6 Things I Hated in Independence Day: Resurgence (SPOILERS)

1. THE NAME OF THE MOVIE

"Hey, what's a word for, uh, like, something happening again?"

"Repetition? Rehashing? Recycling? Redoing? Remonstrance? Renaissance? Resurgence?"

"Um...I was thinking more like 'revenge' or 'return'..."

"Nah, those are over-used, tapped out. If we call our sequel to Independence Day 'Revenge' or 'Return', people will think we're unoriginal and can't come up with new ideas. Now get back to writing scenes where fighter jets fight alien airplanes and stuff blows up."

2. THE MAGIC SCHOOLBUS STARRING JUDD HIRSCH AS MS. FRIZZLE

Judd. You're better than this, Judd. You really, really are. So why are you back here, doing this, Judd?

You have to believe in yourself, Judd. You have to have faith.

See what I did there?

It's good to see you laughing again, Judd. Now get back out there and get yourself some real work.

3. IRON-AGE TECHNOLOGY

Harvester Queen: "Human vermin, surrender to us and accept your fates, as we tunnel through your planet's crust and harvest your molten core! Your atmosphere will wither and your planet will be laid waste! Tremble and despair!"

Dr. Levinson: "Wait...our planet's molten core. You mean the, ah, the big rotating ball of molten iron at the center of our, um, ah, our planet."

Harvester Queen: "Yes, inferior scum! It will fuel our weapons and drive our technology as we bring countless civilizations to their knees! I mean, if they have knees. They might not have knees. Don't be racist against people with no knees. Anyway that's not the point! Prepare for your doom!"

Levinson: "So your technology is powered by...molten iron. That's what, ah, powers your ships and stuff. Um, ah...how does it, ah, do that exactly?"

HQ: "It, uh...well it, um...look, it just does, okay? Our power systems are completely based on molten iron. Because molten iron is...really...hot. And...liquid. And...that's...that's what our technology needs, that's just how it works."

Levinson: "Because you can get iron anywhere. It's in asteroids all over this solar system. Mercury's full of it, too, and Mercury's not even inhabited. Nobody there to stop you from taking aaaaaallll the iron you want. Yep. Place is lousy with the stuff. No need to come to Earth at all, actually. Lots of iron in the universe. It's, ah...pretty common, especially for a species with advanced space travel technology and the proven ability to make huge moon-sized spacecraft. Like, one that probably already understands space mining and construction technology to a pretty amazing degree."

HQ: "But...but that iron isn't molten. It's molten iron we need, haven't you been listening?"

Levinson: "Yeah, but the thing is, you can heat iron up, any iron, until it is molten. We humans have been doing it for thousands of years, it's how we build cities and Toyotas and bar stools and stuff. You know, all the hallmarks of human civilization."

HQ: "Impossible! How is this done?"

Levinson: "I mean, I'd be happy to teach you if it means you leaving us alone. It's done different ways, but these days it usually involves using a furnace fueled by coal to get the iron up to a really high temperature..."

HQ: "What is this 'coal'?"

Levinson: "What, you don't know about coal? It's the fossilized remains of ancient organisms, buried deep underground under intense pressure over millions of years. It's not a renewable resource; still, you can find it in pretty large quantities underground on Earth. I guess that's actually something you probably couldn't get anywhere else. Um, I mean..."

HQ: "Okay, new plan, we kill all the humans and mine all of Earth's coal!"

Levinson: "Crap."

4. PROGRESSIVISM

Whitemale McComicreliefson: "Hey, I hear you're Asian and everything. Wanna bone?"

Chinese Fighter Pilot: "Dinner first!"

[In the audience, a couple of elderly white men and younger white dudes wearing backwards baseball caps chuckle quietly. The rest is awkward silence.]

5. SO YOU'RE A HIVE MIND: A SELF-HELP GUIDE FOR WORLD-CONQUERING ALIENS

"If your species has evolved in such a way that you have a hive consciousness, you may be having trouble with pesky inferior races occasionally blowing up one of your queens, causing your soldiers to become catatonic and your technology to default to simplistic autopiloting routines such as 'Return Home'. This can be an annoying setback to your plans for galactic domination.

"Here's a tip: if you bring 2, 3, or even 4 queens along on your invasion, and keep them in widely separated and secure facilities, it will lessen the chances of your invasion being put on hold. If you can't do that, then it might be worthwhile to invest in research into more robust artificial intelligence control technology. It doesn't have to be too complicated - instructions as simple as 'Keep Extracting Resources Until All The Humans Are Dead' might save you a lot of trouble down the road.

"Now get out there and conquer the universe!"

6. EMPEROR QUIRXON 004'S THE ART OF WAR

Mysterious Orb: "Nobody has EVER killed a Harvester Queen. They're IMPOSSIBLE to kill. Give up now."

Dr. Oken: "But you said you've been fighting this species for hundreds or thousands of years, and they have been fighting countless other intelligent species across the galaxy. And...none of them...nobody has ever had the idea of putting a bomb in a thing and setting a trap and blowing them up?"

MO: "A...trap? What is that?"

Oken: "Or a computer virus? Do you guys know about computer viruses? Man, that worked super great last time. I don't know why we haven't tried it yet this time around...anyway, you guys basically are computers, right? You know about computer viruses, don't you? Harvester technology seems to be really susceptible to them."

MO: "Computer...virus? Like giving a computer a cold? Look, human, if you're not going to take this seriously, I'm hopping the next artificially-generated wormhole out of here."