To open last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live — which was hosted by Scarlett Johansson (The Avengers, Ghost in the Shell) —Alec Baldwin returned to play President Donald Trump in a humorous sketch inspired by the rousing speech President Thomas J. Whitmore (played by Bill Pullman) gave the survivors at Area-51 in the 1996 alien invasion film, Independence Day.
Videos by ComicBook.com
The sketch envisions a future in which hostile aliens from the planet Zorblatt 9 arrived on Earth in the year 2018. With mankind on the brink of extinction, Trump visits a military base with the expectation that he’ll deliver an inspirational speech that will inspire his remaining troops to fight on. Instead, the self-obsessed president talks up coal, falsely accuses the non-white troops of being aliens in disguise, and wonders if he has now won the popular vote since California was vaporized.
On July 2nd, communications systems worldwide are sent into chaos by a strange atmospheric interference. First thought to be meteors, they are later revealed to be gigantic spacecraft, piloted by a mysterious alien species who have set out to launch an attack throughout the globe. On July 3rd, the aliens all but obliterate New York, Los Angeles, and Washington when a band of survivors devise a plan to fight back against the enslaving aliens. On July 4th, humanity fights for its freedom.
Independence Day‘s all-star cast features Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, and Vivica A. Fox.
It was directed by Roland Emmerich, based on a script he co-wrote with Dean Devlin. On a production budget of $75 million, Independence Day grossed $817.4 million at the worldwide box office in 1996.
