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Changed line(s) 47 (click to see context) from:
* WouldHurtAChild: David plans to blow up over a hundred kids in order to reincarnate them into his "brave new world." Before that, he threatens to shoot them if they try to escape or if the principal doesn't deliver his ransom demand and return to the room within 15 minutes. His wife Doris sees nothing wrong with this, [[{{Hypocrite}} despite claiming to love kids]].
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* WouldHurtAChild: David plans to blow up over a hundred kids in order to reincarnate them into his "brave new world." Before that, he threatens to shoot them if they try to escape or if the principal doesn't deliver his ransom demand and return to the room within 15 minutes. His wife Doris sees nothing wrong with this, [[{{Hypocrite}} despite claiming to love kids]].kids]].
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Changed line(s) 4,5 (click to see context) from:
''The Cokeville Miracle'' is about a madman taking a school hostage and the miracles that happened during it.
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''The Cokeville Miracle'' is about a madman taking a school film based on the [[RippedFromTheHeadlines real-life]] [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokeville_Elementary_School_hostage_crisis Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis]]. The story is set against the FramingDevice of sheriff Ron Hartley, a member of the [[{{UsefulNotes/Mormonism}} Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints]], having a crisis of faith and doubting the miracles existence of God. At around the same time, ex-sheriff David Young takes the entire student body of Cokeville Elementary, including Ron's two children, hostage with a homemade bomb. Young's wife Doris eventually sets the bomb off on accident, resulting in the deaths of her and her husband, but everyone else survives, which the community hails as a miracle. Ron's pride and insistence on finding tangible evidence before he will believe that happened during it.
the children were saved by divine intervention prompt him to investigate why all of the hostages managed to escape, and he soon discovers that some of the events of that day defy logical explanation.
The full movie is available for free (with ads) [[https://youtu.be/pc6_QGO5me0 on Youtube]].
The full movie is available for free (with ads) [[https://youtu.be/pc6_QGO5me0 on Youtube]].
Changed line(s) 7,11 (click to see context) from:
%%* ArcWords:
%%** "The air will burn."
%%** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence."
%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s plan fails, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
%%** "The air will burn."
%%** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence."
%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s plan fails, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
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* ArcWords:
%%**
%%* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
** "The air will burn." -- Used by Young and his wife to describe what their bomb is supposed to do, and later by investigators explaining why it didn't work out that way.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Young targets an elementary school because he wants to bring the children with him into his "Brave New World," where he can become their leader and teach them his way of thinking.
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Played for drama with Doris, who cheerfully reassures the children as they're being held hostage. She's convinced that her husband is brilliant and refuses to listen to any suggestion that he's wrong or a bad person. It's implied through her early interactions with David that she's a victim of emotional abuse, and this behavior is a TruthInTelevision example of how this can affect people.
* ContrivedCoincidence: In the aftermath of the bombing, Ron struggles to grasp how many things had to line up just right to allow all of the hostages to survive:
** The school's fire alarm went off multiple times in the days before the bombing, baffling staff who couldn't find a cause. Thanks to the repeated fire drills, the kids knew what to do when they ended up in a real fire.
** Even though Young had repeatedly built and tested protptypes of his bomb, several things went wrong with the version he took into the school. The milk jug he used to hold gasoline leaked, wetting down the explosive powder beneath it and preventing it from aerosolizing; several of the wires on the bomb were cut, preventing three of its five blasting caps from detonating; and the force of the explosion was somehow directed straight up rather than out toward the hostages as it was designed to.
** The gasoline leaking from the bomb filled the air with fumes that made some of the kids sick; the teachers were able to persuade Young to let them open the windows for ventilation, which helped decrease the force of the bomb blast and made it easy for the kids to evacuate quickly. Likewise, Young refused to let the teachers close the classroom door because he wanted access to the bathroom, which provided more ventilation and another quick escape route.
** The teachers tried to keep Young calm by making a "magic square" out of tape to keep the kids away from Young and the bomb. When the bomb went off, everyone but Doris was far enough away to not be set on fire by it.
** No one was hit by flying shrapnel, even though shotgun shells were exploding in a crowded room and the walls were badly damaged by the flying debris.
** The teacher Young shot was struck in exactly the right place to cause only a relatively minor wound; if the bullet had been even slightly off, it would have killed or paralyzed him.
** Ron himself admits that it was fortunate all of the police officers were out of town that day, as if any of them had been present, they likely would have entered the school to confront Young and set off a chain of DisasterDominoes leading to the deaths of many of the hostages.
