Spike Lee is headed back into the editing room amid criticism over his new documentary.
The filmmaker is set to re-edit the last episode of his upcoming HBO documentary series about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks after he sparked backlash for his decision to feature conspiracy theorists in it, The New York Times reports.
"Im Back In The Editing Room And Looking At The Eighth And Final Chapter Of NYC EPICENTERS 9/11➔2021½," Lee said. "I Respectfully Ask You To Hold Your Judgment Until You See The FINAL CUT."
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Lee didn't specify what changes he'll make. But according to The New York Times, the last episode of the series as shown to critics featured members of a conspiracy group who "push the debunked idea that the towers of the World Trade Center were brought down by a controlled demolition." After the Times questioned Lee on this choice in an interview, his answer added to the backlash, as he said he has "questions" about the official explanations of what occurred on Sept. 11 and floated several conspiracy theories.
"The amount of heat that it takes to make steel melt, that temperature's not reached," Lee claimed. "And then the juxtaposition of the way Building 7 fell to the ground — when you put it next to other building collapses that were demolitions, it's like you're looking at the same thing. But people going to make up their own mind."
After previewing the episode, Slate's Jeremy Stahl wrote that Lee "devotes 30 minutes near the very end of his series to relitigating arguments that have been debunked a thousand times," noting that three credible scientists are included to refute these claims, but writing that "this is a bit like presenting COVID-19 vaccine skeptics in a debate alongside Anthony Fauci, or Holocaust deniers alongside the Simon Wiesenthal Center, or a clique of climate change skeptics alongside the authors of the United Nations IPCC report."
