When it comes to documentaries, it's important to avoid the pitfall of attacking the substance or politics of the film at the expense of analyzing the cinematic qualities.
But with this particular documentary, the quality of the production is poor. It looks like it was mixed together on someone's home PC... with a bad microphone to record the narration. The music at times was a little bit odd, given the subject matter. I don't really like watching the WTC collapse to music I can dance to.
But in terms of actually putting together something intriguing and highly watchable, I give it a lot of marks. It's the kind of thing that you show to your friends and say "yeah... I don't really believe this one, but it's interesting viewing anyway!!!"
So... now the cinematic stuff is out of the way, let's get to the conspiracy theory itself. First of all, the overall theory was way too ambitious. I'd say a plan as elaborate as that would require thousands of people working for you, leaving yourself dramatically open to one (or more) of them "going public." This says nothing of the fact that such a conspiracy is way too open to error (like conducting controlled demolitions while the entire world's media has their cameras watching).
General opinion aside, there is an extreme lack of credibility and evidence that most will miss on the first viewing. If you watch it a second time, you'll notice how much that doco-maker relies heavily on highlight portions of articles and reports. I have little doubt that some of these "references" are from articles written by other 9/11-conspiracy theorists. For instance, if the WTC was demolished by demolition explosives and evidence of this can clearly be seen in the videos, let's have a demolition expert being interviewed and guiding us through the collapse with explanations that can be difficult to dispute. I don't like it when the documentary seems to pass himself off as an expert of all these sorts of things, thereby giving credibility to his own work (seemingly).
There are also things mentioned in passing raise obvious questions that are conveniently side-stepped by the doco-maker. Sometimes it was subtle. For example, he states that the hole in the pentagon was so small that it could not have been created by a passenger jet. Yet he also mentions that the side of the pentagon that was hit was built to withstand bombs and blasts. This raises the obvious question: couldn't the high strength and durability of that pentagon wall have limited the damage caused by the impact of the plane? This seems to explain why the hole is smaller, but is not discussed or dealt with.
Furthermore, when talking about the collapse of the WTC, he harps on about how fire can't cause a building to collapse. But then again, these buildings were hit by planes traveling at full speed and there's little doubt that the impact would have damaged the core support structures. But that point seems to have been side-stepped as well!
Other times, the side-stepping was more obvious. He claims that some of the 9/11 hijackers that are still alive. If that's true, why didn't he travel over and interview one of them, especially since he has the name, job and country of some of them. Can't be that hard to track one of them down!. Again, it seems that he's relying on fellow conspiracy theorists for credibility and offering nothing irrefutable.
That aside, the large conspiracy theory probably falls to bits with Flight 93. I believe there is a fairly reasonable chance that the US shot it out of the sky and covered it up. This explains a lot of unusual aspects about the wreckage and sightings of military planes in the area.
But how does it fit with the grand conspiracy theory offered in this film? If the planes that were hijacked were not the same planes as the ones that hit the WTC or pentagon, and the WTC was brought down with demolition explosives, and the phone calls from the hijacked flights were fake, and (to use Dylan's words) it was carried out with "military precision", what exactly is the purpose of Flight 93 in all this? The conspirators were fully in control of the 9/11 events, so the obvious question then is: how did the flight 93 incident play a roll in September 11 since it did not reach its intended target. To believe the conspirators went to all that trouble to create a tale of American heroism doesn't really wash with me whatsoever. This point again seems to have been side-stepped.
Then there is the ultimate big picture question: what did September 11 achieve for Bush? If he was ultimately after Iraq, which is beyond dispute, then why put together this incredible plan together, then allow blame to fall towards radicals in Afghanistan? If Bush put it together, he would ensure that blame would fall at Iraq's door, wouldn't he?
And furthermore, it's one hell of a long bow to draw, if you want to argue that they planned to go into Iraq by first starting a mock war with Bin Ladan and Afghanistan and then allowing that to open the door to WMD accusations that would in turn justify (by the US standards) a war in Iraq. Oh and one more thing: in order to put that one together, you'd also need Sadam to ban weapons inspectors from doing their jobs, thereby convince him to provoke a war with the US which in turn would lead to his own death.
