while they were all reveling in shangra la, a thought occurred to me. what happened to the original pilot of the airplane? did the shangra lamian pilot kill him? throw him out the window? push him out to the murderous mob? doesn't sem very "moderate" to me in any case.
shareYes, and who was the armed pilot and what exactly was the plan to "kidnap" Conway? It certainly doesn't seem like the actions of either the High Lama or Chang to resort to violence in order to bring Conway to Shangri-La.
shareHe was dead in the plane. I believe they took proper care of his body.
shareHow do you know there was another pilot? Maybe the hijacker was the pilot.
shareConway calls the original pilot by his name and the dead pilot after the crash is already the second pilot or the kidnapper.That's truly a point there and it kept me wondering,too.And surely I don't have an answer for this-maybe someone who's actually read the book will enlighten us.
Having watched the movie again it is quite obvious that shortly before the take-off a hand from behind seizes the pilot in the cockpit and he is wrestled down.The rest is left to imagination but since there is no more to be seen of the original pilot it's quite clear that he is either dead or left behind,which would not be the better option.
There is of course surely one reason for the disappearance of the second original pilot because would he still have been alive and kicking the kidnapped would have been able to seize the power aboard since there would have been someone able to fly the plane.
So this only leaves the conclusion that even the HighLama does employ violence to get to an end.What a shame!!
The High Lama did not kidnap the people. They crash landed near his place and he helped them. The movie didn't really say where they were headed, just that on the map it said they were in uncharted territory. Lucky for them that they landed where they did.
EDIT: Okay, after watching the movie further, it turns out that Jane Wyatt had them kidnapped. How could she have done that if the porters hadn't been there for a couple years? And it seems to go against everything they stand for and believe in.
If the kidnapper didn't kill the pilot (or even if he did), he would have thrown him out of the plane before they took off. He wasn't there when they landed. If he wasn't dead before, the angry mob would have surely killed him - they were killing their own kind, so a foreigner would definitely have been killed. It's surprising that they didn't address it in the movie, but IMDb is full of goofs that occur in movies.
You do see a somewhat violent struggle between Talu and Fenner in the cockpit as the chaos pours up and into the plane. My first feeling (as I was watching*) was that Fenner was killed, but it remained a possibility that he had been subdued in some other fashion. Nothing is shown that indicates that he was removed from the plane either at the Baskul or refueling airfields, but then there is no mention or indication of his body being in the plane at all after the crash. Therefor it must be assumed that Fenner was removed somewhere before the reached the the snow of the Himalayas. So, choosing between either Baskul or the refueling station, I would have to choose Baskul. The reason being that an unconscious pilot would not remain unconscious (even bound this would be an undesired complication) and the plan simply would have worked smoother with no other pilot to complicate matters. If Fenner had been alive and in the plane he would have been regarded as another kidnapping victim and welcomed into Shangri-La as well; I cannot see why he would have been dumped at the refueling station.
* When I learned of their pacifist nature, I immediately doubted that they would have killed him and there is no indication that his being left behind would have necessarily lead to his dying in the rebellion (no matter how unsafe it was).
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest
This is, I think, a serious flaw in the story. Not just that the pilot is disposed of in some way contrary to Shangri-La's ideals, but also that Conway never mentions him later. It's inconceivable that Conway wouldn't have talked to Chang about him later, especially given that contradiction to his ideals. But I can live with a little imperfection. It's a gorgeous story though that part doesn't hold together.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
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