I wanted to track this film's Rotten Tomatoes score because I'm interested in the film and it's score is looking great so far and I want all the naysayers to be burned. Mwuhaha.

Haha. Kidding. It could always falter, since only 5 reviews are in so far, but the comments look extremely promising, and the average grade is actually 8.1 (which shows these aren't just barely passing fresh reviews, they are quite positive). I am looking forward to seeing this film, and the reviews are very reassuring.

Anyhow, I will continue to track the RT grades.

PEACE, Mike.

That's great news. Personally, I didn't really like the trailer but I'm still planning on seeing the movie.

I'm not too excited about the film but I will go see it if the reviews continue to come in and are as positive as the ones up so far. I'm more excited for World Trade Center.

Glad to see that. Hopefully this will change some people's minds that think its too soon.

I don't think it's too soon. I just feel sick that people will take the film as truth even though the event it's dealing with in addition with the WTC happenings of that day is completely filled with inconsistencies all over the place. No need to ask me questions on that just research it. I don't know. I'm conflicted about seeing it but I'll prolly watch it during a day showing with few people so I don't feel as disgusted watching it with a sold out room which no doubt will have tears flowing at the end.

So you're saying people shouldn't cry after seeing it? How heartless.

Heartless is not crying after Hotel Rwanda and the 937,000 victims of the genocide it portrayed...

I felt a strong emotional connection to Hotel Rwanda but never actually cried; does that make me heartless?

I agree with Joe here. It's not heartless to not cry at a movie like this; what I *do* feel is a little heartless is to slam people who do.

It's not really "inconsistent"... there are "unknowns" but don't confuse that with the conspiracy angle. The fact that there are conspiracy angles out there do not mean that the conpsiracy is true.

But then again, name me a film that is completely true, and non dramatized. You cannot even find documentaries that are without creative editing or bias.

And nobody should expect United 93 to have no bias, or no stretch of knowledge. It is completely an unfair to the film, it's not like this is the first film ever about a real life tragedy.


Many people, including the director and writer of the films, have done a ton of research on it (and I have too) and frankly, the conspiracy angles regarding this are not well supported. You disagree with that reasearch, so quite frankly, why even bother with anything?

When you film a feature, you pick a direction. Greengrass has picked a direction which is VERY consistent with all that we know about what happened on that flight based on the evidence, the family members, and the tapes, which the family members heard years ago and were sort of released a few weeks ago.


What's disgusting isn't the people who are affected by the movie, it's your attitude towards people who would be affected by the piece.

Exactly. I am worried people are going to address this piece based on a nitpic of semi-known facts, rather than concentrating on the BIG picture.

It can be equally as detrimental to sit around argueing if someone said this or that at one minute or the next as it is to initially spend the intial research time focussing only on that in the first place. Where does it go? I'm going to hope Greengrass was fully conscious of what he planned to say with United 93, and I hope audiences reflect on that intention and philosophy over the color of shirt. It does the topic, the revisitation of the topic, and the general public a disservice.

If someone thinks its hokey because it clamoring for, say, racial profiling, than stick to that topic, not if 911 picked up a call one minute later than it said it did in the film. Conspiracy theorists often spend alot of time obsessing over details to recreate an experience. That is perfectly valid and has its place in uncovering new information. I tend to think alot of court cases work on this premis. That it happened like A, not like B, and that the details support that.

But I think its important to realize Greengrass isn't doing that at all. He's supporting the predominant knowledge and the "direct experience" emotional response of family members memories. Its best to question why he chose this route (there have probably been interviews) or why in general the route of "authentic voice" based on primary experience has been selected as the difinite version of telling the events for the past five years. Or if for awhile it wasn't so, and why Greengrass is resurrecting that experience?

These are all interesting questions, but none of them have to do, technically, with if the plane was shot down or taken down from within. Its far more interesting to explore why we as a culture would want to believe one version over the other.

