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Monday, May 10, 2010
BTIES: Movies That Are Destroying America - Summer Movie Edition
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Sunday, May 09, 2010
LOST: collecting the dots...
I'm gonna collect, but not necessarily connect, some of the LOST "dots"—events, information, mysteries, and relationships we've been shown in LOST so far—and list them below with descriptions, theories, and open questions about them. Just to have, and maybe connect. Y'know what this show needs (or rather, my life needs)? A case board, y'know, like in THE WIRE, THE CLOSER, or FLASHFORWARD, with photos and notes and newsclippings and maps and dates connected by strings or drawn arrows. Granted, it would be a really frickin big board, one that might hafta project into dimensions we can't actually perceive...
Anyhow, the dots. I'll number them, in case anyone wants to refer to them in a comment, but they won't be ordered by any criteria, just listed as they come to me. I may add more to this post or link to subsequent posts as time goes on. Alas, there's not all that much time left...
*sigh*
DOT 1. DESMOND'S FINAL CHARLIE FLASH.
Desmond tells Charlie that he has to die to guarantee Claire and Aaron's rescue. His final FINAL DESTINATION flash of Charlie's death is of Charlie flipping the switch in the Looking Glass and then drowning. According to Desmond's vision if Charlie's death comes to pass in this manner, Claire and baby Aaron will board a helicopter and leave the Island safely. It is BABY Aaron and not-claimed Claire, meaning that their rescue must happen BEFORE Claire dies, is Infected, and leaves Aaron with Sawyer.
I will be disappointed if the journey to the ultimate end of the show does not include or at least address this. All of my endgame theories feature a rebooting and rewinding of LOST1 to a time after the crash, after Aaron's birth, but before Widmore's freighter arrives, allowing for a much less bloody Island stay for the Losties before being rescued by Penny's people. I forget, was Aaron born before Michael completes his raft? Ideally, they'd get rescued before Walt is kidnapped, y'know? And hey, Locke would never end up visiting Jacob's Cabin, and thus, never disturb the Circle of ash, and so, never free Esau from his prison.
Hrmmm... Heck, maybe the Swan failsafe detonation shatters the snowglobe.
DOT 2. WALT'S DREAM ABOUT JOHN LOCKE.
Walt tells John when Abaddon helps him find him after school one day...
This seems like it refers to Locke-ness on the beach surrounded by Ilana and the bodyguards. They certainly WANT to hurt him, but they don't take arms against him until they reach the Foot. Maybe Walt's vision has yet to be played out?
He's wearing a suit... Could it be that dead and buried Locke would actually be resurrected? Who then would surround him and want to hurt him? Could it be John Locke from LOST2, perhaps in a suit for his wedding? But on the Island, somehow, physically...
I don't know. It seems too difficult to make the vision come true in those ways, but I also find it hard to believe that Walt wouldn't be able to *feel* that the Locke in his vision wasn't actually Esau wearing John's form, y'know?
DOT 3. THE OUTRIGGER CANOE CHASE.
We saw it occur from the POV of Sawyer, Locke, and friends as they skipped thru time. We have yet to see the chase from the other side, from the POV of the group in the second canoe who pursue them and fire on them at sea. I believe that when this period of time comes to pass in the course of the regular forward-moving flow of time we're witnessing on the Island, Locke's living breathing presence will render Esau, "stuck" in the otherwise Dead Locke's form, vulnerable to attack and/or capture.
I think that the pursuers in the other canoe are Miles, Richard, and Ben, loaded up with arms and explosives from New Otherton and en route to Hydra island. They might open fire simply because they think they recognize Locke-ness, but I'd rather Miles remember experiencing this scene three years earlier (subjectively) briefing Richard and Ben in on the chronology and misguidedly inspiring them to believe that they can fix things now by killing Locke back then, before he can leave the Island and return as a corpse to be used as Esau's meat puppet.
DOT 4. THE KID.
He's roaming the Island, apparently shadowing Esau, and only Esau and certain Losties (Candidates?) can see him. So far Sawyer and Desmond have both seen him. Richard cannot see him. He appears to be Jacob as a child, experiencing an accelerated rate of growth. Jim compared him to Spock's regenerated body on the Genesis planet, a pretty nice fit. Although, I wonder if it could actually be Jacob at those ages, temporally displaced? Maybe his appearances match up with the oldest time skips that Sawyer, Locke, and friends experienced after Ben set the Island to time-skipping.
DOT 5. CANDIDATES and THE NUMBERS.
We'll probably never get a proper explanation/origin of the Numbers, but how the heck did they end up in that transmission from the Island radio tower? Was that a DI thing? An experiment to release the numbers "into the wild" in a very isolated and random way? Powerful breadcrumbs meant to lead certain individuals back to the Island?
The broadcast was heard by Hurley's Connect-4-playing friend and his partner while working some Pacific listening station for the military. One of them ended up killing himself, the other ended up in the hospital with Hurley. The same broadcast lured Rousseau's boat into the snowglobe.
Is Jacob or Esau familiar with the Numbers? It seems that Jacob isn't, or he would have seen the correlation between them and his ever-dwindling list of Candidates, right? Esau... I don't think he cares about them, except that they happen to match up to the last Candidates standing. The ones he needs to manipulate into eliminating each other so that he can be free of the Island.
DOT 6. CANDIDATES and JACOB'S TOUCH.
Every Candidate has been touched by Jacob, but not everyone who is touched is currently a Candidate. We've seen that Jacob touched Richard, Kate, Sawyer, John, Sun, Jin, and Jack before the 815 crash, and Sayid and Hurley after their rescue. Richard is not a Candidate. Sayid died, shot by Ben's father, Uncle Rico. Sun and Jin died as a result of Sawyer triggering the failsafe on Locke-ness's bomb. Sayid dies a second time as a result of that bomb, too.
The Rules seem to say that Esau cannot kill anyone who has been touched by Jacob. Those who have been touched, however, can kill one another by accident or intentionally. Richard cannot kill himself. I'm not certain if the 815 Touched can kill themselves. When Jack lights the dynamite in the Blackrock, he seems to want to prove that he's protected by the Island, not that he can't commit suicide. I don't think it demonstrates a Rule about Candidates and suicide.
QUESTION. Would Sawyer have died in the bomb explosion if Sayid hadn't intervened? Since Sawyer pulled the wires, wouldn't his death be considered by the Rules to be suicide? What about Jin's decision to stay with his wife? Do these situations demonstrate that the Touched/Candidates *CAN* kill themselves? Is intent a factor?
THEORY. Jacob has touched Desmond. Locke-ness does not kill Desmond when he has the chance (many chances), but instead sends Sayid to do it. It seems that Locke-ness CANNOT kill Desmond, but Sayid, a one-time-Candidate, can. This points to the notion that Desmond must have been touched by Jacob.
DOT 7. JACOB'S CABIN and THE CIRCLE OF ASH.
When was the circle broken? Did we ever actually see it whole? I think it was broken by Locke when he ran from the Cabin when he visited with Ben for the first time.
THEORY. When the Circle of ash was unbroken, it prevented Esau's consciousness from accessing his Monster body, which roamed wildly (or according to default programming) without his will to direct it. That is, Esau was inside the Circle and the Monster was outside of it.
So, the Monster is a simple creature all on its own. Whether it's a construct or a beast, by default, it roams the Island, perhaps somewhat territorially (security system?), driven by instinctive desires and/or programmed rules or directives. Esau tells Richard that he was once human and that Jacob stole his body. Maybe that's true. As a disembodied consciousness, Esau discovered that he could "enter" and take over the Monster's form. When Jacob started bring humans to the Island, he then learned to mimic their dead forms.
Who could have trapped and split the Monster and Esau? Jacob on his own? An early dynasty of Others? Wouldn't they be more careful about the preservation of that ash Circle? Could enough time have passed since the capture of Esau that he truly did become an Other bedtime story, told to scare wee Others? Was that what Jacob wished? That Esau should be re-introduced to a generation of Islanders unfamiliar with his ways? Does the Circle pre-date the Cabin? Did Esau's presence influence Horace to visit the Circle and build the Cabin there?
QUESTION. What was the protocol for Ben's receiving lists and messages from Jacob during his time as leader? Was the Cabin acknowledge by Richard as a necessary sham? For show in front of the Other congregation and outsiders?
QUESTION. When Ilana and the bodyguards go to the Cabin, who are they expecting to find? They go in with their guard up. Especially so once Bram points out that the Circle is broken, allowing someone or something in or out. Once she inspects the Cabin, Ilana reveals that someone else has been using the Cabin for some time. I want to say that she means Claire, except that she has her very own hovelpile.
DOT 8. CATCH A FALLING STAR.
Claire asks the adopting parents to please sing the lullaby to the baby. She tells them that her father used to sing it to her.
