Lost

[Wader]

How come talking to Desmond would have been altering the past too much, but Locke killing a bunch of Dharma Initiative guys is okay?

I’m going to assume that its ok because the official timeline involved them being killed right then.

The way I understood it is that if you (in the future) remembered meeting yourself in the past, then its ok to talk to yourself when you go back. But if you dont remember meeting yourself, then the meeting never happened and you cant meet yourself.

So the “real” timeline has those guys being killed right then.

Thats why Desmond is apparently so important. He can do things that didnt happen.

[HRose]

Quite a silly time travel theory since it’s given for granted that even the smallest changes can lead to dramatic differences.

[madkevin]

Quite a silly time travel theory since it’s given for granted that even the smallest changes can lead to dramatic differences.

Given by who? The creators of The Butterfly Effect?

All time travel sci-fi stories are equally silly in that we can’t, you know, time travel. As long as Lost plays by the rules it sets up (which is admittedly a hard thing to do, c.f. almost every other time travel sci-fi story ever written or filmed) I’m cool with it.

[Wader]

Given by who? The creators of The Butterfly Effect?

All time travel sci-fi stories are equally silly in that we can’t, you know, time travel. As long as Lost plays by the rules it sets up (which is admittedly a hard thing to do, c.f. almost every other time travel sci-fi story ever written or filmed) I’m cool with it.

Isnt the Lost is viewing this (at least the way I am viewing Lost as operating) the way that the Hitchiker’s Guide To The Galaxy viewed time travel? In that “you cant change the past because all the important changes have already happened”.

IE the idea being that there is a single fixed timeline and all the effects of time travel on that timeline are experienced in that timeline. So if you did something in the past, there’s no way you could go back and prevent yourself from doing it, because if you had suceeded in preventing yourself from doing it, you would have been stopped from doing it in the first place.

I think I am typing in circles…

[wonderpug]

Another forum is saying the old lady Ben talks to is the same old lady from the jewelry store Desmond met when he was time hopping. Didn’t make that connection myself.

Refresher from the Lost wiki:

Some time later, Desmond looks at diamond rings in a shop. Ms. Hawking, the shop keeper, aids him in his browsing, finding him the perfect one for his price range. He says he’ll take the ring, but is taken aback when she says “no, you won’t.” Ms. Hawking tells the astonished Desmond that he isn’t supposed to take the ring, because his not buying it led to his original fate of ending up on the island and turning the fail-safe key. She also states that “if you don’t do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of us is dead.”

Ms. Hawking decides that Desmond needs persuasion and brings him outside. She buys some chestnuts from a street vendor and points out a man wearing red shoes. Desmond theorizes that she is really his subconscious but she only smiles. Desmond says he is determined to marry Penny, but Ms. Hawking is confident that that won’t happen. Suddenly, scaffolding falls on the man wearing red shoes, and Desmond accuses Ms. Hawking of knowing what would happen, asking why she didn’t try to stop it. She says it was his fate to die and that no one can change their fate. If she warned him about the scaffolding, he would have been hit by a taxi, and if she had warned him about the taxi, he would have fallen in the shower and broken his neck. If someone manages to forestall fate, the universe will “course correct” itself and find another way of forcing them back on their prescribed path. Desmond, however, refuses to concede that he is a slave to the universe, and takes the ring anyway.

[Kevin_J_Baird]

So where did the compass come from originally?

Oddly, in the Lost Via Domus game, the compass is found on a Dharma person’s body near the Polar Bear cave. You have to give it to Locke in order to have him help you escape. The game isn’t canon of course, but parts of it contain clues and are canonical. So perhaps it’s an event we haven’t seen happen yet.

[SlainteMhath]

Another forum is saying the old lady Ben talks to is the same old lady from the jewelry store Desmond met when he was time hopping. Didn’t make that connection myself.

She was that same lady. I’m guessing (and it’s a total guess at this point) that “Mrs. Hawking” is also Faraday’s mother, whom he implored Desmond to seek out via the meeting in the past that translated to a “dream” Desmond had in the present. Only she’s apparently no longer at Oxford, but in L.A. controlling Ben.

[Andrew_Mayer]

She was that same lady. I’m guessing (and it’s a total guess at this point) that “Mrs. Hawking” is also Faraday’s mother, whom he implored Desmond to seek out via the meeting in the past that translated to a “dream” Desmond had in the present. Only she’s apparently no longer at Oxford, but in L.A. controlling Ben.

I’d agree with that.

