The teaser trailer for Kathryn Bigelow's controversial Zero Dark Thirty hits the web

Before May 2, 2011, Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow was working on a movie about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. After May 2, 2011, she had to rework her movie a bit, because that manhunt officially ended when SEAL Team 6 tracked down their target and killed him. Then it was revealed that Bigelow got some help from the CIA, which no one minded at all. And then she was told that her movie, which depicts a successful mission by the current president and the military to find the world's most wanted terrorist -- and was set to be released in October -- might look like propaganda and influence the presidential election in November, so it is now being released in December. But here's an even more interesting piece of information about Zero Dark Thirty: Chris Pratt is in it. Parks and Recreation's Chris Pratt. That Chris Pratt.

'Zero Dark Thirty' trailer: Kathryn Bigelow hunts for Osama bin Laden [/Film]

• [unit_1421]

  I would have preferred getting him alive.

  • [Antonio Carrasco]

    He dropped a skyscraper on 3,000 working schmucks not unlike myself. No sympathy.

• [p1130]

  So they wont release the movie because it may influence the elections…

  But they’ll show the trailers anyway…

  • [factbased]

    Didn’t you hear? The Supreme Court says that influencing elections is no reason to restrict our beloved corporations.

• [Sign Ahead]

  Please tell me Chris Pratt plays an FBI agent.

• [Ian G]

  One of the things surprisingly under-reported in almost all stories about the killing of OBL is that the CIA put thousands if not millions of people’s lives around the world in danger by using doctors as agents to find him. Doctors have a humanitarian role that has for the most part remained above suspicion, but now terrorists, criminals and governments are seeing our use of them as spies as a threat, and blocking access to care. The Taliban has banned polio vaccinations and even shot a doctor who was providing them as a result of our use of doctors as spies, and now thousands will suffer. Not sure if our actions are a violation of international law or not, but someone should be held accountable for sure. Bet that’s not in this movie….

  • [Nathan Hornby]

    I can imagine many won’t like me saying this, but…

    It’s especially bad because killing Bin Laden can’t have done much anyway.  Won’t there be some other guy to step right into his shoes?  This isn’t toppling a dictatorship, it’s just removing a high-profile member of a loosely connected terrorist organisation.  I totally understand why we went after the bastard, but has killing him actually achieved anything?  Maybe it has, maybe it’s crushed moral, or something – anyone confirmed that terrorism has ended yet?

• [Trevor Walsh]

  Macklin, you son of a bitch…

• [soul68]

  So conservatives are crying like little babies about it because “their guy” didn’t finish the job, and they dont want the guy who did to get credit. 

  Boo.

  Hoo.

• [BookGuy]

  I suppose I can sorta-kinda see why they delayed it, but I still can’t convince myself that it makes sense.  Why would this have any more undue influence than slimy attack ads?  I’m sure Karl Rove would have made a full-length movie about a cowardly swift boat veteran if he’d come up with the idea.

  • [Nathan Hornby]

    Attack ads are explicit, so I’d treat those a little differently.

    But given the news media’s tendency to lie and distort the truth for political allegiances, wouldn’t they be a far more deserving target than Hollywood when it comes to third party propaganda, if this is a thing now?

• [Josh Bancroft]

  Chris Pratt damn well better be playing Burt Macklin, FBI. I refuse to see this film otherwise.

  Good day, sir.

• [Matthew]

  I’m sorry, but isn’t this the exact kind of thing the “Citizens United” ruling was supposed to allow?  So, this documentary (or whatever it is) is not allowed to show, but Super PACs can release ads saying “Obama smells” or “Romney looks funny” and it’s ok?  What’s going on?

  • [max00]

    The issue isn’t that a commercial company made a film that makes the president look good, the issue is that the administration and/or CIA helped the filmmaker with the film.

    Do you think the government should be involved in helping the President get re-elected?

    • [Jose]

      “Do you think the government should be involved in helping the President get re-elected?”

      No, but it worked for Dubya.

• [PRDiddy]

  The way Holder botched the other terror trials that he wanted to hold in NYC, there was no way that they were going to take him alive, even if he came out waving a white flag, they were putting one through his head regardless.  Good riddance.

• [franko]

  can we just recap just who “chris pratt” is, and why we should know or care?

  • [princessalex]

     Well, here’s his IMDb page:  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695435/

    As to why we should care . . . beats me. 

    • [Josh Bancroft]

      Chris Pratt plays the character Andy Dwyer on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. He’s a goofball, and occasionally assumes an alter ego of “Burt Macklin, FBI”.
      Being cast in a movie presumably full of government agents, one can only hope that his character will be an FBI agent.
      It would be humorous.

      • [franko]

        thank you.

  • [David Hall]

    can we just recap just who “chris pratt” is

    Ok, I’ll recap the story by quoting the story.

    Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt.

    https://www.google.com/search?q=park+and+recreation's+Chris+Platt

    • [franko]

      sorry, my fault — missed that. also, not being much of a TV watcher, i didn’t even realize that was a TV show on my first read of it.

• [z0phi3l]

  If it’s as “Accurate” as The Hurt Locker, then I don’t see how a piece of fantasy would have an affect on the Election.

  Then again a lot of people fell for that whole “Hope and Change” gimmick the went nowhere ,so maybe they are correct in delaying the movie

  • [David Hall]

    Unsubtle troll is unsubtle

• [Martyn Drake]

  Nah, this couldn’t be more controversial than, say, Oolon Colluphid’s Where God Went Wrong and his subsequent follow-up, Some More of God’s Greatest Mistakes.  It can’t be.