When Claire is under Ethan's care with the Others, they've provided a crib with a mobile for her baby. She turns the mobile on and it plays the tune of the lullaby.
We hear Kate singing it to 3-year old Aaron.
Christian2 leaves a music box to Claire2 in his will. The music box plays the tune of the song.
Passed down from generation to generation of Shephards, what's the significance of this lullaby meme? Did Christian sing this to Jack? Did Ray sing it to Christian? Did Jacob or Esau have this song sung to him as a child as well?
The lyrics can be interpreted in the language of physics, describing a meteorite or perhaps a baby black hole, fallen to earth and captured or contained in a pocket dimension. They can alsy be interpreted in the language of religion and myth, describing the fall of an angel or other heavenly/celestial being, captured or held in a pocket dimension as well.
DOT 9. THE REAL NAME OF THE NEMESIS.
I've been calling him Esau, but we've not been given his real name. Story-wise, this seems significant to me, conspicuous, because it sets up the anticipation for a reveal which would connect his identity to another or others that we already know. Within the story, it's significant because Esau would withhold information that might be used against him, and a connection to one of the Losties could be exploited by his enemies. I assume that Jacob never tells any of his people of Esau's origins out of some sense of fairness, his laissez-faire, "non-interference" policy, or perhaps in accodance with the Rules.
THEORY. Esau is a time-bumped, grown up, Infected-in-the-womb, Aaron, as raised by Kate (at least, for the first three years of his life).
Keep on keepin on~
Anyhow, the dots. I'll number them, in case anyone wants to refer to them in a comment, but they won't be ordered by any criteria, just listed as they come to me. I may add more to this post or link to subsequent posts as time goes on. Alas, there's not all that much time left...
*sigh*
DOT 1. DESMOND'S FINAL CHARLIE FLASH.
Desmond tells Charlie that he has to die to guarantee Claire and Aaron's rescue. His final FINAL DESTINATION flash of Charlie's death is of Charlie flipping the switch in the Looking Glass and then drowning. According to Desmond's vision if Charlie's death comes to pass in this manner, Claire and baby Aaron will board a helicopter and leave the Island safely. It is BABY Aaron and not-claimed Claire, meaning that their rescue must happen BEFORE Claire dies, is Infected, and leaves Aaron with Sawyer.
I will be disappointed if the journey to the ultimate end of the show does not include or at least address this. All of my endgame theories feature a rebooting and rewinding of LOST1 to a time after the crash, after Aaron's birth, but before Widmore's freighter arrives, allowing for a much less bloody Island stay for the Losties before being rescued by Penny's people. I forget, was Aaron born before Michael completes his raft? Ideally, they'd get rescued before Walt is kidnapped, y'know? And hey, Locke would never end up visiting Jacob's Cabin, and thus, never disturb the Circle of ash, and so, never free Esau from his prison.
Hrmmm... Heck, maybe the Swan failsafe detonation shatters the snowglobe.
DOT 2. WALT'S DREAM ABOUT JOHN LOCKE.
Walt tells John when Abaddon helps him find him after school one day...
WALT: I've been having dreams about you. You were on the Island, wearing a suit, and there are people all around you. They wanted to hurt you, John.
LOCKE: Good thing they're just dreams.
This seems like it refers to Locke-ness on the beach surrounded by Ilana and the bodyguards. They certainly WANT to hurt him, but they don't take arms against him until they reach the Foot. Maybe Walt's vision has yet to be played out?
He's wearing a suit... Could it be that dead and buried Locke would actually be resurrected? Who then would surround him and want to hurt him? Could it be John Locke from LOST2, perhaps in a suit for his wedding? But on the Island, somehow, physically...
I don't know. It seems too difficult to make the vision come true in those ways, but I also find it hard to believe that Walt wouldn't be able to *feel* that the Locke in his vision wasn't actually Esau wearing John's form, y'know?
DOT 3. THE OUTRIGGER CANOE CHASE.
We saw it occur from the POV of Sawyer, Locke, and friends as they skipped thru time. We have yet to see the chase from the other side, from the POV of the group in the second canoe who pursue them and fire on them at sea. I believe that when this period of time comes to pass in the course of the regular forward-moving flow of time we're witnessing on the Island, Locke's living breathing presence will render Esau, "stuck" in the otherwise Dead Locke's form, vulnerable to attack and/or capture.
I think that the pursuers in the other canoe are Miles, Richard, and Ben, loaded up with arms and explosives from New Otherton and en route to Hydra island. They might open fire simply because they think they recognize Locke-ness, but I'd rather Miles remember experiencing this scene three years earlier (subjectively) briefing Richard and Ben in on the chronology and misguidedly inspiring them to believe that they can fix things now by killing Locke back then, before he can leave the Island and return as a corpse to be used as Esau's meat puppet.
DOT 4. THE KID.
He's roaming the Island, apparently shadowing Esau, and only Esau and certain Losties (Candidates?) can see him. So far Sawyer and Desmond have both seen him. Richard cannot see him. He appears to be Jacob as a child, experiencing an accelerated rate of growth. Jim compared him to Spock's regenerated body on the Genesis planet, a pretty nice fit. Although, I wonder if it could actually be Jacob at those ages, temporally displaced? Maybe his appearances match up with the oldest time skips that Sawyer, Locke, and friends experienced after Ben set the Island to time-skipping.
DOT 5. CANDIDATES and THE NUMBERS.
We'll probably never get a proper explanation/origin of the Numbers, but how the heck did they end up in that transmission from the Island radio tower? Was that a DI thing? An experiment to release the numbers "into the wild" in a very isolated and random way? Powerful breadcrumbs meant to lead certain individuals back to the Island?
The broadcast was heard by Hurley's Connect-4-playing friend and his partner while working some Pacific listening station for the military. One of them ended up killing himself, the other ended up in the hospital with Hurley. The same broadcast lured Rousseau's boat into the snowglobe.
Is Jacob or Esau familiar with the Numbers? It seems that Jacob isn't, or he would have seen the correlation between them and his ever-dwindling list of Candidates, right? Esau... I don't think he cares about them, except that they happen to match up to the last Candidates standing. The ones he needs to manipulate into eliminating each other so that he can be free of the Island.
DOT 6. CANDIDATES and JACOB'S TOUCH.
Every Candidate has been touched by Jacob, but not everyone who is touched is currently a Candidate. We've seen that Jacob touched Richard, Kate, Sawyer, John, Sun, Jin, and Jack before the 815 crash, and Sayid and Hurley after their rescue. Richard is not a Candidate. Sayid died, shot by Ben's father, Uncle Rico. Sun and Jin died as a result of Sawyer triggering the failsafe on Locke-ness's bomb. Sayid dies a second time as a result of that bomb, too.
The Rules seem to say that Esau cannot kill anyone who has been touched by Jacob. Those who have been touched, however, can kill one another by accident or intentionally. Richard cannot kill himself. I'm not certain if the 815 Touched can kill themselves. When Jack lights the dynamite in the Blackrock, he seems to want to prove that he's protected by the Island, not that he can't commit suicide. I don't think it demonstrates a Rule about Candidates and suicide.
QUESTION. Would Sawyer have died in the bomb explosion if Sayid hadn't intervened? Since Sawyer pulled the wires, wouldn't his death be considered by the Rules to be suicide? What about Jin's decision to stay with his wife? Do these situations demonstrate that the Touched/Candidates *CAN* kill themselves? Is intent a factor?
THEORY. Jacob has touched Desmond. Locke-ness does not kill Desmond when he has the chance (many chances), but instead sends Sayid to do it. It seems that Locke-ness CANNOT kill Desmond, but Sayid, a one-time-Candidate, can. This points to the notion that Desmond must have been touched by Jacob.
DOT 7. JACOB'S CABIN and THE CIRCLE OF ASH.
When was the circle broken? Did we ever actually see it whole? I think it was broken by Locke when he ran from the Cabin when he visited with Ben for the first time.
THEORY. When the Circle of ash was unbroken, it prevented Esau's consciousness from accessing his Monster body, which roamed wildly (or according to default programming) without his will to direct it. That is, Esau was inside the Circle and the Monster was outside of it.
So, the Monster is a simple creature all on its own. Whether it's a construct or a beast, by default, it roams the Island, perhaps somewhat territorially (security system?), driven by instinctive desires and/or programmed rules or directives. Esau tells Richard that he was once human and that Jacob stole his body. Maybe that's true. As a disembodied consciousness, Esau discovered that he could "enter" and take over the Monster's form. When Jacob started bring humans to the Island, he then learned to mimic their dead forms.
Who could have trapped and split the Monster and Esau? Jacob on his own? An early dynasty of Others? Wouldn't they be more careful about the preservation of that ash Circle? Could enough time have passed since the capture of Esau that he truly did become an Other bedtime story, told to scare wee Others? Was that what Jacob wished? That Esau should be re-introduced to a generation of Islanders unfamiliar with his ways? Does the Circle pre-date the Cabin? Did Esau's presence influence Horace to visit the Circle and build the Cabin there?
