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World Trade Center in popular culture

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The World Trade Center has been featured in numerous films, as well as made appearances in many television shows, cartoons, comic books, and computer/video games.

Movies

See also: Skyscrapers in film article and WTC in Movies website
  • The 1970 film Loving includes a walk through of the World Trade Center construction site.
  • The 1971 film The French Connection shows the still under construction WTC in the background during the unloading of the "drug car" in Brooklyn Heights.
  • The 1972 film The Hot Rock includes footage taken from a helicopter flying toward the World Trade Center, still under construction.
  • In the 1973 film version of the musical Godspell, the song "All For the Best" ends atop the newly-finished World Trade Center.
  • The 1978 blockbuster Superman: The Movie shows Superman and Lois Lane flying around Metropolis (which was filmed in New York) and passing by the Twin Towers numerous times. The towers would be seen as well in all Superman movie sequels including the poster for Superman II.
  • The 1978 film adaptation of the musical The Wiz uses the Twin Towers as the location of "The Wiz" in the Emerald City, and a musical number was shot in the plaza between the two towers.
  • In the 1981 film Escape from New York, the lead character lands a glider on the roof of the World Trade Center. As well as having a group of terrorists crash Air Force 1 into a different New York city building.
  • The 1982 made for television movie Mazes and Monsters includes a climactic scene at the top of the Twin Towers.
  • The 1983 film Trading Places includes an external shot of the towers (at the plaza level) where, presumably, the commodities trading floor featured in the climax of the film is located.
  • The 1985 film Wall Street, with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas, features the WTC in numerous scenes, especially the opening credits which has a number of sepia shots lingering on the towers
  • The poster for the 1987 Michael Keaton workplace comedy The Squeeze features Keaton sandwiched between the Twin Towers, as a hand squeezes them together.
  • The final scene of the 1987 film *batteries not included pans out from the Riley apartment, it is seen to sit between two towers of the proposed office development. These are the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and it's surrounding plaza.
  • The 1988 film Big Business as the movie jumps to the present, the slats of the nursery crib dissolve to feature the Twin Towers.
  • The 1989 film The Dream Team features Michael Keaton, playing a pathological liar, pointing out the trade center, saying,"You see those two towers? World Trade Center. I was an architect working on them. First they just wanted to build one but I said, 'Hey, fellas, we're here - What the hell, let's throw another one up'. Turned out pretty well, didn't it?"
  • The 1989 film Ghostbusters 2 features many New York cityscapes in which the WTC can be seen, including two very prominent shots. In one scene Dan Aykroyd's character Ray Stantz accidentally causes a blackout and the lights in all of New York City, including the WTC go out. Another notable shot is when Peter MacNicol's character Janosz Poha takes on the form of an old woman ghost and flies through the New York City skyline to steal a child as part of the chief villain's grand plan. The original Ghostbusters movies also contains a couple of shots with the World Trade Center in the background.
  • The 1989 film Back to the Future II features a view across New York harbour of the WTC towers in 2015 on the cable TV station "The Scenery Channel".
  • In the 1993 film Super Mario Bros., the Twin Towers become the "Koopa Towers" in the film's parallel dimension, which is a dinosaur-laden Manhattan run by antagonist King Koopa (Dennis Hopper). One of the towers features a sharpened top and both are adorned with Koopa's signature "K" symbol.
  • In the 1997 science fiction film Men in Black, the Twin Towers are in the background of the scene on the turnpike where the agents intercept the fleeing extraterrestrial family (one of whom gives birth). The finale of its 2002 sequel, Men in Black II, was set to take place atop one of the WTC buildings. Due to the tragic fate of the towers, however, this was modified prior to release.
  • The 1998 film The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, features the WTC in the background
  • The 1998 disaster film Deep Impact shows the massive tidal wave that destroys Manhattan pushing the towers up against each other.
  • According to his Oscar speech, Alan Ball was sitting at the World Trade Center plaza when he saw a paper bag floating in the wind and was inspired by it to write the film American Beauty (1999).
  • The 1999 film End of Days, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, featured the WTC in numerous scenes which panned across the New York skyline.
  • The 2000 film Little Nicky's poster and VHS/DVD covers show the World Trade Center in the background of Adam Sandler and Mr. Beefy (an English bulldog) sitting on a bench in Central Park.
  • In the 2000 film X-Men, the Twin Towers can briefly be seen at nighttime during the final fight between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants at the Statue of Liberty. It was more prominently featured on one the posters that was released for the film.
  • The 2001 film American Pie 2 features Shannon Elizabeth's character, Nadia, calling Jason Biggs' character, Jim, from a pay phone in New York City, with the towers in the background. In reality, the scene was shot in Los Angeles and the towers were digitally inserted in post-production. The film was released in August 2001, making American Pie 2 possibly the last major film showing the towers to be released prior to their destruction on September 11, 2001.
  • In the 2001 comedy Zoolander, the Twin Towers were digitally removed from one shot and obscured in another shot. Zoolander was released on September 28th, 2001, just mere weeks after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
  • In Spider-Man (2002), the towers receive a few cameos throughout the movie. This was probably the last time the Twin Towers were seen in any major movie post 9/11. The film's original trailer, which showed a web spun by Spider-Man between the two towers, had been withdrawn after the attacks.
  • The 2002 Spike Lee film 25th Hour directly incorporates the ruins of the Twin Towers. The opening credits are shown over views of the Tribute in Light, and one scene takes place at the apartment of Frank Slaughtery, which overlooks the site.
  • The end segments of the movie Vanilla Sky feature the Twin Towers still standing in the panoramic city background. This is plausible as the ending scene to this movie, it is revealed, is created from the lead character's memory. If he remembers the Twin Towers to still be standing, then they would still appear in the skyline.
  • The camera lingers on the Twin Towers at the beginning of a scene in 2002's "City by the Sea."
  • The first 9/11 dramatization, 2002's Stairwell: Trapped In The World Trade Center, showed a number of different shots of the towers. The footage was shot in 1999 and was originally going to be used in a movie about the 1993 bombing. The movie, entitled Hellevator, was shelved after the September 11 attacks.
  • Action star Jackie Chan was scheduled to film a movie that featured him as a window-washer who worked on The Twin Towers, but was forced to delay the start of the picture due to the filming of Rush Hour 2, released in July 2001. Had Rush Hour 2 not interfered, many believe Mr. Chan would have been filming the action/comedy, entitled Nosebleed, during the time of the attacks.
  • The towers are the focus of the last shot of Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich. A period film ending in 1973, the towers' presence serve as a reminder that the troubles in the Middle East depicted in the film had not ended by 2001, when the WTC was destroyed, or by 2005, when the movie was released.
  • In the poster for the 2006 film United 93, the Twin Towers can be seen just under the Statue of Liberty's crown burning in the background, as they were on 9/11, with a plane headed towards the towers.

