launch this new, revamped Cinematic Universe.  And, in taking on the duties of writer and director, he would be putting it on himself to get this relaunch on the right footing.  The only question is, does Superman soar or is cinema his unfortunate kryptonite.

In an interesting creative choice, James Gunn is re-launching Superman on the big screen without going over his entire backstory again like his previous films had.  In this version, we meet Superman (David Corenswet) as he is three years into the gig.  Despite being the world’s strongest hero, he still is struggling to do the right thing by saving as many people as he can.  He soon learns that a lot of his well intention deeds also run contrary to the rule of law.  In particular, his intervention between two warring nations called Boravia and Jarhanpur has made him run afoul of the US State department.  In order to reign in Superman, the government has granted billionaire tycoon Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) the opportunity to use his resources to contain Superman and hold him in captivity.  Lex has long resented Superman and other meta-humans that have called Earth their home, and he uses all the tools he has to bring Superman down.  Meanwhile, the reporters at the Daily Planet, where Superman works under his alias Clark Kent, are attempting to break apart the conspiracy that Lex has concocted in order to sour public opinion against Superman and learn about the whereabouts of where he’s being held prisoner.  Clark Kent’s colleague, and girlfriend, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) even seeks help from a group of corporate sponsored Super Heroes who are under the working title of the “Justice Gang”  They include the Green Lantern Guy Gardener (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and the tech savvy Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi).  Another Daily Planet reporter, Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) has an insider source feeding him information on Lex Luthor’s duplicitous deeds.  Superman, over the course of these crucial days, must learn what is the most important part of being a super hero, which is to put the safety of others above his own self.  But he also must deal with the fact that someone like Lex Luthor will use his inate kindness against him, by forcing Superman to make unfair compromises that only end up serving Lex’s goals.  Can Superman still be the hero while being forced into the position where he has to make the toughest of choices in order to serve the greater good?

There’s a lot of pressure on James Gunn’s part to get this re-boot of Superman right.  Superman is a true icon, and the mishandling of the character over the last couple decades has in turn also doomed the larger plans for the cinematic universes that were to be built on his shoulders.  But, James Gunn has had a stellar track record at both Marvel and DC, and no one doubts that he can deliver a movie that both is revolutionary in it’s style while at the same time being faithful to the comics.  I’m happy to say that he does not disappoint with his version of Superman.  While it may not be my favorite film of his, I certainly do think he delivers a movie that does an honorable job of bringing Superman to life, while also still being entertaining in that very Gunn-esque way.  The movie has a fair share of laughs and bombastic action sequences, but at the same time it does what it needs to do to deliver us a compelling Superman story-line.  I would even say that this is the best we’ve seen of the “man of steel” since the Christopher Reeve days.  What Gunn really excels at here is a general sense of fun, which is what we also got from Richard Donner in his film.  But he isn’t just merely trying to ape what Donner did with his Superman, which was the fatal flaw of Bryan Singer’s version.  This is the same James Gunn sense of fun that we saw him use in both Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad.  It’s pleasing to see it apply so well to Superman and his narrative.  There’s not a cynical bone in this movie’s body.  When it wants to be profound, it earns it and when it wants to make a statement, it comes from a sincere place.  And for the most part, the humor lands.  The one flaw I would give this movie is that James Gunn seems to be wrapping his arms around a bit too much, to the point where I feel like some elements kind of lose impact as they get lost in the shuffle.  Some characters, especially Lois Lane, feel like their development was truncated a bit in order to fit more plot elements in.  For the most part, James Gunn manages to bring it all together in the end, but it’s a movie that does indeed throw a lot at you, and a few things do get forgotten in the process.  One thing that does help is that the movie hits the ground running right from the start, so that way we are not bogged down with too much exposition.  No origin story here, since it’s Superman and we should all know his beginnings by now.

