The Dharma Initiative
For those of you who want to watch the Dharma orientation film again, go to the Hanso website:
DHARMA INITIATIVE
Underneath all the project names, there's a hidden link with the same title. FYI: it only works if you use Internet Explorer. I got a dead link when I tried it in Firefox.
Now, looking at this logo -- which we didn't see in the episode itself, I don't think -- am I wrong, or does that look like a rearranged swastika? Why is it crooked like that? Sure, maybe I'm just imagining it because I heard a rumor that the Nazis are behind the island mystery, but perhaps it's something to ponder...
Thinking more about the reason why Desmond would split so quick after failing to repair the "microprocessor" (or "computer," as we like to say), I got to thinking, maybe Desmond is well aware that there's no escape from the island. When he leaves, he packs only food. There's no reason to believe he has a way out. After all, if what he says is even remotely true, what makes him think he can escape the island and still be safe from the crazy world destruction that will ensue if the button isn't pushed? Desmond must have somewhere else to go to on the island. Maybe even someone else to report to. It's definitely not as simple as he's led Jack (and us) to believe. The more I think about it, the less I believe he got to the island by mistake. Remember, he says he on a "race around the world." It's obviously not something someone just goes out and does. There must be more to Desmond than we know.
There's also the thought that maybe all he needed to know was that someone else was prepared to take over the job of pushing the button. Having to do that every 108 minutes must drive a man crazy, especially if he knows he's only supposed to be doing it for 540 days, yet he's been doing it for 3 years, and most of that time he's done it alone. He may have assumed that that was the reason why Jack tracked him down after he left -- to get the code and continue the chain. That's certainly another possibility.
I really hate to guess about the "are you him?" comment from "Adrift," but I have a theory that he's referring to Jin. More on that after next week's episode. ;)
Looking at a bigger picture down the road, the big question is obviously the purpose of such an island/facility existing. The big question for now, however, is what the hatch is for. It's not simply to better humanity. But I do think that there's some truth in "protecting the rest of the world." Let's make some wild, unproven assumptions: maybe the island is surrounded by an electromagnetic field of some sort. Maybe that's how it's impossible to escape. Maybe living under this field makes you "sick" after prolonged exposure. Maybe the flight 815 survivors haven't been on the island long enough to experience it. Maybe that's how the plane got sucked in. Maybe that's why the animals are viscious. Maybe that's why anybody who's lived on the island prior to the crash of flight 815 is a little weird. Maybe the visions, the flashbacks, and the hallucinations are symptons of the oncoming "sickness." Please don't get mad at me for my lack of actual scientific knowledge, I'm just trying to make some broad strokes here!
Maybe -- just maybe -- the whole damn thing is a setup. We know flight 815 didn't just crash there by accident. We know certain people died and certain people survived for a reason. Maybe this flight wasn't so much a coincidence, and the people onboard were hand picked for this alleged experiment. Maybe the island really is a research facility like we've been told, and maybe that explains why we have 1.) weird, abrupt changes in weather, 2.) strange "monsters," 3.) tides and currents that move you towards the island, 4.) branded sharks that keep you from leaving, and 5.) planes and boats that crash with large numbers of survivors.
Here's the list of Hanso projects from the Hanso Foundation website:
The Hanso Life-Extension Project
The Hanso Foundation Electromagnetic Research Initiative
The Hanso Quest for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
The Hanso Mathematical Forecasting Initiative
The Hanso Cryogenics Development Imperative
The Hanso Juxtapositional Eugenics Development Institute
The Hanso Accelerated Remote Viewing Training Facility
Every single one of those "projects" relates, in some way, to the island's mysteries. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on those project titles.
And then again, maybe it is all a coincidence, and what the survivors uncover and what we see isn't more than just random chance. But if that were true, we still wouldn't know the significance of Hurley's numbers showing up everywhere. That's beyond chance, beyond coincidence. Those numbers -- despite what people on the LOST forums have declared -- are not just coordinates. Hell, we don't know for sure if they even are coordinates.
Then there's the possibility that Desmond, Danielle Rousseau, and Ethan Rom are all, well, bat shit crazy, along with those psycho "others" we keep hearing about. Maybe they've all been stuck on this consarned island for too long, and it's gotten to them. Maybe they're just guessing about things just as wildly as the survivors (and we) are. Maybe they don't know any more than we do. Maybe we can't trust a word they say. Remember: Rousseau claimed to have never seen the hatch before when they showed it to her in "Exodus" last season. Do we believe her? Does that mean she might have seen other hatches or man-made structures?