All that aside, a good watch, even though it severely lacks credibility and the narrator was a bit too irritatingly pompous and overly self-confident about his claims at times.
But with this particular documentary, the quality of the production is poor. It looks like it was mixed together on someone's home PC... with a bad microphone to record the narration. The music at times was a little bit odd, given the subject matter. I don't really like watching the WTC collapse to music I can dance to.
But in terms of actually putting together something intriguing and highly watchable, I give it a lot of marks. It's the kind of thing that you show to your friends and say "yeah... I don't really believe this one, but it's interesting viewing anyway!!!"
So... now the cinematic stuff is out of the way, let's get to the conspiracy theory itself. First of all, the overall theory was way too ambitious. I'd say a plan as elaborate as that would require thousands of people working for you, leaving yourself dramatically open to one (or more) of them "going public." This says nothing of the fact that such a conspiracy is way too open to error (like conducting controlled demolitions while the entire world's media has their cameras watching).
General opinion aside, there is an extreme lack of credibility and evidence that most will miss on the first viewing. If you watch it a second time, you'll notice how much that doco-maker relies heavily on highlight portions of articles and reports. I have little doubt that some of these "references" are from articles written by other 9/11-conspiracy theorists. For instance, if the WTC was demolished by demolition explosives and evidence of this can clearly be seen in the videos, let's have a demolition expert being interviewed and guiding us through the collapse with explanations that can be difficult to dispute. I don't like it when the documentary seems to pass himself off as an expert of all these sorts of things, thereby giving credibility to his own work (seemingly).
There are also things mentioned in passing raise obvious questions that are conveniently side-stepped by the doco-maker. Sometimes it was subtle. For example, he states that the hole in the pentagon was so small that it could not have been created by a passenger jet. Yet he also mentions that the side of the pentagon that was hit was built to withstand bombs and blasts. This raises the obvious question: couldn't the high strength and durability of that pentagon wall have limited the damage caused by the impact of the plane? This seems to explain why the hole is smaller, but is not discussed or dealt with.
Furthermore, when talking about the collapse of the WTC, he harps on about how fire can't cause a building to collapse. But then again, these buildings were hit by planes traveling at full speed and there's little doubt that the impact would have damaged the core support structures. But that point seems to have been side-stepped as well!
Other times, the side-stepping was more obvious. He claims that some of the 9/11 hijackers that are still alive. If that's true, why didn't he travel over and interview one of them, especially since he has the name, job and country of some of them. Can't be that hard to track one of them down!. Again, it seems that he's relying on fellow conspiracy theorists for credibility and offering nothing irrefutable.
That aside, the large conspiracy theory probably falls to bits with Flight 93. I believe there is a fairly reasonable chance that the US shot it out of the sky and covered it up. This explains a lot of unusual aspects about the wreckage and sightings of military planes in the area.
But how does it fit with the grand conspiracy theory offered in this film? If the planes that were hijacked were not the same planes as the ones that hit the WTC or pentagon, and the WTC was brought down with demolition explosives, and the phone calls from the hijacked flights were fake, and (to use Dylan's words) it was carried out with "military precision", what exactly is the purpose of Flight 93 in all this? The conspirators were fully in control of the 9/11 events, so the obvious question then is: how did the flight 93 incident play a roll in September 11 since it did not reach its intended target. To believe the conspirators went to all that trouble to create a tale of American heroism doesn't really wash with me whatsoever. This point again seems to have been side-stepped.
Then there is the ultimate big picture question: what did September 11 achieve for Bush? If he was ultimately after Iraq, which is beyond dispute, then why put together this incredible plan together, then allow blame to fall towards radicals in Afghanistan? If Bush put it together, he would ensure that blame would fall at Iraq's door, wouldn't he?
And furthermore, it's one hell of a long bow to draw, if you want to argue that they planned to go into Iraq by first starting a mock war with Bin Ladan and Afghanistan and then allowing that to open the door to WMD accusations that would in turn justify (by the US standards) a war in Iraq. Oh and one more thing: in order to put that one together, you'd also need Sadam to ban weapons inspectors from doing their jobs, thereby convince him to provoke a war with the US which in turn would lead to his own death.
All that aside, a good watch, even though it severely lacks credibility and the narrator was a bit too irritatingly pompous and overly self-confident about his claims at times.