And speaking of Superman, he is undoubtedly the movie’s greatest triumph.  A lot of the movie’s shortcomings are easily overlooked due to the fact that they managed to get the character right.  David Corenswet definitely fits the look of the character, with a wide build and tall frame.  But what he also does a great job with is making Superman relatable.  This movie gives a lot more time towards breaking down who Superman is as a person than perhaps any other version of the character we’ve seen.  The movie is far less about how Superman is going to save the day and more about what the day to day work of being a super hero does to him mentally.  This is a portrayal of the character that actually shows him to be vulnerable, showing that he is indeed more human than we think.  He’s put through a far more personal journey here, where the conflict revolves around whether he has a right to be the protector of this world despite not being from it originally.  James Gunn has stated in interviews that he views Superman’s story as an allegory for the immigrant experience.  For many immigrants, they have to work much harder in order to convince others that they should have a place in their new home.  Despite having grown up in Smallville America, Superman is still set apart due to his metahuman powers, and that sadly makes him a pariah to those who don’t like anyone different than them, including and especially Lex Luthor.  David Corenswet portrays this more vulnerable and relatable version of the character, being equal parts charming as well as physically imposing.  And he’s a perfect fit for what James Gunn wanted to explore with this character.  Christopher Reeve will still remain the gold standard of the character, much in the same way Sean Connery was for James Bond, but David’s portrayal perhaps comes the closest to reaching that high water mark.  Not that Henry Cavill and Brandon Routh were lightweights.  Those two were unfortunately the right guys at the wrong times, with movies failing to give them the opportunities to get the character right.

But it’s not just David Corenswet that delivers a great performance in this movie, as he is complimented by an excellent ensemble.  The biggest standout is Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor.  Luthor is a character that has long been neglected on the big screen.  You have to go all the way back to the Donner original with the late great Gene Hackman’s brilliant performance to find a worthy Luthor on the big screen.  Hoult’s portrayal here may be the best one we’ve seen yet.  He perfectly captures the pettiness of Luthor and makes him an absolute, irredeemable asshole in the movie.  It’s refreshing to see an unapologetic villain in one of these kinds of movies again, after there have been so many attempts at making sympathetic villains who unfortunately are never that interesting.  Hoult really does a great job of getting that smarmy bravado of an entitled brat that most mega billionaires usually end up being.  And kudos for actually shaving his head bald for this role too, because he does indeed look like the comic book character come to life.  There are a lot of other great performances here as well.  The “Justice Gang” are all fun personalities that add some flavor to the film.  Nathan Fillion (a James Gunn regular) gives a hilarious portrayal as a cocky, self-aggrandizing Green Lantern and Isabela Merced is also quite amusing in her Hawkgirl portrayal.  However, the standout is Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific.  The character is a fairly recent creation from DC and is not widely known to fans outside of the comic book world, but spotlighting obscure characters has been a specialty of James Gunn and he makes Mr. Terrific one of the film’s breakout characters.  Just like what he did with the Guardians characters, I’m sure Mr. Terrific will soon become a fan favorite for many people thanks to Mr. Gunn.  I also want to spotlight the brief appearances of Ma and Pa Kent (played by Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince respectively).  They are so adorably folksy in this film and really help to underline the heart of the movie, which is showing the simple beginnings that helped to shape Superman into who he is.

One of the biggest improvements Gunn has made to this adaptation of Superman is with the visuals.  One of the biggest complaints about the Snyderverse films was their washed out color palettes.  Instead of the vibrant colors that you would see on the comic book page, Zach Snyder just muted everything in metallic grays and blacks, which just did not fit with the character of Superman at all.  Superman as a character represents a beacon of hope, and beacons should shine brightly.  Thankfully, James Gunn has brought back rich and vibrant colors.  This is especially evident in the bright reds and deep blues of Superman’s outfit.  Also most of the movie takes place in broad daylight; another improvement over the perpetual twilight of Zach Snyder’s vision.  Like all of James Gunn’s other comic book adaptations, he wants to take what’s on the comic page and bring it to life.  And it’s the fearlessness of balancing the silly with the serious that has come to define his work.  I love that he embraces the weirder side of comic books, and he surprisingly manages to find appropriate places to make it work in Superman’s story.  One of the best visual gags in the movie is a tender scene between Clark and Lois taking place while the Justice Gang battles a monster outside in the background.  The juxtaposition is what James Gunn manages to perfectly handle in his films, and there are plenty of moments in the movie where there are extra details in the background that help to make the scenes a whole lot funnier.  Thankfully, Gunn isn’t too indulgent; he doesn’t resort to tons of Easter eggs that foreshadow future films in the franchise.  All of the surprises work in service towards the world-building and story being told.  But, there are some clever nods to Richard Donner’s Superman thrown in here and there, and the movie also incorporates some of John Williams iconic theme into it’s musical score.  There also seems to be some little jabs at the Snyderverse as well, especially in a scene where Superman goes out of his way to avoid creating city wide destruction.  Overall, it demonstrates the high quality attention to detail that James Gunn has developed as a filmmaker working in this medium of comic book films.

