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View Full Version : Movie re-creating WTO chaos "Battle in Seattle"


JiminyCricket II
Dec 8, 2006, 10:29 PM
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003467371_wto08m.html

Riot act: Movie re-creating WTO chaos

By Nancy Bartley
Seattle Times staff reporter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2006/12/07/2003466945.jpg
Charlize Theron

Seattle police say this weekend's filming of a movie based on the 1999 WTO riots will have "minimal" impact on commuters and shoppers.

Of course, they said the same thing seven years ago before the anti-globalization protests erupted into full-scale, tear-gas-choked riots.

Not to worry. Even the small army of actors, plus 300 extras, technicians and others who will participate in the filming of "Battle in Seattle" won't approach the tens of thousands of protesters, police and National Guardsmen who turned Seattle streets into a war zone seven years ago. And the tear gas will be fake.

Nonetheless, there may be a strange sense of déjà vu when actors and extras dressed as sea turtles or cloaked in black with bandanas draped across their faces square off against actors and extras dressed as police officers in riot gear. Similar scenes have already been shot in Vancouver, B.C., where shooting began several weeks ago.

Filming will take place Saturday and Sunday, closing several streets.

"Battle in Seattle" will star Academy Award winner Charlize Theron and was written and is being directed by her boyfriend, Irish actor Stuart Townsend. According to the Internet Movie Data Base (imdb.com), other stars include actors Susan Sarandon, Ray Liotta, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez and Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 from the hip-hop group Outkast.

Jim McKeown of Insight Films, a Vancouver company producing the film with Proud Mary Entertainment, said the movie will draw from the perspectives of many characters — a mother who loses her child in the riots (Theron), a doctor, police officers (including Harrelson) and protesters. Some protesters who took part in the WTO riots have been hired as extras and asked to dress like they did seven years ago, said Aaron Jacobs, owner of Reel Extras.

"Battle in Seattle" is "a story about the circumstances ... of an event that brings issues to eyes and ears of a local community," McKeown said.

The film will recreate the five days of protests that greeted the World Trade Organization's first ministerial meeting in the U.S., when 50,000 protesters — far more than police or then-Mayor Paul Schell ever dreamed — jammed downtown streets. The WTO ministers were trapped inside hotels as self-described anarchists dressed in black smashed store windows. The police response included copious amounts of tear gas and pepper spray ("freshly ground pepper spray" because, after all, it was Seattle, comedian Jay Leno joked at the time) and the entire city ended up under martial law.

Townsend researched many points of view of the WTO debacle that hastened the end of the careers of Schell and Police Chief Norm Stamper. While it does not appear from the cast list that an actor will portray Stamper in the movie, Liotta will play a character named Mayor Jim Tobin. Actors Harrelson and Channing Tatum play riot cops.

Townsend told the Vancouver Sun he will consider the independent, $10 million film a success if it sparks new discussion on the WTO and points of view expressed during the five days of chaos.

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times news researcher David Turim contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2006/12/08/2003468024.gif

Skian
Dec 8, 2006, 10:42 PM
Well, with all those lib actors I can guess what point of view they will follow.

Back then I lived in Lower Queen Anne and I remember it well. My cousin from Toronto was staying with me and covering the confrence (he had a press pass). Every morning I would give him a ride, through the barricades, to the convention center. I got to see the burning dumpsters, destroyed private ( and Public) property, and graffiti. Every night I heard the explosion of tear gas grenades.

These unemployed left-wing radicals weren't heros or patriots. They are criminals with no regard for others.

zilfondel
Dec 9, 2006, 12:15 AM
My friend still has pieces of the NIKETOWN sign that he tore off. :D

My other friend was shot with rubber bullets!

northface
Dec 9, 2006, 12:17 AM
^ good they deserved it.

