Complete disconnect from reality. At least the original was at least somewhat realistic even if in hindsight it was plain dire. Don't get me wrong, at the time i went mad for it and looking back now it just makes me feel nauseous. The sequel which i'm watching as i write this is just a shoddy re-hash like a video game. Couldn't care less about the characters and i'm rooting for the aliens. Can't be arsed with it any more. Just deleted it. Plain shit.....
shareThe original indeed had more realism, and more suspense, like how the ships just hovered over the cities for a long time. The alien tech being used made it not look like it was set in a world of today, but in another universe. Allot did not make sense, like why did they think firing the big lien laser they build on the moon to the ship would work when they knew that in 1996 they first injected a virus into the ship's system to get rid the shields.
Also the alien ship just plowing through the moon and earth makes no sense, this ship came from many systems away and it just flew through planets and moons? CinemaSins did a good video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA4_G2Otw9s
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Absolutely. The entire appeal of ID4 was it presented a story of: This is how we would actually deal with a hostile alien invasion. To have the sequel be even more loony toons than Starship Troopers was a dire decision.
shareYes the biggest confusion with this sequel is that it seems like its set years into the future (not 2016) with flying vehicles, routine space travel and earth bound technologies that simply don't exist yet. I realize the movie depicts an earth with a slightly alternative history taking into account a 1996 Alien Invasion. Presumably there was no September 11, 2001 terror events and aftermath in this earth history. Also I realize earth had access to crashed alien ships and technology that they must have learned from, but never the less this sci-fi, futuristic setting was probably alienating for many (Pardon the Pun). People were most likely hoping to see another movie featuring present day earth fighting the aliens and this didn't fit the bill.
shareIt failed because it had a poor script and uninspired direction. It was a mediocre sequel at best and just didn't like up to ID4.....it's really that simple. It looked and felt like any other modern F/X movie that's out nowadays and everyone is burnt out on that. There's just nothing special about this movie.
shareI think the lack of a good soundtrack also has something to do with it too. The original had incredible music, this one was phoned in and forgettable. They had to have the same type of music for the atmosphere and immersion to be similar.
They decided to go with the usage of recovered alien technology after the 1996 invasion, which does make sense--in real life we'd do the same thing, but they may have gone overboard with a lot of it. The lack of Captain Steven Hiller was also a major setback, and they should have done everything they could to get Smith in the movie.