{"id":11817,"date":"2011-05-05T02:42:59","date_gmt":"2011-05-05T01:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=11817"},"modified":"2011-05-05T03:01:11","modified_gmt":"2011-05-05T02:01:11","slug":"the-seige-911-and-the-death-of-bin-laden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/05\/05\/the-seige-911-and-the-death-of-bin-laden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Seige and 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The death of Osama bin Laden<\/a> marks a watershed moment in modern history, but why does a movie from 1998 still retain an eerie relevance?<\/p>\n

When the attacks of September 11th, 2001<\/a> happened many people remarked that what they were seeing unfold<\/a> ‘looked like a movie’.<\/p>\n

Part of the reason was that the only images shocked viewers could compare them to were scenes of fictional destruction from various disaster movies of the 1990s.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/param><\/object> <\/p>\n
Escaping the Explosions<\/a>
Independence Day<\/a> at MOVIECLIPS.com<\/a><\/div>\n

Films such as Independence Day<\/a> (1996), Deep Impact<\/a> (1998) and Armageddon<\/a> (1998) imagined fantastical scenarios where iconic symbols of American power, such as the White House, were spectacularly destroyed by aliens or asteroids.<\/p>\n

But by far the most prescient film of this era was The Siege<\/a> (1998), a drama which imagined a scenario where New York is hit by a wave of terror attacks after an elusive, Islamic radical is captured by the US military.<\/p>\n

Directed by Ed Zwick<\/a>, it explored the dilemas facing an FBI special agent (Denzel Washington), a CIA agent (Annette Benning) and an army general (Bruce Willis) as martial law is declared in a major American city.<\/p>\n