Television

  • The 1985 series Blue Comet SPT Layzner had its second "Season" set in a post-apocalyptic New York, with landmarks such as the WTC, Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty being featured in brief glimpses.
  • The Twin Towers and the skyline of Lower Manhattan are seen in the opening credits of Mad About You (1992 - 1999). The entire series was filmed long before the 2001 terrorist attacks.
  • Several shots of the Twin Towers appear in the introduction for Friends over the first seven seasons (1994 - 2001).
  • The opening credits of the first three seasons of the HBO mob drama The Sopranos featured a shot of the World Trade Center as seen from the rear view mirror of Tony Soprano's SUV, as he enters the New Jersey Turnpike. In later seasons, after 9/11, the sequence was replaced with a new view of the Manhattan skyline in which the WTC is absent. Among the things Tony later discloses to his psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi as contributing to his depression is "this whole 9/11 thing".
  • The Twin Towers were seen in the opening credits for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 - present) for the first two seasons. After the attacks, they were replaced with generic shots of New York skyscrapers at the request of NBC.
  • The pilot of the TV series The Lone Gunmen, first aired March 4, 2001, had the gunmen thwarting a plot to fly a jet into the World Trade Center. In the episode, a faction of the U.S. government is behind the plot; they hope to blame the attack on another country's dictator and use it as an excuse to start a war with him. Transcript of pilot episode
  • The episode of Matlock entitled "The Game Show" features a shot of the Twin Towers at night towards the end of the opening credits.
  • In a 2005 episode of Lost the Twin Towers are seen out of the window of a New York solicitor's office. They were digitally inserted to show the time frame of then and the present day.

