United 93

[BATMAN]

April 10, 2006 issue - If movie trailers are supposed to cause a reaction, the preview for "United 93" more than succeeds. Featuring no voice-over and no famous actors, it begins with images of a beautiful morning and passengers boarding an airplane. It takes you a minute to realize what the movie's even about. That's when a plane hits the World Trade Center. The effect is visceral. When the trailer played before "Inside Man" last week at the famed Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, audience members began calling out, "Too soon!" In New York City, where 9/11 remains an open wound, the response was even more dramatic. The AMC Loews theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side took the rare step of pulling the trailer from its screens after several complaints. "One lady was crying," says one of the theater's managers, Kevin Adjodha. "She was saying we shouldn't have [played the trailer]. That this was wrong ... I don't think people are ready for this."
FULL STORY

I don't think it's too soon. A lot of people need to remember exactly what happened. I think this could be a good reminder as long as the movie doesn't have an agenda behind it. I most likely will see it.

There's a direct link to the trailer in the above story - it's pretty gripping, you just have to watch a 25 second Fabio commercial first.

 

[Dan]

I think it's too soon for a reenactment. If they wanted to make a documentary, that's one thing, but with a movie, I can't help but think about a room full of movie execs arguing over details: "well, I think when the plane hits, Character A should be disemboweled on the chair in front of him", etc.

I'm kinda of the mindset that there will never be a good movie specifically about 9/11. 25th Hour was good and had a lot of great things to say about 9/11 and how New Yorkers reacted to it, but it wasn't just a straight-up reenactment of that day (the plot had nothing to do with it, actually).

I don't know. The whole thing seems tasteless. I won't be seeing it, I won't even watch the trailer, but I guess it'll probably do pretty well.

 

[BATMAN]

Reenactments do not have to be tasteless. BlackHawk Down, Saving Private Ryan (not true story about Ryan but set in real war) reenacted real life events (storming Normandy in Ryan) and did it in a "docudrama" way without going full blown Hollywood.

I think those who might have a problem with it are those who just want to get past it and forget it.

 

[Dan]

Fair enough, but will you at least agree that the people who greenlighted this thing weren't doing it out of respect, but out of wanting to make money? Because to assume otherwise is kind of naive, I think.

By the time Saving Private Ryan was made, WWII had become part of popular culture, and a big part of what Speilberg did was to show the realities of a war that had been glossed over for almost half a century. Everyone remembers how horrific 9/11 was, to make a movie like this five years after the fact seems almost sadistic to me.

Moreover, the men in Saving Private Ryan were soldiers, they were doing their jobs (although, obviously, it was a job they were forced to do). It seems a lot more tasteless to show innocent people dying in a horrific plane crash than it does to show soldiers dying on a battlefield.

The true-life story of Black Hawk Down had nowhere near the same national impact as the events of 9/11, so I don't think the two have much in common as far as that goes.

It's not that I want to forget, or ever will forget, what happened that day. But, only five years after it happened, to put a bunch of actors playing the real people on a set of a plane meant to look like the real plane, and show the last seconds of these peoples' lives just turns my stomach. And the fact that it is pretty clearly more about money than any sort of respect.

 

[MtnBiker]

I think those who might have a problem with it are those who just want to get past it and forget it.

I don't want to get past it, I don't want to forget it.

I believe the film makers have every right to make the film. However I do believe it is not the best choice to do so right now.

 

[BATMAN]

However I do believe it is not the best choice to do so right now.

Serious question - when would the right time be for you?

 

[MtnBiker]

Good question, not really sure.

My concern is, and perhaps not so much with this perticual film, is revisionist history. Film makers are going to make assumptions and fictionalize real tragic events that still have quite an impact on our perceptions of the current war on terror.

 

[BATMAN]

Fair enough, but will you at least agree that the people who greenlighted this thing weren't doing it out of respect, but out of wanting to make money? Because to assume otherwise is kind of naive, I think.

It's not that I want to forget, or ever will forget, what happened that day. But, only five years after it happened, to put a bunch of actors playing the real people on a set of a plane meant to look like the real plane, and show the last seconds of these peoples' lives just turns my stomach. And the fact that it is pretty clearly more about money than any sort of respect.

Well I have to respect the fact that the writer/director secured the approval of every victim's family - I would like to think they're not out to make money off of this.

The true-life story of Black Hawk Down had nowhere near the same national impact as the events of 9/11, so I don't think the two have much in common as far as that goes.

To me it did. When Clinton cut and run after that event, Osama labled us a "paper tiger" - We know what happend 8 years later.

 

[BATMAN]

My concern is, and perhaps not so much with this perticual film, is revisionist history. Film makers are going to make assumptions and fictionalize real tragic events that still have quite an impact on our perceptions of the current war on terror.

I think that's much more a possibility with the "World Trade Center" movie coming out in Aug by Oliver Stone than with this one.

I say that because the trailer does not give me the "Hollywood" feel to it. The movie has no name actors in it for one, unlike Stone's who has Nicholas Cage headlining it.

