Movieline Attempts to Tie Up Almost 100 of Lost's 'Loose Ends'
After the Lost finale aired, some people complained that there are still dozens of questions left unanswered -- but is that really true? Sure, there are still a few loose threads left hanging, but I'd argue that the bulk of the questions people have are either answerable or can be strongly guessed at based on the information the show has already given us.
To put my theory to the test, I decided to rebut a popular video compiled today by College Humor that lists nearly 100 outstanding questions that Lost has left us with. How many could I answer, and how many were legitimate loose ends? Let's find out.
Why did the monster kill the pilot?
Because he's an angry smoke monster who often kills people who come to the island, as long as they're not candidates.
What did Locke see when he first saw the smoke?
Smoke, I'm guessing?
What's with the polar bear in Walt's comic?
It...was a polar bear in Walt's comic. Would you like to know who published it, or...?
Where's Christian Shepherd's body if it's not in the casket?
On the island somewhere, presumably.
Why did the psychic say that Claire had to fly on Oceanic 815, and why did he insist that her son had to be raised by Claire?
It's open to interpretation. In one of Eko's flashbacks, the psychic seemed to be a bit of a fraud, but if you subscribe to what he's saying, it still makes some sense. It was Claire's destiny to be on that flight, as she was a Candidate (albeit one who was eventually crossed-out...maybe Jacob was more interested in her before she got pregnant). As for why Claire had to raise Aaron, look how many people tried to kidnap that baby! And look what happened to poor Claire when she had to go without Aaron. Her hair was terrible.
Why did the Others want Walt so badly?
The Others kidnapped children, since they were unable to reproduce. Walt was a child. Ergo, Walt was kidnapped.
Who sent Kate the letter telling her about her mother being treated for cancer in the hospital?
Some dude? I mean, do we really care?
How does Walt know about the hatch and why does he warn Locke not to open it?
Walt had some special psychic powers, so he learned about the hatch by picking it up from Locke. As for why he didn't want it opened...well, a lot of bad shit went down in that hatch. Like, Walt's dad shot some people and stuff. It wasn't all fun and Mama Cass records.
Why does the smoke monster make mechanical sounds?
Because it's cool.
How is Walt able to apparate before Shannon?
Special powers.
How did Walt communicate with Michael using the Swan computer?
Probably got on one of the Others' computers, checked his email, played a few rounds of Words with Friends, and still had a little time left over to tool around a bit.
What is the deal with Kate and that horse?
I mean, it's an island with polar bears and zoo animals. A black horse may hold special resonance for Kate, but can't it just be a black horse? We've seen people riding horses on the island before.
Why are supplies still being dropped on the island after the purge, and by who?
All right, we finally have our first really legitimate unanswered question. I wouldn't mind knowing the answer, either.
What triggered the lockdown, and why on earth would anyone trigger it so that during the lockdown, black lights would go on?
The food drop triggered the lockdown. As for black lights, who doesn't love those?
What happened to the original Henry Gale?
Ballooned to the island, then died. I mean, it could have been interesting to know more about him, but what more did we really need to know? He was a red herring for the Ben story.
What happened to the original timeline Libby in the mental hospital?
Unanswered question #2.
Who built the four-toed statue?
We can intuit that among the people who crashed on the island were Egyptians, just to go by their hieroglyphics and Tawaret statue-building. Did we actually need to see them in a flashback, peering over blueprints and sweating on ladders? I didn't, but your mileage may vary.
Why does only one specific bearing get you off the island?
Because it's a hidden, magical island, and it just does?
What are the hieroglyphics on the Swan countdown timer about?
An homage to the Egyptians who used to live on the island and tagged hieroglyphics all over the place?
Why did Tom feel the need to wear a fake beard?
To fool the Oceanic survivors into thinking that the Others were simply a primitive tribe of other castaways, not a technology-possessing race tapped into the mysticism of the island.
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What happened to the original timeline Libby in the mental hospital?
Unanswered question #2.
-This is actually answered. Her husband died (named Dave, had the ship she gave to Desmond) and that caused her to be depressed and break down, so she was in the mental hospital.
"Why did Desmond have a false vision of Claire and Aaron leaving the island on a helicopter?"