JiminyCricket II
Dec 9, 2006, 12:17 AM
the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful, it was just a handful of anarchist(who, on most accounts, are extreme libertarians) who ruined it. it wasn't the "liberals" at all. the police got out of hand too and escalated the situation.

bgwah
Dec 9, 2006, 12:23 AM
the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful, it was just a handful of anarchist(who, on most accounts, are extreme libertarians) who ruined it. it wasn't the "liberals" at all. the police got out of hand too and escalated the situation.

Yes, a couple dozen people dressed in black and tens of thousands of peaceful protesters are criminals? Hahaha.

Still, it is great how the police let that small group of people wreak havok... Just long enough until an adequate amount of video had reached the media, just long enough so they could send the police in to silence the rest of the peaceful protesters and make it look justified.

And national gaurdsmen? Hopefully there are enough actually left in Washington in case there is a large earthquake!

Skian
Dec 9, 2006, 12:37 AM
The city made the police stand down until all hell broke loose, then it was too late.

Before the confrence even started, the city & and police met with protest leaders to avoid problems. The city laid out where the police were going to be and what they were allowed to do. The protest leaders used that information to wreck havoc. They also pre stationed lawyers at the sand point processing center that told all the arrested protesters to not answer and police questions (even their names) so the system (that protest organizers helped set up) would collapse.

Most of the "peacefull" protesters were criminals. They blocked intersections and failed to disperse when police ordered them to.

zilfondel
Dec 9, 2006, 12:37 AM
Well, I don't know. I would hate to be a reporter who gets 3 rubber bullets across the chest and sprayed in the face because you were there for the school newspaper coverage.

Black Box
Dec 9, 2006, 7:45 AM
I was living in Minneapolis at the time. A group of friends from Seattle rode the train out to visit and they were still coughing from the gas. They were peaceful protesters. I hope it's a decent flick.

James Bond Agent 007
Dec 9, 2006, 7:53 AM
Note to self: Stay away from downtown the next 2 days.

Black Box
Dec 9, 2006, 7:58 AM
Uh, I have to go downtown tomorrow to do some shopping and to attend several holiday parties. Guess I'll just have to deal with it, my patience are intact. Everyone, go downtown tomorrow and for all y'all photographers, snap up some good pictures for the rest of us.

James Bond Agent 007
Dec 9, 2006, 8:06 AM
^
Maybe if you're in the right place at the right time, you'll get a cameo appearance in the movie! :banana:

herb
Dec 9, 2006, 9:13 AM
The city made the police stand down until all hell broke loose, then it was too late.

Before the confrence even started, the city & and police met with protest leaders to avoid problems. The city laid out where the police were going to be and what they were allowed to do. The protest leaders used that information to wreck havoc. They also pre stationed lawyers at the sand point processing center that told all the arrested protesters to not answer and police questions (even their names) so the system (that protest organizers helped set up) would collapse.

Most of the "peacefull" protesters were criminals. They blocked intersections and failed to disperse when police ordered them to.

Many of these "criminals" were practicing something called civil disobedience. Criminals like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi also practiced civil disobedience. It's usually the tactic of last resort employed by people marginalized or excluded entirely from a decision making process. The WTO was at that time and still is an undemocratic, unaccountable institution with the power to challenge laws of sovereign member nations (Like ours), and punish uncooperative nations with fines and sanctions. Many people feel profoundly threatened by such an organization and hundreds if not thousands traveled from around the country and world to help disrupt it. They were joined by thousands of gainfully employed locals (myself included) and at one point some odd 40,000 union members who marched through downtown in support.

The organizers of the ministerial apparently did not anticipate this response. The police researched and planned but were woefully unprepared for the scale of what took place (and typically took the fall for everyone's collective inability to see into the future). Many protesters were highly organized and disciplined, planning ahead with officials and police, but many were not. To imagine that somebody was in charge or leading the demonstrators is to fundamentally misunderstand what took place that week. The WTO itself compelled this rather diverse group of people to travel to/within Seattle to oppose it. This same sort of attention follows the WTO wherever it goes, whereas Seattle has been pretty peaceful since it left.