Having been one of ten people who played Via Domus, it was also nice getting a little payoff.

[Brian_Seiler]

Having been one of ten people who played Via Domus, it was also nice getting a little payoff.

Make it eleven.

And I still don’t feel compensated for my experience.

And if the ending of that game and the ending of this series end up tying together the way I fear they will, we might all feel very, very cheated.

[Hemalin]

Army Desmond was possessed by Freighter Desmond at the time. My interpretation was that Possessed Army Desmond wouldn’t retain any memories of what happened when he was possessed by Freighter Desmond.

I forget, what happened to Freighter Desmond and Nosebleed Freighter Guy Who Played Ben Jahrvi in Short Circuit when their consciousnesses were in other time periods? Were their bodies just unconscious in the freighter time period?

I thought it was the other way around. Island Desmond was possessed by Army Desmond. With Desmond not knowing Sayid or where he was when he was on the freighter, I thought, made it seem pretty clear.

Were their bodies just unconscious in the freighter time period?
I believe that is what happened. I think both Oxford Faraday and Sayid mentioned Desmond had been unconscious for a period of time.

[MatthewF]

Each personality replaced the other during the Desmond Quantum Leap episode. When Island Desmond came to in Army Desmond’s body, he remembered the island and certain things, but they were vague at best. Similarly, when Army Desmond possessed Island Desmond’s body, his memories were also vague.

[Lloyd_Heilbrunn]

I’d agree with that.

Having been one of ten people who played Via Domus, it was also nice getting a little payoff.

I started it, but I could not get past the characters who did not sound like their actors. I mean, wasn’t reacting with your “friends” from the show the whole point?

[Brian_Seiler]

I started it, but I could not get past the characters who did not sound like their actors. I mean, wasn’t reacting with your “friends” from the show the whole point?

Apparently not, unless your friends are all clinically retarded and doomed to forever repeat the same phrases they did right around the time they became your friends.

In all seriousness, though, you could probably find a YouTube video of the salient points and avoid both the atrocious gameplay AND the transparent, idiotic attempt to lasso every possible catchphrase from the show and drag it into the game to be branded, stamped, processed, reformed, and spat back out, in at least one case in the form of an Australian trying as hard as he can to sound like a Canadian pretending to be a cowboy (Locke).

[Andrew_Mayer]

I started it, but I could not get past the characters who did not sound like their actors. I mean, wasn’t reacting with your “friends” from the show the whole point?

It was “funnish” being able to interact with sets from the show. That’s about it.

[Problematique]

This is awesome, it feels like everything is finally coming together.

[Dirt]

I wonder who’s more Lost? The characters, the writers or the viewers?

[Russ]

I guess I’m in the minority but I was completely underwhelmed by the opening episodes. None of the answers I am looking for were revealed yet. A bigger problem for me is that since all the main characters are so spread apart, we don’t have much of the usual interplay and tension between characters. Sawyer with Kate or Hugo is fun to watch. Sawyer with Juliet? Not so much. Jack, Kate, and Sun are away from the rest of their usual castmates and none of them are that interesting alone. Sayid was out of it too much. Only Ben is able to keep me interested without the help of other castmates. He is pretty much carrying the show for me right now.

[rhinohelix]

I guess I’m in the minority but I was completely underwhelmed by the opening episodes. None of the answers I am looking for were revealed yet. A bigger problem for me is that since all the main characters are so spread apart, we don’t have much of the usual interplay and tension between characters. Sawyer with Kate or Hugo is fun to watch. Sawyer with Juliet? Not so much. Jack, Kate, and Sun are away from the rest of their usual castmates and none of them are that interesting alone. Sayid was out of it too much. Only Ben is able to keep me interested without the help of other castmates. He is pretty much carrying the show for me right now.

All of this time travel stuff leaves me cold. I know its all part of the Cylons^H^H^H the writers’ plan but the opener just seems a bridge too far for me.

Actually, that’s a cheap shot at Lost. This show feels much more planned out than the alluded series, JMS style.

[bloo]

None of the answers I am looking for were revealed yet.

Such as?

[Russ]

How did Locke get off the island and why did he (seemingly) die?
What happened to Jin? I certainly don’t think it is certain he is dead.
What’s the deal with Walt?
Why does Hurley see and talk to dead people?
Why is Jack a charismatic leader on the island and a blubbering baby off of it?
What is the significance of the numbers?
What is the smoke monster?

These and many more remain unexplained.

I’ll keep watching but right now it just doesn’t really feel like we are moving closer to these answers.