The raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan has become a significant cultural moment for many Americans. In fact, the event has grown so fundamentally important that Kathryn Bigelow even painstakingly recreated it in her 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty. That said, it sounds like movies were even more essential to Bin Laden's final hiding place than we ever realized. In fact, the CIA has finally released more of the contents of his hard drives recovered after the assault, and it seems that the terrorist leader had some pretty weird movie downloads like Chicken Little, Antz, and much more.
In a new announcement, the CIA has finally revealed more of the contents of Osama Bin Laden's computer hard drives after the highly-publicized raid to take down the Al-Qaeda leader back in May 2011. Among the numerous files that were taken from his computers (many of which will remain withheld for national security reasons), the folks at the Central Intelligence Agency have revealed that Bin Laden had a treasure trove of animated movies on his computer as well, such as Antz, Chicken Little, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, and Cars. There were children present at the compound where Bin Laden was killed, so it's ultimately unclear as to who the movies were actually for at the time.
The terrorist leader even had an entry in the superhero genre as well. Specifically, he had a copy of Batman: Gotham Knight -- which was an anthology-style series of animated shorts designed to bridge the gap between the releases of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Given the sheer amount of post-9/11 influence on Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, the irony is hard to ignore.
Of course, Osama Bin Laden didn't just have animated films geared towards younger audiences on his computer. It was also announced that he had movies like The Three Musketeers, Resident Evil, and (you might not believe this) a documentary called Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? directed by Supersize Me filmmaker Morgan Spurlock. There was also pornography found at the time.
I guess it's not too surprising to learn that he had so many movies stored on his hard drive when the Navy SEALs arrived to take him down. After all, Osama Bin Laden was killed relatively close to the beginning of the boom of the streaming age with services like Netflix. In 2011, there probably wasn't much access to binge-able television and movies in the secluded Pakistani desert. The guy had to keep himself occupied, I suppose.
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