Death's Q Drops: Final Destination 2 and Post-9/11 Hysteria
There are no airplanes featured in Final Destination 2 . If it wasn’t a studio mandate, screenwriters had to be conscious of how sensitive America still was to onscreen plane crashes. A teaser for the upcoming Spiderman was already running in theatres before the attack, which involved the hero webbing up a helicopter between the Twin Towers. The studio pulled it instantly. The pilot of 24 featured a plane explosion, leading to a delay in its premiere and some editing. And Disney’s Lilo and Stitch had to undergo extensive reshoots to the climax; originally, Lilo hijacked a Boeing 747. Outside of Spike Lee’s 2002 film 25th Hour , any stark reminders about 9/11 were verboten. Nonetheless, the same way its predecessor managed to sidestep the larger pitfalls of the Columbine Massacre while still brushing against it, Final Destination 2 can’t help but feel plugged into post-9/11 hysteria and the world of hopeless conspiracy theories. The first film's events are ...