In a vision, Desmond saw Charlie die, and it eventually came true BUT it wasn't in the way Desmond initially saw. The circumstances of Charlie's fate kept switching. Similarly, Claire and Aaron did leave the island, but not via helicopter, and not together.
MYSTERY SOLVED
I know no one here has said much about it, but the one thing that has been annoying me is that everyone thinks Dharma was pointless and a big build up for nothing.
Actually take a second look and think about why Dharma was there. Jacob (as far as we know) was the only Island guardian who had to deal with an evil force(which he created) the MIB. So, in order to stop the man in black from carrying out his ultimate plan i.e. kill Jacob and escape/destroy the island thus releasing his evil into the rest of the world Jacob had to ensure that someone would be around to replace him should the MIB succeed. Hence the long list of crossed off candidates in the cave that Jacob had tried to bring to the island in the past, but were ultimately corrupted by the MIB.
Dharma was brought to the island by Jacob (IMHO) to exploit the electromagnetic properties of the island, thus turning MIB into a human once more (as we saw in the finale) thereby enabling Jacob or whomever to kill him. As we know Jacob has a strange and I would say fairly sh**ty way of running things, so MIB intervened and corrupted a member of the Dharma initiative and turning him to his side.
How did he do this? You may remember that the thing that drove Ben out into the jungle and, if I remember correctly, was where he met Richard in one of his flashbacks, was an apparition of his long dead mother. Which I believe was the MIB, because up until that point only two other characters who died off island appeared on the Island post-death. Christian Shephard and Yemi and we have been told MIB did in fact pose as Christian so I assume he did pose as Yemi as well.
This event lead to a chain of events ultimately resulting in Ben taking leadership of the Others and being corrupted by MIB to do his bidding and eliminate a major threat to his plan. The threat...the Dharma initiative. Ben always thought he was doing things for Jacob, but in fact he was being manipulated by the MIB to carry out his plan and eliminate Jacob.
IDK i could be wrong, but I just assumed thats what most people thought about Dharma and why it was there.
"Why was there a time difference between Faraday’s timers?
Because time is different on the island as opposed to the outside world."
Actually, the answer is that "coming from and to the island, there are time fluctuations, if not going through the bearing..."
Libby in the mental hospital - as another commenter said, she had a nervous breakdown over her husband's death.
HOWEVER, she told Desmond that her husband was named David. So who was Hurley's 'invisible friend'? Dave.
So it seems to me that Hurley already had the ability to see dead people long before he came to the Island - he's palling around the mental hospital with the ghost of Libby's husband, although why Dave never tried to communicate with Libby is another question (heh). Maybe he was just a jerk.
Ok, in the episode telling the backstory of MiB and Jacob, Allison Janey somehow destroys the camp of all those people after she finds out they are getting close to the heart of the island. All the people are dead and the well is filled in. I assumed at the time that she could do this because she was the smoke monster. Was she a smoke monster? She told Jacob that he should never go into the light because that was worse than death. How does she know? Did she herself? Why didn't Jack or Desmond turn into a smoke monster or experience something worse than death?
Also, after the nuclear bomb went off there was a scene showing the island at the bottom of the ocean. When is that supposed to be? Showing that was in part what made people think that the parallel story line was real. If the island didn't sink in the '70s (which it didn't seem to do) then when does the island end up at the bottom of the ocean? Did Hurly and Ben screw it up and sink it? That would explain how they're "dead" at the end, I guess.
["To be fair, Aaron did leave the island on a helicopter."]
No, he didn't. Sun carried him off the island in a boat. The boat or whatever you called them, conveyed them to the freighter.
Ugh. I couldn't even get past the first eight of these. If you don't care about the answers, that's fine -- don't care about the answers. But don't act like some bullshit, flippant statements or saying "who cares?" actually answers the questions.
To be fair: The smoke monster noises really aren't necessarily mechanical sounding.. I have a nature CD where you hear some creature in the backgrond making the infamous clicking noise. Everytime I listen to it, I think about ol' smokey.
Serious LOL!!
Uhm,
Re dead ppl in polar bear cave: wasn't that smokey and his mom? or are there two mysterious caves with dead people in them?
gee, that's some impressively sharp insight. you know, it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
I think you came up with about 5 valid theories.
