Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Roland Emmerich co-wrote and directed Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), the highly-anticipated sequel to the original 1996 film. In this new installment, set twenty years after the War of 1996, the United Nations has established the Earth Space Defense (ESD), a global research program that uses alien technology to protect Earth from potential extraterrestrial threats. Thanks to humanity’s triumph over the aliens in their previous attack, peace reigns among nations and civilization has been restored. To further safeguard against future invasions, the ESD has expanded its reach by setting up bases on the Moon, Mars, and Rhea (a moon of Saturn), as well as installing orbital defense satellites above Earth. At their headquarters in Area 51, ESD Director David Levinson meets with warlord Dikembe Umbutu and Dr. Catherine Marceaux in République Nationale d’Umbutu in Africa.

The group journeys to a landed extraterrestrial spacecraft and discovers that the occupants had been drilling before sending a distress signal to their home planet just before their defeat. It is later revealed that individuals such as former U.S. President Thomas Whitmore, Dr. Brackish Okun, and Umbutu have a telepathic connection to the aliens’ collective consciousness, due to personal encounters, and all receive visions of an unidentified spherical object. Suddenly, an unknown spherical vessel appears through a wormhole near the Moon. Despite objections from Levinson, the Security Council orders its destruction. However, American pilots Jake Morrison and Charlie Miller defy orders and rescue Levinson, Marceaux, Umbutu, and U.S. federal controller Floyd Rosenberg using a space tug. Together they head for the wreckage in Van de Graaff crater where they retrieve a large container.