Those scenes got to me too (same as the target photo taped to the yoke in the cockpit).

In a film that purports to be a strictly fact-based docudrama, to the point it uses some of the actual people from that day to portray themselves, adding anything directly compromises the director's credibility. However, when the added made-up scene is clearly meant to incite the audience into religious hatred, it goes beyond a credibility issue, and turns the film into a propoganda piece. It's a shame too, because otherwise it was well done.

Remember, it only takes the tiniest bits of spin to turn the fastball of documenting fact, into the curveball of propoganda.

While I thought the first half was decent, if not boring at times, the second half was fantastic. Especially the last 20 minutes were incredibly intense. B

I cannot begin to vocalize my thoughts. I'm fifty-fifty on the non onboard scenes. I wasn't really confused as much as I was searching for a point. I think at the end of the movie that it had it's place, but things drew on far too long. The idea that the American government was so lost and confused in itself was stressed enough in the 60 minutes worth of footage; it could have easily been edited down. The parts on Flight 93, especially once the hijacking took place, were incredibly powerful. There were several points throughout the movie during which I found myself inexplicably crying. The first time was fairly early in the movie, when the second plane hit the WTC. I just started bawling. Between the time when the passengers were forced to the back of the plane until they started their little rebellion, I was on and off at random intervals. Greengrass just stuff so much emotion into each frame.

I can't grade this; I guess in the back of my mind, putting this on the same plane as every other movie would degrade the events and actions depicted on screen. Needless to say that it is an important film that should not go unseen.

Wow, an amazing films in most respects.

However, utter bullshit in others.

I loved the scenes of the FAA and NORAD reacting to the situation as it develops. The scenes on board the plane were effective but not as much. Certainly the last 30 minutes were highly emotional. The events depicted in storming the cockpit are not based in the facts known about the flight which leads to the charge of distortion/propaganda of the events.

There is one thing that has always bothered me about Flight 93. In real time, I was watching CNN and they reported a call made by one of the passengers that another small plane (military aircraft?) was following Flight 93. The caller reported seeing smoke coming off the wing of the plane right before the call went dead. I never heard mention of this call again in the reporting of the crash of the plane which was announced in the next few minutes. I searched CNN's website and noticed the incident was scrubbed from their transcripts, and I checked back periodically and the incident never was listed in the transcript. I have never heard anything about the incident since the crash. Why was this scrubbed from CNN's transcript? If it was an erroneous report, either a hoax, or faulty witness account, which it might have been, scrubbing the incident only leads to suspicion of later "findings".

I have always assumed the plane was shot down. There was a serious jingoistic rallying cry aspect of Flight 93 in the months after 9/11. However, there are too many inconsistencies in the "official" account of the crash to really trust the government's version. There is a 3 minute lag between when the black box which ends at 10:03 EST and when the flight went off FAA radar records at 10:06, which is the same time as seismologists recordings indicated a crash in the area. Also, there are some eyewitnesses that reported seeing a jet near the planes crash site immediately after the crash. Lastly, there is the debris that was scattered over miles from the crash site. That is not indicative of a crash, but more of a shoot down. None of these "facts" indicate the plane was shot down, but I have never seen them satisfactorily explained.

Problems with the movie itself.

1. The terrorists have Iraqi and North African accents, not Egyptian and Saudi Arabian accents. This may be due to availabity of actors perhaps not a deliberate decision on the part of the filmakers.

2. The German passenger is potrayed as being passive and trying to appease the hijackers/terrorists, when their is no factual record of any of his conversations on the plane. It is pure conjecture and since he was a real person slanderous to his memory to speculate what he did or didn't state or how he did or didn't act.

3. There is no indication from the FAA, the 9/11 Commision Report, or the Black Box recordings that the passengers ever entered the cockpit.

Film: A-

On your comment #3...that is where the director himself admitted that he doesn't know whether they entered it or not and that it was, well, "speculated" by him withut any evidence. Not sure where I read that, but he admitted that he does not pretend that this part really happened.

I think the ending is quite effective, especially as the camera focuses on the ground outside the cockpit and the impending crash. I don't have a major problem with it. There is the missing three minutes on the black box, it could be argued that the passengers were able to access the cockpit in those missing three minutes. However, according to relatives and the FAA there is no indication of the terrorists losing control of the cockpit. There is indication of violent struggles outside the cockpit.

However, the whole the fighting back meme, I do find problematic. Not that I don't think the passengers did not attempt some sort of actions to regain control of the plane from the terrorists. After the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman incidents which were originally portrayed as one thing, patriotic American heros fighting back against overwhelming odds, the incidents turned out to be quite different when the facts were revealed. I can't help but wonder if this was the first incident of the Bush administration altering the facts to benefit their agenda.

Originally, the fighter pilots that scrambled to react to the situation were allowed to be interviewed. However, when it was learned that there were more than two fighter pilots/planes in the area of flight 93, the original pilots that stated they were not in shooting range were ordered to not talk to the public anymore and the other pilots never were allowed speak to the public. There have been conflicting accounts of the ROE of the rogue commercial planes, some stating pilots given the orders to shoot the planes down, others stating the orders were never given. The movie gives the indication that these orders were given after the attack on the Pentagon, although again that may be artistic license.

Realised I never gave my 2 cents about this.

I watched this twice to see if my opinion would change but it didn't. Its a poor man's Bloody Sunday plain and simple. Simply re-enacting something play for play without any development or interesting characters is inexcusable. At times its hints at a better movie like the initial confusion in traffic control but unlike Bloody Sunday which followed thru with fully realized characters and drama that doesn't require any knowledge of the event its based on U93 just limply jumps from chronological point to point like a machine. The event it shows is no excuse this type of film making is faux-documentary at best, lazy at worst. the simple re-enactment of an event does not a great movie make.

C

About the terrorists prayers and quoting the Koran. We have a false image that the terrorists were Westernized people. They did not speak good English and were very engrained in their culture from their homeland. They were deeply religious people who had intense faith. These people always mention the name of God when doing something. They were likley nervous and prayed out loud to clam their nerves.

So the director could easily put that in the film. Imo critizing that addition as propaganda is ridiculous.


I agree character development was not good but to me was not necessary. Imo focusing on 2-3 characters or like having Bruce Willis as the main person would have made it into an action films.
Should there have been a focus on the families of the passengers? Maybe but it would have turned into a 2.5 hour epic film.

All the passengers were like one character.
At first scared, confused, unsure who then turned into heroes.


The film paints an interesting story of the day however the passenger revolt is amazing.

Sure if the passengers were not able to enter the cockpit or even take control of the wheel, thier actions no less led to the terrorist pilot crashing the plane at over 900 km an hour.

I still think this film would've been better if it took place entirely on the plane and did away with the air traffic controller stuff.

that is possible, but imo it showed another interesting side of the story.

The mass confusion at the FAA and at Norad.

More ridiculous propaganda.

so your telling me religious people committed suicide to fulfill an extremist religious idea, but they did not prey at all while doing it?


It may be propaganda, but a lot of our mainstream movies do it far worse then this film. So imo it does not offend me.

Maybe I'm in the minority when it comes to this but I thought the air traffic control center scenes were much better directed than the actual scenes on the plane. The film is gripping, particularly the last scene, and Greengrass does a great job. However, I wouldn't give it as high praise as others here.