It’s an unenviable task that James Gunn has put himself in having to set this new era of DC comic book movies on the right footing.  He was to win over a lot of fans, many of whom are growing fatigued over the abundance of comic book media we have had over the last decade.  The unfortunate thing is that his re-boot is coming on the heels of the demise of the very divisive Snyderverse.  The die-hard Zach Snyder fans are already getting their knives out to tear this new movie apart.  And if this movie doesn’t perform well, it could halt James Gunn’s long term plans for DC as a result.  Thankfully, the forecasts are indicating that Superman is poised to have a strong opening weekend.  How it performs beyond that is anyone’s guess, but hopefully it does well enough to instill confidence at Warner Brothers to get the ball rolling on all the future plans for Gunn’s DC Universe.  I for one feel like this is a good place to start, as the movie is just a fun, adventurous ride that is worthy of the Superman name.  You need a strong foundation to build a multi-film franchise, much like what Iron Man (2008) did for Marvel, and what was missing from the Snyderverse from the get go.  It’s not perfect, but what it gets right it gets very right.  David Corenswet makes for a great “man of steel” and I can’t wait to see him play this character again, including in future films that will inevitably reintroduce us to the Justice League.  It gets me excited because if they can get Superman right, then the rest of DC’s greatest heroes will also get much improved adaptations as well.  One thing you can really tell from this movie is James Gunn’s love for this cinematic universe.  He’s not some cynical director for hire.  He loves these characters and he wants us to love them all too.  Sure, DC still has a lot of catching up to do to be where Marvel is, but with Gunn in charge things are lookin bright, especially if we see more results like this.  And that in turn will help Marvel too, because nothing works better to improve the quality of your product than having a strong competitor be your motivator.  James Gunn’s Superman is one of this summer’s most satisfying blockbuster experiences and a fun time at the movies that thankfully makes us believe that a man can fly again, and hopefully for a good long time after.

Rating: 8.5/10

What the Hell Was That?

What the Hell Was That? – Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Independence Day (1996) was a fairly monumental film when it first came out.  It broke new ground in the field of visual effects and managed to supercharge the careers of the actors starring in it.  But, at the same time, no one would ever consider it a masterpiece by any means.  The film was co-written and directed by a frequent name that appears in this series of articles, Roland Emmerich, and though Emmerich has demonstrated himself to be a very flawed filmmaker over the years, Independence Day does present him at his best.  A lot of the flaws in storytelling that plague most of Emmerich’s movies are present in this (his most successful film) as well, but it’s balanced out with an overall general sense of fun and creativity that defined most of his earlier films.  Independence Day was Emmerich’s third studio made film, as well as his third collaboration with co-writer and producer Dean Devlin.  With the success of 1992’s Universal Soldier and 1994’s Stargate, the duo were quickly becoming the hottest team in Hollywood, and it helped them to get 20th Century Fox behind their ambitious alien invasion epic.  Independence Day captured the imagination of audiences with it’s foreboding atmosphere; creating a vision of interstellar invasion from hostile forces that dwarfed anything we had seen on the big screen before.  There’s nothing more provocative in selling a film called Independence Day than making the image of the White House being blown to bits by a 15 mile wide UFO it’s money shot.  But, apart from the imagery, the remainder of the film was, to put it lightly, unsubtle and prone to cliché.  But, audiences didn’t care because the movie still made it feel like you were going on a ride.  It was loud, jingoistic and manipulative, but also crowd-pleasing and in many cases very beautiful to look at.  It was the very definition of a popcorn movie and it indeed lived up to the hype by becoming at the time one of the highest grossing films of all time.  And like all smash box office hits, audiences were anxious to see more.  Surprisingly, Emmerich and Devlin didn’t immediately jump at the opportunity to create a sequel, only choosing to go further if they could find the right story.  Almost 20 years later, they finally did, but as we would learn, it may have been better to leave the story be.