Well I think it's dangerous to automatically discount the cell phone conversations given by the family members of what was said and later what was revealed on the tape.

9/11 Conspriacies are interesting because, in my view, they are comforting. We're all aware that the Bush Administration is a little wacky, so they use that as a platform to jump off into grander visions. But in the end, it's much, much, much easier to think your government has so much control over the situation and that stopping it would be as easy as ousting the president.

In this case the real evidence of what happened is much more shocking and hard to swallow.


Per interviews, Greengrass has stated the primary goal of United 93 was to create a portrait of a country in the midst of a disaster senario and to capture the moment.


It's also incredibly dangerous. Court Cases that need to develop conspiracy (not as a crime but as a concept) to support their arguments should be illegal (although it does happen). It's all circumstancial.


Not just the memories, the black box recording, the NTSB and all of those officially involved. Conspriacy theorists will be the first to say that all these people aren't trustworthy, and instead trust the people on the ground who say that "there wasn't enough wreckage!" even though regardless of military intervention or not a plane still went down there.


Or maybe we should just come out and say that the real evidence suggests that this is the way it mostly happened. That maybe there really *isn't* any gray here. Maybe this is actually how it happens.


That's a separate argument and really has nothing to do with United 93. The question that I that is specific to 9/11 is, why do we choose to believe other historical events and not what could have happened on 9/11?

Is it so bad that 30 something passengers tried to take the cockpit of a flight that was heading to crash into a building in Washington DC?

Are we so jaded by movies and television that we can't believe that there are people like this anymore?

Harry at AICN talked to me a bit about United 93. He was gushing over the film, which means I'll probably not like it.

Oh, I wouldn't discount it at all. I'm simply saying that it detracts from the possibly larger image if we sit around focusing on what a cell-phone call said and not why the director is choosing to include it in the first place, and in what light its being rendered, and for what reasons its being put forth, etc. This is a movie. A movie targeted towards mainstream viewership. This is not the 9/11 Commission report. Its fair to ask the typical question "Was Greengrass so worried about if he could do it that he didn't stop and ask himself if he should, or why he desires to do it."



That agreed. BUt we all know its more generational and entrenched than that.



Lost you there? You mean that the government didn't have a handle on it at the moment?



I'm not sure what that means. I've been back-and-forth on this movie, not because I fear for its techincal shortcomings, but just its aspirations. I saw the trailer once, and remember thinking it looked dreadful and conservative. Then some people pointed out who the director was, and mentioned some other issues around its being made, so then I said it would probably be good. Then someone quoted one of the producers saying it was about how unsafe our airports were and that we need to beef up national security, and then I freaked out all over again. Now the interviews and reviews are coming in, and they are widening the movie's potential for me once again.

I don't mind the experience being invoked. I just worry about for what reason, and how it will be taken up by the audiences.

For instance, I just saw a movie about the violence in India/Pakistan on the eve of British pull-out. Technically, there are victims and heroes and innocents and oppressors, and all of that, but the ultimate message was one of alarm. At the end of it, a Hindu nanny is taken away to be raped and killed, and a Parsee child's innocence is lost forever. However, the "moral" of the story was not "Get those Muslims out of our borders or our Hindu women and children won't ever be safe." It was equally as condemning of all sides and depressed at the failure of sound self-rule, while still holding nostalgia and adoration for some of the individuals involved.

Are we going to put United 93's heroes into a discourse that, yes, transcends our one president and the one act, or is it really going to drum up the hysteria of the moment? There's more than one way to build the story, love, and memory of ordinary people turned victims and rising to herodom through their own strength of character.



True, but The Glove Didn't Fit. I meant that this arguement is often used in criminal law, its fair to breakdown time, settings, words, and construct alternative visions to what they were. That is called reasonable doubt.

As far as broad legislature, I agree with you. Its very hard to rule on the constitutionality of, say, segregated schools, along the lines of circumstancial evidence. That has nothing to do with those cases.