Delving deeper into the research facility idea, what do you guys think about the different "sectors" referenced in the orientation film? Do you think all the sectors are physically on the island? Or do you think some of them are scattered around the world? For the Alias fans out there, I think we can all agree that that would seem very "Rambaldi" of the creators to scatter all the facilities around the world. Personally, I believe all the sectors are on the island (I also don't think anybody will ever leave the island, and the island story will continue until the show officially ends). The orientation film references itself as "3 of 6," so my guess is that there are 5 other sectors of the island that have yet to be revealed. This could be: the weather sector, the animal testing sector (polar bears, weird birds, and sharks come to mind), the black smoke sector (the "monster"), the remote viewing sector (I'm going to guess this is where the radio signal is being broadcasted from, kind of like a headquarters for the island facility), and the button sector, AKA the hatch. Something to think about.
Like I said in my comments earlier today, I think we're being led astray on purpose. Look at it this way: you just created a hit show that lives and dies on secrets. Spoilers are your worst enemy, and with the popularity of the show and the predominance of nerds like me following it closely (that's an understatement -- we're obsessed), you, as the creator, have to protect your greatest asset -- your secrets. How do you do this? You can start by putting fake script pages on the show's official website. You plant seeds in the show that lead viewers away from the truth. You write in plot points and story arcs that make the viewers think, assume things that aren't necessarily true, things that haven't been proven. You manipulate what people actually see vs. what's real, what actually exists, what's possible within our physical realm. With that said, not only do we have to be wary of what we deem important, but also of what we may be overlooking given our own personal biases and beliefs. Abrams is notorious for turning stereotypical characters and predictable storylines into twists. If there's anything that's for sure on LOST, it's that nothing is as it seems. I definitely feel like we're being challenged by the creators of the show just as much as the survivors of flight 815. "Truth" is just a matter of perspective, and in the case of LOST, we have many, many varying perspectives. And I don't know about you guys, but in a lot of ways, these things just makes me like the show more.
Enough talk. I'm going home to watch this episode again. And again. And maybe again.
j.
DHARMA INITIATIVE
Underneath all the project names, there's a hidden link with the same title. FYI: it only works if you use Internet Explorer. I got a dead link when I tried it in Firefox.
Now, looking at this logo -- which we didn't see in the episode itself, I don't think -- am I wrong, or does that look like a rearranged swastika? Why is it crooked like that? Sure, maybe I'm just imagining it because I heard a rumor that the Nazis are behind the island mystery, but perhaps it's something to ponder...Thinking more about the reason why Desmond would split so quick after failing to repair the "microprocessor" (or "computer," as we like to say), I got to thinking, maybe Desmond is well aware that there's no escape from the island. When he leaves, he packs only food. There's no reason to believe he has a way out. After all, if what he says is even remotely true, what makes him think he can escape the island and still be safe from the crazy world destruction that will ensue if the button isn't pushed? Desmond must have somewhere else to go to on the island. Maybe even someone else to report to. It's definitely not as simple as he's led Jack (and us) to believe. The more I think about it, the less I believe he got to the island by mistake. Remember, he says he on a "race around the world." It's obviously not something someone just goes out and does. There must be more to Desmond than we know.
There's also the thought that maybe all he needed to know was that someone else was prepared to take over the job of pushing the button. Having to do that every 108 minutes must drive a man crazy, especially if he knows he's only supposed to be doing it for 540 days, yet he's been doing it for 3 years, and most of that time he's done it alone. He may have assumed that that was the reason why Jack tracked him down after he left -- to get the code and continue the chain. That's certainly another possibility.
I really hate to guess about the "are you him?" comment from "Adrift," but I have a theory that he's referring to Jin. More on that after next week's episode. ;)
Looking at a bigger picture down the road, the big question is obviously the purpose of such an island/facility existing. The big question for now, however, is what the hatch is for. It's not simply to better humanity. But I do think that there's some truth in "protecting the rest of the world." Let's make some wild, unproven assumptions: maybe the island is surrounded by an electromagnetic field of some sort. Maybe that's how it's impossible to escape. Maybe living under this field makes you "sick" after prolonged exposure. Maybe the flight 815 survivors haven't been on the island long enough to experience it. Maybe that's how the plane got sucked in. Maybe that's why the animals are viscious. Maybe that's why anybody who's lived on the island prior to the crash of flight 815 is a little weird. Maybe the visions, the flashbacks, and the hallucinations are symptons of the oncoming "sickness." Please don't get mad at me for my lack of actual scientific knowledge, I'm just trying to make some broad strokes here!
Maybe -- just maybe -- the whole damn thing is a setup. We know flight 815 didn't just crash there by accident. We know certain people died and certain people survived for a reason. Maybe this flight wasn't so much a coincidence, and the people onboard were hand picked for this alleged experiment. Maybe the island really is a research facility like we've been told, and maybe that explains why we have 1.) weird, abrupt changes in weather, 2.) strange "monsters," 3.) tides and currents that move you towards the island, 4.) branded sharks that keep you from leaving, and 5.) planes and boats that crash with large numbers of survivors.
