Lost - The Full Series Thread

[Pob]

I think there's always been two smokies, Jacob and The man in black.

Hense why sometimes it does no damage and others it's a bit of an evil fuck.

I dunno, I get the impression that Jacob is a pretty regular guy, albeit ageless. Like Richard. He goes off the island, he can be killed by stabbing and burning. He's probably been hiding out under that statue for aeons because his nemesis would twat him the moment he stepped outside. Perhaps now that he has "died", he can become as powerful as Smokey? The downside being he's trapped on the island.

I suppose it depends how far back events go. Maybe Locke never met his dad. But he is in a wheel chair... gahhhh. I dunno.

I was 90% certain that Locke would have the use of his legs in the alternative timeline. I even remarked on this to my mate, then sheepishly revoked it when the wheelchair turned up.

[makkuwata]

Jack was still seeing his Dad walk about dead off the island - before he hit the booze and pills. So I don't know about Smokey not being able to leave.

[rubberducker]

Perhaps the 'conciousness shifting' that we see most clearly in Desmond's episodes is actually crossing into alternative realities, rather than just moving back and forth on a single timeline? Desmond's episodes certainly hint at that. The little things Desmond changes in the past (Charlie busking in Covent Garden) don't seem to have an effect on the 'real' timeline. Basically, what rubberducker says.

there are a few branches of quantum theory that wonder into transcendentall mediation and effectively shifting consciousness. david lynch (yes that one) did a really interesting talk about it at USC with some top notch quantum theorists.

one theory revolves around us all existing in past/present/future/alternative realities at once. our consciousness just can't easily access the other parts of its self, even though they are all there.

this sounds like it fits with faraday and desmond's previous stuff.

[squirtle]

Here's a thing: In the opening bit the view goes out of the plane window and then down, underwater to the island. So it's safe to assume that they're flying over the island. Yet weren't they like a thousand miles off course when they first crashed on the island? How can they have flown over the island when they're original heading would have been a thousand miles away and yet they land in LAX with no problems?

[GrannySmiths]

someone has probably already come up with this but here are my thoughts i spoilt it just incase dunno

Richard I believe was originally on the Black rock, would explain the chains line from Smokey (it was a slave ship if I remember right) and was somehow granted immortality by Jacob or Smokey

but I also believe the new Japanese dude was also on the black rock. Dunno why just an vibe I got from my theory of Richard.

I do believe there were 2 smokies I swear there was an off line said somewhere about white smoke.

also what some of you have been saying about Sayid being possessed by Jacob could be a possibility because as Ben said he didn't fight back and he did tell Hurley to take Sayid to the temple.

[whizzo]

I dont think Jacob has ever been the black smoke. WHen the smoke was nice to locke it was because that was what Man in black wanted to be.Thats it.

[Sponge]

All this talk of the bomb destorying the island in 1977, we saw the Dharma shark at the beginning of the show which presumably means the islands sink/get submerged sometime after the hydra station is built, which must've been after 1977 (the Dharma guys were fairly new to the island at that point weren't they? They wouldn't have just gone around branding sharks for the hell of it)

I thought I had a grasp on the Lost universe up until these first two episodes. Now I haven't got a stinking clue and nothing suggested so far makes any sense. Time will tell (I hope).

[Goose]

I think that while Jacob's followers are very concerned with the situation, the man himself almost seems to have been expecting this and had already began to have plans in place for when his inevitable death occurred. I predict a man in black "What the fuck, you're dead!" moment some time in the future.

So Illana and Blam etc, they're the same crowd as the temple dwellers, right?

[dr_lha]

The whole day to night thing with Kate being stuck up a tree was just a result of the time-travel back to the present. And them looking for a cool establishing shot.

Well there must have been some sort of explosion a well, because of Kate's hearing problems at the start of the episode.

[makkuwata]

Well there must have been some sort of explosion a well, because of Kate's hearing problems at the start of the episode.

Yeah, although I think they may have just sneakily retconned how time-travel works.

Jin: "I think we moved through time. White flash, headache, can't hear. Happened to me before."

[JohnC]

Surely the bomb isn't what sunk the island. It's a bit hard to sink an island and I don't think an old bomb will do it, even if it was a nuke. And it is a pretty big island. There must have been something else behind that.

