Before I get to a few of my points, I wanted to include a few remarks from some of Ace's readers (from this post) I very much agreed with:
"I felt pure, unadulterated RAGE. My jaws are still clenched." - Posted by Crash(in response) "Determination, not rage. Determination not to give in if confronted with terrorism face to face. Determination to vote in November, to prevent appeasement of these monsters." -- Posted by p. thadz
"However, to me it was not as impactful as the absolutely magnificent portrayal of the confussion surrounding the FAA and Military response. The movie made perfectly clear that no contingency plan was available for an event of that magnitude. No personal blame was assigned because no one ever planned for anything like it.
Even after AA11 had hit the tower, FAA thought it was still flying. An honest portrayal and a very good movie. It is time to remind ourselves of that day." - Posted by Ron LaCanne at Ap
"The box office totals will be, I believe, a good barometer of the state of the union.
Did we forget? Do we still care? Has our resolve dissipated?
These questions will be answered by the reaction to this movie, both in attendance/revenue and reviews.
And it's always a good time to bring out the moonbats, who wear tin-foil hats and hate the Right, to show how appeasement and "peace" does not work when fighting evil." - Posted by Bart
"For me the statement "We are at war! and until we know who we are at war with, I am grounding all air traffic" just kept resounding in my head. That statment acknowledge that this was not "just" a movie about "a high jacked" plane and some heroic passengers. That statement acknowledged these were passengers that became citizen soldiers and were the first to defend the USA against this attack on the USA." - Posted by bodaciousflirt
All EXCELLENT points.
My jaw clenched as soon as soon as the FAA specialist noticed the first plane disappear off the radar. I just knew that was the first tower, and even though I knew what had just happened, I was filled with such dread as if it happened again.
One scene really took me, personally, and I have not read anyone else commenting on this:
What about the scene where the people in the NYC air traffic control tower actually WATCHED the planes hit though binoculars? To see planes reinacted through the windows of the control tower just rocked me. What an utter sense of helplessness! To watch and be able to do nothing!
Finally, from a story-telling perspective, I think one of the most important elements of the film is that they did not seem to focus on any one particular passenger in general.
There are a few names that seem to stand out when we think of Flight 93, Todd Beamer being one of them. When Beamer said "Let's roll...", it was almost subtle and I dare say, you might have even missed it.
I really really appreciated the fact that the film took almost an all-encompassing perspective and really let the viewer focus on the actions and emotions of the passengers as a collective. To do otherwise, I believe, would have been a disservice to those who died.
At the end of the film, it was dead silent for almost a minute --- no one knew how to react when the screen went blank. My heart just stopped. I wanted to clap, but I was almost afraid I think, that the audience would misconstrue my applause for the terrorists, rather than the heroes. Thankfully, someone behind me slowly started, and many others followed suit.
When the crowd filed out and headed to for the exits or the bathrooms, once gentleman who was waiting for his son, turned to me and said, "You know, they'll never do that again."
A bit startled, I asked him what he meant.
He said he has a good buddy who just retired after 25 years as a pilot and his friend told him, "...because they'll never let it happen again."
At first, I wasn't quite sure what he meant by "they", but then I nodded and said, "With the increased use of air marshalls and sealed cockpit doors and all that other stuff aside, 9/11 created a new form of airline security, built in to every flight... let us just hope, in the event that such an attempt is made again, passengers will act with the same resolve of those on United 93.
See it. Again and again.
Never forget.
Posted by Kyer at April 29, 2006 03:06 PM | TrackBack