Nutterbug
Dec 9, 2006, 9:25 AM
How exciting can a movie about a riot be.

I mean it's not like anybody even died in it, did they?

Black Box
Dec 9, 2006, 8:23 PM
Well, I think that it has more to do with the fact that this was the first time that there was such a large, organized demonstration against the WTO and the modern day brand of globalism that we're all experiencing at varying degrees. Like, for instance, shooting movies in Canada because it is economically beneficial to the powers that be and today's Hollywood is so bad that they need to worry about pinching all those pennies, or whatever, but it has something to do with the globalism. Whoa, I feel like I've gone back to the 90's and started caring.

Dr. Smoke
Dec 9, 2006, 8:52 PM
God, she is a doll... :skyscraper:

How did Stuart ever get so lucky?

PacificNW
Dec 9, 2006, 9:18 PM
If I remember correctly the WTO summits have always had a history of "organized demonstrations" (Many more violent than the one in Seattle). Seattle should have been better prepared, and just maybe, the demonstrations would have not gotten out of hand. The Mayor, and other city officials, were not prepared for the worst that could have happened. It was a mind opening experience for Seattle's welcome to the "World Stage". It had, and has, a huge desire to become a International/world class city. In a sense Seattle lost it's innocence during that summit. That summit, along with the Fat Tuesday tragedy, cost the mayor his job the next election.

Now many of these volatile summits have been held in places/retreats where it is difficult for large groups of demonstrators to gather.

seaskyfan
Dec 9, 2006, 9:24 PM
I was just Downtown and the traffic didn't seem bad at all.

I can't imagine the WTO making a good movie - I keep thinking it will be like "Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace" only with more exposition about globalism.

Snore.

Hoodrat
Dec 10, 2006, 3:15 AM
I remember being at that Jack in the Box on Broadway one of the nights of WTO protest...around 6PM or so...anyway, we watched a group of Anarchists (I can only assume) march up Pine Street and then went north on Broadway. They were setting fire to all sorts of things. Following them were the SPD donning these gas masks and looking like stormtroopers.

At that point, the JITB manager locked the door. I don't remember being particularly alarmed...we just sat there and grubbed on shitty fast food, watching the events unfold outside. It was definately a surreal moment. 40 minutes later the doors were unlocked, and we walked back home (I was living at 10th & Jefferson at that time, next to Seattle U).

MrMetropolitan
Dec 10, 2006, 4:38 AM
It's a shame it ever happened. Free trade has done so much for the poor of this world alongside the rich that it's not even fathomable. The quality of life in countries that are open to free trade have grown massively. Those who feel that the WTO is wrong should really take an International Economics course and see the great things that trade beyond our borders has done for us.

As for the movie, I don't think I could stomach it.

Dr. Smoke
Dec 10, 2006, 2:51 PM
Well my degrees are in Finance and Political Economics, and I know something about it, as I made my fortune in the '90's. Somehow, MrMetropolitan is unaware of the damage that this new free trade has done to our own nation.

Among the tax cuts of 2000 were incentives that actually encouraged the outsourcing of our quality jobs to other nations, like India and Red China! Encouraged it! So a $50,000/yr job is outsourced to India where it pays $10,000/yr. Oh yes, it is wonderful for Indians, but that American must now take a $30,000/yr job (http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm) which doesn't pay his bills. Treasonous, of Republicans (http://www.filmstripinternational.com/).

OK, so cheaper labor costs mean cheaper goods here, but when workers here can no longer afford to buy those goods, what good has been done?

Let me say it in simpler terms: The American economy is like a large pie, with dollars flowing around and productivity growing the pie larger. But with every dollar we send to Saudi for oil, and with every Japanese car we buy, and with every job we ship to Red China, we are shrinking the size of our pie, and reducing the dollars circulating in our own economy, which lubricate it and create jobs.

