Tagert Theatres

Tagert Theatres
Full Name	Tagert Theatres
Location	United States (Indianapolis, Indiana or McKinley, Pennsylvania)
Purpose	Cinema
First Appearance	The Final Destination
Last Appearance	Final Destination 5 (closing credits)

Tagert Theatres is a movie theater on the top floor of the Springfield Centre Mall in either Indianapolis, Indiana or McKinley, Pennsylvania . It is the site of a fire and a catastrophic gasoline tank explosion that would've torn apart the mall and killed numerous people if it hadn't been stopped by Nick O'Bannon, who was able to prevent it after having a premonition warning him of the impending disaster in The Final Destination. It is also the location where Lori Milligan and Janet Cunningham watched the movie Love Lays Dying on January 13, 2009.

Disaster

Premonition

Lori Milligan and Janet Cunningham go to the mall to shop. While Janet tries on a pair of sunglasses, she and Lori are disturbed by two toy sellers. Lori buys a pair of shoes, while Janet talks to a woman who sold flowers. Then, they decide to go to the Tagert Theatres to see the film Love Lays Dying. When they are on the escalator, Lori's shoelace becomes stuck; with Janet's help, Lori finally pulls her foot loose from the escalator, and they enter Theater 13 to see the film.

Nick and Lori escaping The Theater Explosion.

Behind Theater 13, wind blows through a window, blowing the window tarp onto a fan. One of the rings used to hold the tarp catches on the fan switch, turning it on and blowing the tarp onto a wheeled cart holding gasoline containers and other supplies. The tarp acts as a sail, moving the cart through the construction area. It rolls over some cables, causing a gasoline tank without a lid on to fall over, pouring gasoline on the floor as the cart rolls further. At the same time, sunlight comes in through the window, refracting through a pair of glasses into a sawdust pile. The sawdust catches fire, and the gasoline is ignited, spreading the fire throughout the room. The trail of gasoline leads to several tanks of spontaneously combustible chemicals, which then catch fire and explode.

In Nick's premonition, an explosion occurs in the mall.

During this, Lori notices several signs as she recalls certain things that happened before the McKinley Speedway disaster. She tries telling Janet that something's wrong, but Janet doesn't want to believe it. Then Nick runs in, he tells Lori that George is dead and that it's not over yet. Nick pulls Lori out of the theater, but Janet stays behind. Just then the explosion occurs, sending shrapnel through the movie screen and into the theater, including a metal beam that impales Janet in the stomach as well as a few nails that are shot through Janet's face.

Nick and Lori run out of the theater and through the mall, as four more explosions occur, the last one tearing apart the escalator they attempt to escape on. The malls pillars start to crumble as a result of the explosions and one falls on the escalator, knocking everybody off of it except for Nick and Lori. The escalator's stairs fall away, exposing the gears inside. As the escalator continues to move, Lori nearly falls into the mechanism. Nick attempts to pull Lori up, but Lori's foot gets caught and she is pulled in and crushed by the gears.

Real Life

Lori conversing with Janet about familiar things.

Nick awakens from his premonition to find that he's in front of the hospital, moments from George's death. Unable to save George, Nick rushes to the mall to save Lori and Janet.

Nick runs into the mall to look for the fire. He runs into the construction area and sees that the fire has already started and that the gasoline is close to combining with the flaming sawdust pile. He tries the fire alarm, which is disconnected, and then uses a fire extinguisher to put out the fire, which he throws on the ground after it runs out of foam. The fire extinguisher hits a table's leg, causing a nail gun to slowly slide off the table.

Nick steps on what's left the fire, successfully putting it out, but an ember floats over to another sawdust pile, starting another fire. As soon as Nick notices, the nail gun slips, repeatedly hitting the trigger on the floor and shooting nails that impale Nick's arm and leave him stuck to the wall. A few more nails penetrate a gas tank, spilling gas onto the floor. As the gasoline stream heads toward the sawdust pile, Nick grabs for a long piece of wood that is laying in the small fire. He lifts the flaming piece wood up to the sprinkler on the ceiling and successfully sets them off just before the fire ignites the chemical tanks.

