Petition Panderings

Whoa, horse.

EDIT: Giving credit where credit is certainly due:

LOST_WFTB: I’m forever grateful to @EWDocJensen for being the FIRST to endorse it on twitter!!! (but we need’s an EW linkage baby!) šŸ˜€

Yesterday this whole LOST Themed Disney Attraction petition thing went wild.Ā  Surreal even.

As I wrote in the first post:

I made a off hand comment on Twitter to a friend:

@mfeige 1) never be sorry for Disneylan 2) I want pictures of when Tom Sawyerā€™s Island becomes LOST

Since then Iā€™ve had two blogs at Examiner.com analyze the story.

Which has pretty much been the theme everywhere Iā€™ve seen the petition mentioned, either a ā€œOh Hell YES!ā€ or a ā€œOh Hell NO!ā€.

Then Monday, the OC Weekly Blog (Orange County also known as the home of Disneyland) Navelgazing picked up the story and posted this:

Their ā€˜Dishneyā€™ isnā€™t a typo like the petitionā€™s ā€˜Disnetā€™, its a portmanteau of the words ā€œdishā€ and ā€œdisneyā€, as in the dish on disney. If only I had such an acceptable reason for all the typos and mistakes on the petition.

Reading through the comments, there is a link to this blog from June:

Which very well may have been the initiating mind worm that triggered my off-hand tweet.Ā  Read that post, its a wonderful work of satire, even has some nifty cool acronyms to decode.Ā  Apparently it even kicked off a thread at DarkUFOā€™s forums getting some fans hopes up for such a thing to happen.

Then yesterday, this tweet:

Damon Lindelof: @LOST_WFTB Consider the petition SIGNED!

(heā€™s #539 on the petition, btw)

Which made my day, week, month, year, decade, century.Ā  Only to be followed in the evening by this tweet:

CarltonCuse: @LOST_WFTB. While I like the idea of Tom Sawyer’s island getting a LOST do-over, I’d rather see Disney make a big LOST E-ticket ride.

Whoa. Horse. Couldnā€™t wipe the goofy grin off my face for a long moment.Ā  My son started following along and signed the petition, then later my wife did.Ā  Just before I went to bed, I saw this article that was re-tweeted by a follower:

And the little petition that could has been clicking along ever since, over 935 signatures yesterday alone, and stands at 1825 as I write this (itā€™ll change before I post).

Still hasnā€™t gotten the much sought after hype from Jeff ā€œDocā€ Jensen that he promised in this tweet almost a month ago:

EWDocJensen LOST_WFTB: Seriously, dude. Start a petition. I’ll help promote it. We’ll get this done. I have no doubt Mighty Disney will bow to our will.

Cā€™mon Doc, Iā€™m sure EW.com will give you some online space to continue to help promote it. time before it seems like youā€™re hitchinā€™ your wagon to a internet phenom. (my bad, Jeff’s been consistently promoting this on twitter from the start. – JS)

I do need to state that the limitations of PetitionOnline.com donā€™t allow me to edit the petition after itā€™s been posted. So were stuck with my shoddy work, sorry.Ā  Another pal (Eddie Lloyd) sent me an email with a much better worded petition, if I could swap his work with mine I would.Ā  But Iā€™ll include it after the fold:

Continue reading

LOST WFTB – Tweetcaps

A bit of a catch upā€¦ Iā€™m gonna link to text files of the tweetups, that you can download and read, versus the inpost quotes.

Iā€™m lazy. I suck. I know.

All credit goes to @batchoutlost for herding all the tweets.Ā  If you MUST have the tweetcaps in a post, let me know and Iā€™ll have my intern put it on my schedule. šŸ˜€

Take THAT haters!

My LOST Themed Disney Petition (the post) has had itā€™s supporters and itā€™s detractors and some on the fence, navelgazing.  Iā€™m sure it will irk the haters to know that Damon Lindelof has jumped aboard the bandwagon.