The rest was flippant bullshyt.
And at the end of the day, anything that you or I
or anyone else says is just a "theory".
Unprovable.
Because we were not privy to the thought processes (or lack of)
that went into the planning of the show.
Until someone gets their hands on a pirated copy of
Gregg Nation's LOST bible and we can see that the plot has
more holes than swiss cheese.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118002950.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
This is the dumbest article ever. I could have answered all of the questions better. Next time, hire someone who is a fan.
This is the best answer! Of course she knew how to find it -- she told them all what plane to get on and when it had to leave! thank you -- if i come up with any other questions i'm going to send them directly to you.
1) Wookies, possibly. Ewoks, never. Remember, Ewoks suck.
This article is baaaad. It's not satisfying, and it's not even funny.
Plus, some of the answers are obviously wrong (i.e. what did locke see first time he saw the black smoke, Locke says in the show he "looked into the eye of the island, and it was beautiful" and later he says he saw a bright light (i.e. the light in the heart of the island cave).
I stopped reading at question 12.
The woman not giving birth on island wasn't caused by "the incident" because we know for a fact that it happened in 1977 but Alex was born on the island aproximativly in 1988 since the message Danielle Rousseau had recorded had been aired on loop for 16 years.
And for the food drop I guess it was somebody working for ben since he probably took over the Dharma after the purge.
Sorry if you can't understand me but I'm french.
I think you missed the point of some of the questions.
From the other one:
"Why did the monster kill the pilot?
Because he’s an angry smoke monster who often kills people who come to the island, as long as they’re not candidates."
No, he *tries* to kill candidates. Was the pilot a candidate? If not, what was the point?
"What did Locke see when he first saw the smoke?
Smoke, I’m guessing?"
But after seeing Smokey, Locke said that he looked into "the heart of the island, and it was beautiful." So why does Locke see something beautiful in the thing that scares everyone else?
My guess is that the monster took the form of Helen, but like so many things, the writers never bothered to clarify.
"What’s with the polar bear in Walt’s comic?
It…was a polar bear in Walt’s comic. Would you like to know who published it, or…?"
Yes, but there was also a polar bear on the island. And in a later episode, he thought about a bird, and the bird came flying and hit his window. The question is, what's the deal with Walt and thinking about animals and them suddenly appearing?
Anyway, this was still a fun read.
I completely agree. Most of the answers were terrible... some were sufficient, but most were flippant and barely elucidating.
It was the questions that excited me and made me realize that LOST was poorly written and full of red-herrings! The best mysteries are ones that seem complicated and full of impossible-to-reconcile details, but (once you see the full picture) are actually completely explainable.
There were so many holes in the plot, particularly around Walt and, of course, the way the island works. The more I think about it, the more disappointed I am in the whole show... Not just the finale.
I don't regret watching. At the very least, it was entertaining -- but I'm glad I'm not an OCD-type who, over the years, had carefully catalogued each and every "mystery" hoping that they would someday be carefully explained by the creators.
Because I'd be sorely disappointed!
we could theorize that the island sits on a point of convergence for multiple tectonic plates, and that the massive eruption that would be caused by its sinking would create monstrous disasters powerful enough to affect the entire world.
Ok, but the island can be moved...
Why can Jacob leave the island but the smoke monster can’t?
Because Jacob didn't die, his brother did... the smoke monster is what was created through his death... being dead & supernatural might have a little to do with his not being able to leave the island.
Also, perhaps after Jacob's brother died (his body was laid to rest next to their "mother's" in the cave... they were the "Adam & Eve" bodies) this just allowed the smoke monster to take on his form... it could take on the form of anyone who died right? Maybe it was trapped in the cave with the light until the Man in Black was tossed in, giving it a form to take on. Smokey probably liked the MIB's form as it messed with Jacob more than any other form could. Just as it chose to take on Locke's form to mess with Jack.
It was bound to the island.
Excuse me 4 my english, i'm from Italy and I may have a question: Why did I see roman people building the wheel while I had seen the same wheel completed with... hyerogliphics upon it?
No. She didn't die on the island and smokey couldn't use her body.
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