QUESTION. What was the protocol for Ben's receiving lists and messages from Jacob during his time as leader? Was the Cabin acknowledge by Richard as a necessary sham? For show in front of the Other congregation and outsiders?
QUESTION. When Ilana and the bodyguards go to the Cabin, who are they expecting to find? They go in with their guard up. Especially so once Bram points out that the Circle is broken, allowing someone or something in or out. Once she inspects the Cabin, Ilana reveals that someone else has been using the Cabin for some time. I want to say that she means Claire, except that she has her very own hovelpile.
DOT 8. CATCH A FALLING STAR.
Claire asks the adopting parents to please sing the lullaby to the baby. She tells them that her father used to sing it to her.
When Claire is under Ethan's care with the Others, they've provided a crib with a mobile for her baby. She turns the mobile on and it plays the tune of the lullaby.
We hear Kate singing it to 3-year old Aaron.
Christian2 leaves a music box to Claire2 in his will. The music box plays the tune of the song.
Passed down from generation to generation of Shephards, what's the significance of this lullaby meme? Did Christian sing this to Jack? Did Ray sing it to Christian? Did Jacob or Esau have this song sung to him as a child as well?
The lyrics can be interpreted in the language of physics, describing a meteorite or perhaps a baby black hole, fallen to earth and captured or contained in a pocket dimension. They can alsy be interpreted in the language of religion and myth, describing the fall of an angel or other heavenly/celestial being, captured or held in a pocket dimension as well.
DOT 9. THE REAL NAME OF THE NEMESIS.
I've been calling him Esau, but we've not been given his real name. Story-wise, this seems significant to me, conspicuous, because it sets up the anticipation for a reveal which would connect his identity to another or others that we already know. Within the story, it's significant because Esau would withhold information that might be used against him, and a connection to one of the Losties could be exploited by his enemies. I assume that Jacob never tells any of his people of Esau's origins out of some sense of fairness, his laissez-faire, "non-interference" policy, or perhaps in accodance with the Rules.
THEORY. Esau is a time-bumped, grown up, Infected-in-the-womb, Aaron, as raised by Kate (at least, for the first three years of his life).
Keep on keepin on~
IRON MAN 2: should've been better
Saw IRON MAN 2 twice this weekend. Not cuz it was awesome (it IS beautiful—I could watch Tony's briefcase armor up scene over and over with a smile), but cuz I committed to two outings w diff groups of people. Not as good as the first film. which did set a pretty high bar, and has some basic problems overall. Feels like it's missing a bunch of pieces, edited down from a complete film to meet some marketable close-to-2-hour running time (based on a SPIDERMAN 3 actuarial table?). Downey continues his awesomeness. Rourke is great as both Frankenstein doctor and monster. Rockwell is unfortunately unchallenged by his character. Scarlett J feels miscast as the Black Widow and even if it WAS her (I don't know either way) in the fight scenes, they seems unbelievable, which is a problem. Given all the IRON MAN and AVENGERS elements that I anticipated being throw into the IM2 mix, I went in expecting some compromises in story, sure. Given that, the most disappointing part is probably the weakness of the iron action scenes which, while gorgeous, are overly reckless in battle scenes and not nearly satisfying or dramatic enough in iron man-on-man action.
I'm gonna start rolling around in *SPOILERY* mud here, so get thee to a big screen for a viewing and then return.
It's got the looks, the parts, the set pieces (gorgeous, but honestly, not very satisfying), but it just doesn't have the heart. I feel like a half hour or so of film was cut or missing. Scenes and segments that could have...
There's a good villain in Mickey Rourke's Vanko, but he falls short of being a great nemesis. I mean, he starts VERY strong, attacking Stark in the open at the Monaco GP, using tech that appears to be Stark's. The brazen assault seems reckless and foolhardy, but when Tony visits his prison cell Ivan tells him what it was really about, what he really did. He kinda crowbars one too many metaphors in, but it's pretty damn good as far as evil nemesizing goes...
I say "well-enough" because Rockwell's considerable abilities (MOON, GENTLEMEN BRONCOS) are wasted on the flat twit of a character. Much in the way I feel (and I just know that people will vehemently disagree) that Gary Oldman is wasted as the mincing minion of the evil star or whatever it is in FIFTH ELEMENT. IRON MAN is not one of my long-time regular comic book reads, so I'm a bit fuzzy on some of his storyline details, but I do not recollect Hammer as being anything close to a bumbler. My impression of him is of a shrewd if showboaty businessman with a sliding moral scale. I get that the movies have and take license to reimagine a superhero's mythology, but it's really a shame that the big screen Hammer, Sam Rockwell's Hammer, couldn't be written to be more of a match for Tony Stark. Instead, he's shown to come in distant second in every arena. His high-tech prosthetic development, his esteem with the ladies, his stage presence (his flop of a "press-ink" joke was great for what it was), and even his salesmanship (unfortunately, his pitch of War Machine armaments to Rhodey is pretty frickin weak in all ways).
There is a lot of buildup for action scenes and confrontations, but the actual battles are reckless and all too short-lived. Iron Man literally does not meet his match. That's okay in the first film, but this time around, we should have seen him on the ropes in combat a couple times. Or even soundly beaten once on his own, to return later with an upgrade and War Machine having his back.
Here's a delicious bit of IM2 genius: casting John Slattery as Howard Stark. He is PERFECT! And the old expo films he appears in are wonderfully shot and treated, evoking time-capsuled messages from both Walt Disney and Dr. Venture, Senior. This is where the heart of the story is for me. Unfortunately, it only beats for a few minutes. It could have and should have been resuscitated in dialogue with the likes of Nick Fury. Unfortunately, the film seems to interrupt an already progressing convo about Tony's father, assuming that Tony, and we ourselves, know all about Nick's relationship with Howard. A real missed opportunity there.
The idea of Howard being able to conceive of an element that would supercharge his arc reactor in a time before the tech to create it is available is very cool. Unfortunately, the way its encoded and passed down to Tony is not so much. The process SEEMS cool, LOOKS cool, but it doesn't make a lot of cool sense to the audience. How the heck do you map the expo buildings onto the world-o-sphere and come up with the model of an atom. A model, that when expanded/exploded, actually looks like a massive molecule. Or is that what we were looking at? I know we don't hafta know everything when it comes to faux-science in a superhero film, but if you're gonna pretend something, and act as if we're supposed to be able to follow along, please fake it well enough so that we can honestly feel our own little faux-eureka moment, rather than a big fat (super cool looking) question mark. Blerg.
I was actually hoping that Howard had left Tony a present built into/buried beneath the actual expo grounds, and not embedded in the scale model. Like, he'd go to the Expo, discover some hidden elevator, get taken down to a subterranean control room, plug himself and his arc reactor into the right spot, and up from the depths would rise an Iron Giant! Designed and built by his father with everything except the power source he couldn't yet build in the 60s.
Yeah, not really practical, given the threat of this movie's bad guys, but man, that would've been cool.
Wrapping up w some reminders/mentions to myself...
Clark Gregg returns as SHIELD Agent Coulson. He looks like he'll be a consistent liaison character that links the Avengers up before they actually assemble.
We get to see a development prototype of Captain America's shield. I *thought* it came from Howard Stark's storage bin, but it looks like Coulson removes it from a crate of Tony's hardware? That's kind of annoying. Still, I believe it's meant to tie Howard Stark to the creation of the one-of-a-kind Adamantium-Vibranium shield. It will be awesome to see Cap launch it at the baddies, taking out a dozen of them in succession, deactivate the bomb, and of course, return right to his hand, and in a way that looks fantastic and live action big screen real. Here's hoping!
If Cap's shield is created for him at the time that he becomes Captain America, than maybe he's gonna be a well-kept government secret agent, a super soldier sent into action in Vietnam, with a GI uniform and body armor, rather than the star-spangled kit of his comic book World War 2 debut.
Although, there's no reason the shield couldn't have been developed in the 60s, after his 40s debut with the old school shield. I wonder if Hollywood has time alotted in its AVENGERS rollout for an INVADERS movie. DAMN, that would be pretty frickin cool. Cap, Namor, and the original Human Torch against the Red Skull and Nazi minions and robotech! Nothing wrong with that.
You DID stay to the end of the credits, right? With all the "New Mexico" dropping in the film, I figured that the reveal would either be about Thor (from the newest THOR series) or the Hulk (skirmishing with the Leader, or being tracked by Hulkbusters, in the desert). We got Thor's hammer! I don't know what to expect from a first Thor movie. I feel like it would be a better/safer start to have his first story be Asgardian and Norse in nature and setting, y'know? Of the times when gods could have walked the earth and had worshippers. Maybe the last thing that happens to him in that first movie is that Loki blasts him w a contingency plan spell that sends him somewhere/somewhen he would have to fight alone—the future. Or maybe it's Odin's old school sentence for a son who has grown too confident in his powers, and it'll be the timesharing set-up with Dr. Donald Blake.
