Lost Addicts
February 10th, 2010, 7:53pm by JakeNo, I’m not referring to any Pre app, I’m talking about this week’s Lost theory. Specifically, the time travelly bits. Skip the rest if you haven’t watched the first 110-odd episodes.
As Lost addicts know, season 5 ended with The Incident and an attempted detonation of a nuclear bomb. Our Losties were thrown back to 2007, while an alternate 2004 timeline where the plane never crashed was also shown. So what’s going on? If the bomb worked, it creates a paradox since the Losties would have never travelled to 1977 to detonate the nuke. But we can resolve this. I hereby propose the dueling dual timeline paradoxes.
If this theory is right, we’ll see our Losties reconnect in the ATL and realize something is amiss. They’ll somehow be sent back to 1977 and other times in order to prevent the nuclear detonation. Thus, each timeline would be required for the other timeline to exist. Outside of the time loop, everything else stays the same– so our 2007 Losties will end up in the same place as the ATL 2004 Losties. Make sense?
February 10th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
You know, I haven’t ever watched an episode of Lost, but I went ahead, against your recommendation, and read your post. I can tell you that it didn’t ruin anything for me, since it makes no sense to those of us who don’t watch.
It sounds like Back To The Future. Or Star Trek (the latest movie) with the time travel paradox bits.
Losties, is that a cereal of some sort? They reconnect in Atlanta?
February 10th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Hmm confused as ever, so your theory sounds as good as any to me. I’m sure we can discuss this ad nauseum offline.
Mike, B2TF and Star Trek (and Terminator) actually have opposite takes on the whole time travel paradox. The latter allows for alternate / parallel realities to branch off and co-exist. Whereas B2TF only allows for one reality, and paradoxes get corrected (people disappear, etc). Bill and Ted is more like the B2TF concept.
February 17th, 2010 at 2:20 am
OK, another crazy theory. You know something “claimed” Sayid & Claire? How about if Locke’s spirit has “claimed” Smokie & is infecting him? IOW, soon Smocke will revert to regular Locke. That’d be a trip!
Also, if the nuke went off, how does Ben get off the island & become a teacher? Something odd about that alternate timeline.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Remember that they began evacuating the island before the bomb went off. Maybe some people, including Ben, got off in time.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:20 am
Oh…and if they leave the explanation of the numbers where they did, I will be totally disappointed and unsatisfied.
February 17th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Ben was still with The Others when the bomb went off, right, because he wasn’t back at Dharma yet. I had figured Ethan took the sub off.
Re: The Numbers. I actually think it’s clever– the numbers are a way to signal who the chosen few are. I’m not buying that Jacob wrote the names on the wall. Obviously there’s another entity involved, as represented by the spooky kid.
Also, Locke’s back story has been fairly substantially altered pre-2004 in the alternate timeline. Odd indeed.
February 17th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
This is really entertaining to read when you don’t know what’s going on! It sounds more and more like the plot was created using Mad Libs!
February 17th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Ethan definitely got off the island because we saw him in the hospital as Claire’s doctor. Ben was with the others after Sayid shot him, but didn’t he return at some point? (See http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Dead_Is_Dead in the “Flashback” section.) I think some time did pass between Ben being shot and the bomb going off, so it is entirely possible that Ben was evacuated.
February 17th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
I figured that Ben could not have returned to Dharma while Jack/ Sayid/ Sawyer et al were still living among them or else he would have recognized them later as an adult (referring now to the original timeline). So I agree with Jake– something weird is going on.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
What gives you the impression that Ben didn’t recognize them? He knew *everything* about them in the original timeline.
February 17th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
It’s an open question whether or not Ben remembers the Losties. I think that’s one more mystery that will get an answer this season.
February 18th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Wasn’t there was a scene where present day Ben was surprised to see a photo of some of the present day Losties on Dharma gear in the 70’s?
February 18th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
There was, but he might have just been pretending to be surprised, aka lying.
February 19th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
So thinking about parallels in the show for a couple themes. First is the whole rules/game thing. It appears that the boy represents an entity that has MIB & Jacob playing a game. Jacob has Widmore & Ben playing a game. And Ben has set up games of sorts among the survivors.
That’s a little rough. But secrets— that’s clear. Jacob keeps secrets from Richard. Richard keeps secrets from Ben. Ben keeps secrets from Jack (and others). Jack keeps secrets from other Losties. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion.
