Posted on 06/22/2016 7:44:40 AM PDT by SandRat
FORT HUACHUCA — Even the stars were a little starstruck.
It’s one thing to portray the military in Hollywood, as the cast of the blockbuster “Independence Day” did 20 years ago in a story that featured people of Earth banding together to topple alien invaders. Much of the cast has regrouped, with some new cast members, for “Independence Day: Resurgence,” the much anticipated sequel that hits theaters this Thursday.
But to visit the troops on their turf and see what they do to defend the U.S. is quite another thing. Two stars from the new film, Jessie T. Usher and Judd Hirsch, one day after their red carpet premier at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, toured Fort Huachuca on Tuesday afternoon to have lunch with the troops, tour the installation and, ultimately, watch the film with a few hundred of their new best friends in camo at the post’s Cochise Theater.
“To talk to these guys who live it and who work in this field and see what they like about it and their passions and why they joined the Army and all that kind of stuff is really cool,” said Usher, who wasn’t in the first film but portrays the stepson of the Will Smith character in “Resurgence.”
The afternoon started with a crab leg lunch with the troops. Throughout the day, fittingly on National Selfie Day, there were cellphones up everywhere as soldiers captured the tour with pictures on Fort Huachuca.
Judd Hirsch gets an explanation about an Unmanned Aircraft System form SFC Olson at Libby Army Airfield during Tuesday's tour of Fort Huachuca.
“What?? Is that the name of the place?” Hirsch hammed up upon hearing the base’s pronunciation while visiting the facility’s bowling alley, where the original “Independence Day” was projected on huge screens.
“This is exciting because I was in the Army a long, long time ago,” Hirsch, 81, an Emmy winner, Tony winner and Oscar nominee, continued. “And now I’m looking at everything much more modern. I keep thinking ‘I didn’t have that, I didn’t have that, They didn’t feed us like this, We didn’t have buildings like this, There was no facility like that, The toilets didn’t look like that.’ (Back then) it was kind of like you were living out of a diner.”
One of the first stops on the tour after lunch was to the Gray Eagle flight simulator. The actors sat right in the seats, took some instruction and gave it a try.
“These simulators accurately replicate the conditions they could see in flight. So it’s a safer way of training the student as opposed to taking them on the live aircraft,” Sgt. 1st Class Raymond Lemelin explained while the actors were busy in the simulators and other assorted staff were snapping pictures. “It gives them an opportunity to replicate the emergencies and different conditions and how they’d react to them.”
As for what they had in store for the stars?
“We’re gonna replicate a Hellfire engagement for them,” Lemelin smiled.
The group later made its way to Nicka Hall; a hangar for unmanned aircraft.
“It’s kind of like Area 51,” one of the touring group of Army personnel joked to Hirsch, who, playfully alluding to the film, said, “You don’t have the alien ships, though.”
Seven aircraft were in Nicka Hall, and Army personnel guided the visitors around each one. Some unmanned aircraft are used purely for educational purposes as students take apart and rebuild them.
Not this group.
“These are the real deal,” Sgt. Andrew Major said. “These are what you’re seeing take off when you’re going up and down Highway 90 and Buffalo Soldier.” "Independence Day: Resurgence" cast member Jessie T. Usher gets to try out a flight simulation system during a tour of Fort Huachuca on Tuesday.
Each is designed to view manned or unmanned surveillance platforms, Major explained, with a targeting laser to guide any necessary munitions. The aircraft are controlled by someone on the ground “with a mouse and keyboard.”
“It can fly for 18 hours straight before it needs to come back and refuel,” Major added. “With the camera payload, you have a very, very sophisticated and high-end camera along with infrared capabilities.”
The final stop on the tour was Cochise Theater, which featured the Military Intelligence Corps Band’s Frontier Brass and a packed parking lot full of soldiers, all of whom walked a red carpet into the theater to get an early look at the movie before it officially premieres across the U.S. on Thursday.
“It’s inspiring,” Usher said of visiting the base. “And I hope that comes across. That’s the whole reason why we come out here. We want to show them that we support them the way they support us.”
Wouldn’t it be awesome if people of the U.S. would band together to repel foreign invaders? Oh, never mind. Too many of the residents living in the lap of luxury are convinced we suck. A lot. Idiots. Snowflakes melting in the sun.
Earth gets beat to a pulp ,fisherman finds a drain plug in Alien ship pulls it ,ship sinks ,Earth Wins
ping
ping
Anticipated? Yawn......I think hollywood wil smith anticipated that they needed to go back to work.
I hate holly wood almost more than the administration, US Media.....its a toss up really.....
GTH.
Thank you
That is actually cool.
What if Obama was President in Independence Day?
How about Trump?
Two totally different endings to those movies.
I used to live on Grierson Ave below the Patch for a few years...
good times
“It can fly for 18 hours straight before it needs to come back and refuel,” and it is already deployed at Fort Huachuca.
Sure would not be hard to direct their flights along the border, just as a back up for Border Patrol and as a predecessor to the wall.
Naa. Congress would never authorize that. It would piss off too many of their constituents and cheap laborers.
This time, the aliens convince the humans that they're attacking in response to something the humans did, and that it's entirely justified, so the humans pay reparations. /s
He would explain away the invasion as nothing more than an influx of "undocumented extraterrestrials" who were coming to Earth seeking a better life for their families and themselves.
Okay, despite the absence of Randy Quaid, I plan to see this in IMAX.
http://www.cnet.com/news/independence-day-resurgence-spoiler-free-review/
http://screenrant.com/independence-day-2-resurgence-early-reviews/
http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/independence-day-resurgence-review-1201800114/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1628841/
Are there any gay aliens in this remake?
“Earth gets beat to a pulp ,fisherman finds a drain plug in Alien ship pulls it ,ship sinks ,Earth Wins”
Much more realistic plot than the first movie: Will Smith becomes instant alien spaceship ace pilot after entire U.S. military and scientific community can’t even start up alien spaceship, and then war won by injecting fatal Microsoft Windows 95 virus into all alien spaceships that no one can even start up (except Will Smith of course). I fell asleep, otherwise would have walked out.
Aliens are trans. Duh.
:-D
ROTFLMAO!
The Electric Basketball is long gone. Thanks to protests and complaints from Environmentalists.
Don;t know,
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