9/11 is overhypede cause

1. we live in u.s. n it happened htere
2. it was no natural disaster ala tsunamis
3. it wasnt shootin or anything; it was a disgustingly sick idea of crashing commercial airlines into skyscrappers.


9/11s bad not just due to loss of life, but the principles of it.

Pretty great film, but with problems.

The first half started interesting seeing how the airport controller, FAA, and military were reacting on-ground. Nobody had a clue what was going on, everyone was so unprepared for the situation, just blind sided by the event. The problem is this part of the film just went on far too long, it could've been cut a good 15-20 minutes.

What I LOVE about this film is how realistic the whole thing felt, it really never tried to be emotionally sympathetic, like WTC ( this movie is far superior ) The on flight scenes coming into the last 45min or so of the film were incredibly powerful and I dont think could've been done much better. One thing that Greengrass did that I felt seemed alot more realistic then what the media would portray is the fact that the passengers were fighting for THEIR lives moreso then the lives of the people on-ground, they wanted to save themselves, worrying about what would happen to others in a building was a back thought at this point.

Anyways, the movie was power and realistic, it never tried to get cheap sympathetic reactions it tried to tell as realistic of a story as possible of what happened on that flight on Sept. 11

B+

I would say it's most definitely the biggest American tragedy in history.


I went into this movie thinking I would not like it, or at the very least just like it a little. After all, even though it portrays one of the most profound events in my life, it has a cast and crew of nobodies. Man was I wrong. This was an extremely amazing movie experience for me. Never before has a movie hit me like this...those last twenty minutes or so were brilliant. I would say that it's not technically brilliant, as I was not a fan of the directing/camera movements, but it's certainly one of the best films of the year.

A

Took the words right out of my mouth. I don't think I've ever heard someone call it the biggest tradegy in history.

I would have thought the 623,000 soldiers (out of a then population of 34 million) who died in the American Civil War, a war that saw brother fight brother and devastated the American countryside mighta ranked up there in the American tragedy hit parade...

Or maybe even the 675,000 Americans that died in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic...

Or perhaps even the 150,000 women and children killed by America with nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII, the only major use of WMD's in human history...

Isn't it the impact, not the "numbers" that necessarily determine the most tragic? We can't just line up events from "most deaths" to "least deaths". For me, such an act of terrorism hits me harder than war, probably because in war, there is usually an engagement from both sides to go and kill people. One country decides to try and kill people in another country, and vice versa. People seem to consider victims of war "expendable", since why would anyone (presidents, soldiers, etc) engage in it in the first place (knowing full well their will be deaths and casualties from their direct or indirect actions)? So, it doesn't hit me as hard.

And with a Flu pandemic, the enemy is a little virus, so while it's horrible to have so many people lose their lives, there's no real heated tragedy involved, as far as I see it. Although, it's all subjective.

I don't know, I don't really care if 9/11 is considered the great American tragedy or not. I was just wanted to respond to your emphasis on numbers when responding. It's not always the numbers, at a personal person-by-person level at least.

PEACE, Mike.

The brother fighting brother thing didn't work for you?

Don't wanna get into much of a 9/11 argument, I'm no political afficiando(:lol:), but all I'm saying is that America in particular has treated this like it changed the entire world's landscape forever, which is false. Some crazy terrorists blew up a few buildings and killed a thousand people, yet the reaction hasn't been anything short of China dropping a nuke on us and starting WWIII. If anything the true tragedy of the WTCs is the reaction, two countries being destroyed in retaliation, but otherwise the pride! and rah rah thing has been long pushed over the edge. 9/11 is the equivalent of a big Roman fort being burned down back in their day, by some angry smaller power. I'm sorry but 1000 people dieing in some American buildings is nothing compared to what the rest of the world has to deal with, pretty much. America just holds itself on such a high pedestal that even if they get slightly nicked it's "Ohmigodddddd!!! End of the world!!!" America is a high class lady that broke her nail, and went insane screaming over it.

I'm soooo going to get aten alive for this. If I was a country singer I would be fined 5 million dollars and all my albums would be burned.

I think you should just think carefully about what you say, because I actually find what you're saying to be offensive. Call me oversensitive, but saying "some crazy terrorists blew up a few buildings and killed a thousand people", "I'm sorry but 1000 people dying in some American buildings is nothing compared to what the rest of the world has to deal with." is just crass. What would you be saying if the exact same thing had happened in Canada five years ago, hypothetically?

Ok, first of all, I'm sorry if I'm offended anybody here... Just take my words with a grain of salt, I guess.

