Has enough time passed since we first witnessed the awful event of the United 93 trailer to confront the full-length movie of United 93 in its opening week?
April 4, 2006 was the day Americans learned about the existence of United 93 by viewing the new preview. And in that moment, frozen in time, what had once seemed impossible—a filmed reenactment of the events of 9/11—became all too frighteningly real.
Millions of Americans went about their daily concerns that fateful day, unaware that our lives as movie-watchers were about to change forever. We would watch in terror on April 28, the film’s release date, suspending our disbelief as best we could, unable to face the reality that a feature-length film about the terrorist attacks on America had indeed taken place before our eyes.
Are we ready to relive the most dramatized strike on American soil since the movie Pearl Harbor? Or will United 93 stir up the deep, unresolved feelings we’ve had bottled up for the last three weeks or so?
Maybe these questions would be easier for me to answer if I hadn’t known one of the gaffers from the movie about that flight.
For me, opening week may prove to be too soon. I may have to wait till the second or third week of its release.
Yet we must remember the brave actors and actresses who boarded United 93’s commercial-airliner set, whose artistic sacrifice ultimately cost them months of their lives, and ask ourselves what they would have wanted. Wouldn’t they have wanted us to see the movie on the opening day? Wouldn’t they have wanted this movie to have the highest possible first-weekend gross?
Director Paul Greengrass, for example, has been said to be suffering from post-production-stress disorder.
It could be argued that this is a time for all American moviegoers to come together and stand united in support of the filmmaking heroes who stood up when this project was greenlit and said, “Let’s roll.”
But for some of us, it would be easier to pretend its theatrical release had never happened and wait until United 93 makes its way to DVD in a couple of months.
Am I taking my freedom to see this movie for granted? After all, the men and women involved in this filmed catastrophe didn’t have the choice to walk off the set. They were just extras in the tragedy, and exercising such freedom would have ended their careers then and there.
It just goes to show you that life is precious, and that one never knows when one’s last moments on camera will come.
Regardless of when or where I ultimately see this film, one thing remains certain: We live in a post-United 93 world now, and as American moviegoers it is our duty to remain vigilant in hopes of preventing these events, or a sequel to them, from ever happening again.
