New Oliver Stone 9/11 Film Introduces 'Single Plane' Theory
August 8, 2006
NEW YORK -- Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone said Monday that
his new film, World Trade Center, unveils "compelling and controversial"
new evidence that a single plane was responsible for all four collisions
in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Get ready to go through the looking glass here, people," Stone told
reporters at a Manhattan press conference before an advance screening of
the movie, which premieres Wednesday. "The film you are about to see is
going to blow the lid off the 9/11 Commission's official report and
expose a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of government."
World Trade Center, which stars Nicolas Cage as a dedicated Port
Authority officer who stumbles on secret evidence amid the rubble and
carnage of the terrorist attack, tells a story quite different from what
Stone called "the official government line" about the event. According
to the film, at 8:46 a.m., a lone commercial airliner flew diagonally
through the North Tower of the World Trade Center, maintained in a
circular holding pattern for approximately 17 minutes, then struck the
South Tower before heading to the Pentagon.
After its collision with the center of American military operations, the
so-called "magic plane"—which variously and ingeniously identified
itself to air-traffic controllers as "American Airlines Flight 11,"
"United Airlines Flight 175," "American Airlines Flight 77" and "United
Airlines Flight 93"—took to the skies once again, landing at a
top-secret "black-ops" Air Force base in West Virginia, where it was
reloaded with a group of clones from another shadowy government program
that Stone described as "shocking."
Stone, who said he did not have time to explore the clone angle in the
three-and-a-half-hour film, plans to do so in the sequel, September 12.
In a gripping sequence, undercover agents transmit pre-recorded
cell-phone messages intended to fool loved ones and relatives with a
false cover story as the aircraft heads to its final, prearranged crash
site in the fields of southwestern Pennsylvania.
Viewers of the advance screening agreed that the most striking and
pivotal scene was Cage's character's discovery of security-camera
footage that affirmed the single-plane theory. Showing his skeptical but
supportive wife the footage frame by frame, Cage notices that the
so-called "first" plane, which, according to official, whitewashed
reports, detonated upon impact with the North Tower in the initial
collision, actually banks "back and to the left, circling for about 17
minutes, and then diving into the other tower." He repeats the phrase
over and over in increasing intensity, toggling back and forth between
individual frames while the music swells and the emotional drama rises
to a fever pitch.
"After seeing that sequence, there's no way anyone can ever deny again
that there was only one plane in the airspace over the eastern seaboard
that morning," Stone said.
Early public reaction to the film has been skeptical. Many 9/11
conspiracy theorists claim Stone is presenting an exploitative,
far-fetched, and manipulative Hollywood version of the pain and
suffering—including eye strain and carpal tunnel syndrome—they have
undergone during their countless hours on the Internet in the tragedy's
aftermath.
Despite the controversy, Stone stands by his film. "This is a story that
needs to be told, in a reality that only I can bring to the big screen,"
Stone said. "I realize it will be hard to accept for those unable to
confront the truth, but I can't hide my head in the sand like some
goddamn ostrich. To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards
out of men."