 

[insein]

i think the best film about 9/11 was that first hand footage by those guys that were in the towers with the firemen before they fell. That was real. That was drama.

 

[Dan]

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing, Insein, but there was also a great documentary on HBO about it. Very moving.

 

[insein]

I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing, Insein, but there was also a great documentary on HBO about it. Very moving.

Possibly. The one im thinking of was by the 2 brothers and it was shown almost a week after 9/11. It was on CBS. It showed the firefighters running for their lives as the towers fell and then everything went black from the dust. Luckily most of them lived. It also showed the older guy still alive at the base of the tower. He's the one in the famous photo being carried out dead by his fellow firefighters.

That was gritty and real because it was right there.

 

[Dan]

OK, no, the one I was thinking of was on HBO either six months or a year after 9/11. The two things that stuck out most were voice mails that passengers of the planes left their loved ones and some really horrific pictures of the aftermath of some of the jumpers. It was hard to watch, honestly, but it was really good.

 

[BATMAN]

I heard Rush talk about this after he saw a private screening.
Here's part of the transcript:

RUSH: Yesterday afternoon at the conclusion of yesterday's program, I went over to a local theater to watch a private screening of United 93. I invited some people to go with me, and a number of them didn't want to go because they were just afraid it would knock 'em out, and you've heard some of the complaints from the theaters that have shown the trailer to this movie, the Upper West Side of New York and other places around the country. "No, no! It's too soon! It's too soon! I can't bear it!" It's not "too soon." If anything, it's too late. I wish this movie had been out two or three years ago. Now, I'm not a movie critic, and I have to be careful here that in describing it, I don't give it away. What can you give away? You all know what happens.
FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

[Annie]

I heard Rush talk about this after he saw a private screening.
Here's part of the transcript:

I'll have to agree with Rush on this one, which is more than a bit unusual. I think the MSM has done the public wrong by not following up on the horrors of 9/11. The decisions to 'curtail' meaning not show the after effects of that day, was truly the most boneheaded conclusion ever reached, but was done in the name of 'preventing retaliation.' F that!

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

When I first heard about this movie, I wondered if it wasn't too soon. That, and I wondered about the way the movie was done and the taste.

The families of the people on board the plane have supported the movie and are encouraging people to see it. If it has the families ok, that's a big factor with me. I'll be seeing it.

 

[Dan]

I saw the trailer before Inside Man last night and it seriously sickened me. It's bad enough to dramatize what happened, but to do so with huge dramatic music and all sorts of moviemaking tricks and to see it up on the big screen like that was just horrible. I'm glad the families support it, but I won't be.

And Kathianne, I agree that to ban the movie to prevent retaliation would be horrible and about as un-American as it gets.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Here's a couple of pertinent articles on the topic worth reading.

All Americans Must See 'United 93'
By Dennis Prager, World Net Daily
April 18, 2006

Universal's new movie, "United 93," is about United Airlines Flight 93, hijacked on 9-11 by Islamic terrorists shortly after leaving Newark, N.J., for San Francisco. The terrorists intended to fly the plane to Washington, D.C., and crash it into the Capitol. Instead, the passengers fought back and forced the plane down in Pennsylvania, thereby saving the lives of any number of people on the ground in Washington and saving America from a devastating blow to its image.

Incredibly there is some controversy about this film. Apparently many Americans are not "ready" to see a film about 9-11 "so soon" after 9-11.
If this is so, it is an ode to the weakening of the American people.

Five years after the most devastating attack on American soil, people are asking if Americans are ready to see a film – not some fictional, politically driven, reality-distorting film by Oliver Stone, but a film based on the phone conversations of the passengers and flight attendants, on the flight recorder tape, and approved by the families of all 40 passengers – one of the most terrible and heroic events in American history.

Did anyone ask in 1946, five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, whether Americans were prepared to see a film about the Japanese attack?

If anything should be controversial, it is Hollywood going AWOL while its country fights the scourge of our time, Islamic totalitarianism. For five years, America has been battling people who are dedicated to destroying every value that Hollywood claims to care most about – freedom, tolerance, women's rights, secular government, equality for gays – and Hollywood has yet to make a film depicting, let alone honoring, this war.

For full article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49792

United 93 Packs a Wallop
By Deroy Murdock, Human Events
April 20, 2006

New York -- "Too soon!" some New York filmgoers recently yelled after seeing the trailer for "United 93," the new movie about the Boeing 757 that crashed September 11, 2001 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. When this heart-pounding, gut-twisting picture opens April 28, four years, seven months, and 17 days will have elapsed since 9/11. Is that too soon?

Islamofascists do not know the words "too soon."

Just 13 months after 9/11, al-Qaeda franchisees bombed nightclubs in Bali on October 12, 2002, killing 202 people, including seven Americans.

Exactly two and a half years after 9/11, al-Qaeda attacked trains in Madrid, on March 11, 2004, killing 191 commuters.

