9/11 and "War of the Worlds"

I saw the new Spielberg flick "War of the Worlds" yesterday, and the allusions to 9/11 were rather obvious.

This morning, I see I'm not the only who saw this. Frank Rich:

"War of the Worlds" makes as many references to 9/11 as Mr. Bush did. The alien attack on America is the work of sleeper cells; the garments of the dead rain down on those fleeing urban apocalypse; poignant fliers are posted for The Missing.

There are actually more references-- the little girl keeps asking if the destruction was from "terrorists", there is the New York-Boston journey (the reverse of the Boston to New York flights on 9/11), the people running down the city street fleeing destruction, a plane crash and at the end, the specter of bioterrorism.

The plane crash was the most interesting allusion to 9/11 to me, in light of what happened at the Pentagon.

In "War of the Worlds", a Boeing 747-like plane crashes in a suburban neighborhood, and Spielberg recreates the crash in vivid detail. There are the huge engines on fire and still rotating, the broken fuselage and various and sundry pieces of debris. Most reminisicent to the Pentagon crash was the lime-green primer color on the inside of the debris fragments-- almost as if someone were paying homage to the official Pentagon story. But in contrast to the official Pentagon story was just HOW MUCH PLANE THERE WAS-- which makes all the more remarkable the essential disappearance of the plane wreckage at the Pentagon.

What do we know that survived the Pentagon crash? A few engine pieces, a landing gear, a wheel, a tire, some painted pieces of the fuselage, a door hatch of some kind and various odd mechanical fragments.

No parts of the wing, no tail parts, no fuselage parts, no seats were photographed. And neither were these seen by the first people at the fire scene.

So a huge 757 got almost completely shredded as it went into the Pentagon and exploded, leaving no large debris whatsoever?

I suppose, I suppose. But it is damn odd.