February 28th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
I just discovered that someone ripped off my idea 6 days before I cam up with it.
http://www.losttv-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65470
March 9th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Saw this in a completely unrelated discussion, and the first thing I thought of was Jacob & MIB.
“The greatest gift God ever gave to mankind was FREE WILL. Satan’s biggest sin…the one that got him cast out of heaven, was that he wanted to take man’s free will away, and replace it with forced obedience.”
May 21st, 2010 at 1:08 pm
The end is getting near! Who will win, and who will lose, and who will be the Apprentice? I’m not buying that Jack ends up the final champion. Ben’s got something up his sleeve. I’m sure he shot Widmore to keep Jacob’s real plan from The Monster.
May 21st, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Yeah, pretty unreal. I’m going on a total internet blackout starting at 6 PM Sunday night. I don’t dare visit Twitter, Yahoo or CNN.
This could be the greatest 2.5 hours in television history. Really, never before has one series been built up so much and been placing so much on the line in the finale. It’s almost like the TV audience watching the end of The Truman Show.
May 23rd, 2010 at 10:30 pm
The end is near!
May 24th, 2010 at 6:04 am
I realize that I watched 2.5 hours out of the 6 seasons, but that ending had to be a little disappointing, right? Basically, it was all a dream, and they all died at the beginning?
Doesn’t take anything away from the rest of the series, which may have been totally entertaining and mind-bending — what about all the codes, smoke monsters, and aliens I’d heard about? Was there any resolution of all that stuff, making the “dream” at least internally consistent, or was it all just nonsense?
I at least liked the fact that fat guy said something about Yoda, then his next line was “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
May 24th, 2010 at 6:20 am
A couple more thoughts I had in the shower this morning:
— What about the guy who didn’t go into the church? What was his deal?
— The LA Times article joked about the Target commercials, but I thought they were kinda funny. I liked the computer keyboard one (where the keyboard died as he was typing in lat/long coordinates) better than the smoke alarm one, and there was a third one that I don’t remember.
— Tell me that the plane wasn’t fully assembled, except for the duct tape, the whole time. As non-expert viewers, that was a little far-fetched.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:24 am
The ending was pitch perfect. The island stuff was all real, which we’ve been following for 6 seasons. The off-island stuff was the afterlife, and was really an epilogue not part of the narrative.
And I haven’t seen the Target ads. Will have to go back & watch ’em. All in all an amazing finale, perfect wrap up to the show. But not quite so epic that you suddenly have to go out & watch all 6 seasons next month.
May 24th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
The keyboard commercial, the smoke monster commercial, and the one I couldn’t remember.
May 24th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
It’s hilarious that you and Joanie watched it! Anyway, to answer your questions, there were 2 storylines going in parallel, and the off island one was shown to be a dream/afterlife. The on-island one, which has been the main narrative through the seasons, DID happen. The guy who didn’t go in the church was not one of the gang, really, so it was appropriate that he didn’t crash their party. He was one of the bad guys throughout the series, so he had a little more baggage to resolve before he could escape purgatory. As for the plane, the one that flew off the island was not the same one that originally crashed, so it wasn’t really a plot hole.
I had some criticisms of the finale, but overall, it was satisfying, as a fan. Can’t imagine you got a lot out of it though. Wasn’t the action movie I was expecting.
May 24th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
This brings up an interesting question — what’s the statute of limitations on discussing TV events? I think that it’s when the program is over on the West Coast, when everybody has had a chance to watch live. Clearly, nobody is expected to keep sports scores quiet (unless it’s pre-arranged not to talk about a particular game).
May 24th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
I think it requires an opt-out policy- like if you were going to talk about The Wire finale I’d leave or change the topic.
but Lost, for it’s fans, is such a seminal event that it’s impossible not to debrief and unload after the 6-year conclusion. I went on a news blackout starting at 6 yesterday, for fear of learning too much.
May 25th, 2010 at 2:43 am
Just finished watching. Still a large number of unanswered questions for me. The whole deal with Walt, why cheese it up with the whole time travel thing, in the early seasons the rain seemed to preclude significant events and they never really explained that, etc.
May 25th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
I thought the finale tugged at all the right heartstrings very effectively, but the best parts of Lost for me have been the cerebral/ sci fi/ mystery elements, much of which was left as an exercise for the reader, as you say, Lance. I really loved the time travel storyline at the time, but in retrospect, it’s only purpose was to set up the viewer to think that the sideways world was a consequence of the H-bomb. In fact, the H-bomb didn’t do anything (different).