In any case, w the intro of Thor comes the intro of Loki, and he's the jerk what's classically responsible for the Avengers coming together in the first place. I can easily see Loki whispering into both Banner's and the Hulk's ears to get them to bring down the homeland security wrath of SHIELD and the incipient Avengers. Fun fun fun! =)
Keep on keepin on~
I'm gonna start rolling around in *SPOILERY* mud here, so get thee to a big screen for a viewing and then return.
It's got the looks, the parts, the set pieces (gorgeous, but honestly, not very satisfying), but it just doesn't have the heart. I feel like a half hour or so of film was cut or missing. Scenes and segments that could have...
- ...given Scarlett's Natasha Romanov a connection to the Vanko vengeance storyline.
- ...built up (and/or torn down) the Howard Stark / Tony Stark father / son history and issues.
- ...laid a better (or any) foundation for Tony and Pepper to take their relationship to a next level.
- ...made for more satisfying fight scenes, both vs. War Machine and vs. Whiplash.
- ...made Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer a truly worthy opponent for Tony Stark.
There's a good villain in Mickey Rourke's Vanko, but he falls short of being a great nemesis. I mean, he starts VERY strong, attacking Stark in the open at the Monaco GP, using tech that appears to be Stark's. The brazen assault seems reckless and foolhardy, but when Tony visits his prison cell Ivan tells him what it was really about, what he really did. He kinda crowbars one too many metaphors in, but it's pretty damn good as far as evil nemesizing goes...
IVAN: If you can make god bleed, people will cease to believe in him... There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come. All I have to do is sit here and watch and the world will consume you...Unfortunately, this deep vengeful thinker doesn't sustain this level of menace. He ends up going iron toe-to-toe with Stark again, bankrolled by high-tech industrialist also-ran, Justin Hammer, well-enough played by Sam Rockwell.
I say "well-enough" because Rockwell's considerable abilities (MOON, GENTLEMEN BRONCOS) are wasted on the flat twit of a character. Much in the way I feel (and I just know that people will vehemently disagree) that Gary Oldman is wasted as the mincing minion of the evil star or whatever it is in FIFTH ELEMENT. IRON MAN is not one of my long-time regular comic book reads, so I'm a bit fuzzy on some of his storyline details, but I do not recollect Hammer as being anything close to a bumbler. My impression of him is of a shrewd if showboaty businessman with a sliding moral scale. I get that the movies have and take license to reimagine a superhero's mythology, but it's really a shame that the big screen Hammer, Sam Rockwell's Hammer, couldn't be written to be more of a match for Tony Stark. Instead, he's shown to come in distant second in every arena. His high-tech prosthetic development, his esteem with the ladies, his stage presence (his flop of a "press-ink" joke was great for what it was), and even his salesmanship (unfortunately, his pitch of War Machine armaments to Rhodey is pretty frickin weak in all ways).
There is a lot of buildup for action scenes and confrontations, but the actual battles are reckless and all too short-lived. Iron Man literally does not meet his match. That's okay in the first film, but this time around, we should have seen him on the ropes in combat a couple times. Or even soundly beaten once on his own, to return later with an upgrade and War Machine having his back.
Here's a delicious bit of IM2 genius: casting John Slattery as Howard Stark. He is PERFECT! And the old expo films he appears in are wonderfully shot and treated, evoking time-capsuled messages from both Walt Disney and Dr. Venture, Senior. This is where the heart of the story is for me. Unfortunately, it only beats for a few minutes. It could have and should have been resuscitated in dialogue with the likes of Nick Fury. Unfortunately, the film seems to interrupt an already progressing convo about Tony's father, assuming that Tony, and we ourselves, know all about Nick's relationship with Howard. A real missed opportunity there.
The idea of Howard being able to conceive of an element that would supercharge his arc reactor in a time before the tech to create it is available is very cool. Unfortunately, the way its encoded and passed down to Tony is not so much. The process SEEMS cool, LOOKS cool, but it doesn't make a lot of cool sense to the audience. How the heck do you map the expo buildings onto the world-o-sphere and come up with the model of an atom. A model, that when expanded/exploded, actually looks like a massive molecule. Or is that what we were looking at? I know we don't hafta know everything when it comes to faux-science in a superhero film, but if you're gonna pretend something, and act as if we're supposed to be able to follow along, please fake it well enough so that we can honestly feel our own little faux-eureka moment, rather than a big fat (super cool looking) question mark. Blerg.
I was actually hoping that Howard had left Tony a present built into/buried beneath the actual expo grounds, and not embedded in the scale model. Like, he'd go to the Expo, discover some hidden elevator, get taken down to a subterranean control room, plug himself and his arc reactor into the right spot, and up from the depths would rise an Iron Giant! Designed and built by his father with everything except the power source he couldn't yet build in the 60s.
Yeah, not really practical, given the threat of this movie's bad guys, but man, that would've been cool.
Wrapping up w some reminders/mentions to myself...
Clark Gregg returns as SHIELD Agent Coulson. He looks like he'll be a consistent liaison character that links the Avengers up before they actually assemble.
We get to see a development prototype of Captain America's shield. I *thought* it came from Howard Stark's storage bin, but it looks like Coulson removes it from a crate of Tony's hardware? That's kind of annoying. Still, I believe it's meant to tie Howard Stark to the creation of the one-of-a-kind Adamantium-Vibranium shield. It will be awesome to see Cap launch it at the baddies, taking out a dozen of them in succession, deactivate the bomb, and of course, return right to his hand, and in a way that looks fantastic and live action big screen real. Here's hoping!
If Cap's shield is created for him at the time that he becomes Captain America, than maybe he's gonna be a well-kept government secret agent, a super soldier sent into action in Vietnam, with a GI uniform and body armor, rather than the star-spangled kit of his comic book World War 2 debut.
Although, there's no reason the shield couldn't have been developed in the 60s, after his 40s debut with the old school shield. I wonder if Hollywood has time alotted in its AVENGERS rollout for an INVADERS movie. DAMN, that would be pretty frickin cool. Cap, Namor, and the original Human Torch against the Red Skull and Nazi minions and robotech! Nothing wrong with that.
You DID stay to the end of the credits, right? With all the "New Mexico" dropping in the film, I figured that the reveal would either be about Thor (from the newest THOR series) or the Hulk (skirmishing with the Leader, or being tracked by Hulkbusters, in the desert). We got Thor's hammer! I don't know what to expect from a first Thor movie. I feel like it would be a better/safer start to have his first story be Asgardian and Norse in nature and setting, y'know? Of the times when gods could have walked the earth and had worshippers. Maybe the last thing that happens to him in that first movie is that Loki blasts him w a contingency plan spell that sends him somewhere/somewhen he would have to fight alone—the future. Or maybe it's Odin's old school sentence for a son who has grown too confident in his powers, and it'll be the timesharing set-up with Dr. Donald Blake.
In any case, w the intro of Thor comes the intro of Loki, and he's the jerk what's classically responsible for the Avengers coming together in the first place. I can easily see Loki whispering into both Banner's and the Hulk's ears to get them to bring down the homeland security wrath of SHIELD and the incipient Avengers. Fun fun fun! =)
Keep on keepin on~
Friday, May 07, 2010
LOST: theories posted in the wild...
I've posted a few of my LOST posts (edited and mashed-up) at theoriesonlost at DarkUFO. In case your curious as to the feedback, have a looksee...
Mostly what I've discovered is that there are people out there who really hate it when you call the Monster "Esau." WhatEV.
* May 28, 2010. A couple more set loose in the bamboo forest...
An explanation of the LOST2 "afterlife" in the context of the Island, the Heart, and the Whispers. There's a lot of creative extrapolation, but I feel like it works in a LOSTy way. A version also now lives at The Fuselage.
LOST2 is a dreamlike virtual reality, a glitchy Matrix powered by Locke-ness, the Island, the Whispers, or some combination of the aforementioned.
* May 18, 2010. Released a couple more into the world wild webz...
Crazy Mother is a Momster and Desmond vs. Esau take it in the Heart.
Why are there no babies on board the Island?. It's not because of the Incident! To be honest, that seemed like the correct and Occam's razor answer, even if the "science" was fuzzy, even for LOST, until I heard about the significance of Tawaret.
No alternate reality in which I explain that the Incident results in LOST2 overwriting LOST1 in reality outside the snowglobe.
How Esau wins in which I explain what Esau has to do to be free of the Island. This holds up pretty damn well, too.
