'Independence Day: Resurgence' Feature with Brent Spiner Offers a Coma-Plot Clue
He was simply in an alien-induced coma.
When a TV teaser for Independence Day: Resurgence showed the return of Brent Spiner’s Dr. Brakish Okun, fans rejoiced. The last we saw of the Area-51 doctor was as a strangled mouth-puppet for a captured alien invader.
Now, a new feature from Independence Day explains both the history of Dr. Okun, and what he’s been up to since the last war against aliens all those years ago. Turns out, he wasn’t doing much because he was in a coma.
The feature is a cute little nod to both propaganda television and those weird mystery/history shows on The History Channel, like Ancient Aliens. The fictional in-universe show is called Earth Space Defense and profiles the “Heroes of ‘96”. It begins by putting Dr. Okun in the same league as Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Albert Einstein. Fair comparisons, considering Okun helped save the world from an alien invasion.
The fictional advert recounts “Einstein with a mood ring,” or Dr. Okun’s history as a student at Cal Tech. There he spent part of his time acing classes in his field of astrophysics, and smoking weed pretty much the rest of the time. It was after graduation that Okun was recruited by the government to join the science team in Area 51. There, he spearheaded the research of extra-terrestrials up until the tragic accident that occurred during the events of the first Independence Day film.
But he didn’t die – instead he was simply put into an alien-induced coma, where he would remain until the next time Earth would need his help against alien invaders.
You can watch the whole feature below.
