I'm unclear as to exactly how many clients Adventure Consulting had on the fateful climb. By my count, it was only Doug and Beck, the rest of the guys seemed to be guides of some sort. Its can't be terribly profitable with only two clients.
Jake Gyllenhaal's outfit had three clients, I'm guessing.
This is one big problem with the film, its really hard to tell who's who, and in what capacity they're there.
I'm unclear as to exactly how many clients Adventure Consulting had on the fateful climb.
Awesome, thanks!
After the fact, it seems that Beck and Doug Hanson should have turned back or been more forcefully turned back at some point. Maybe Rob Hall might have made it to safety if this happened?
I've read "Into Thin Air" - John K. and "The Climb" Anatouli B.
As far as Beck, and being it's been years since I read the books, Beck didn't continue to push for summit but there is debate over what, indeed he was told to do.
In the movie Rob tells him if he can't get up and keep pushing after a half hour, he is to wait for a Sherpa which Rob says he will send back.
Again, in the movie, Beck then has members from his team pass him because they have decided they cannot summit by the deadline. They tell Beck to come with them but he says Rob said to wait for him, specifically.
If I remember, even in the books, mis-communication or misunderstandings over directions were one of many direct causes of the confusion on the mountain that day.
Beck probably should have gone with his team members when they asked him. However, I can't totally fault him if he thought he heard certain directions from the #1 in charge, Rob, and so he figured he'd do exactly what Rob told him. (maybe Beck was right about what he heard, who knows)
YES definitely, Rob should have turned Doug around. I don't know if he did not because he felt bad that Doug was not going to summit a 2nd time and couldn't afford a 3rd, or if he felt pressure that the IMAX crew was there following the story ... maybe both.
Either way, he obviously paid the ultimate cost for that mistake. Obviously he didn't do this intentionally but he also cost the life of Andy Harris by not turning Doug around when he should have.
Summit deadlines exist for a reason, Rob knew this, he just didn't anticipate the big storm but he should have followed his own rules and deadlines. Period. It's so sad. I knew what was coming having read the books but I still was hoping, somewhere in my heart, the end would be different.
I don't know if he did not because he felt bad that Doug was not going to summit a 2nd time and couldn't afford a 3rd, or if he felt pressure that the IMAX crew was there following the story ... maybe both.
In this film, the conversation between Rob and Doug is speculation, at best. No one knows what they said to each other, whether or not Doug "pleaded," whether Rob honestly thought Doug would be OK, or what.
We do know from guide Mike Groom, who saw Rob and Doug talking, that Rob signaled to him, Mike, that everything was OK. Did Rob actually think so? We will never know.
As for Beck, the problem was that he was losing his vision (3-D vision first, so he couldn't safely navigate the ropes with no depth perception). Rob apparently -- and we have no reason to doubt this - told Beck to wait there at the Balcony, until he, Rob, came back and could short rope him and help him down. Beck told this to Lou Kasischke and John Taske when they went by, so they substantiate that this was what he was apparently told by Rob. As Beck said, it never, ever, occurred to him that Rob was never coming back. He would have been an impediment to Lou and John going down, as he couldn't see well enough.
Certainly, Doug should have been turned back, but we can only guess at Rob's thinking as no one was privy to it.
You would really enjoy, I think, the Frontline documentary made by David Breashears that has interviews with many (most) of the key players who survived. It's very well done, and you can see it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ5olbdXd10
PBS has a lot of interesting stuff on the website for this program, including survivor stories and discussions about ethics etc. Stories from Lou, John and others were quite illuminating, as were the comments from participants on the lives after Everest.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/stories/
Excellent post, I agree with all you wrote, having read both books myself years ago, and seen the IMAX and other films on it.
One other aspect we'll never exactly know, is the condition and availability of oxygen Rob's team had cached below the south summit, and how Andy Harris was doing and how easily he got to Rob and Doug, and his fate. This is even confusing in the film, and maybe purposfully so.
One could speculate that Rob did feel a lot of pressure to get Doug to the top this time, and since Doug was one of his more experienced clients, he hoped he could hightail it down, meet up with Andy who should have had extra oxygen bottles, and they could haul Doug down to safety. But Harris reported over the radio that the all the bottles were empty. Either Harris was completely misjuduing them, or he wasn't at the actual oxygen cache and looking at discarded empty bottles in another area and a bit lost. No one knows for certain. He apparently did slowly ascend to Rob and Doug, but during some point after that vanished, likely falling off the mountain. Only his jacket and ice axe were found nearby, leading to the speculation he was severely hypoxic and hypothermic, unclipped from any lines, took his jacket off (strange, but common to this condition) and tried to just "walk" down the steep face off the mountain. But no one knows for certain.
Not many mention Harris, but he too used questionable judgment that week. He came to the mountain extremely fit, and in this prime of his physical life at 31, but he also suffered serious GI problems in the days before they got to camp, and was hit and injured by a boulder on the way up. He did however make a heroic attempt though to save Rob and Doug right in the maw of the storm, and it cost him his life.
I have to agree that unless you are already very familiar with the story and people involved then it is tough to sort out who is who. I think that was one of the reasons I didn't like the film as much as I wanted to, it just wasn't clear what the relationships were and I think that may have decreased my ability to care what was going on or feel overly emotional about things. It was a mass of bearded dudes who seemed to like and dislike each other for various reasons but it was never quite clear to me how they related to each other. Maybe I am stupid, but that part of the film was not very well done.
"Why couldn't the monkey arrange this from INSIDE the garbage can?"
I agree with all that
Another part of the problem of 'who's who'?, is that the climbers had to be in full winter gear with their faces covered. So the viewer had to associate a character with the color and or patterns of their of their climbing outfits. It compounds the initial problem.
We see characters taking off their oxygen masks and eyewear to speak to one another in situations were they never should, just so we can see who's talking to who.
Making this film was a very difficult task. So many people were part of this story, and there was little time available to develop more than one or two characters. I'd say they did the best they could, but these drawbacks really do limit the appeal of the film.
I grew to really like the film, but only after 3 viewings and considerable Wikipedia research.
Some movies about real life groups of people end up combining characters and the like in order to combat this very situation. It seems like that would have been a highly beneficial process here but then I guess they would have the issue of who to omit and then have to deal with whatever blowback would come of that.
I do think it's fascinating to be able to see a movie where they did NOT combine characters because I've never liked hearing that such a thing was done in a film. Now I can appreciate the need for it sometimes. The only other thing I can say is that the film isn't THAT long so maybe they would have been better served adding 20 minutes or so to help with character development and establishment?
"Why couldn't the monkey arrange this from INSIDE the garbage can?"
I do think it's fascinating to be able to see a movie where they did NOT combine characters because I've never liked hearing that such a thing was done in a film.I agree. I guess it's almost expected then that the film tends to concentrate on the characters who died or nearly so. The surviving clients from Adventure Consultants (apart from Beck Weathers) and the Mountain Madness crew, were pretty much ciphers. But there is only so much a 2 hour entertainment such as this can do providing characterizations and what this film does do well IMO,is to recreate the prevailing dangers in the death zone rather brilliantly.🐭 share
i read that the makers of the film chose to focus on one person who should have survived but didn't (rob) and one who shouldn't have survived but did (beck).
Another problem with that is just when I got familiar with the color of someone's jacket they would switch jackets. I'm sure they do this is real life, need heavier clothing the closer to the top but for the purpose of the movie and figuring out who is who they should have just kept them in the same outfit the whole time.
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