When the bombs failed

So when Eric figured out that the bombs were not going to go off? What do you think his first thought was and why did you think he just said to hell with it and went guns blazing anyway. Do you think he knew that this was now a "now or never" type of situation and there was no trying later? Or what about Dylan's thoughts?

I Think as soon as E & D Left for Columbine on 4/20 they were past the point of no return. I don't think once they realized the bombs failed it was a matter of  "retrieve the duffel bags and try again tomorrow" They were there, they had the guns and pipe bombs, and I can only imagine the amount of mental preparation they put themselves through in the early hours of that day. I think once the bombs didn't go off Eric and Dylan knew they wouldn't get another chance to do this, so they just did everything on the fly from that point.

Jollyhelpful wrote:

I Think as soon as E & D Left for Columbine on 4/20 they were past the point of no return. I don't think once they realized the bombs failed it was a matter of  "retrieve the duffel bags and try again tomorrow" They were there, they had the guns and pipe bombs, and I can only imagine the amount of mental preparation they put themselves through in the early hours of that day. I think once the bombs didn't go off Eric and Dylan knew they wouldn't get another chance to do this, so they just did everything on the fly from that point.

April 20th 1999 was the last day they planned on living. I believe that if for some cosmic reason, their guns failed to function, they would have just transitioned to the knives. They were hellbent on finishing this life the moment their boots hit the parking lot.

JayT wrote:

Jollyhelpful wrote:

I Think as soon as E & D Left for Columbine on 4/20 they were past the point of no return. I don't think once they realized the bombs failed it was a matter of  "retrieve the duffel bags and try again tomorrow" They were there, they had the guns and pipe bombs, and I can only imagine the amount of mental preparation they put themselves through in the early hours of that day. I think once the bombs didn't go off Eric and Dylan knew they wouldn't get another chance to do this, so they just did everything on the fly from that point.

April 20th 1999 was the last day they planned on living. I believe that if for some cosmic reason, their guns failed to function, they would have just transitioned to the knives. They were hellbent on finishing this life the moment their boots hit the parking lot.

Agreed. Once they pulled into the school parking lot it was over, the point of no return. The bombs failing was indeed a big setback, but one that was quickly overcome.

I honestly don't think it ever entered their minds to not go through with the plan.

ChaotixBoy wrote:

So when Eric figured out that the bombs were not going to go off? What do you think his first thought was and why did you think he just said to hell with it and went guns blazing anyway. Do you think he knew that this was now a "now or never" type of situation and there was no trying later? Or what about Dylan's thoughts?

Ah this is the good old "was there a plan B?" discussion. First I thought that tehre was no plan B and that everything was one big chaotic free-for-all.

But then I realized that the timeline doesn't add up to that. We aren't seeing any prolonged debate between them. None of trhem tries to go to the cafeteria to perhaps reset the the bombs or anything of this sort. They start shooting not longer after Eric gets rid of Brown and the bombs don't go off.

This is probably the only shooting scene in "I'm not ashamed" that gets anything right. I'm pretty sure Eric did say something like: "Plan B". They had a plan B and I'm convinced they were aware that the bombs may fail, they seen it as probable.

This is not syaing they weren't hoping for an explosion or that they gave up on trying to cause the explosion later. But it was a long shot. They were using the sort of propane bottles you use for barbecues. To paraphrase our own Tim Krabbe, "They are designed exactly to so stop any drunken moron from accidentally doing what Eric planned to do". These are tough, thick bottles that warm up slowly. They would not have exploded at a snap, even if the mechanism work. A fire would start, then it would take some time for the bottles to reach a temperature when they explode. The fire extinguishers would extinguish the fire before that happened (which is what did happen at CHS when Dylan threw a molotov at them).