What surprised me most at the time was the line of questioning of more or less all of the audience members. Against a background of shock and befuddlement that this had happened to an essentially benign US by an unknown extra national entity, the main question that followed was as to why the US was hated that much. It was simply incomprehensible to the audience. There appeared to be no awareness of the trouble brewing outside the country, even though the US government was engaged in one way or another.
Watching through this portal I was struck by how little the average American was aware of the real politics that existed in foreign policy terms visa vi the US. I thought at the time that the US would have a very difficult time developing a viable strategic response when the general population either misunderstood or simply hasn't any perspective at all on the place of the US in geopolitical terms. Observe George W Bush confusing Austria and Australia.
It was a massive shock, and the following response against an unknown enemy is partly based in that lack of perspective I'd say.
It may help, if this is at all right, to inform and educate the citizenry of these geopolitical nuances. Perhaps then some change to this general idea of 'terrorism' might occur in the public psyche, and as a consequence, expectations of viable strategy. But it's a tough ask. In lieu of that I'd expect a continuation of the dragnet.
Anyways, only underrated because expectations of Spielberg are deservedly high.
As a guy who has never set foot in the States I found it strange when I first heard Dakota Fanning asking Tom Cruise "Is that the terrorists?" in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" (when an airplane falls over the house they're in), I was asking to myself "why does the Americans' first instinct in case of unknown danger focus on terrorists?".
And talking about "the eye of Sauron", there is of course this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kytDzjuBGJI , which still gives me the chills. An under-estimated movie, IMHO.