Before the September 11 2001 tragedy, there had been a trailer for the first Spiderman movie involving a web between the two towers:
I was reminded of this because I just finished reading Clive Cussler;s 2001 Dirk Pitt novel Valhalla Rising. Like most Cussler novels, it’s set a couple of years after its publication date – in this case 2003 – and the climax of the novel features an attack by terrorists on the World Trade Center, using a liquefied natural gas carrier. The book is still in print. But then, Raise the Titanic! is still in print, despite its differences between the fictional Titanic and the real one.
Dave Barry wrote in his book Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys (19955) about an acquaintance who played with pyrotechnics, and said that if he had been associated with the terrorists, it would now be the World Trade hole. Of course, he could not foresee the events of only six years later – he was referring to the failed attempt to bring down the towers with a bomb in a trailer in the underground parking garage in 1993 ( World Trade Center 1993 Bombing: NYC Marks 20th Anniversary Of Terrorist Attack (PHOTOS, VIDEO) | HuffPost New York ) . I don’t know if his book is still in print – I only see it in used bookstores, and all copies bear the 1995 printing copyright date alone, or the 1996 paperback reprint date. (There was a 2005 movie kinda based on the book. I haven’t seen it, but I’ll bet it doesn’t include this observation Complete Guide to Guys (2005) - IMDb )
The World Trade Center also appears in a future flooded Manhattan (and an even further future frozen Manhattan) in the 2001 movie A.I.
The creators couldn’t know what was in store, of course, in these pre-9/11 creations, but it’s weird to see an alternate future in which the towers live on.
Another sort of thing is post-9/11 movies in which the towers are re-created by CGI for stories set before 2001, such as Munich (2005) and Watchmen (2009)
The towers were a key element in MIB 2 as well - supposed to open and release scads of alien craft, or some such. The escape pod for K’s daughter was the Sphere sculpture that stood between them - if you look closely as it seals up around her, you can see the design.
Personally, this is the obvious one. I happened to be visiting the US during August 2001 and, as a Kubrick fan who’d followed the decade-long speculations over the script, I obviously leapt at the chance to see the film in the first week or so of its American release. Having returned to the UK, the film was released here in the week or so after 9/11, with every review inevitably latching on to that shot. I was the person who saw it “innocently”, then read all the reviews noting how its vision of the future had become instantly dated.
I’ve also quoted two other examples on the Dope in the past. The Australian-born art critic Robert Hughes made an excellent series for the BBC on the history of American art in 1997 called American Visions. One episode concluded with him declaring that Manhattan would become the “ground zero” of 20th century art in America. Unfortunately, they filmed the bit as him standing on the Jersey shore with the WTC in the background. Ouch.
Then, at some point, someone on US television made a Ken-Burns-style documentary about the Empire State Building. This was made prior to 9/11, but only screened on the BBC afterwards, necessitating a warning. The reason? It finished with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s account, now fairly well known for exactly its resonance, of going up the Empire State Building and, ultimately, fantasising about NY skyscrapers collapsing. Just a bit raw by the time it screened in the UK.
Dream Theater’s album Live Scenes from New York originally had a cover depicting the New York City skyline in flames, including the Statue of Liberty & the WTC.
The album was released on September 11, 2001. :eek: Needless to say, it was immediately recalled & replaced with new cover art.
The opening of the movie Working Girl shows Melanie and Joan (you know who they are, right) on the Staten Island Ferry going to work in Manhattan. Celebration, joy and despair captured in one mighty sweep of the New York harbor and skyline with the towers rising over the panorama. That’s the first ick . Then they get off the boat and go into them. God, Mel! How long did your character work there anyway. I haven’t seen the movie since then, but I have seen the opening a couple times and really can’t get past it.
Alternatively, the video game Deus Ex released in 2000 and set in the 2050s has the Twin Towers already missing from the Manhattan skyline. In the game, the Statue of Liberty had been damaged in a terrorist attack and one could have surmised that the WTC had been destroyed in the same attack.