The final flashback and flashforward in which I go a wee bit fan-fictional on the notion that the next generation of Losties may hafta fix things and that Lapidus is a shadow Candidate.
Revelations in "Dr. Linus" in which... Y'know, I don't remember exactly what I covered in this.
Schrodinger's reality and "Happily Ever After" in which I mangle the cat thought experiment as a metaphor for what's going on with LOST1 and LOST2.
The Desmond brothers in which I explain how once Desmond1 wakes up in the EM shed, he's actually Desmond2, a theory I've since dropped in favor of "Desmond's already seen the end."
A chance to kill or capture Locke-ness Monster in which I describe my hope that the "reappearance" of a living breathing Locke during the time skip involving the canoe shootout would render Esau vulnerable to attack, capture, and maybe death.
Desmond's already seen the end in which I explain how when Desmond1 wakes up in the EM shed in LOST1, he's already seen the endgame in LOST2.
Just thought I'd share. I'm not quite feeling a full-on brand-new post, so I'm recycling. Recycling's good! =)
Keep on keepin on~
Mostly what I've discovered is that there are people out there who really hate it when you call the Monster "Esau." WhatEV.
* May 28, 2010. A couple more set loose in the bamboo forest...
An explanation of the LOST2 "afterlife" in the context of the Island, the Heart, and the Whispers. There's a lot of creative extrapolation, but I feel like it works in a LOSTy way. A version also now lives at The Fuselage.
LOST2 is a dreamlike virtual reality, a glitchy Matrix powered by Locke-ness, the Island, the Whispers, or some combination of the aforementioned.
* May 18, 2010. Released a couple more into the world wild webz...
Crazy Mother is a Momster and Desmond vs. Esau take it in the Heart.
Why are there no babies on board the Island?. It's not because of the Incident! To be honest, that seemed like the correct and Occam's razor answer, even if the "science" was fuzzy, even for LOST, until I heard about the significance of Tawaret.
No alternate reality in which I explain that the Incident results in LOST2 overwriting LOST1 in reality outside the snowglobe.
How Esau wins in which I explain what Esau has to do to be free of the Island. This holds up pretty damn well, too.
The final flashback and flashforward in which I go a wee bit fan-fictional on the notion that the next generation of Losties may hafta fix things and that Lapidus is a shadow Candidate.
Revelations in "Dr. Linus" in which... Y'know, I don't remember exactly what I covered in this.
Schrodinger's reality and "Happily Ever After" in which I mangle the cat thought experiment as a metaphor for what's going on with LOST1 and LOST2.
The Desmond brothers in which I explain how once Desmond1 wakes up in the EM shed, he's actually Desmond2, a theory I've since dropped in favor of "Desmond's already seen the end."
A chance to kill or capture Locke-ness Monster in which I describe my hope that the "reappearance" of a living breathing Locke during the time skip involving the canoe shootout would render Esau vulnerable to attack, capture, and maybe death.
Desmond's already seen the end in which I explain how when Desmond1 wakes up in the EM shed in LOST1, he's already seen the endgame in LOST2.
Just thought I'd share. I'm not quite feeling a full-on brand-new post, so I'm recycling. Recycling's good! =)
Keep on keepin on~
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
LOST: Here we go...
6.14: "The Candidate"
OK. Just a little. I cried. Feckin feck.
And no fair having Hurley break down in front of me after the commercial break!
Not the best deaths for Sun and Jin, but undeniably heart-punching. I'd like for Joss Whedon to step in whenever one of my favorite characters in any storyverse needs to die.
Sayid went out well.
Lapidus, alas, not so much.
Quick brain dump.
Was anyone else at least a little annoyed that when Sun and Jin are alone, sharing their last moments in this world together, they're speaking English most of the time? I remember a moment like that in LAST SAMURAI. Annoying. Breaks the moment, and of all moments to break! The scene is still irresistibly touching/button-pushing, but I can't help but have problems with the details. I wish they'd gone out as the result of a decision or the downside risk of a daring gambit, y'know? It's sweet and right that one should stay for the other, but for that other to be taken by chance, by accident? Dammit, they deserve better!
*sigh*
Is it possible Lapidus made it out? Was there anyone else around to drag him out? Getting hit by a hatch door is not something you survive easily. If he comes walking out of the surf, I'm afraid he'll have been Infected. Boo.
I like true believer Jack. I like that he's getting in tune with the meta-logic that governs Island affairs, recognizing the concept of the Rules, without being told, sussing out that Esau is "allowed" to do certain things and not allowed to do others. It's too bad Sawyer's not buying it...
Sawyer tells Jack to knock Locke-ness into the water. It seems like it might have done what Sawyer hoped—prevented him from jumping into Smoke Monster form.
Esau is able to turn into the Monster on Hydra island. He just can't be the Monster in or over the water. Is terra firma the limiting factor? I still like the notion that the Monster is something separate from Esau, that he can inhabit and control when needed, but... how to explain its appearance on Hydra island?
Locke2 seems to have a half-download of Locke1 experiences. While he's sleeping, he speaks Locke1's words, he does a double take when he sees Jin walking down the hall, and when Jack repeats some of Locke1's words to him when he leaves the hospital—"I wish you believed me"—he recognizes them, but doesn't explicitly acknowledge it. He pauses, seems to consider... something... intently... and then leaves.
Has Locke2 seen enough of Locke1's life to decide that he doesn't want to accept or in any way pursue those experiences? That his life in LOST2 is less epic, just as tragic, but offers just a bit more contentment and comfort, and as such, preferable. He's choosing to deny LOST1.
Claire and Jack looking into the mirror of the music box from Christian... It seemed meant to be powerful, but ended up being anticlimactic. Did I miss a LOSTy self-reference? I had the thought "another mirror," and the two of them together in it, but couldn't put together anything really cohesive regarding it, y'know?
Had a thought that maybe there are mirrors in LOST2 made from the mirrors of the Island lighthouse, salvaged before the sinking of the Island. Perhaps they offer the Candidates (and ex-Candidates) in LOST2 glimpses and access across realities. It makes sense to me that Christian might have a Lighthouse mirror shard and saved it for his son or daughter.
Of course, the music box plays "Catch A Falling Star, Put It In Your Pocket." Was it Claire who asked Kate to sing that to Aaron? And because her father sang it to her when she was a wee bairn? Or am I misremembering? Frack.
The Locke2-Cooper story isn't all that satisfying to me. It rings somehow false to me. Cooper IS the man Sawyer's looking for in LOST2, right? So he WAS a con man. Hrmm... Actually, maybe I'm okay with Locke2's relationship and accident if Cooper was in the process of running his kidney con on John when the accident happened. Is there time for Detective Ford to enlighten Locke2 as to Cooper's grifting career? Would that revelation get Locke2 to embrace his LOST1 existence?
I like Widmore's gambit vs Sawyer, threatening to wack Kate cuz she's not one of the important ones, not one of the (remaining) names on the list. It works because Sawyer's seen the names, so, in spite of how much Sawyer might deny the supernature of Island goings-on, he recognizes that there are Rules as well. If not Rules that govern his behavior and actions, at least Rules that determine his and his friends' value to the bigger players in the game.
I like Jack's meeting with Bernard. I wish there had been more. I imagine Rose and Bernard being more in the know than any of the other 815ers, perhaps given glimpses of LOST1 long ago, thru their meeting and love, and satisfied to be with each other no matter what else is going on in either reality around them. He rolls with the 815 serendipity without blinking. He even sounds as if he's encountered other 815ers since landing in LAX.
I like that Jack agrees to help Locke-ness, but sticks to his not-leaving-the-Island stance. It's a simple decision that I just didn't anticipate. It seems a little... inelegant, but it gets the job done, y'know?
Is it me, or did the Smoke Monster appear to be more gray than black?
Heh, when Jack carried Sawyer out of the water and onto the beach, I could just hear Sawyer (or maybe it was Josh Holloway) thinking—I don't care WHAT the script says, NO WAY am I gonna let the Doc/Matthew Fox put his lips on mine for some CPR action. Screw that! I'm gonna cough. I'm gonna cough. I'm gonna cough. I'm coughing.
*cough*
Heh. Poor Jack.
With Jin and Sun gone, I am SERIOUSLY rooting for the reboot and rewind to 2004 for a happy rescue. Sun would be pregnant then and Jin and Sun could raise Ji Yeon together. For gosh sakes, when Jin dies, he's only seen his daughter in digital pictures. I thought that Desmond sacrificing his three years with Charlie would be too high a price to pay, but in light of Jin being robbed of ANY life with Ji Yeon, I want Desmond to make the sacrifice.
Did I hear right? Did Sayid tell Jack, "Because it's going to be you, Jack?" Meaning, he is going to be the new Protector? Is that his judgement? Is that inside info he got from Locke-ness? Is that inside info he got from his Infection?