Cartoons and anime

  • In the 1985 cartoon MASK, an episode entitled "Attack on Liberty" leads Matt Trakker to Miles Mayhem's current hideout - 3/4 of the way up the side of the North Tower. Hovering the Thunderhawk outside the window, Matt leaps through the window and confronts Miles, who later escapes and is pursued by Matt around the Statue of Liberty.
  • In the 1997 episode of The Simpsons (season 9) entitled The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson, Homer is forced to deal with a mountain of parking tickets issued while his car sat illegally for months in the plaza of the WTC. Particular comic relief is provided when Homer, desperately needing to use the restroom, pushes people out of his way to get a ticket to the elevator into the towers and after pushing other people out of the elevator line to get to the elevator to ride to top of the North Tower only to discover the only working bathroom is in the South Tower, which he took the elevator for. You can see this because when Homer is going up the towers you can clearly hear the elevator rising and dinging at the top of both towers. Also in the episode, two men in opposite towers begin arguing with each other, which was tipped off after one proclaimed, "Sorry, they put all the jerks in Tower One." A man apparently residing a few floors above the brawling men (as evidenced by a clothesline strung across the towers) finally yells at them to shut up. This episode has rumored to have been banned from showing. However, some FOX affiliates continued to show the episode in syndication.
  • The New York City skyline, prominently featuring the World Trade Center is seen in the opening title shot for The Critic.
  • In the first episode of the 2001 fantasy anime OVA Read or Die, an aerial battle in Lower Manhattan which climaxes around the Statue of Liberty begins with a helicopter crash on the roof of one of the the WTC towers. They are also prominent in the establishing and background shots.
  • In the special episode "The Tower Country" of Kino no Tabi (2005) the plot revolves around a tower which collapses in a similar way as the first of the Twin Towers.

Comic books

  • In the 1989 Damage Control, the Twin Towers were damaged when a giant robot fell on them. Damage Control, a construction company that specialized in repairing superhero-related damage, had the towers repaired (although visibly crooked) by the end of the issue.
  • The 2004 comic Ex Machina detailed the life of Mitchell Hundred, formerly the world's first and only superhero, who was elected mayor of New York City in the wake of his saving hundreds of lives during the collapse of the North Tower, and in preventing the collapse of the South Tower.
  • Most of the Marvel Comics heroes reside in New York City, so views of the towers was not uncommon. Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) issue 36 showed the aftermath of the Tower's collapse through the eyes of the heroes, more specifically, Spider-Man's. Captain America (vol. 4) issue 1 had Steve Rogers arguing with Nick Fury when the former decided to stay and find survivors than head for Afghanistan.
  • Issues 1 and 2 of Valiant Comics's Game Boy comic series had two teenagers going through Manhattan Island, aiding Mario in resucing Princess Daisy from the villianous Tattanga, the story concluding at the Windows of the World resturant.
  • In the ALIENS:Outbreak Graphic Novel, Hicks and Newt escape from a mental hospital using "Jet Rescue technology". It was "developed after the World Trade Center Smoked in '24".