We are shipping these dollars overseas for consumptive reasons, rather than for investment, and so we are giving away the Crown Jewels. We as a nation are behaving like an addict, giving away chunks of ourselves just to feel good one more day.

Our $9 TRILLION national debt is now unpayable. If you divide $9tt by the US population, you will find that each man, woman, and child owes $30,000 for the national debt! Unpayable, considering that 80% of new jobs created in the past 5 years pay less than $11.50/hour. And Republicans have racked up 84% of that national debt!! You know, the Borrow-And-Spend party? If you think that it is not taxpayers who pay the national debt, please tell us who does? Leprechauns with fairy dust? I realize that most people won't believe this, but within ten years we will be enslaved as debtor nation to Japan, Red China, Europe, and India. They will stand over us, as we did with Latin America for decades.


This is why I am a Secessionist. Red States and Blue States' outlooks are now irreconcilable (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/07/blue_state_to_reds/), and Blue States have been completely shut out of the national process (http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen/1) for 12 years. So it is time that Blue States secede, and make a new nation which actually respects the US Constitution and doesn't bypass it, and one which manages our finances in a fiscally-responsible manner. This includes significant investment into alternative energy. We need to save ourselves (http://www.alternet.org/story/33958/), by disavowing this unpayable national debt, which we had no say in creating. Bill Clinton can be our first president, and we will use the best and most effective democratic socialist systems developed by European nations for universal healthcare (http://dll.umaine.edu/ble/U.S. HCweb.pdf), free university for the deserving, and a dignified retirement for our seniors. Let the Red States create as retrograde a Thunderdome as they like, although we must build 20' concrete walls along our border, to keep them out when they realize what they have done.

Black Box
Dec 10, 2006, 9:48 PM
If I remember correctly the WTO summits have always had a history of "organized demonstrations" (Many more violent than the one in Seattle). Seattle should have been better prepared, and just maybe, the demonstrations would have not gotten out of hand. The Mayor, and other city officials, were not prepared for the worst that could have happened. It was a mind opening experience for Seattle's welcome to the "World Stage". It had, and has, a huge desire to become a International/world class city. In a sense Seattle lost it's innocence during that summit. That summit, along with the Fat Tuesday tragedy, cost the mayor his job the next election.

Now many of these volatile summits have been held in places/retreats where it is difficult for large groups of demonstrators to gather.

Indeed, there were past organized demonstrations held against the WTO, which took on most of the functions of the GATT, a relic of the late 20th Century. I do not recall any that were as violent or dramatic, but the events in Seattle are considered monumental enough to make a movie about it. I am skeptical about how they will tell the story, I don't get out to see the big movies much. Had nothing happened, the Doha round would have been named the Seattle round, but considering what happened, the WTO did not want to be reminded of what took place in Seattle and for future meetings, yes, they did decide to keep a lower profile, hoping to avoid public scrutiny. My opinions of Hollywood aside, I do think that Seattle is an international fishing village.

MrVandelay
Dec 11, 2006, 7:34 AM
I just hope that the movie doesn't glamourize or honor the protestors that did damaged to our city. Obviously there was a large number of protestors who were not apart of that, but unfortunately there wouldn't be a 'movie story' featuring those people.

Another silly incorrect note about the movie. I saw a news clip of the filming of the WTO reenactment, and some of the 'WTO protestors' were supposedly wearing George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice costumes. Forgive my squirrely ignorance, but didn't WTO riots occur in 1999, 2 years prior to them taking office??? :haha:

Nutterbug
Dec 11, 2006, 9:13 AM
the vast majority of the protesters were peaceful, it was just a handful of anarchist(who, on most accounts, are extreme libertarians) who ruined it.

I thought libertarians were all for unimpeded cross-border trade.

Dr. Smoke
Dec 11, 2006, 3:09 PM
I can't imagine the WTO making a good movie - I keep thinking it will be like "Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace" only with more exposition about globalism.