Here's the list of Hanso projects from the Hanso Foundation website:
The Hanso Life-Extension Project
The Hanso Foundation Electromagnetic Research Initiative
The Hanso Quest for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
The Hanso Mathematical Forecasting Initiative
The Hanso Cryogenics Development Imperative
The Hanso Juxtapositional Eugenics Development Institute
The Hanso Accelerated Remote Viewing Training Facility
Every single one of those "projects" relates, in some way, to the island's mysteries. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on those project titles.
And then again, maybe it is all a coincidence, and what the survivors uncover and what we see isn't more than just random chance. But if that were true, we still wouldn't know the significance of Hurley's numbers showing up everywhere. That's beyond chance, beyond coincidence. Those numbers -- despite what people on the LOST forums have declared -- are not just coordinates. Hell, we don't know for sure if they even are coordinates.
Then there's the possibility that Desmond, Danielle Rousseau, and Ethan Rom are all, well, bat shit crazy, along with those psycho "others" we keep hearing about. Maybe they've all been stuck on this consarned island for too long, and it's gotten to them. Maybe they're just guessing about things just as wildly as the survivors (and we) are. Maybe they don't know any more than we do. Maybe we can't trust a word they say. Remember: Rousseau claimed to have never seen the hatch before when they showed it to her in "Exodus" last season. Do we believe her? Does that mean she might have seen other hatches or man-made structures?
Delving deeper into the research facility idea, what do you guys think about the different "sectors" referenced in the orientation film? Do you think all the sectors are physically on the island? Or do you think some of them are scattered around the world? For the Alias fans out there, I think we can all agree that that would seem very "Rambaldi" of the creators to scatter all the facilities around the world. Personally, I believe all the sectors are on the island (I also don't think anybody will ever leave the island, and the island story will continue until the show officially ends). The orientation film references itself as "3 of 6," so my guess is that there are 5 other sectors of the island that have yet to be revealed. This could be: the weather sector, the animal testing sector (polar bears, weird birds, and sharks come to mind), the black smoke sector (the "monster"), the remote viewing sector (I'm going to guess this is where the radio signal is being broadcasted from, kind of like a headquarters for the island facility), and the button sector, AKA the hatch. Something to think about.
Like I said in my comments earlier today, I think we're being led astray on purpose. Look at it this way: you just created a hit show that lives and dies on secrets. Spoilers are your worst enemy, and with the popularity of the show and the predominance of nerds like me following it closely (that's an understatement -- we're obsessed), you, as the creator, have to protect your greatest asset -- your secrets. How do you do this? You can start by putting fake script pages on the show's official website. You plant seeds in the show that lead viewers away from the truth. You write in plot points and story arcs that make the viewers think, assume things that aren't necessarily true, things that haven't been proven. You manipulate what people actually see vs. what's real, what actually exists, what's possible within our physical realm. With that said, not only do we have to be wary of what we deem important, but also of what we may be overlooking given our own personal biases and beliefs. Abrams is notorious for turning stereotypical characters and predictable storylines into twists. If there's anything that's for sure on LOST, it's that nothing is as it seems. I definitely feel like we're being challenged by the creators of the show just as much as the survivors of flight 815. "Truth" is just a matter of perspective, and in the case of LOST, we have many, many varying perspectives. And I don't know about you guys, but in a lot of ways, these things just makes me like the show more.
Enough talk. I'm going home to watch this episode again. And again. And maybe again.
j.
posted by jonniechang at 9:17 PM
3 Comments:
Chang, an awesome summary of where we stand. I agree. The one thing I'll add for now is that aside from the example of chance/coincidence/greater design with Hurley's numbers before the island, the other pre-island thing that still gets me is Desmond. Easy to overlook, the chances of Jack seeing him several years ago in a stadium in California then finding him on an island years later... zero. Then there's how Desmond appears in the frame literally out of nowhere... we don't even hear two sets of feet until he shows up suddenly. Again, Season 2 Episode 1 let us know that the unexplainable will extend far beyond just this island.
Right, absolutely. The historical connections between characters are also very significant, I'm sure, especially given the chances of shit like that happening. What I'm also curious about (and still pondering myself) is the thread that connects how and why everyone on the island went to Australia. Some of it we know, like Jack trying to find his dad or Locke going on a walkabout, but the one thing that connects all of them is still unclear and undefined. It's almost as if it's the preparation before the crash -- like if there is some ultimate design, the first step was getting them to Australia. The rest was easy. That might end up being more significant than how and why the plane crashed, or how or why they ended up on flight 815...
I think you hit is dead with that last paragraph. We really are being led astray. J.J. and rest of the team are aware that Lost has a huge online community (hello! which we contribute to!) and they are milking it for all that it's worth. And they deserve to. We love it. But because of that especially we need to step back and examine the facts before jumping to wild conclusions.
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