Young filmmakers Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe and Jason Bermas created the film Loose Change, which challenges the central dogma of the official story of 9/11. Loose Change covers a great deal of material, moving from one point to another in rapid succession. It presents a long list of claims supporting the conclusion that 9/11 was engineered by insiders, but does so with a mixture of strong and flawed arguments.

The film has become a phenomenon in much the same way that programs like Unsolved Mysteries, X-Files, and The Davinci Code have: it appeals more to emotion than intellect with dramatic narration that taps into the public's anger about being lied to by the media and the Bush administration. Loose Change has recruited an enthusiastic following, many of whom are vehemently opposed to even constructive criticism of the film. In contrast, the filmmakers appear to be willing listen to criticisms. This was evident at the time of this critique's creation from the fact that the Second Edition dropped some of the erroneous claims featured in the film's first version, such as the pod theory, and became more apparent with the thorough re-working of the film to create the Final Cut version, which corrects many of the errors and flagged by this critque.

Because of its flaws, Second Edition presented an easy target for debunkers defending the official story that the attack was the work of Islamic fundamentalists. One example is the the very detailed debunking of the entire video entitled 9-11 Loose Change Second Edition Viewer Guide: And debunking of various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, many people -- perhaps a vast majority of Americans -- are likely to dismiss the film's vitally important conclusions because of the many errors it makes along the way. Not surprisingly, Second Edition has been exploited by apologists for the official story to reinforce the stereotype that has long been used to by the mainstream to media to bludgeon the 9/11 Truth Movement: that all challenges to the official story are the product of irrational "conspiracy theorists."

This review critiques Second Edition by inserting comments after each point in the transcript. It is beyond the scope of this critique to examine what the film does not address. For example, despite its considerable breadth, Loose Change manages to miss many of the starkest anomalies of the official story, such as the total failure of the air defense network and the thorough blasting of the Twin Towers to dust and metallic fragments.

We provide the 9-11 Research Companion to Loose Change 2nd Edition to foster an understanding that, despite its many errors, the film raises questions that urgently demand serious scrutiny. We look to achieve three major objectives:

• To help separate substantial claims about the attack from ones without merit
• To provide additional resources for readers to explore issues raised by the film
• To help the producers of Loose Change to make better future versions of their film