'Independence Day Resurgence' and the Choice for Freedom!

The internet's raging with excitement at the new trailer for Independence Day Resurgence. They're back - and this time they mean business!

Of course, on Independence Day the United States celebrates its freedom. The first Independence Day movie envisaged the entire world uniting in the quest for freedom, in a battle for survival.

Now, with the aliens returning, that theme has subtly changed. Suddenly freedom is no longer portrayed as something you achieve, and then enjoy; it's not won with a battle, and you then get to go home and live the rest of your life in peace.

Instead, the trailer shows a freedom that is under threat, and a world that knows it. The human race has chosen freedom; having chosen it, we have continued to choose freedom, preparing ourselves for the forces that would challenge it.

Philosophically, this is an intriguing difference. Rather than freedom as an event, Independence Day Resurgence sees freedom as a continuous choice. If the aliens have attacked once, then they can attack again. Their first strike nearly wiped out the human race; what if that was just a scout? So Independence Day Resurgence pictures a world that lives in the reality that its freedom faces a deadly challenge, and has spent the past twenty years preparing for that threat.