In the 20 years after Independence Day released into theaters, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich had much less success as filmmakers.  Somehow, Roland has been able to gain financing for all of his projects, but his box office success has fallen way short of his early days, and today his track record is marked more by box office bombs than hits.  You can also see him trying to recapture that Independence Day magic as most of his films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 2012 (2009) and Moonfall (2022) all basically feature the same plot; humanity saved by the end of the world by maverick hot shot fighters and enlightened nerds that no one listened to before.  The creative partnership between Devlin and Emmerich also came to an end, with them parting ways after making The Patriot (2000).  Even though the two were taking separate paths, they still held onto the idea of returning to the Independence Day universe.  But the further distance they put between it and a sequel, they more they would risk missing the moment when it would become a success.  Cinema changed very quickly in the years after Independence Day‘s release and so did the world for that matter.  The imagery of the film, which included notable landmarks like the White House and the Empire State building being blown up just weren’t going to work anymore in a world that witnessed the 9/11 attacks happen in real life.  If a sequel to Independence Day was to occur, it had to be very different in order to not be trauma inducing.  But, the team of Emmerich and Devlin also had to contend.  With an audience that had kind of moved away from science fiction films like Independence Day.  Blockbuster films in the new millennium were shifting from sci-fi to fantasy with the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films leading the charge and then eventually super hero movies were all the rage in the following decade thanks to Marvel and DC.  Independence Day was becoming more and more a relic of it’s time, but with some still potent nostalgia flavored into it.  Eventually, Emmerich and Devlin settled on a story they wanted to tell, and it would involve not one but two sequels with a two part storyline.

Instead of picking up right where the first film left off, these new sequels would embrace the gap in time, and show how humanity responded to it’s near apocalyptic encounter with the alien invaders.  In one of the sequel’s better ideas, we see how humanity has deconstructed the alien technology from the downed wreckage of their ships, and have since used that tech to make advancements of their own.  It’s a logical narrative step that helps to differentiate the film from the original.  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t do much else with that idea.  Yeah, the ships that the Earth’s military forces use are more sleek and high tech, but the film is also pretty inconsistent with it’s world-building, and it still shows a lot of low tech things like gas powered cars and present day warships still being used.  It’s basically the filmmakers deciding when to use high technology in the story when it’s there to look cool and forgetting pretty much anywhere else it might make sense to have it.   This element in particular is a big reason why the sequel falls apart.  Emmerich seems only interested in hitting all the familiar beats of the story, while ignoring the foundation which made them work in the first place.  The jump in time and the advancement of humanity in those years could have made for an interesting dynamic change in the story that could have made it a very different kind of movie that could stand independent of the original.  But, no, in order to get Fox behind this follow-up, he pretty much just made the original all over again, just with a bigger scale to it.  It otherwise undermines the idea of there being a more advanced society in this story when the aliens themselves have come with a bigger ship.  They don’t even change the way that the characters try to take out the aliens; they send a ship inside the mothership with the plan to blow it up again from the inside.  It makes you wonder why they advanced their technology at all when they just try to do the same thing again.

It’s pretty clear from the get go that Independence Day: Resurgence was a doomed project.  The studio immediately balked at the idea of shooting two sequels back to back and instead opted to make the one with a wait and see policy with regards to the third.  So, Resurgence was put into the production with the hope that Emmerich and Devlin could re-ignite the magic of the original film and hopefully turn this into a franchise that could go on for many years afterward.  But one big roadblock derailed this at the beginning.  If there was one movie star from the original film that could easily help lift this franchise, it was Will Smith.  Of all the actors from the first Independence Day, Smith had the best post-movie boost.  He became a big box office star thanks to other hit films like Men in Black (1997) Hitch (2005) and I Am Legend (2007).  And there was no doubt that his star power was greatly increased by his starring role in the original Independence Day.  So, having him on board for these sequels would easily give them a boost thanks to his devoted following of fans.  Unfortunately, Will Smith bowed out of returning to this franchise.  He cited that there would have been a scheduling conflict with this and his role in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad (2016), which was shooting at the same time.  It’s probably true, but one can’t also help to think that Will Smith might have also seen the writing on the wall with the overall lack of interest there was for a movie like this.  His track record with sequels had also been pretty spotty, with the Men in Black films under-performing.  This wouldn’t have been a problem for Emmerich and Devlin had they had a plan B if one of their original actors didn’t return.  Unfortunately, their original script, the one that got the greenlight from Fox, centered around Smith’s character Capt. Hiller.  With that poor moment of hindsight becoming a problem, the two had to quickly rewrite their script in order to write Capt. Hiller out of the movie.  What we get is an unceremonious off screen death with the character of his son, played now as a grown up by actor Jesse T. Usher, taking up his place in the story.  Usher tries his best to fill that vacancy, but his character is also lacking in much of the charisma that helped to set Will Smith’s performance apart in the original.  So, like all doomed sequels, Independence Day: Resurgence was put into production in a frenzy that never quite coalesced together.

