Hacker Cinema
United 93
2006 · Film · 111 min
Directed by Paul Greengrass
A real-time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on 9/11 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
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4 comments on Hacker News
> It’s also one reason why only the passengers in United 93 fought back; the idea of a plane as a missile wasn’t widely understood or considered until the planes hit the twin towers. Fighter jets were not even under consideration to be mobilized until United 93.
Sadly this is mostly a myth. It is a little known fact that there were five separate U.S. military war games being run simultaneously with 9/11 and three of them involved airliner hijacking scenarios, including flying airplanes into buildings. Worse, these war games involved simulated inputs into NORAD and FAA radar systems, resulting in mass confusion. There is an excellent documentary that covers these war games, including actual NORAD, FAA and EADS audio [0].
[0]: https://www.corbettreport.com/911wargames/
This is a really important point, and it'll probably justify its own blog post soon, but a quick response would be this:
I'd class United 93 and Black Swan as being, sort of, emotionally exhausting. And yes, I'm not going to rush out see them again. But that's very different to saying they're a bad film. I would suggest that, at high levels of quality, low levels of rewatchability makes it actually a better film, in a way.
Or, at least, it differentiates them from another terrific film like The King's Speech. If you're the kind of person who likes watching beautifully constructed but largely enjoyable films, your tastes will tend toward the top-right of the graph. But, if you enjoy more difficult or harrowing films, your favourite films might be lower on the rewatchability score, on average.
My point is, while quality is quality, a measure of skill and talent, rewatchability is personal, and groups similar films together in interesting ways. Where your favourite films come out on the graph is really not important to anyone but you, when you're looking for more stuff you like.
You may still disagree, but thanks for taking the time to comment :)
-glen.
I really disagree with the premise of this post. Emotional impact (United 93), psychological impact (Black Swan), intellectual demands (Primer) all equate to a lower rewatchability score, since watching the movie takes a lot out of me. However, the more of an impact a movie makes, the higher my opinion of a movie. Because something is light and fluffy doesn't make that movie "better", it just means it's easier to watch.
Rating films this way may do a good job of the "so bad it's good" camp (Snakes on a Plane), but will do an incredible disservice to movies like Black Swan.
When I remarked that another 9/11 was more than remote, due to the fact that passengers can no longer be subdued by hijackers (knowing that certain death awaits)
Good point. Now passengers will fight to the death rather than cooperate with hijackers. United 93 was a very inspiring movie about ordinary people in very unexpected circumstances.