He also reveals that Desmond's alive and (heh) well! And he recognizes his value, based on Esau's desire to see him dead. Good times.
Allright, enough rambling for now. Will hafta give this ep another viewing later in the week. After all the time spent getting the pieces into position, it's pretty great seeing Things Actually Happen.
How happy was I to see the whole gang reunited on Hydra island when Sayid steps out of the jungle? I was kinda beaming. Keerazy. =)
Keep on keepin on~
OK. Just a little. I cried. Feckin feck.
And no fair having Hurley break down in front of me after the commercial break!
Not the best deaths for Sun and Jin, but undeniably heart-punching. I'd like for Joss Whedon to step in whenever one of my favorite characters in any storyverse needs to die.
Sayid went out well.
Lapidus, alas, not so much.
Quick brain dump.
Was anyone else at least a little annoyed that when Sun and Jin are alone, sharing their last moments in this world together, they're speaking English most of the time? I remember a moment like that in LAST SAMURAI. Annoying. Breaks the moment, and of all moments to break! The scene is still irresistibly touching/button-pushing, but I can't help but have problems with the details. I wish they'd gone out as the result of a decision or the downside risk of a daring gambit, y'know? It's sweet and right that one should stay for the other, but for that other to be taken by chance, by accident? Dammit, they deserve better!
*sigh*
Is it possible Lapidus made it out? Was there anyone else around to drag him out? Getting hit by a hatch door is not something you survive easily. If he comes walking out of the surf, I'm afraid he'll have been Infected. Boo.
I like true believer Jack. I like that he's getting in tune with the meta-logic that governs Island affairs, recognizing the concept of the Rules, without being told, sussing out that Esau is "allowed" to do certain things and not allowed to do others. It's too bad Sawyer's not buying it...
Sawyer tells Jack to knock Locke-ness into the water. It seems like it might have done what Sawyer hoped—prevented him from jumping into Smoke Monster form.
Esau is able to turn into the Monster on Hydra island. He just can't be the Monster in or over the water. Is terra firma the limiting factor? I still like the notion that the Monster is something separate from Esau, that he can inhabit and control when needed, but... how to explain its appearance on Hydra island?
Locke2 seems to have a half-download of Locke1 experiences. While he's sleeping, he speaks Locke1's words, he does a double take when he sees Jin walking down the hall, and when Jack repeats some of Locke1's words to him when he leaves the hospital—"I wish you believed me"—he recognizes them, but doesn't explicitly acknowledge it. He pauses, seems to consider... something... intently... and then leaves.
Has Locke2 seen enough of Locke1's life to decide that he doesn't want to accept or in any way pursue those experiences? That his life in LOST2 is less epic, just as tragic, but offers just a bit more contentment and comfort, and as such, preferable. He's choosing to deny LOST1.
Claire and Jack looking into the mirror of the music box from Christian... It seemed meant to be powerful, but ended up being anticlimactic. Did I miss a LOSTy self-reference? I had the thought "another mirror," and the two of them together in it, but couldn't put together anything really cohesive regarding it, y'know?
Had a thought that maybe there are mirrors in LOST2 made from the mirrors of the Island lighthouse, salvaged before the sinking of the Island. Perhaps they offer the Candidates (and ex-Candidates) in LOST2 glimpses and access across realities. It makes sense to me that Christian might have a Lighthouse mirror shard and saved it for his son or daughter.
Of course, the music box plays "Catch A Falling Star, Put It In Your Pocket." Was it Claire who asked Kate to sing that to Aaron? And because her father sang it to her when she was a wee bairn? Or am I misremembering? Frack.
The Locke2-Cooper story isn't all that satisfying to me. It rings somehow false to me. Cooper IS the man Sawyer's looking for in LOST2, right? So he WAS a con man. Hrmm... Actually, maybe I'm okay with Locke2's relationship and accident if Cooper was in the process of running his kidney con on John when the accident happened. Is there time for Detective Ford to enlighten Locke2 as to Cooper's grifting career? Would that revelation get Locke2 to embrace his LOST1 existence?
I like Widmore's gambit vs Sawyer, threatening to wack Kate cuz she's not one of the important ones, not one of the (remaining) names on the list. It works because Sawyer's seen the names, so, in spite of how much Sawyer might deny the supernature of Island goings-on, he recognizes that there are Rules as well. If not Rules that govern his behavior and actions, at least Rules that determine his and his friends' value to the bigger players in the game.
I like Jack's meeting with Bernard. I wish there had been more. I imagine Rose and Bernard being more in the know than any of the other 815ers, perhaps given glimpses of LOST1 long ago, thru their meeting and love, and satisfied to be with each other no matter what else is going on in either reality around them. He rolls with the 815 serendipity without blinking. He even sounds as if he's encountered other 815ers since landing in LAX.
I like that Jack agrees to help Locke-ness, but sticks to his not-leaving-the-Island stance. It's a simple decision that I just didn't anticipate. It seems a little... inelegant, but it gets the job done, y'know?
Is it me, or did the Smoke Monster appear to be more gray than black?
Heh, when Jack carried Sawyer out of the water and onto the beach, I could just hear Sawyer (or maybe it was Josh Holloway) thinking—I don't care WHAT the script says, NO WAY am I gonna let the Doc/Matthew Fox put his lips on mine for some CPR action. Screw that! I'm gonna cough. I'm gonna cough. I'm gonna cough. I'm coughing.
*cough*
Heh. Poor Jack.
With Jin and Sun gone, I am SERIOUSLY rooting for the reboot and rewind to 2004 for a happy rescue. Sun would be pregnant then and Jin and Sun could raise Ji Yeon together. For gosh sakes, when Jin dies, he's only seen his daughter in digital pictures. I thought that Desmond sacrificing his three years with Charlie would be too high a price to pay, but in light of Jin being robbed of ANY life with Ji Yeon, I want Desmond to make the sacrifice.
Did I hear right? Did Sayid tell Jack, "Because it's going to be you, Jack?" Meaning, he is going to be the new Protector? Is that his judgement? Is that inside info he got from Locke-ness? Is that inside info he got from his Infection?
He also reveals that Desmond's alive and (heh) well! And he recognizes his value, based on Esau's desire to see him dead. Good times.
Allright, enough rambling for now. Will hafta give this ep another viewing later in the week. After all the time spent getting the pieces into position, it's pretty great seeing Things Actually Happen.
How happy was I to see the whole gang reunited on Hydra island when Sayid steps out of the jungle? I was kinda beaming. Keerazy. =)
Keep on keepin on~
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
LOST: memories, Jacob's Cabin = Esau's prison, and hot canoe action!
Read on for some rambling on (1) the Monster's pseudo-clairvoyance, (2) Jacob's Cabin and Esau's captivity, (3) the other half of the outrigger shootout, and (4) Richard's faulty memory.
SMOKEY'S LONG MEMORY (in both directions).
The Smoke Monster can take the form and memories/experiences of anyone whose dead body is on the Island. The Others have burial rites to prevent this, but there are lots of non-Others we've met who have died on the Island at different times. This gives the Smoke Monster access to life experiences from past as well as the future (up to a point), thanks to time travellers. Charlotte died during a time skip, I think it was the distant past, when Locke gets unroped while going down the well. Her experiences would give Smokey memories of the 21st century, and perhaps his first glimpse of Richard, aka Ricardo, leading him to spare him and attempt to use him as his first clumsy attempt at a loophole. Knowing that centuries would pass before he would even get close to killing Jacob must have ticked him off, but what else is he gonna do, right? It will take that much time to get all the necessary pieces in place (not to mention born, grown, and transported to the Island).
What does Charlotte know? She's spent her life searching for the Island, and altho she isn't fully aware of it, she's a child of the DI. She was hired by Charles Widmore and knows of Benjamin Linus by reputation. She met Lapidus, Miles, and Daniel. She also met the 815 Candidates. In her time skips, she meets Richard and the young Charles and Eloise. That's a lot of clues to the future.
Esau could connect a lot of dots with the memories of all of the not-cool kids from Oceanic 815 who got wacked in the time skips, like Frogurt, y'know? Rose and Bernard's natural deaths? And what if Daniel Faraday was never given a proper Other burial? THAT is a lot of valuable information, including significant interactions with Desmond! That would mean that Esau would actually recognize Desmond as a proper threat or key to a threat to himself when he sees that he is the secret that Widmore kept on his sub.
WHO WAS IN "JACOB'S CABIN?"
I think it was Esau. His consciousness. Trapped within the cabin within the Circle of ash AND as such, separated from the smoke monster, which cannot break (into) the Circle either. I think that the Others believe themselves safe from Esau, treating him as a bedtime story told to scare Other children. Y'know, when they could still have children.
