We've lost a lot because of the terror attacks of September 11th.  Thousands of lives; our sense of safety and security; odd little bits of the Constitution which seem to have fallen off and are yet to be located.  Some would even argue that in a very profound way, we have lost our soul.  But perhaps no loss is as incalculable, as tragic, as utterly horrifying as...Forrest Gump 2.

Yes, according to screenwriter Eric Roth, who won an Oscar for his script to the feel-mawkish movie of 1994, he turned in a treatment for a sequel to the tale of a Zelig-like dullard -- which was meant to pick up immediately where the first movie left off, with Gump seated on a park bench eating drugstore candy and dispensing chain-restaurant-menu-ready platitudes -- on 09/10/2001.  The events of the next day led to some serious soul-searching by star Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis, who decided that "the world had changed" and "we don't think this is relevant anymore", as if it had been before a handful of maniacs flew planes into some buildings.  Says Roth today, "Maybe some things should just be one thing and left as they are."  You'll never make it in today's Hollywood with that attitude, young man!

Not only do we now know the degree to which the terrorists truly damaged America, by depriving themselves of the right to hear an overrated actor mouth two more hours worth of wise-fool cliches, but we know that among the victims were Zemeckis and Roth, who had to find some other way to make a hundred million dollars, and, of course, Gump author Winston Groom, who was screwed out of the sequel money the same way he was screwed out of money for the original. Hollywood's sense of self-importance, fortunately, survived uninjured.

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