Nearly three years and 10 months after 9/11, al-Qaeda struck yet again, on July 7, 2005, killing 52 on the London Underground and a local bus.

Almost daily, al-Qaeda in Iraq blasts Iraqis, Americans, and others through ceaseless acts of stunning viciousness.

"United 93" arrives just in time. As we bicker over Donald Rumsfeld's job security by day and obsess over "American Idol" by night, writer-director Paul Greengrass offers a harrowing reminder of what's in play on Earth today.

This is no PC film crafted by moral relativists in Malibu. Just as Universal Studios' logo fades to black, a man quietly prays in Arabic. He holds a small Koran in his palms while sitting atop a motel bed. "It's time," one hijacker announces, and their murderous journey begins.

"United 93" should bury for good the absurd cliché that violent Muslim zealots are "cowards." Rather than watch their own knees knock together like castanets, the four al-Qaeda agents on the doomed flight are focused and ruthless. When a cockpit screen announces, "Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center," the al-Qaeda agents celebrate. "The brothers have hit the targets," says pilot Ziad Jarrah. "We're in control," replies hijacker Saeed al Ghamdi. "Thanks be to God."

for full article:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14108

 

[Annie]

Here's a couple of pertinent articles on the topic worth reading.

All Americans Must See 'United 93'
By Dennis Prager, World Net Daily
April 18, 2006

Universal's new movie, "United 93," is about United Airlines Flight 93, hijacked on 9-11 by Islamic terrorists shortly after leaving Newark, N.J., for San Francisco. The terrorists intended to fly the plane to Washington, D.C., and crash it into the Capitol. Instead, the passengers fought back and forced the plane down in Pennsylvania, thereby saving the lives of any number of people on the ground in Washington and saving America from a devastating blow to its image.

Incredibly there is some controversy about this film. Apparently many Americans are not "ready" to see a film about 9-11 "so soon" after 9-11.
If this is so, it is an ode to the weakening of the American people.

Five years after the most devastating attack on American soil, people are asking if Americans are ready to see a film – not some fictional, politically driven, reality-distorting film by Oliver Stone, but a film based on the phone conversations of the passengers and flight attendants, on the flight recorder tape, and approved by the families of all 40 passengers – one of the most terrible and heroic events in American history.

Did anyone ask in 1946, five years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, whether Americans were prepared to see a film about the Japanese attack?

If anything should be controversial, it is Hollywood going AWOL while its country fights the scourge of our time, Islamic totalitarianism. For five years, America has been battling people who are dedicated to destroying every value that Hollywood claims to care most about – freedom, tolerance, women's rights, secular government, equality for gays – and Hollywood has yet to make a film depicting, let alone honoring, this war.

For full article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49792

United 93 Packs a Wallop
By Deroy Murdock, Human Events
April 20, 2006

New York -- "Too soon!" some New York filmgoers recently yelled after seeing the trailer for "United 93," the new movie about the Boeing 757 that crashed September 11, 2001 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. When this heart-pounding, gut-twisting picture opens April 28, four years, seven months, and 17 days will have elapsed since 9/11. Is that too soon?

Islamofascists do not know the words "too soon."

Just 13 months after 9/11, al-Qaeda franchisees bombed nightclubs in Bali on October 12, 2002, killing 202 people, including seven Americans.

Exactly two and a half years after 9/11, al-Qaeda attacked trains in Madrid, on March 11, 2004, killing 191 commuters.

Nearly three years and 10 months after 9/11, al-Qaeda struck yet again, on July 7, 2005, killing 52 on the London Underground and a local bus.

Almost daily, al-Qaeda in Iraq blasts Iraqis, Americans, and others through ceaseless acts of stunning viciousness.

"United 93" arrives just in time. As we bicker over Donald Rumsfeld's job security by day and obsess over "American Idol" by night, writer-director Paul Greengrass offers a harrowing reminder of what's in play on Earth today.

This is no PC film crafted by moral relativists in Malibu. Just as Universal Studios' logo fades to black, a man quietly prays in Arabic. He holds a small Koran in his palms while sitting atop a motel bed. "It's time," one hijacker announces, and their murderous journey begins.

"United 93" should bury for good the absurd cliché that violent Muslim zealots are "cowards." Rather than watch their own knees knock together like castanets, the four al-Qaeda agents on the doomed flight are focused and ruthless. When a cockpit screen announces, "Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center," the al-Qaeda agents celebrate. "The brothers have hit the targets," says pilot Ziad Jarrah. "We're in control," replies hijacker Saeed al Ghamdi. "Thanks be to God."

for full article:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14108

I think we should all see the movie. The problem with 'too soon' I think has been created by the media and administration. Rather than reminding Americans that we were attacked, the bias has been on how we are war mongering. Disgusting.

 

[Adam's Apple]

In my opinion it is never "too soon" to be reminded of what happened on that tragic day in our country and get a close-up-and-personal look at the enemy each of us as Americans face. I suspect that this film is going to be a blockbuster, similar to "The Passion of the Christ."