'Independence Day: Resurgence' TV Spot Features The Return Of Brent Spiner, More Psychic Bill Pullman Abuse

The hot new trend in studio filmmaking these days is sequels that also act as first acts for a new franchise, taking your love of a past property and using it to launch another series (usually a trilogy) of movies. Some of these, like Jurassic World, are enormous financial successes, tickling old school nostalgia while giving new fans something to embrace. Others, like Terminator: Genisys, die on the vine and make everyone who talked about a sequel months before the original came out look very silly.

As I watched the new Independence Day: Resurgence TV spot, I couldn't quite begin to guess which direction Roland Emmerich's belated sequel will go. I can easily imagine this thing being an enormous hit or a gigantic flop. Are regular folks excited for an Independence Day sequel? I have no clue. But I do know that this TV spot features some nifty visuals and the return of Brent Spiner's Dr. Brackish Okun, who supposedly perished during the events of the first movie.

We've known for some time that Spiner was returning for this film despite being psychically assaulted and thrown across an Area 51 laboratory in 1996's Independence Day. In our brief glimpse of him here, he's wearing a scarf (possibly to hide an alien tentacle injury?) and he's bearing bad news. All of the aliens that humanity still have in captivity aren't screaming – they're celebrating, presumably because their people have returned after a very long two decades.

This spot is lighter on mass destruction than past trailers, emphasizing the doom and gloom before the invasion above everything else. However, it does features Bill Pullman's bedraggled ex-president Whitmore once again being on the unfortunate end of an alien assault. The poor guy just can't catch a break:

Here's the official synopsis for this one:

We always knew they were coming back. After Independence Day redefined the event movie genre, the next epic chapter delivers global spectacle on an unimaginable scale. Using recovered alien technology, the nations of Earth have collaborated on an immense defense program to protect the planet. But nothing can prepare us for the aliens' advanced and unprecedented force. Only the ingenuity of a few brave men and women can bring our world back from the brink of extinction.

Independence Day: Resurgence opens on June 24, 2016 and also stars Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, Joey King, Maika Monroe, Vivica A. Fox, Judd Hirsch, Jessie Usher, Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Fichtner.