The funny (though nothing is all that funny about it) thing is, I know many people that were dissappointed that the government didn't act quicker. That they didn't already gun down the second world trade center plane, and DC. That 11 minutes and 20+ minutes is more than enough time, and that the people on those planes were going to die anyways, so at least save the thousands on land that could have lived. I find it interesting that some would condemn the later 3 planes being shot down after the first ones, while others think it would have saved 1500 lives. Its all relative to the person, and what their long term vision around the acts were. I have to say one is more cold and calculated than the other, but who knows....



Oh sure. But I just went to this diversity sensitivity training where it was odd to listen to people identify the idea of a difinitive source. I can't explain it. The experience of an act (in the case of the training, racist comments directed towards a child) is one reading, and someone who studied it for five years is another reading, and someone who's been a historian for decades and predicted it is another reading, and people watching it on tv were yet another reading, and people who weren't watching it on tv and could care less was yet a fifth meaning. And people studying how its handled today versus how it was approached five years ago is another reading. They're all "true" to some extent. So it just depends on if one assigns a hierarchy to which is "more true" than the next.

I don't know if that making sense?

I have no doubt what I'm going to see is exactly what families experienced, and thats a valid experience.

Still doesn't mean I'm sure if that's the experience I assign highest value to. If anything, I'd go with the historiographer. The person who studies the shift in media pertaining to the experience, and doesn't even handle the experience directly. The history of the creation of the history of/around the event. I'd rather not see F9/11, United 93, or World Trade Center, and see a movie that contextualizes all three of them within the American social landscape. That's just me though....



The odd thing is, I must not be paying attention. I never really thought it was anything other than that. And yes, my question is not directly related to the movie as it unfolds, but more towards why the movie was made in the first place. Its not hard to believe at all that this is what happened, and it did for happen this way for everyone interviewed, but I don't think that many people think something else happened unless I'm missing something. The president was, like, too busy reading books to some preschoolers I think. But it was proof positive he could read, despite his antagonism to the idea, so there is one plus to that morning, I guess?

Are we so jaded by movies and television that we can't believe that there are people like this anymore?[/quote]

C'mon dv! You're really throwing a wet blanket on the whole patriotic fairy tale aspect of this creative endeavor...

If you think it's about "patriotic fairy tales" you've missed the point.

Okay - enlighten me as to the "point"...

Again, what about this film is more sacred than any other historical pic?


The conspiracy theories all point to the fact that the government had some level of control of the incident, which I think is conforting to people because they know who to directly blame more than some Saudi guy we can't catch.


Why?

If it's a semi-honest (honest within the framework of a movie) portrayal, then why are you worried about the audiencies? Do you think this will sway people? What difference will it make?


So what you are saying is basically that if we assume the story is true within the framework of movie-truth, then it's not worth telling.

So basically... surpress art because it might piss some people off. I strongly disagree with where you are going with this.


The plane wasn't to DC yet either, if it had gone any farther, that's what probably would have happened. And I don't think anybody (including the plane passengers) would have held the pilots of those planes at fault for it, which is why the conspriacy of the plane makes no sense to me.


Not really. I think you have an overestimated opinion of how much control your government has. Hindsight is always 20/20 and we are assuming that one could make rational decisions about hundreds of planes and hundreds of potential targets in that short of an amount of time.


Hahahahhaa

The point is there is very little evidence (if any) to support any conspriacy in this matter, and filming a movie like this using the events as depicted in the conspriatist's mind would be highly irresponsible because it's not the best fit for what is generally known to have happen on the plane.

If we take the events of the plane that we know, the documentary, and what we know of this film, it's likely that it will produce an effect that approximates what you people fear as patriotism. And if it does approximate that, is that a wrong portrayal or is it as close to the truth as it is possible to attain?