The movie still got many of it’s legacy actors to come back, but a lot of them had their characters unnecessarily altered in a bit of regression based on where we left them before.  Jeff Goldblum’s David Levinson fares the best as his character has risen to the level of head of the Earth’s Defense Force; an upgrade from his position as a satellite engineer who decodes the alien tech from the first film.  Robert Loggia (in his final film role) also makes a memorable return as General William Gray.  But, other legacy actors aren’t so lucky.  Judd Hirsch returns as David’s over-bearing father, and the movie weirdly turns him into more of a comic relief character that gets into shenanigans after surviving the destruction of the aliens with a family of orphaned kids.  Hirsch’s performance in the original was much more grounded while at the same time making him a funny personality and confidant to his son.  But here, he’s just a cartoon character and it’s a waste of a great talent like his.  Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore is also downgraded in this film, showing him mentally unstable in the 20 years after the last invasion.  It’s a far cry from the inspirational figure he posed in the original film, which showed him as a steadfast leader who rose to the challenge.  It is nice to see all of these actors back together again, but the movie seems to treat them disrespectfully.  Vivica A. Fox barely even gets a couple of lines in before her character is unceremoniously killed off.  And unfortunately, none of the new characters are interesting enough to carry the weight of the rest of the film.  Liam Hemsworth is a pale imitation of the swagger that Will Smith brought to the story and the aforementioned Jesse T. Usher is barely a character as well.  There was also a bit of controversy surrounding the recasting of Maika Monroe as President Whitmore’s daughter Patricia.  It was believed that Mae Whitman, who played the part in the original at age 8 and has had a successful acting career ever since, was passed over because she wasn’t deemed “conventionally pretty” enough for this film.  How much of that is true is unknown, but fans were a bit outraged.  Whitman herself has stayed above the controversy and has avoided commenting on it.  And of course, the movie makes a baffling decision to bring back Brent Spiner as Dr. Okun.  Yes, Star Trek alum Spiner is a beloved character actor, but his presence here makes no sense as his character was shown to be choked to death by one of the aliens in the original.  The sequel’s explanation: he was in a 20 year coma.  One of the many examples of lazy writing throughout.

One of the other things that doomed the project is that while it tries to advance the film with the standards of the time, it actually feels like a regression as well.  The original Independence Day was certainly a breakthrough for CGI digital effects, many of which still look fairly good nearly 30 years later.  But, it’s also important to remember that much of it worked because it was backed up with a lot of incredible practical effects too.  Those exploding buildings from the alien attacks were all done with scale models, helping to give the destruction a really tactile feel to them.  The puppeteering of the alien in the frightening autopsy scene also gives the movie an incredible looking creature that was handcrafted by some talented artisans.  When we think of visual effects from that era, it encompassed a lot more than just what was programmed into a computer.  Unfortunately, a lot of that practical movie magic has been usurped by CGI over the years, and Roland Emmerich unfortunately has been one of those filmmakers that has ditched practical effects more and more over time.  This is very evident in Resurgence as a everything from the alien mothership, to the city wide destruction, to the aliens themselves are now all done with CGI animation.  The thinking is that it should look better, but it doesn’t.  The tactileness is gone and replaced with a lot of vaguely discernable CGI mayhem.  Roland would probably argue that the movie is more impressive because CGI has allowed them to make everything bigger in scale.  But bigger isn’t always better.  The mothership in this film is as big as a moon, and is capable of generating it’s own gravity.  And yet, we don’t feel the same dread about it landing on Earth as we did with the smaller 15 mile wide ships.  That’s because the ship is honestly too big to convey, so all we get is a lot of the sky on fire as it lands.  It’s nowhere near as scary as those massive discs of metal piercing through the clouds and hovering menacingly over the city.  The same goes for the alien creatures as well, which were also given CGI makeovers.  In this film, we finally meet the alien Queen, who is massive in size, and she is nowhere near as menacing as the smaller ones we saw in the original.  Overall, Roland is trying to do everything he did before in the original with computer animation, and it makes his film feel less real and in addition the aliens much less scary.