* DivineIntervention: A major theme of the film. In addition to all the logical, but unlikely, reasons why the bomb blast wasn't as powerful as expected (doors and windows open to vent the blast, leaking gasoline wetting the flammable powder and keeping it from aerosolizing), some aspects of the incident completely defy logical explanation. The film never says outright that the hostages were protected by divine intervention, but this being a [[{{UsefulNotes/Mormonism}} Latter-Day Saint]] movie, it leans heavily on the implication that God used small miracles to arrange events so everyone could make it out:
** The bomb expert assigned to the case notes that some of the wires on the bomb were cut -- not just broken or pulled loose, but looking like they'd been snipped with wire cutters. Because of this, the blasting caps meant to aerosolize flammable powder and create a massive fireball didn't detonate.
** Likewise, the expert notes that the bomb was designed to explode outward, but it's clear that the brunt of the explosion was directed up through the ceiling. He has no explanation for this.
** Many of the {{Contrived Coincidence}}s above derived from gasoline leaking out of the milk jug Young used in his bomb. Ron (who read Young's journals as part of the investigation and had a good idea how he thought) notes that Young was very meticulous and paid close attention to detail when building his bomb -- so how did a leaky jug get past him in the first place? And if it didn't, how did it just happen to start leaking?
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s plan fails,
* EveryoneHasStandards: After seeing his demonstration, Young's friends assume he's planning to set off fireworks -- still illegal, but worlds better than what Young really has in mind. When they find out he's planning to blow up a school, they refuse to be involved and are handcuffed in the back of Young's van. Young's daughter Penny is implied to have misgivings about the plan from the beginning, but she puts her foot down and leaves when her father starts yelling at a kid. The three of them go straight to the authorities.
* {{Gaslighting}}: At one point, Young does this to Doris by pouring a carton of milk down the sink, then berating her for not noticing they're out of milk.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Zig-zagged. In the aftermath of the explosion, several of the children are shown bleeding and nursing burns, and one brief shot shows Doris screaming and on fire. However, the film avoids more graphic fare like a teacher's gunshot wound (all that's shown is a blood-rimmed hole in his shirt) and Young and Doris's deaths. The former takes place behind a closed door while the camera cuts away from the latter before she dies and never shows her body.
* GuardianAngel: In the aftermath of the explosion, multiple children report having seen angels, some of whom they identify as deceased family members, in the classroom with the hostages. Jason explains that his angel (his great-grandmother) warned him that the bomb would go off and told him to stand by the windows, while another child talks about how someone led her out of the burning building but then vanished once she was outside. Jason also describes how a ring of angels stood around the bomb and flew up into the ceiling right as it went off, leading some of the adults to speculate that they might have redirected the blast upward and away from the children.
* {{Gaslighting}}: At one point, Young does this to Doris by pouring a carton of milk down the sink, then berating her for not noticing they're out of milk.
* GoryDiscretionShot: Zig-zagged. In the aftermath of the explosion, several of the children are shown bleeding and nursing burns, and one brief shot shows Doris screaming and on fire. However, the film avoids more graphic fare like a teacher's gunshot wound (all that's shown is a blood-rimmed hole in his shirt) and Young and Doris's deaths. The former takes place behind a closed door while the camera cuts away from the latter before she dies and never shows her body.
* GuardianAngel: In the aftermath of the explosion, multiple children report having seen angels, some of whom they identify as deceased family members, in the classroom with the hostages. Jason explains that his angel (his great-grandmother) warned him that the bomb would go off and told him to stand by the windows, while another child talks about how someone led her out of the burning building but then vanished once she was outside. Jason also describes how a ring of angels stood around the bomb and flew up into the ceiling right as it went off, leading some of the adults to speculate that they might have redirected the blast upward and away from the children.
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* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Despite the bomb going off and all of the shrapnel going all over the room, not a single child got killed. It’s implied that divine intervention was the cause of this since the bomb was tested to have the power to be able to kill everyone before the incident itself but had been weakened because of things such as the cut wires, gasoline leaking, and said gasoline preventing the flammable dust from launching into the air and cause an even bigger explosion as well as beings of pure white protecting the kids and beings that are glowing like lightbulbs redirecting the bomb’s explosion.
* MercyKill: Doris is set on fire by the bomb and is put out of her misery by David.
* MercyKill: Doris is set on fire by the bomb and is put out of her misery by David.
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* {{Hypocrite}}:
** Doris Young claims to love kids and berates a mother for leaving her daughter in her car, even after the mother points out that she was just dropping off her son at school and expected to be right back out. One of the students lampshades this by asking her if this is her first time threatening little kids.