May 25th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I dunno, in 1974-1977, we learned more about TDI, saw Faraday killed by his own mother, gained further insight into Ben’s relationship w/ The Others. Plus it expanded the story to see early bits like Rousseau’s ship, Richard’s fascination w/ Locke and so on. And really, like Miles said, the bomb components are likely what caused The Incident and possibly prevented Island from blowing up in the first place. It was a clever narrative device.
If I were to rewatch is, I’d just skip all the ALTL (after life timeline) stuff as that’s definitely not part of the story. Would be fun to watch the whole series either in Island time or time-skipper time without any flashbacks or flashforwards. Just integrate them into the story.
May 25th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
The series finale was emotionally rewarding, but not intellectually rewarding. Lost has always been half about the characters and half about predicting how the mysteries unravel. Knowing that the wrap-up swings so strongly towards the character story, I don’t think I could re-watch the series with the same level of attention. Too much is left to cosmic coincidence to warrant obsessing over details. Like the numbers. Why were they being broadcast? Why were they on the hatch door? Once you just accept that the universe has a plan, there’s no payoff in taking an active role. Speaking as a viewer, of course.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
This article reminded me of Kelvin’s viewpoint.
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/lost/index.html?story=/ent/tv/review/2010/05/24/lost_season_finale_recap
May 27th, 2010 at 11:27 am
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the emphasis on the characters rather than the mysteries is an overreaction to fans, but the article does state nicely the dual nature of the show’s appeal. Which explains the polarizing effect of the finale– it just didn’t satisfy the fans of the mysteries.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Here’s what would have helped. That “Across the Sea” episode could have been shown in about week 3 this year. Then there needed to be 1 more episode, that showed the earlier peoples as they built the temples, the tunnels, the statue and so on. A real mythology episode. Of course, that would lead to more questions, but would give us a little more insight. Also, although it seems obvious to me, at some point the Island must have been in the Mediterranean, right? Would be nice to see the big move, when they plunk it down into the middle of the Pacific. So yeah, a lot of little things that we may be able to infer, but that’s not nearly as satisfying as to see the stories unfold on TV.
Also, while I think the ALTL was good TV on the first viewing, it’s going to be very disappointing on 2nd look knowing how it ends.
May 27th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
The problem about trying to answer questions is that there’s no consensus about what questions matter to the audience. Personally, I’m satisfied with the explanation of the mythology and that there is a rich unexplored history that preceded Jacob and the Others we knew (who built the tunnels, temples, etc). But I’d like to know more about the rules that governed the world that our characters lived through. A more cohesive explanation of afterlife and reincarnation would be a start. What was the deal with Sayid being dead but coming back to life (and incidentally, what happened to the islands healing powers when it came to jack’s knife would at the end?) Which dead people can Hurley talk to? Are they able to come to and from the sideways world? Michael was trapped on the island, never to enter the sideways world and move on from there, what about the others (Charlie, Ana Lucia)? Jacob said they’d never see him again– presumeably off to his own sideways world? And which dead people had been MIB all along? Some of the Christian sightings, Yemi (?), alex (clearly), etc.
Re-watching the show would be interesting to sort out how the characters were manipulated at different times by the MIB, Jacob, and the hands of fate throughout the series, but I suspect it would also reveal a frustrating number of inconsistencies and dangling plots.
June 8th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Maybe this is all to obvious, but here are some thoughts about the Light. I think Dharma was wiped out, with implicit approval from Jacob, because they were on the verge of discovering The Source. When MIB was tossed into The Source, a good chunk of the Light was embedded within him, hence Smokey. Now, if he left The Island, that would be like the Light leaving The Island, and everything ends as described by a variety of people. When Desmond uncorked The Source, The Light left MIB and he was stuck as a mortal John Locke. Plugging it back up, The Light was back where it belonged, thus ending (for the first time) the long dispute between MIB & Jacob.
That was the whole thing about “it only ends once.” Every other group Jacob brought there eventually discovers The Source and tries to exploit it, and they get wiped out. But after 2000 years of progress, Jacob found the right group of people and created the right circumstances such that when our Losties found the Source, instead of trying to exploit it they worked to protect it. The end.