Computer and video games

  • The 1991 Arcade game King of Monsters features monsters fighting in different Destructable cities. Among them is New York City, where the Twin Towners can be Destroyed, even thrown at your enemy.
  • Streets of Rage, a game released in 1991 on the Sega Genesis features the Twin Towers in the background of the final boss battle, which apparently, occurs in World Trade Center 3 (otherwise known as the Vista Marriott). The towers can also be seen in Streets of Rage 2, in the second level, glowing in the background.
  • The 1994 action game Urban Strike, the third in the Strike series, features the scene of a giant laser deflecting from a satellite and hitting the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, thus marking the start of Mission 7, in which the player must accomplish three objectives before moving on to objective #4: rescuing 16 out of 20 NAFTA business leaders of the WTC (after hitting the radar building east of the WTC); and objective #5: disarming the time bomb in the South Tower (being careful not to cut either the green wire, as one of the members says, or the red wire). It is ironic that, although the game takes place in a fictional 2001 timeline when it was released in 1994, it would be seven years (marking the same number of the game's mission in New York City) before the actual year 2001 (i.e. September 11) would mark the damage of the Twin Towers not by a laser or time bomb, but by the planes crashing into the buildings, with its destruction rather than its survival (as in the game).
  • The 1999 city building simulation game SimCity 3000 features the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center as free landmarks which could be built in a city. However, both towers are apparently portrayed as the South Tower; each of the towers featured a rooftop observation deck, but lacked the massive antenna. As the 2003 sequel SimCity 4 no longer features the World Trade Center in the game, third party modders recreated the entire complex for the game, including 3, 4, 5 and 6 WTC, and the central plaza, and released the lot to the public on 11 September, 2004 in Simtropolis, a SimCity 4 fan site.
  • The first map of the 2000 game Deus Ex, set in 2052, encompasses Liberty Island and a bombed Statue of Liberty. The section of the New York City skyline containing the Twin Towers is absent, to reduce memory requirements for the map. The reason that the developers gave, if anyone asked, was that they had been destroyed by terrorists. "We just said that the towers had been destroyed too. And this was way before 9-11. Years. That's kind of freaky."[1]
  • Gundam Battle Assault 2 featured a view of a city in the opening monolouge of the story mode. The Twin Towers can been seen scrolling by, though one tower had a large addition to its side.
  • Shortly after the attacks, the now defunct Westwood Studios pulled all remaining copies of the 2000 real-time strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, whose box contained artwork of New York City under attack by invading Soviet forces; notable buildings depicted under attack included the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty. The single player campaign of the game also contains a pair of missions in which the player was instructed to destroy The Pentagon and capture the World Trade Center. Westwood retooled the box art before re-releasing the game.
  • In response to the tragic events of September 11th, Microsoft announced that future versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator would not include the Twin Towers in the game's New York City skyline. A patch was also made available to remove the WTC buildings from the existing versions of the simulator. More disturbing however was the speculation that the flight simulator found by the FBI on the laptop of the would-be 20th hijacker was indeed Microsoft's offering.
  • Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro (2001) depicted the tops of the Twin Towers as part of the final stage, with the large radio attenna as a crucial piece to defeat the final boss, Hyper-Electro. When the 9/11 attack occur, the game was pulled and rereleased, changing at least two stage titles and modifying the final stage to add a large bridge to it.
  • The 2004 video game Spider-Man 2, the game adaptation of the movie, had a virtual New York City that Spider-Man could swing around in. At one spot, there is a large bit of sidewalk with two sets of eight lights arranged in a square. At night, the lights would come on, representing where the World Trade Center had been.
  • The 2006 driving video game Driver: Parallel Lines features a replica of the World Trade Center complex in 1978 New York City. The complex is depicted lacking the Marriott World Trade Center hotel, as it was only completed in 1981; the complex also features The Sphere, a 1967 Fritz Koenig sculpture, near the middle of the complex. However, a road cuts through what was suppose to be the center of the complex plaza (possibly to compensate for the lack of roadway facing the complex's north edge, as the actaul WTC complex would otherwise). The complex is absent in the game's 2006 rendition of the city.

Music

  • The group Limp Bizkit feature the World Trade Center in their music video for the song "Rollin'" (2000). The band is shown on the South Tower, staging portions of the music video on its rooftop observation deck. The end of the video features a gradually distancing helicopter shot of the towers.
  • The back cover for the album "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" by the Bouncing Souls shows the Twin Towers, among other buildings, burning and being destroyed.[2] This album was released in May of 2001.
  • Rap group The Coup released an album in late 2001 called Party Music, whose original cover depicts explosions in the towers set off by a detonator. The cover was changed after the 9/11 attacks.
  • The cover of the Beastie Boys' sixth studio album, To the 5 Boroughs, is a drawing featuring the Twin Towers in a compressed New York skyline. [3] This album was released in 2004.
  • Dave Matthews Band was set to film a music video for their song "When the World Ends" from the album Everyday. The music video was supposed to feature lead singer Dave Matthews climbing a ladder to the top of a giant tower. The video idea and single were shelved after the 9/11 attacks and replaced by the more uplifting song "Everyday".
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