** When asked by a student why he only has handguns and a few rifles and not something like an AK-47, David responds, with complete seriousness, that getting one of those would be illegal. It should be noted that at the time, kidnapping was a federal offense with a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Despite the bomb goingoff off, the fire and thick smoke, and all of the shrapnel going all over the room, flying around, not a single child got was killed. It’s implied that divine intervention DivineIntervention was the cause of this this, since the bomb was had been previously tested and shown to have the enough power to be able to kill everyone before in the incident itself but had been weakened because of things such as room. On the cut wires, gasoline leaking, day of the bombing, however, several fortunate coincidences reduced its explosive power and said gasoline preventing the flammable dust from launching into the air and cause an even bigger explosion as well as beings several of pure white protecting the kids and beings that are later recounted glowing like lightbulbs figures telling them what to do and redirecting the bomb’s explosion.
explosion into the ceiling.
* InsaneTrollLogic: Young claims to have worked out how to die and come back to life in a new world using nothing but a calculator. Everyone but his wife recognizes this as a sign of how unstable and deluded he is.
* InTheBack: Young shoots a teacher who's moving the desk barricade so the kids can escape in this manner. Fortunately, the teacher manages to run outside, where paramedics can give first aid, before collapsing. The ending confirms that the wound was relatively minor and he was able to return to teaching three days later.
* {{Irony}}: Doris tries to cheer the children up by telling them they'll be able to tell the story of what happened to their children and grandchildren. During the credits, a clip plays of a survivor noting that she will tell the story to her children -- not to tell them how brilliant the Youngs were, as Doris likely meant, but as an example of God's mercy and the power of prayer.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Or divinely-guided karma, depending on who one asks. The only people to die in the explosion are David and Doris Young, the hostage-takers. Everyone else survives and makes it out of the building. Even their would-be accomplices aren't charged with any crime, since they refused to take part in the bombing and reported the plan to the authorities at the first opportunity.
* MercyKill: The explosion sets Dorisis set on fire by the bomb fire, and is put she's heard screaming in agony as everyone else frantically tries to get out of the burning classroom. Her husband shoots her misery by David.to end her suffering.
** Doris Young claims to love kids and berates a mother for leaving her daughter in her car, even after the mother points out that she was just dropping off her son at school and expected to be right back out. One of the students lampshades this by asking her if this is her first time threatening little kids.
** When asked by a student why he only has handguns and a few rifles and not something like an AK-47, David responds, with complete seriousness, that getting one of those would be illegal. It should be noted that at the time, kidnapping was a federal offense with a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Despite the bomb going
* InsaneTrollLogic: Young claims to have worked out how to die and come back to life in a new world using nothing but a calculator. Everyone but his wife recognizes this as a sign of how unstable and deluded he is.
* InTheBack: Young shoots a teacher who's moving the desk barricade so the kids can escape in this manner. Fortunately, the teacher manages to run outside, where paramedics can give first aid, before collapsing. The ending confirms that the wound was relatively minor and he was able to return to teaching three days later.
* {{Irony}}: Doris tries to cheer the children up by telling them they'll be able to tell the story of what happened to their children and grandchildren. During the credits, a clip plays of a survivor noting that she will tell the story to her children -- not to tell them how brilliant the Youngs were, as Doris likely meant, but as an example of God's mercy and the power of prayer.
* LaserGuidedKarma: Or divinely-guided karma, depending on who one asks. The only people to die in the explosion are David and Doris Young, the hostage-takers. Everyone else survives and makes it out of the building. Even their would-be accomplices aren't charged with any crime, since they refused to take part in the bombing and reported the plan to the authorities at the first opportunity.
* MercyKill: The explosion sets Doris
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* WouldHurtAChild: David having no hesitation to blow up close to a hundred kids in a single room if he doesn’t get his $200 million and threatening the principal by planning to shoot the kids if he doesn’t come back from his call to request his $200 million in 15 minutes more than qualifies him for this.
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* StuffBlowingUp: Justified, as the film revolves around a lunatic with a bomb. The bomb is even designed to create a huge fireball by aerosolizing and igniting a flammable powder. This is shown when Young tests his bomb in a school bus, filling the entire bus with flames, and again later when he sets off a handful of powder with a lighter for the benefit of his accomplices. The explosion in the classroom is more typical of real-life explosions; there is a fireball, but it quickly goes out and fills the room with smoke rather than flame.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Young refuses to reveal the details of his plan to his accomplices until they're en route to the school. Before this, all they knew was that Young had come up with a way to make lots of money quickly and assumed he was just planning to set off illegal fireworks. When they find out the truth, they refuse to participate, but Young simply handcuffs them in the back of his van and carries on without them. Then several details of his plan don't work out as intended, which turns out to be a good thing for everyone else.
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The credits include pictures of some of the real-life survivors of the bombing, now grown up and married with children of their own.
