Ensuring that Independence Day 2 will have the requisite number of dramatic speeches and old Jewish guys that any good Independence Day movie should have, director Roland Emmerich has confirmed that both Bill Pullman and Judd Hirsch will be reprising their roles from the original movie in the new alien-fighting sequel. In the first one, Pullman played President Thomas J. Whitmore, one of the few politicians in American history who was authorized to shoot at aliens in a fighter jet while still in office. Hirsch played Julius Levinson, the father of Jeff Goldblum’s character. We don’t remember him doing anything especially important in the original beyond moral support, but it’ll be nice to have him back.
Pullman and Hirsch will be joining a handful of other people from the first movie, including Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox, and Brent Spiner—but not Will Smith, as he’s too good for Independence Day now. The new Independence Day people—who will probably do most of the alien-fighting and speech-making—are Liam Hemsworth, Jessie Usher, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Travis Tope, and Joey King.
Now, this is the point in the Newswire where we’d let the jokes take over and get into an elaborate parody of Pullman’s famous speech from Independence Day. We’d replace some of the lines to be about making pointless sequels to movies that weren’t all that good in the first place, we’d probably make fun of Randy Quaid or Adam Baldwin, and then everbody would have a mild chuckle. We’re not going to do that, though, because the original speech is still great on its own: