‘Independence Day: Resurgence’: Singapore could have been replaced by other Asian city
Roland Emmerich, the director of “Independence Day: Resurgence”. (Photo: Yahoo Newsroom)
The “Independence Day: Resurgence” movie trailer caught many Singaporeans by surprise by showing the iconic Marina Bay Sands (MBS) integrated resort being sucked up into the air during an alien invasion.
When Yahoo Singapore spoke to director Roland Emmerich during a recent press junket in Sydney, the 60-year-old said that he had fallen in love with the popular tourist destination during an earlier visit to the Republic to promote another movie, “White House Down”.
He said: “I was doing a press junket for ‘White House Down’ in Singapore, and actually we went up to the Marina (Bay) Sands hotel and I loved the swimming pool up there. When the idea was born to have an Asian city getting sucked up, which has to stand in for Asia, I kind of said: ‘What about Singapore?'”
No other parts of Singapore came to mind but MBS.
“We knew this has to be one angle, with the bridge and a little left side,” he said.
But Singapore wasn’t the only Asian city that came to mind. Emmerich said that he had also thought of including Taipei’s 101 mall in the movie. However, he could only include one Asian city so he chose Singapore.
Other global landmarks destroyed during the alien invasion in the movie includes Dubai’s Burj Khalifa skyscraper and London’s historic Big Ben clock tower.
Past cast members return
The science fiction disaster movie will be out in cinemas across Singapore from 23 June.
The movie is a sequel to the 1996’s “Independence Day”, which was the highest grossing film for that year, raking in US$817.4 million. It was believed to be one of the main drivers behind actor Will Smith’s career success.
However, Smith - the lead actor for the original movie - will not be featured in either of the original’s sequels.
Viewers can still get get nostalgic over returning cast members Jeff Goldblum (David Levinson), Bill Pullman (ex-US President) and Vivica A. Fox (Jasmine Dubrow-Hiller). New faces of the movie include lead actor Liam Hemsworth (Jake Morrison), Jessie Usher (Dylan Dubrow-Hiller) and Maika Monroe (Patricia Whitmore).
Emmerich is well-known for wreaking on-screen havoc in countries around the world through his films such as “2012” and “The Day After Tomorrow” - with his go-to types of devastation being tsunamis and plane crashes, mainly because he is afraid of water and air travel.
“I always think that, most of the time, you like shows and stories that you fear the most. So in my films there are always planes doing strange things: falling from the sky, or being lifted up in the sky, and big waves. And that’s probably because I’m afraid of water and I’m afraid of air travel,” he said.
One of his biggest fears would also be if Donald Trump were to become the United States president.
When asked about how the movie would have turned out if the president in it was someone just like Trump, he said: “Well that would be a horror story. Everything would go very, very, bad for us. America would lose all of what makes it great. It would be a really, very depressing movie.”
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