I believe that Esau is an entity separate from the Monster. That the Monster inhabits the Island with instincts and/or programming of its own to follow. In his time on the Island, Esau was given or discovered that he had the ability to enter and control the Monster, possessing it. This is why, when he's attacked by Jacob's bodyguards, Lockesau disappears from the Foot chamber, and the Monster enters thru the door. Apparently Esau's human forms can materialize and disappear at will, while the Monster is wherever it is when Esau's will possesses it.
So, who trapped him? When? How? Was Richard not aware of it? Did Jacob do it on his own and keep the success, or its details, from his people, reassuring them only that the Boogeyman had been mysteriously dispatched? Richard seems genuinely surprised when Lockesau walks out of the Foot and tells him that he looks much better out of those chains. As if Esau has been long gone/absent from the Island and its affairs. Of course, the presence of the Smoke Monster is no surprise to 21st century Others, right? Juliet knows to activate the sonic fence to save herself and Kate when they're all "chained heat" together, and Ben is familiar with the Monster is something that can be summoned to beat on the enemies of Jacob's people. So, in recent Island history, Richard must consider them, Esau and the Smokey Monster, to be two different entities, even tho he "met" them when they appeared to be one and the same.
The Circle is a special place, one that only Others and Candidates, those touched or baptized (via the Temple spring) by Jacob, can find and visit. You might have a map to it, but if you're not meant to see it, you won't see it. Horace was special ("Goodspeed" is a crossed out name), but not educated or indoctrinated by the Others, so he was still an outsider when he stumbled into the Circle. Once within it, Esau was able to manipulate him. He planted the idea of building a getaway cabin on the site of the Circle, a place where a human host could commune with Esau while in captivitiy. Perhaps he believed him to be the voice of the Island, or even Jacob. Maybe that's how Esau sold himself to his visitor/s.
Whose dog is that portrait of?
How does the Cabin become Ben's go-to place to stage visits with Jacob? Ben claims he's NEVER communed with Jacob. His only communication with Jacob was via Richard's messages and lists. Did Ben just happen to find the Cabin and realize that it was a special place, a place to use to keep up appearances and maintain his sham relationship with Jacob? Did he do this with Richard's help or blessing? Richard certainly didn't go to the Cabin to get Jacob's lists. After all, when Lockesau asks to see Jacob, Richard knows to take him to Jacob's sewing room in the Foot.
I think that when Ben takes John to the Cabin, it's Esau's voice that John hears, asking for help. It may have been a genuine plea, but it's also a cunning little move, boosting Locke's faith and cache w the Others, and at the same time jabbing another needle into Ben's side, another bit of kindling for the fire that would eventually consume Jacob. And when John and Ben leave the Cabin, one of them breaks the Circle without knowing it (I'm guessing Locke, as he rushes out, startled, while Ben steps out calmly, quietly freaked out), thus releasing Esau from his prison, allowing him to roam the Island again at will, possessing the Smoke Monster some of the time, but at other times, taking on the corporeal form of the Island's dead.
Hrmm... But what about Christian's appearances to Jack in the early days? Is Esau capable of phantom projection? And does he need the body to do that? When Christian appears to Jack on and off the Island, to Michael on the freighter, and to Locke in the distant past in the Donkey Wheel chamber, he doesn't touch them or physically interact with his surroundings.
OUTRIGGER CANOE SHOOTOUT.
I still like the idea that Locke's appearance in the near future will mess with Lockesau's integrity, rendering the Monster vulnerable to attack or (re)capture. I wouldn't be surprised if he had to sequester himself out of sight from his recruits during that time to deal with whatever effect it might have on him. Still, there is more to the shootout than Locke, right? There's a whole other canoe of people.
I'm thinking that it's Richard, Miles, and Ben. They're a small party of three, armed, and currently active on the main Island. After retrieving weapons from New Otherton, they'd seek transpo to get over to Hydra island, right? I'm still unclear on when two canoes ended up at the Losties beach camp, but I'm gonna assume they're there.
Let's recall who's in that lead canoe. Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Faraday, and Charlotte. So, it might take a little memory jog, but once he saw the other canoe heading out to sea, present-day Miles would certainly recall the incident and who was in the canoe with him. Why would he tell Richard and Ben to go after them, tho?
1. Because he thinks they could change the present/future by killing Locke in the past.
2. Because he thinks he could tell them or give them something to change the past and fix the present/future.
3. Because he hopes to get to Faraday for some help.
Option 1 seems like the most likely, right? I mean, Miles was a great student of Faraday's talk about "What happened happened," *but*, he was also there for his "variables" backpedal, that reality, the past and future, CAN be changed, thanks to free will.
And, OK, a hydrogen bomb, but now you're just splitting hares. =)
So, Miles, Richard, and Ben would set out to make it to Hydra island, but if, on the way, they can take a couple shots at Locke and kill him before he can make it off the Island to die and become Esau's loophole puppet, well, why not, right?
Wouldn't it be awesome if they could actually catch up to the first canoe so taht Miles could trade places with himself? "That's what I hate about singularities."
Juliet took shots at the pursuing canoe and apparently hit one of them. Could she make out who was in the other boat while sighting down her rifle? Maybe she tells Sawyer "later," once their cozy in their DI nest? And maybe Sawyer sees potential in knowing who chases them in the future and leaves some info with or for Miles somewhere in Dharmaville in the 70s for him to find in 2007.
Yeah, I still really want to see that Sawyer set up some remarkable long con of a play while playing LaFleur in the DI in the 70s. Maybe something convenient/lucky like a security override or code that he set as head of security, or the location of a cache of DI weapons and supplies? Or something very specifically farsighted, like... Frack, I dunno... a copy of the treaty between the DI and the Others that established the truce? Not sure why that would help, but y'know, some artifact or piece of info that he would want kept safe for 30 years to be played as part of a contingency plan if they made it back to the "present," which of course, they did.
I wonder what they'll find at New Otherton. I don't think any of these three have been there since the time travellers returned. Are there bodies for Miles to read? Who last died there? Locke's followers from 2004, when the mercs attacked, right? Did Ben bury Alex? He certainly left her exposed enough to be used by Esau (when Ben is "judged"). I wonder if the dead know they're being used by Esau. Where does Esau keep the bodies of his favorite corporeal forms? Christian? Yemi? Does he need them kept safe and "fresh" for faithful use and re-use?
Is there more secret chamber/compartment fun from Richard and Ben? Tunnel spelunking?
Allright, that's all I've got for now. Damn. Can't believe there's less than three weeks to the finale. Frickin frackin sazzafrazzin...
*sigh*
DID SOMEONE MESS W RICHARD'S MEMORY?
* May 5, 2010. This was originally at the top of this post, but I decided to bury it due to its mootitude. (See note in gray at the end.)
Widmore remembers Locke's time skipping visit on the Island. When he visits Locke after he turns the wheel, he marvels at how it's only been days for Locke but so many years for him since they last met face to face.
When Lockesau leads Richard and Ben to Ethan-bullet-wounded past Locke at the beechcraft wreck, why doesn't Richard remember his encounters with time-skipping Locke? He and Eloise recognize Faraday (eventually) in 1977 from his 1954 visit. Why not remember Locke?
* May 4, 2010. Okay. It's not a question of memory, it's a question of logic, confusion, and not enough information. Richard CLEARLY acknowledges Locke's visit to the past, because he does, in fact, have the paradox compass on him that Locke gave to him in 1954. Duh. Still, I'm surprised that long-lived Richard doesn't know or figure out what happened to John three years ago (2004). I'd think he'd have encountered enough dots (Locke and co in 1954, and Sawyer/LaFleur and Faraday in the 1970s) in his uni-temporal-directional life by 2007 to connect and end up with Island-driven time travel, no?
No, I guess. O well. So, this is a moot question.
(Altho, it does kind of dovetail with the nature, story, and/or disinformation of "Jacob's Cabin.")
Keep on keepin on~
SMOKEY'S LONG MEMORY (in both directions).
The Smoke Monster can take the form and memories/experiences of anyone whose dead body is on the Island. The Others have burial rites to prevent this, but there are lots of non-Others we've met who have died on the Island at different times. This gives the Smoke Monster access to life experiences from past as well as the future (up to a point), thanks to time travellers. Charlotte died during a time skip, I think it was the distant past, when Locke gets unroped while going down the well. Her experiences would give Smokey memories of the 21st century, and perhaps his first glimpse of Richard, aka Ricardo, leading him to spare him and attempt to use him as his first clumsy attempt at a loophole. Knowing that centuries would pass before he would even get close to killing Jacob must have ticked him off, but what else is he gonna do, right? It will take that much time to get all the necessary pieces in place (not to mention born, grown, and transported to the Island).
What does Charlotte know? She's spent her life searching for the Island, and altho she isn't fully aware of it, she's a child of the DI. She was hired by Charles Widmore and knows of Benjamin Linus by reputation. She met Lapidus, Miles, and Daniel. She also met the 815 Candidates. In her time skips, she meets Richard and the young Charles and Eloise. That's a lot of clues to the future.