Signs/Clues

• When Nick is driving to the mall, a bus can be seen with an advertising poster for the movie "Love Lays Dying" on the front of it. (When Nick saw this poster, it prompted his vision of the mall explosion.) The bus number is 235, but the poster is halfway covering the 5, revealing the number 23. This is possibly referencing the Route 23 accident from Final Destination 2.
• In Nick's premonition of the Tagert Theatres explosion, nails can be seen flying towards the screen due to the theater exploding a sped up version of the words "Bye, bye suckers" is audible.
• The viewing in which the explosion occurred was in Theatre 13 at 6:00. In 24-hour time, 6:00 equals 18:00.
• While shopping for sunglasses, Lori and Janet are interrupted by two toy sellers using a toy helicopter that shoots at Janet and a remote control car resembling Car 6 from the Megatech 300.
• Lori and Janet see a construction crate being lifted directly over the skylight as they ride the escalator.
• Lori's shoelace gets stuck in the escalator.
• Lori notices several signs while watching Love Lays Dying, including:
  • Two people that yell, "Down in front, asshole!" and "Sir, move your feet."
  • An advertisement for a movie called "Coming Soon!: 'Til Death Do We Part" on her popcorn container.
  • A man sitting behind them whose phone sounds with the ringtone version of a Confederate folk song.
  • Several quotes from the movie indicate that a disaster is about to occur such as "Be careful!", "Hold on, Pumpkin. We'll be there in no time.", "It's gonna get loud," "We'll never make it!", "It's gonna blow! Move it!", and "Bye bye, suckers!"
• In the premonition, Janet said she was meant to see this movie.
• Immediately before the explosion, the scene shown is that of a bomb exploding.

Survivors

• Nick O'Bannon (deceased)
• Lori Milligan (deceased)
• Janet Cunningham (deceased)
• Numerous unnamed theatergoers and mall patrons (unknown)

Trivia

The Final Destination Alternate Ending

• The name "Tagert" was named after the director David R. Ellis' son.
• In Final Destination 5, the brand name "Tagert" can be seen on a log truck in Sam's vision.
• There are movie posters next to the entrance to the construction room for two upcoming movies, "Death Fist" and "Saving Little Kristina."
• If you rearrange the letters in the word Tagert, you will end up with the word "target," which lines up with how Death targeted Nick, Lori, and Janet for death.
• The Tagert Theatres explosion is one of only two non-opening disasters in the entire film series that was foreseen by a visionary, the other being the Train 081 derailment in Final Destination 3.
• Ironically, during Love Lays Dying, there is a bridge explosion, while there is a bridge collapse in Final Destination 5.
• The following movies are shown playing in Tagert Theatres:
  • Theatre 1: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 2: The Lasher
  • Theatre 3: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 4: Summer Of
  • Theatre 5: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 6: Alibi
  • Theatre 7: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 8: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 9: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 10: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 11: Love Lays Dying
  • Theatre 12: Alibi
  • Theatre 13: Love Lays Dying
• When Nick first runs into the theater to warn Lori and Janet about the explosion, every seat is taken. There are eleven rows across and ten rows going up, meaning there are 110 people total inside.
• There is an alternate ending where Nick follows the theory that Ian McKinley offered in Final Destination 3 that if the last person in the order kills themselves, that the whole chain would end. After failing to put out the fire, he grabs a gas tank that will cause the explosion and throws himself out of the window onto a police car with the number 180 on it, killing himself. The fire alarm then goes off, drawing everyone out of the theater, including Lori and Janet.
  • His sacrifice proves to be in vain, as right after Lori and Janet embrace and rejoice in the fact that they can live, a chain suspending a large crate falls in front of them shortly followed by the crate itself, which crushes them.
• Janet Cunningham's death in the premonition would've violated the rules of death since she had already been skipped, meaning the death should've targeted Lori and Nick first before coming back for her.
  • Since Janet wasn't immediately killed by the explosion, it's possible that she would've hung on long enough for Lori and Nick to die before succumbing to her injuries, though this may be implausible given the subsequent explosions that leveled Theatre 13.
  • Given the fact that the premonition was a feint, another possibility is that Death altered the vision to show Janet dying as well, though it would also have included Lori and Nick's actual deaths too. This also means that Janet's non-sequential death would have been a giveaway that the premonition was a trick.
• There is a notable plot inconsistency in the fact that by stopping the Tagert Theatres explosion, Nick O'Bannon would've put numerous intended victims of the disaster onto Death's list. However, this can be explained in a number of ways.
  • It's possible, though unlikely, that all of the other people caught up in the theater explosion weren't meant to die and would've survived or escaped regardless.
    • At Death by Caffeine later, Nick even summarizes this, saying, "What if we didn't meant to be here, what if that was the plan change anything?"  This puts a twist on the series. The theory stands that all those saved from their deaths in the previous films were likely spared for a reason.  It is possible that surviving their deaths, they stand in the way to spare others.  Like Terry in Final Destination, her being hit by that bus was possibly sparing someone from a future death.
  • Given the final words in the movie, it's also possible that the premonition of the explosion was a feint made by Death and that he was meant to stop the explosion all along. This theory seems to be backed up by producers, who have apparently stated that it was Death's Design all along to have Nick save those people in the mall, which is what Nick meant by saying, "What if us being here right now, was the plan from the beginning?"
  • Another possibility is that Nick's preventing the explosion did indeed put all of its intended victims on Death's list, and that those people will all be killed off in a similar Final Destination sequence in the future.