In honor of Roland Emmerich‘s release of disaster film  2012 this week I decided to watch sci-fi action classic Independence Day (aka ID4). I can’t tell you on how many levels I love this film. Sure it’s campy at times but the actors seem to believe so ferociously the fictitious alien invasion is real it just works. Moreover, it paved the way for some of the best scenes of destruction ever in film history.

Fans like me have been waiting nearly fourteen years for a sequel and we may get our wish. While promoting 2012 Emmerich spoke to MTV about the possibility of not one, but two ID4 sequels:

“What we want to do in the next – it’s actually two movies – we want to do a bigger arc,” he explained. “‘Independence Day’ was always like the king who leads his troops into battle against an evil force, and that stays like that.”

As exciting as the prospect of two more ID4 films could be allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. One reason I like the first film so much is that it’s a closed box. That is, it simply ends. No twists, no hints at a sequel, simply an ending. With so many films vying for franchise potential these days it’s refreshing to have movies like ID4 that simply wanted to tell a story-once.

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There are several things that director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) doesn’t seem too concerned about in the bloated, CGI-laden disaster movie 2012. These include, but are not limited to:  plot, character development, plausibility, restraint, and subtlety. I kind of understand why he chooses to ignore these elements. If you get bogged down with all these pesky details, how are you supposed to focus on THE SPECTACLE?

THE SPECTACLE is the star of this film, and clearly every resource available was used to ensure that this movie looks good, everything else be damned. 2012 is a full 2 1/2 hour visual assault of CGI, destruction, chase scenes, and every natural disaster a geophysicist could possibly imagine. It’s chalk full of action movie clichés, right down to the brooding and estranged ex-husband who happens to be near his old family when disaster strikes, and must lead them to safety. Not only is the movie wholly unoriginal, but it actually feels like Emmerich just cherry-picked his favorite scenes from action movies he likes, and found a way to throw them all into a threadbare story.

This is director indulgence gone too far. The movie is an hour too long, and a few key scenes would have had far more impact if there were not an action scene thrown in every 3-4 minutes. It’s as though Emmerich is saying to the audience: “You are going to sit there in your seat, and you are going to watch the crap out of this movie.”

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Let me start by saying I never saw The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Simply put, I just didn’t believe it could be good. Based on the reviews and what friends have told me, I was right.

Since news started to come out about the premise of the last X-Files film I knew they were taking the characters down the wrong path. The pseudo monster-of-the-week episodes the series was known for worked well enough on TV, but you want something pretty big for a feature film. Really big.

The first movie got it right in my opinion. Conspiracy. Aliens. Giant UFOs. That’s movie caliber material. Mulder and Scully waxing poetic about a psychic priest in the sequel? Not so much.

It pains me a little to call out the second film like that because I’m a huge X-Files fan. That comes with sincerity as I have Mulder and Scully action figures within arms reach and the first film’s movie poster adorning my wall. Fortunately, it sounds like plans for a new X-Files film may return to the conspiracy-laden content us fans loved so much.

In a recent interview, David Duchovny gave some indication that should a third X-Files film happen it would get back to its roots:

“As far as the X-Files movie I’d like to do next, if we get a chance to do it, would be a return to the heart and soul of the mythology, which is the alien-oriented conspiracy. I think it’s natural for The X-Files to have another movie in 2012, so we’ll see if we get to do it.”

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We have been a bit hard around here on 2012, the new Roland Emmerich film about the end of the world, but given the director’s track record and the fact that the trailer doesn’t look like anything we haven’t seen dozens of times before on the big screen, we think we probably have just cause.

It looks like we aren’t the only people making fun of it, as a new fan film has popped up online using the first five minutes of the film. The edit proves that this film can become two things without it’s overblown special effects: quite pointless and outrageously funny.

For those interested in the film itself, it stars a cornucopia of celebrities from John Cusack to Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet and is about a prophecy where the world comes to an end in December of 2012. Roland Emmerich is also the director that brought us gems like 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow.

Check out the fan film after the jump. Catch 2012 in theaters everywhere this November.

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While most disaster movies of late have gone the way of the Poseidon Adventure remake, there has been some positive buzz about the newest “the world is ending” film, 2012. Though the film is getting a November release (most disaster movies are known to do better during the summer) and has 10,000 BC’s Roland Emmerich at the helm, we do have some hope.

From what we know, the film focuses on the main character and his family on a microcosmic level as ancient prophecies come true. The world begins to literally fall apart around us, as the Earth has an expiration date of 2012. The tagline of the film is simply “We Were Warned,” which hopefully has nothing to do with the actual production of the movie and its resultant quality.

Writer Herald Kloser helped with the epic script and the film stars, in no particular order, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt, and Amanda Peet. Check out brand new footage and dialogue in the Japanese trailer after the jump.

Expect the world to end as we know it, at least according to 2012, on November 13.

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We haven’t posted all that much about Roland Emmerich’s epic disaster movie 2012 here at the site because it doesn’t really look all that good. There was a punchy little trailer about a month back, which we posted for your viewing pleasure, but that didn’t really raise our expectations. Thankfully, the friendly folks at i09 put together this lovely remix of the trailer, to show off it’s true nature, and help us all comprehend how ridiculous the movie really looks.

For those still thinking optimistically, the film is written and directed by Roland Emmerich, who brought us such films as 10,000 BC and The Day After Tomorrow. According to IMDB, the movie is “an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.”

Those survivors include such names as John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Oliver Platt, and Danny Glover. 2012 hits screens November 13 of this year.

Check out the new trailer “remix” after the jump.

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Over at First Showing they’ve got the brand new trailer for director Roland Emmerich’s 2012. In this new movie, as in several of his previous films such as Independence Day and The Day after Tomorrow, Emmerich reminds us that life is precious and so are our world’s natural resources. In fact, he kinda beats us over the head with it.

In this new film, based on the theory of the Mayan calendar telling us the world will come to an end in 2012, Emerich takes his job seriously once again and shows us that not only will the earth come to an end in 2012 but also that we will not, under any circumstances, enjoy it. In fact, it will be a giant pain in the butt full of tidal waves, earthquakes and fire raining down from the sky. Awesome.

Fortunately, as he’s also done in other films, Emmerich makes the destruction of out beloved planet at least look good.  I guess that’s something, right? 2012 hits theaters and seals our fate November 13 .

Meanwhile, while you still have time, check out the trailer after the break.

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