* WouldHurtAChild: Davidhaving no hesitation plans to blow up close to over a hundred kids in a single room if he doesn’t get order to reincarnate them into his $200 million and threatening "brave new world." Before that, he threatens to shoot them if they try to escape or if the principal by planning doesn't deliver his ransom demand and return to shoot the kids if he doesn’t come back from his call room within 15 minutes. His wife Doris sees nothing wrong with this, [[{{Hypocrite}} despite claiming to request his $200 million in 15 minutes more than qualifies him for this.love kids]].
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Young refuses to reveal the details of his plan to his accomplices until they're en route to the school. Before this, all they knew was that Young had come up with a way to make lots of money quickly and assumed he was just planning to set off illegal fireworks. When they find out the truth, they refuse to participate, but Young simply handcuffs them in the back of his van and carries on without them. Then several details of his plan don't work out as intended, which turns out to be a good thing for everyone else.
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The credits include pictures of some of the real-life survivors of the bombing, now grown up and married with children of their own.
* WouldHurtAChild: David
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Changed line(s) 7,11 (click to see context) from:
* AdultFear: An elementary school gets taken hostage by a deluded man and his {{cloudcuckoolander}} wife. The parents react to the news as well as you'd expect. Especially Ron, who was the only sheriff in town that day and was two hours away from the school, and despite his efforts, he doesn't make it back in time before the bomb sets off.
* ArcWords:
** "The air will burn."
** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence."
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
* ArcWords:
** "The air will burn."
** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence."
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
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*
Added DiffLines:
* HostageSituation: An elementary school gets taken hostage by a deluded man and his {{cloudcuckoolander}} wife. The parents react to the news as well as you'd expect. Especially Ron, who was the only sheriff in town that day and was two hours away from the school, and despite his efforts, he doesn't make it back in time before the bomb sets off.
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Changed line(s) 1,3 (click to see context) from:
-> Too much coincidence to be coincidence.
--> Ron Hartley
--> Ron Hartley
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-->
-->'''-- Ron
* AdultFear: An elementary school gets taken hostage by a deluded man and his {{cloudcuckoolander}} wife. The parents react to the news as well as you'd expect. Especially Ron, who was the only sheriff in town that day and was two hours away from the school, and despite his efforts, he doesn't make it back in time before the bomb sets off.
Changed line(s) 8,10 (click to see context) from:
** "The air will burn"
** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence"
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s bomb fails to kill the hostages, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence"
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s bomb fails to kill the hostages, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
to:
** "The air will burn"
burn."
** "Too much coincidence to be acoincidence"
coincidence."
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’sbomb fails to kill the hostages, plan fails, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
** "Too much coincidence to be a
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Doris.
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s
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* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary School.
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* MercyKill: Doris is set on fire by the bomb and is put out of her misery by David.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary School. The children reported seeing angels appearing to tell them to go to the window before the bomb went off.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary School. The children reported seeing angels appearing to tell them to go to the window before the bomb went off.
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Added line(s) 8 (click to see context) :
* ArcWords:
** "The air will burn"
** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence"
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s bomb fails to kill the hostages, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
** "The air will burn"
** "Too much coincidence to be a coincidence"
* DrivenToSuicide: After David’s bomb fails to kill the hostages, David goes into the bathroom to shoot himself.
Changed line(s) 8 (click to see context) from:
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary School.
to:
* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Despite the bomb going off and all of the shrapnel going all over the room, not a single child got killed. It’s implied that divine intervention was the cause of this since the bomb was tested to have the power to be able to kill everyone before the incident itself but had been weakened because of things such as the cut wires, gasoline leaking, and said gasoline preventing the flammable dust from launching into the air and cause an even bigger explosion as well as beings of pure white protecting the kids and beings that are glowing like lightbulbs redirecting the bomb’s explosion.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville ElementarySchool.School.
* WouldHurtAChild: David having no hesitation to blow up close to a hundred kids in a single room if he doesn’t get his $200 million and threatening the principal by planning to shoot the kids if he doesn’t come back from his call to request his $200 million in 15 minutes more than qualifies him for this.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary
* WouldHurtAChild: David having no hesitation to blow up close to a hundred kids in a single room if he doesn’t get his $200 million and threatening the principal by planning to shoot the kids if he doesn’t come back from his call to request his $200 million in 15 minutes more than qualifies him for this.
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Added DiffLines:
-> Too much coincidence to be coincidence.
--> Ron Hartley
''The Cokeville Miracle'' is about a madman taking a school hostage and the miracles that happened during it.
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* EnforcedMethodActing: The actor playing David Young was told not to interact with the children, just so their reaction would be real.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary School.
--> Ron Hartley
''The Cokeville Miracle'' is about a madman taking a school hostage and the miracles that happened during it.
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* EnforcedMethodActing: The actor playing David Young was told not to interact with the children, just so their reaction would be real.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: It's inspired by the 1986 hostage crisis of Cokeville Elementary School.