[Capwn]

On the Desmond being married thing - doesn't Eloise put Des off proposing to Penny by telling him not to buy an engagement ring? If Eloise is killed in 1977, she won't be around to do that. So, if Penny is alive, Des probably just popped the question without all that round-the-world race nonsense. Especially as he doesn't have to impress Daddy Widmore (who is also dead).

Wasn't Widmore taken off the island before the blast?

[Pob]

Wasn't Widmore taken off the island before the blast?

Nah, Ben banished him when he was grown up. Ben was about 10 in 1977.

[mercenarri]

One thing I can't get my head around; it took an atomic bomb blast to jump them back from 1977 to now, which means the bomb went off. Even if they narrowly escaped the actual blast, surely the landscape would be derelict from an atom bomb going off when they arrive in the current timeline?

[mercenarri]

Wacky idea - what if what we saw, the alternate time line, is actually the finale of the show? We assume that it's concurrent with the island timeline but what if it isn't, What if it actually the end of the show and something that takes place in the coming episodes is ACTUALLY responsible for the reboot?

But people like Charlie are alive in the other time-line, so that must be an alt-world rather than the end of the show.

[JohnC]

It's on TV here tonight and my mum got excited, phoning her friends and family to let them know it's on Though she was a little disappointed to find tonight isn't the actual end, just the start of the final season. It's preceded by The Final Chapter special, so she thought the episode following that was the actual final episode.

[roskelld]

One thing I can't get my head around; it took an atomic bomb blast to jump them back from 1977 to now, which means the bomb went off. Even if they narrowly escaped the actual blast, surely the landscape would be derelict from an atom bomb going off when they arrive in the current timeline?

The bomb damage could probably be explained by the super powerful magnetic force. Maybe it only blew as far as opening the chamber at which point the blast was absorbed inward thus not damaging the outside at all.

We know the force was big enough to pull a plane out of the sky thousands of feet in the air, so who's to say that it wasn't powerful enough to draw in the explosion of a bomb.

[dr_lha]

One thing I can't get my head around; it took an atomic bomb blast to jump them back from 1977 to now, which means the bomb went off. Even if they narrowly escaped the actual blast, surely the landscape would be derelict from an atom bomb going off when they arrive in the current timeline?

There are two timelines: One where the bomb went off and one where it didn't. The bomb presumably created both. In the timeline where the bomb went off, the island is destroyed, at the bottom of the ocean. In the timeline where the bomb didn't go off, the island is as it was previously in the current time (or 2007, I guess).

I wonder if one of the timelines isn't reality. Have the writers been reading "The Man In The High Castle"?

[Ben]

Well there must have been some sort of explosion a well, because of Kate's hearing problems at the start of the episode.

Jin said he couldn't hear because they'd moved through time ("White Flash, Headache, can't hear...happened to me before" or similar) which Kate wouldn't be familiar with.

[dr_lha]

Jin said he couldn't hear because they'd moved through time ("White Flash, Headache, can't hear...happened to me before" or similar) which Kate wouldn't be familiar with.

Yes, this was pointed out above. Also mentioned the fact that this appears to be a retcon, because I don't remember hearing loss being a symptom of time shifting before Jin mentioned it.

[Ben]

Ah, sorry - missed that post. I couldn't remember it being a symptom either.

[Tom*]

Yes, this was pointed out above. Also mentioned the fact that this appears to be a retcon, because I don't remember hearing loss being a symptom of time shifting before Jin mentioned it.

Yeah. The previous time flashes never involved a bomb so maybe that made the effects a bit worse, and Jin was just being vague about it. Miles was deaf and he's been through both too.

I don't get why Jacob had his bodybuards so far away. I know they had to bring Locke's body with them but why not have some non-rubbish island Others hang around just in case? I guess he didn't see Flocke coming but still...

[Anne Summers]

One thing I can't get my head around; it took an atomic bomb blast to jump them back from 1977 to now, which means the bomb went off.

I don't think the atomic bomb blasted them from 1977 to now. Why would it? An atomic bomb can't move things through time...

It's easier to understand what's happening, I think, if you visualise time/space according to the theories that have been mentioned in this thread before - of "everything that ever happens, happens..." and all that changes is the point in time that is experienced by the "consciousness". Only, because it's a TV programme, we have to consider both the conscience of the characters - and the consciousness of the viewers - the point in the story that we are experiencing at any point while we are watching it.