Esau could connect a lot of dots with the memories of all of the not-cool kids from Oceanic 815 who got wacked in the time skips, like Frogurt, y'know? Rose and Bernard's natural deaths? And what if Daniel Faraday was never given a proper Other burial? THAT is a lot of valuable information, including significant interactions with Desmond! That would mean that Esau would actually recognize Desmond as a proper threat or key to a threat to himself when he sees that he is the secret that Widmore kept on his sub.
WHO WAS IN "JACOB'S CABIN?"
I think it was Esau. His consciousness. Trapped within the cabin within the Circle of ash AND as such, separated from the smoke monster, which cannot break (into) the Circle either. I think that the Others believe themselves safe from Esau, treating him as a bedtime story told to scare Other children. Y'know, when they could still have children.
I believe that Esau is an entity separate from the Monster. That the Monster inhabits the Island with instincts and/or programming of its own to follow. In his time on the Island, Esau was given or discovered that he had the ability to enter and control the Monster, possessing it. This is why, when he's attacked by Jacob's bodyguards, Lockesau disappears from the Foot chamber, and the Monster enters thru the door. Apparently Esau's human forms can materialize and disappear at will, while the Monster is wherever it is when Esau's will possesses it.
So, who trapped him? When? How? Was Richard not aware of it? Did Jacob do it on his own and keep the success, or its details, from his people, reassuring them only that the Boogeyman had been mysteriously dispatched? Richard seems genuinely surprised when Lockesau walks out of the Foot and tells him that he looks much better out of those chains. As if Esau has been long gone/absent from the Island and its affairs. Of course, the presence of the Smoke Monster is no surprise to 21st century Others, right? Juliet knows to activate the sonic fence to save herself and Kate when they're all "chained heat" together, and Ben is familiar with the Monster is something that can be summoned to beat on the enemies of Jacob's people. So, in recent Island history, Richard must consider them, Esau and the Smokey Monster, to be two different entities, even tho he "met" them when they appeared to be one and the same.
The Circle is a special place, one that only Others and Candidates, those touched or baptized (via the Temple spring) by Jacob, can find and visit. You might have a map to it, but if you're not meant to see it, you won't see it. Horace was special ("Goodspeed" is a crossed out name), but not educated or indoctrinated by the Others, so he was still an outsider when he stumbled into the Circle. Once within it, Esau was able to manipulate him. He planted the idea of building a getaway cabin on the site of the Circle, a place where a human host could commune with Esau while in captivitiy. Perhaps he believed him to be the voice of the Island, or even Jacob. Maybe that's how Esau sold himself to his visitor/s.
Whose dog is that portrait of?
How does the Cabin become Ben's go-to place to stage visits with Jacob? Ben claims he's NEVER communed with Jacob. His only communication with Jacob was via Richard's messages and lists. Did Ben just happen to find the Cabin and realize that it was a special place, a place to use to keep up appearances and maintain his sham relationship with Jacob? Did he do this with Richard's help or blessing? Richard certainly didn't go to the Cabin to get Jacob's lists. After all, when Lockesau asks to see Jacob, Richard knows to take him to Jacob's sewing room in the Foot.
I think that when Ben takes John to the Cabin, it's Esau's voice that John hears, asking for help. It may have been a genuine plea, but it's also a cunning little move, boosting Locke's faith and cache w the Others, and at the same time jabbing another needle into Ben's side, another bit of kindling for the fire that would eventually consume Jacob. And when John and Ben leave the Cabin, one of them breaks the Circle without knowing it (I'm guessing Locke, as he rushes out, startled, while Ben steps out calmly, quietly freaked out), thus releasing Esau from his prison, allowing him to roam the Island again at will, possessing the Smoke Monster some of the time, but at other times, taking on the corporeal form of the Island's dead.
Hrmm... But what about Christian's appearances to Jack in the early days? Is Esau capable of phantom projection? And does he need the body to do that? When Christian appears to Jack on and off the Island, to Michael on the freighter, and to Locke in the distant past in the Donkey Wheel chamber, he doesn't touch them or physically interact with his surroundings.
OUTRIGGER CANOE SHOOTOUT.
I still like the idea that Locke's appearance in the near future will mess with Lockesau's integrity, rendering the Monster vulnerable to attack or (re)capture. I wouldn't be surprised if he had to sequester himself out of sight from his recruits during that time to deal with whatever effect it might have on him. Still, there is more to the shootout than Locke, right? There's a whole other canoe of people.
I'm thinking that it's Richard, Miles, and Ben. They're a small party of three, armed, and currently active on the main Island. After retrieving weapons from New Otherton, they'd seek transpo to get over to Hydra island, right? I'm still unclear on when two canoes ended up at the Losties beach camp, but I'm gonna assume they're there.
Let's recall who's in that lead canoe. Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, Faraday, and Charlotte. So, it might take a little memory jog, but once he saw the other canoe heading out to sea, present-day Miles would certainly recall the incident and who was in the canoe with him. Why would he tell Richard and Ben to go after them, tho?
1. Because he thinks they could change the present/future by killing Locke in the past.
2. Because he thinks he could tell them or give them something to change the past and fix the present/future.
3. Because he hopes to get to Faraday for some help.
Option 1 seems like the most likely, right? I mean, Miles was a great student of Faraday's talk about "What happened happened," *but*, he was also there for his "variables" backpedal, that reality, the past and future, CAN be changed, thanks to free will.
And, OK, a hydrogen bomb, but now you're just splitting hares. =)
So, Miles, Richard, and Ben would set out to make it to Hydra island, but if, on the way, they can take a couple shots at Locke and kill him before he can make it off the Island to die and become Esau's loophole puppet, well, why not, right?
Wouldn't it be awesome if they could actually catch up to the first canoe so taht Miles could trade places with himself? "That's what I hate about singularities."
Juliet took shots at the pursuing canoe and apparently hit one of them. Could she make out who was in the other boat while sighting down her rifle? Maybe she tells Sawyer "later," once their cozy in their DI nest? And maybe Sawyer sees potential in knowing who chases them in the future and leaves some info with or for Miles somewhere in Dharmaville in the 70s for him to find in 2007.
Yeah, I still really want to see that Sawyer set up some remarkable long con of a play while playing LaFleur in the DI in the 70s. Maybe something convenient/lucky like a security override or code that he set as head of security, or the location of a cache of DI weapons and supplies? Or something very specifically farsighted, like... Frack, I dunno... a copy of the treaty between the DI and the Others that established the truce? Not sure why that would help, but y'know, some artifact or piece of info that he would want kept safe for 30 years to be played as part of a contingency plan if they made it back to the "present," which of course, they did.
I wonder what they'll find at New Otherton. I don't think any of these three have been there since the time travellers returned. Are there bodies for Miles to read? Who last died there? Locke's followers from 2004, when the mercs attacked, right? Did Ben bury Alex? He certainly left her exposed enough to be used by Esau (when Ben is "judged"). I wonder if the dead know they're being used by Esau. Where does Esau keep the bodies of his favorite corporeal forms? Christian? Yemi? Does he need them kept safe and "fresh" for faithful use and re-use?
Is there more secret chamber/compartment fun from Richard and Ben? Tunnel spelunking?
Allright, that's all I've got for now. Damn. Can't believe there's less than three weeks to the finale. Frickin frackin sazzafrazzin...
*sigh*
DID SOMEONE MESS W RICHARD'S MEMORY?
* May 5, 2010. This was originally at the top of this post, but I decided to bury it due to its mootitude. (See note in gray at the end.)
Widmore remembers Locke's time skipping visit on the Island. When he visits Locke after he turns the wheel, he marvels at how it's only been days for Locke but so many years for him since they last met face to face.
When Lockesau leads Richard and Ben to Ethan-bullet-wounded past Locke at the beechcraft wreck, why doesn't Richard remember his encounters with time-skipping Locke? He and Eloise recognize Faraday (eventually) in 1977 from his 1954 visit. Why not remember Locke?
* May 4, 2010. Okay. It's not a question of memory, it's a question of logic, confusion, and not enough information. Richard CLEARLY acknowledges Locke's visit to the past, because he does, in fact, have the paradox compass on him that Locke gave to him in 1954. Duh. Still, I'm surprised that long-lived Richard doesn't know or figure out what happened to John three years ago (2004). I'd think he'd have encountered enough dots (Locke and co in 1954, and Sawyer/LaFleur and Faraday in the 1970s) in his uni-temporal-directional life by 2007 to connect and end up with Island-driven time travel, no?
No, I guess. O well. So, this is a moot question.
(Altho, it does kind of dovetail with the nature, story, and/or disinformation of "Jacob's Cabin.")
Keep on keepin on~
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