Why do you (not maybe you directly, in a general sense) fear that these people probably tried to take the plane and in response these 3 or so men, realizing that they were not going to hit the target and their mission had been compromised, rammed the plane into the ground? Are "you" so anti-America and so anti-Bush that anything that is put on screen that might show anybody from the US doing "the right thing" sickening?

And I am very much not a patriot. I think this country and policies are absolute garbage so please refrain from putting me in the "rah-rah, go USA" camp.

That is certainly one point of view...

I hate it when I'm right about you.

Okay, wait - wait... I'm out of practice with the adolescent rejoinders. Is the appropriate response: "Smell ya later"? I'm a little out of my depth here...

Ugh. So you've posted your disdain for the film in more then one thread with little explanation. So, Bradley, what would you like to see out of the film? What is your interpretation of the events, do tell?

A 6th review has now been added. It's a 4 out of 4 star review.

Therefore it is currently 6 fresh reviews, and the average rating is currently 8.4/10.

PEACE, Mike.

Nothing really. The question should be why you seem to think this film is more sacred than any other historical pic. While some people may have disagreed with Spielberg's take on the Munich events, no one was argueing that there was, in fact, a take on the events. Why is it sacriligious in this case to consider there might be a social or political agenda. If I agree with that agenda, just as in GNAGL, or Munich, I will like it. But if I don't agree with it, doesn't mean I condemn people for believing its there.



I see. That makes sense. I'd expect conspiracies to say Pres could have done it, but didn't cause he wanted it to happen or something really nuts like that.



Yes. Screen imagery can be very nefarious.



Quite a bit, actually.



Not at all. But I'm not questioning the facts of the experience at all, just why they are being invoked. There's not "one truth" as far as that goes.



Don't get condescending on me. Its not about pissing anyone off. I doubt its going to be that overt. And art, like anything, is only true to form if it allows for critical feedback. I could just as easily say to you "So basically...suppress any discourse around art cause it might piss people off. I strongly disagree with where you are going with this."



Oh. That wasn't what I was aiming at. I don't think the plane was shot down. I'm simply saying regardless of it was, the family members on the receiving end of the phone heard what they heard, and responded as they responded. And what came out after the fact has nothing to do with that. It doesn't changes what they felt as they heard it.

My point was simply, that their experience is one experience of the plane, but there are many others, and Greengrass made a conscious decision to go with their story, and not others.



Its the opposite of relativism, actually. Its absolutism. Now, someone may do a docudrama about Jesus, and someone else may choose to do a docudrama about Mohammed, and yet a third may not even bring up religious subject matter because they're sick and tired of everything being coached in religious terms. You mean to tell me there is zero intent in chosing their respective subject matters? Choice of what one covers is the first and most absolute or all things. How one choses to construct it, and in what medium, doesn't clowd the fact directors turn their lense on on what they choose to make into news. And they have very solid (not relative) reasons for giving screen time to what they chose to. They're smarter than that (well most of them).



For the reason that I get to see how they construct history. Just because one may have a tendency to abstraction doesn't mean they can't get anything out of an experience. Its just going to apparently be different than what you get out of an experience, but it can still be as rewarding and gratifying depending on the film.



I know. It was in this year's Whitney Biennale, and alot of it was pretty dissappointing. :-P



Never said Too Soon. Never said pull it from theatres. All I said was there should be vigorous discussion around it, as there should have been in Three Kings, Syriana, Jarhead, and hell, I even tried to get it going for Vendetta and was euqally as bothered by how everyone was just like "OOOOH...HOW TRUE!...Rage Against "THE MACHINE""





I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. Which is weird, because I'm actually going to try and go see it, which is more than most people.

First off, I'm not in awe of director Greengrass - after all, he's the guy who ruined the Bourne series after it's promising start in the hands of real director Doug Liman - I'm still nauseous from the shakycam! But since your asking, and since some people seem to assume I'm a conspiracy fan, then I'd like to see the film conclude with one of those green missilecam shots we saw in the first gulf war...