In reality though - it's simple enough - because the characters don't actually have a consciousness - their lives are completely determined by the script of the show - there is no philosophical pondering to do about whether or not they have any sort of free will. They don't - whatever happened, happened. So it's only the consciousness of the viewer that is really experiencing time in a non linear way. And Lost really jumbles time around, in a much more tricky way than most TV programmes or films.

I think a lot of the confusion people have about the time travel in the show is caused by people not getting their heads around the difference between how time travel (physical, bodily travel, or mental "consciousness shifting") would affect someone in real life - and how it would affect characters, on a tv show, as they were observed by a viewer.

Ok, after reading this thread since my last post, I am definitely persuaded away from the Sayid = smokey theory. Unless the Others didn't get the ash down in time. And if it was that easy for smokey to get in there, surely he would have turned into smokey and zoomed over there as soon as Jacob was toast?

On another issue and not really premiere related - did we find out in the last season what Dharma was actually doing on the island in the first place? Are we still going along with the Lost Experience explanation (Valenzeti equation)?

[mercenarri]

I don't think the atomic bomb blasted them from 1977 to now. Why would it? An atomic bomb can't move things through time...

So they just coincidentally jumped through time right before the bomb went off?

There are two timelines: One where the bomb went off and one where it didn't. The bomb presumably created both. In the timeline where the bomb went off, the island is destroyed, at the bottom of the ocean. In the timeline where the bomb didn't go off, the island is as it was previously in the current time (or 2007, I guess).

The problem I'm having with this is; in order for two timelines to be created as it was, the bomb had to go off. This must mean both timelines created from a bomb explosion must have repercussion of a bomb explosion. It is impossible for one timeline to have a bomb that didn't go off, when that timeline was created/continued from an exploding bomb.

I like roskelld's theory that the bomb blast created a massive pocket hole of magnetic force that ultimately sucked in all of the blast inwards instead of outwards. This would also explain why the Swan station imploded instead of exploded after Eko's bomb.

[David78]

Yeah, the valenzetti equation is canon. They revealed it then because they knew they would never do it in the real show. I doubt that's all they did in Dharma though, I get the impression only a select few actually knew about the equation and lied to everyone else. Dharma/Hanso may ultimately be for good things, but their methods were dodgy to say the least.

[CGMF]

haha great

[Anne Summers]

Yeah, the valenzetti equation is canon. They revealed it then because they knew they would never do it in the real show. I doubt that's all they did in Dharma though, I get the impression only a select few actually knew about the equation and lied to everyone else. Dharma/Hanso may ultimately be for good things, but their methods were dodgy to say the least.

Yeah its pretty clear that most of Dharma were in the dark about what was really going on ... we have no idea if Even Pierre Chang/ Goodspeed, etc, who seemed to be the highest ranking Dharma guys in the 70s, even knew about Valenzetti. Do Dharma in the 70s even know about the numbers? I can't remember - they were knocked into the Swan Hatch when they built it, but do we know why?

[David78]

Yeah its pretty clear that most of Dharma were in the dark about what was really going on ... we have no idea if Even Pierre Chang/ Goodspeed, etc, who seemed to be the highest ranking Dharma guys in the 70s, even knew about Valenzetti. Do Dharma in the 70s even know about the numbers? I can't remember - they were knocked into the Swan Hatch when they built it, but do we know why?

I really would like some more clarification on Dharma tbh, but I doubt we'll ever get it. It's interesting to the mythology fans, but not really to the show itself.

[Sponge]

That's because the Island is underwater as a result of the donkey wheel being turned or something relating to the wheel. If it was underwater because of a hydrogen bomb then the foot and certainly the small dharma houses wouldn't have still been there.

And presumably the power of the atomic blast fused with the massive pocket of energy released when it went off. And this will come back to the huge electromagnetic pulses and why they had the put the computer in the hatch in the first place to vent it every 108 minutes.

that doesn't explain why in season 1 ep 1 the pilot said they were a thousand or so miles off course, and yet in this episode they are not, yet they are still over the island. Or in other words, what Squirtle originally asked.

[spork]

The island also moved at the end of season 4 which I think was due to Ben (or was it Locke?) turning the wheel in the first place so it's quite possible that the bomb going off could have set the island off in a similar way.. or something