The upcoming sequel Independence Day: Resurgence has a difficult task. As a follow-up to a 20-year-old movie in which the whole world experienced both unimaginable devastation and extraordinary victory when Earth was attacked by aliens, it has to bring us up to speed on what's obviously going to be an alternate 2016. One where the planet has united in technological and military preparation for the chance that those extraterrestrial invaders return.

Fortunately, the real 2016 has the technology of the Internet, and through it the capability for viral videos providing backstory to those who seek it out. Surely the actual movie will still have to inform the members of its audience who don't watch extra-textual promotional material, but that might be done with fairly light exposition. For the rest of us who are more interested in the path from Independence Day to this summer's Independence Day: Resurgence, there's a fake TV special titled "The War of 1996."

Below you'll be treated to a host resembling a bizarro Colin Farrell (maybe it is the Colin Farrell of that timeline, and he never broke out in movies and so resorted to this sort of work). Also, Jeff Goldblum appears to set up how he's become the director of the Earth Space Defense, with its alien-tech-influenced fighter jets and Moon base. And we also meet Chin Han's Moon base commander, plus pilots played by Liam Hemsworth, Angelababy and Jessie Usher, the latter as the son of Will Smith's character from the original.

As for what happened to Smith's hero, read about his fate between movies here.

Now that you're caught up on two decades worth of information in under five minutes, you're ready to see Independence Day: Resurgence when it opens on June 24.