Snore.
Not actually the WTO making it. If I am not mistaken, it is Charlise's production company making it, funding her boyfriend Stuart (who has obviously sold his soul to the Devil, to be so lucky). She is very bright and has a level head, so I am optimistic that this movie will show that a certain faction caused the problems, but that the vast majority there were making a very valid and important point. I think this could be an important movie, like North Country.

I am sure the Bush/Cheney costumes were on non-participants in the movie; I am confident that she wouldn't make a mistake like that.

seaskyfan
Dec 12, 2006, 3:20 AM
Not actually the WTO making it. If I am not mistaken, it is Charlise's production company making it, funding her boyfriend Stuart (who has obviously sold his soul to the Devil, to be so lucky). She is very bright and has a level head, so I am optimistic that this movie will show that a certain faction caused the problems, but that the vast majority there were making a very valid and important point. I think this could be an important movie, like North Country.

I am sure the Bush/Cheney costumes were on non-participants in the movie; I am confident that she wouldn't make a mistake like that.

I meant the WTO as movie subject, not producer. Sorry for the imprecise language.

uwhuskies
Dec 12, 2006, 7:17 AM
:shrug:

By the way, how do anarchists promote skyscraper development? Don't anarchists hate development and more at home with the Uni-bomber?

I love skyscrapers--put this political crap on another website!

:whip:

James Bond Agent 007
Dec 12, 2006, 7:44 AM
I love skyscrapers--put this political crap on another website!

:whip:
What he said.

Urban Zombie
Dec 12, 2006, 7:57 AM
How exciting can a movie about a riot be.


It can't be...that's why I'm sure they'll have Charlize Theron running round naked for 3/4 of the movie as a well as a clan of Scots with blue face paint on horse back stomping through the crowd and severing heads. Otherwise, America's Britney Spears generation of movie goers who are too young to remember this incident won't be interested.

All I have to say is....Christ has it been 7 years already? Aaahh...the good ole college days. I remember skipping class that day as I was curious to go DT and watch the inevitable spectacle unfold firsthand(in addition several of my profs encouraged us to be there), but I came down with a bad case of nihilism at the last moment and ended up getting drunk with some friends and watching all of the drama from the comfort of my television. That was actually quite a fun day for me.

Dr. Smoke
Dec 12, 2006, 2:57 PM
:shrug:
By the way, how do anarchists promote skyscraper development? Don't anarchists hate development and more at home with the Uni-bomber?
I guess I haven't said it clearly enough.

This is about very large economic issues, which threaten the health of this nation, which some people recognize, and others don't.

This about trying to open some eyes, to things that could hurt building skyscrapers, and it is about trying to save this nation, although some eyes will never be opened, no matter the facts of the matter.

These issues are so frightening to some, that they can't face them, and they do not want to accept the blame, which is rightfully theirs.

uwhuskies
Dec 12, 2006, 7:02 PM
I guess I haven't said it clearly enough.

This is about very large economic issues, which threaten the health of this nation, which some people recognize, and others don't.

This about trying to open some eyes, to things that could hurt building skyscrapers, and it is about trying to save this nation, although some eyes will never be opened, no matter the facts of the matter.

These issues are so frightening to some, that they can't face them, and they do not want to accept the blame, which is rightfully theirs.

Can you prove that a MOVIE about a anti-business riot in Seattle is going to "hurt building" skyscrapers? Sound like an interesting premise, abeit an unproven premise that should NOT be allowed in a forum dedicated to skyscrapers. Maybe you should try another forum where the merits of Western colonialization are also addressed.:rolleyes:

Dr. Smoke
Dec 12, 2006, 7:14 PM
Seems like either you'd missed my post on the first page of this thread, or you prefer denial, as I noted in my post above.

'Nuff said. I am not going to argue. The facts are there, and facts is facts.