With a lot of legacy sequels, the question inevitably comes up to this: Why?  Why make a sequel to this so many years later.  Most of the time, the answer simply is money.  Studios want to capitalize on established IP, and they’ll dig deep into their libraries in order to make something old new again.  But, most of the time, it doesn’t work.  Sure, there are examples of making legacy sequels that not only live up to the original, but also somehow manage to surpass it, like Top Gun: Maverick (2022).  But most of the time, the result is something like Independence Day: Resurgence, which just feels like an empty imitation of what once was.  And the original film was not exactly an all time classic either.  For a lot of audiences, Independence Day was a fun diversion that featured some at the time cutting edge visual effects and a few semi-inspirational moments that made them want to root for the heroes.  But, let’s not forget that the story and the characters were paper thin generic archetypes that were merely there to string together the action set pieces.  Independence Day is enjoyable as a visual effects spectacle, but over time it has also become something of a joke too with it’s many cliches.  For some, that’s part of the enjoyment as well because it gives the movie some campy value.  Essentially, Independence Day: Resurgence is what happens when you do the same movie, but take out all the things that made it fun in the first place, including the stuff that became fun ironically.  And the very insulting part is that the movie insists on us treating the film more respectfully than it deserves.  This is due to the fact that it’s trying to build lore that they hoped would help turn this into a franchise on the same level of say a Star Wars.  We weren’t interested in that back in the original and we are less so now.  The appeal of the alien invasion storyline from the original is that we know so little about who the aliens are and why they want our planet.  In Resurgence, we get introduced to a new concept of another alien race of non-organic beings that are also at war with the bad aliens, personified by a mysterious super intelligent orb called the Sphere.  At the end of the film, after the Queen alien is defeated, the movie arrogantly sets up the next chapter with the humans teaming up with the Sphere to take the fight to the aliens’ home world.  Yep, it’s another one of those franchise hopeful movies that ends on a cliffhanger that we’ll never see resolved.

It’s no surprise that Independence Day: Resurgence did not perform as well as it’s predecessor.  The movie flopped and was pretty much dismissed by both critics and audiences alike.  And in my personal opinion, it is one of the worst sequels in recent memory, ranking as the worst movie on my list from that year.  Sadly, there is an argument to be made that a sequel to this could have worked, but due to too much time passing and things not lining up the way they should’ve, we got this compromised movie that doesn’t do anything special and is entirely a waste of time and talent.  For the sake of the original film, the fact that this movie is so forgettable is a blessing, as it doesn’t take away from it’s entertainment value.  It seems like everyone has just agreed to ignore it.  Even Roland Emmerich considers making the movie a mistake, saying that they shouldn’t have moved forward after Will Smith passed on the project.  I mostly feel bad for the actors, a lot of whom just look lost in the movie.  What they did to Bill Pullman and Judd Hirsch’s characters feels especially insulting to the legacy of those characters, who while they weren’t exactly the deepest of characters in the original were still a bit more dignified than they are presented here.  Also, there’s a rather unnecessary bit of queer-baiting done in the movie as they reveal that Spiner’s Dr. Okun had a same-sex partner this whole time.  Emmerich himself made a big deal that he was writing a gay character into his movie, but while the intention is good thing, the execution is pathetic as we only learn about Dr. Okun’s relationship late in the movie, with it ultimately being meaningless in the long run.  If you can’t commit the whole way, then stop going partway and falsely claim that you are breaking barriers.  All that aside, it’s a pathetic and insulting attempt at building a franchise out of a just passable enough popcorn flick from the past.  It’s much better to just re-watch the original even with all of it’s flaws.  Indepndence Day: Resurgence is yet another in the long line of cinematic travesties brought to the big screen by Mr. Roland Emmerich, and unfortunately this was one that reflected back poorly on one of the few good movies that he had made in the past.