I won't go on much longer, but 1000 people burned down... There has been much worse, and there is today even. America has always been involved in wars and etc., like bradley pointed out there was 600,000+ dead in the Civil War for example, the American Revolution had lots of casulties as well obviously. Thousands die in the US every single day, from aids, poverty, Detroit(just kidding), smoking, is some terrorists killing one thousand and some buildings oh so end of the world? Internationally there's the Palestine/Isreal situation which is constant war, the Middle East is in constant rapedom, there are wars and pain all over the place, a lot of the rest of the world is in hell? America has been has casulties before, tons actually, the examples mentioned at the top of this paragraph among others. The country is still in perfectly safe shape, there isn't much danger, just 1000 people were killed by terrorists. In the scheme of things the Trade centres burning down isn't that big of a deal.

I'm gonna disappear from this thread for a while. Too much.

Um excuse me, a lot more than 1000 people died. 2,752 people died just in New York. Did you forget about the Pentagon? Or the other airplanes? The number is at least over 3000.

And, give me a break. The Civil War and American Revolution were wars. This was a terrorist attack.

I just find what you're saying reprehensible. Ugh.

Eee, thought it was a bit over 1000 in total actually. My honest mistake.

I was thinking the same thing. It's not necessarily the number of deaths but how the people died. In war, even though it is no less horrific, you expect death. Terrorist attacks leave a much greater impact and this was the largest terrorist attack on American soil, not to mention it came as a complete shock to us.

Shack, I see where you are coming from with how we reacted to it. We've totally fucked up the response by going into Iraq and not putting all our efforts into capturing Bin Laden. Also, I would agree that the media, while intially doing a great job, kept it on our screens for weeks. With something of that magnitude, there was no reason to keep showing the footage of the towers falling, etc. We wouldn't have forgotten it and I think it's clear that we still haven't. I also think we went a little overboard in our patriotism, but others may not think that way. It's one thing to have pride in your country and want revenge, but the unnecesarry attacks on anyone who spoke out against Bush is a completely different thing.

When it all comes down to it, an attack like this will of course have a greater impact on the country where it occured than others. But to say it's not that big of a deal is a little hurtful.

...and therefore terrorist attacks are more tragic than wars?

When did I say that?

I was saying that death was expected because they were wars...

That may have been a good point if we were discussing "shock" or "surprise", but the word in question was "tragedy"...

Its the biggest civilian tradegy in American history, mostly because of the unexpected nature of what happened, I remeber intially the projected body count was much higher then it ended up being, its not a numbers game, but rather Americans shocked that terrorism had come to US soil.

I might even add its the Its the biggest man made civilian tradegy in American history, because one could argue that while less people died with Katrina, they lack of govertment response places that up there on the list, on 9/11 the system while showing lots of failures at least showed up.

I agree with 99.99% of what Shack has said.

And technically, the US was at war. They just didn't know it (much like Pearl Harbor). Or did they.....

The US has ong shown as strong tendency to remember past tradgies, we still maintain battlefieds from the Civil War exactly as they were in the 1860's, if Europe did that for all their wars, no one could live anywhere in Europe.

If Isreal built memorials were people died, well there would be no need to fight, the whoelcountryw ould be one giant memorial, the US has alot of real estate and we like maintaining remembrances. Look at the debate about what to put on the 9/11 site.

I see the debate in this thread took a serious turn. People remember their own dead far more closely then the deaths of foreigners simple as that. Its just human nature.

Does anybody mourn the dead of Harat, Kiev and the other cities that were massacred during the Mongol expansion of the 12th century? No, its cold in a way but its just human. Thats why I think Shacks repsonses were perfectly understandable seeing as he's not an American.

It's understandable that you care less about these events if they're not in your country, but to say that 9/11 wasn't a big deal? Comparisons to war, in which we're basically deciding to put our lives on the line? I think that's very different. And deaths related to smoking? Last time I checked, people choose to smoke, knowing the consequences. It's not like smoking just became cool and we're just starting to see the side effects of it.

9/11 was unexpected and a very, very big deal. Just like the tsunami in Asia, but just because America wasn't affected by it doesn't mean that we called it overhyped and didn't care.

q.v.: loyal's last post...

I agree with some of what Shack's saying. I think the media just overhyped the whole thing, what with the entire day last Monday on CNN devoted to 'remembering the attacks'. They were a big deal, and it's terrible that so many people died, but the media has blown it all out of proportion, while, meanwhile, there's been just as many coalition soldiers who have died in Afghanistan/Iraq. Where's all the rememberance for them?

Shack may also be pissed off, like I am, that Canadian soldiers keep dying due to American friendly-fire attacks. I think more Canadian soldiers have died at the hands of Americans than that of the Taliban. It's terrible. Where's all the stuff on CNN regarding that?

When has the media been any different?

(Also Canadian)

PEACE, Mike.

True...

I just think the amount of hypocrisy in American media is staggering right now. Bordering on propoganda.