Chaos Rains From The Heavens In Explosive Independence Day: Resurgence Image

Two full decades after the War of 1996, Earth is under fire once more. Roland Emmerich is back at the helm for Independence Day: Resurgence and going by today’s hellish teaser image, the director hasn’t lost his aptitude for full-blown global destruction.

Arriving by way of Empire, the still is essentially a high-res screengrab from the sequel’s Super Bowl trailer, showcasing that alien technology has come an awful long way in twenty Earth years. Whereas Emmerich’s blockbuster original rained destruction down on the planet’s more prominent landmarks, Resurgence will literally blow entire cityscapes sky-high, and it looks as though the Dubai’s Burj Khalifa – the tallest building in the world – has been relocated to London.

Fending off the new invasion are Liam Hemsworth’s newcomer and Jessie Usher, with the latter on board to play the role of Will Smith’s stepson. Indeed, the actor’s Colonel Steven Hiller won’t be featured at all during Independence Day: Resurgence, as he was bumped off during the intervening years upon testing out experimental alien weaponry.

Barking orders from behind the frontlines are Sela Ward’s new President of the United States, Bill Pullman’s heroic patriot and Jeff Goldblum’s snarky MIT computer expert David Levinson.

Also starring Vivica A. Fox, Brent Spiner and Maika Monroe, Independence Day: Resurgence looms over theaters worldwide on June 24.

Twenty years after the War of 1996, the international community recovers and the United Nations creates the Earth Space Defense (ESD), a united global defense program that serves as Earth’s early warning system and the main defense force using technology salvaged from remains of the alien forces, with some military forces assembled on the Moon. However, the aliens were able to send a distress signal before their final defeat while others went into hiding elsewhere around the world. The aliens in deep space receive the signal and sends a larger and a more powerful battle fleet than the previous ones, threatening the human race once more.