His tweet:

DamonLindelof

@LOST_WFTB Consider the petition SIGNED!

and a screen cap of the proof!

image

HA! hahah! hahahahahahah!

Next Mission: @CarltonCuse ā€¦ oh he will sign it, oh yes! he will!

My Squiggly Line LOST Supper Theory – Doc Jensen throw down.

Okay, my good friend Jeff ā€œDocā€ Jensen has another column out today, and he said heā€™d continue his LOST Supper ā€œanalysisā€ in his twitter stream.  A few of instances of what he calls, ā€œanalysisā€:

EWDocJensen: "Lost Last Supper" bonus thought: "The Da Vinci Code" alleges Leonardo posed Jesus and John/Mary so as to form the letter ‘M’ (More…)

EWDocJensen: Now, look at the space above Locke, between Sawyer and Jack. The way they’re framed forms the letter W. (More…)

EWDocJensen: A reference to "Widmore"? Of course, the shape suggests something else: A crown atop Locke’s head. But what kind of crown? (More…)

EWDocJensen: A royal crown for Locke the Christ–or a crown of horns for Locke the anti-Christ?

Iā€™m all for reading Johnā€™s Revelation into most anything pop-cultural, especially any season of The Bachelor, or say the follow-up episode of Conveyor Belt of Love last night, which I still need to watch, and see where the whore of Babylon plays into that, but I digress.

I tweeted him a theory about a squiggly line, then later smashed his ā€˜Jacobā€™s touch has magikal healing powazā€™ hack theory (didnā€™t help good olā€™ John Locke to get touched by Jacob, heā€™s still dead in the sand).  Well, I guess Docā€™s feeling a bit confident, just having posted his column, and getting all jiggy with the tweetings (which I helped him out with, remember?) tweeted back:

EWDocJensen: True. Maybe Jacob is saving Locke’s resurrection for later. C’mon, Mr. "Squiggly Line"! More imagination!

Alright, bud, howsabout I throw down some photographic evidence of the squiggly lineā€¦ hm?

POW!!!

squiggly-line-1

BLAM!!!!

squiggly-line-2

There ya go, PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF of a smokie reference floating over John Lockeā€™s smirky mc-smirk-smirk face.  Proof that the Smoke Monster isnā€™t to be messed with.  And neither am I!

BWahahahahaha

UPDATE: Doc admits defeat with and claims the right to edit and revise his remarks. umm… well he says this:

EWDocJensen: @LOST_WFTB YOU WIN! Genius! CHECK IT readers: http://bit.ly/50wQEh But I have one suggestion for improvement…. (more)

EWDocJensen: @LOST_WFTB Terminate the squiggly line at the head of the "thing" behind Ben–it better completes the Smokey/snake shape.

Well, your wish is my command!  Here is the updated master squiggly-line photo, with Doc’s addendum in Purple (being the royal color, or the color you use when you’re feeling real special.)

squiggly-line-1a

Hurley and Miles – Space time dialogs…

In the episode ā€œWhatever Happened, Happenedā€ Miles and Hurley have a couple of key discussions about the nature of spacetime as it relates to being stuck in 1977.  Iā€™m postulating that Milesā€™ summary will also prove to be correct if the Bomb changes everything #BCE

First part is when Sawyer sends Miles back to the barracks to sit on Jack, Kate and Hurley, since things are spiraling out of control.

[Miles is loading his rifle.]

JACK: You’re telling us we’re under house arrest?

MILES: No, you’re all free to leave whenever you want…but I’ll shoot you in the leg.

JACK: [Sighs] And whose idea was this?

MILES: Who do you think?

KATE: Sawyer’s just doing his job, Jack.

[Miles looks at Jack and points at Kate, emphasizing her point. Miles walks over to the table where Hurley is inspecting his hand.]

MILES: What the hell are you doing, Tubby?

HURLEY: Checking to see if I’m disappearing.

MILES: What?

HURLEY: "Back to the Future," man. We came back in time to the island and changed stuff. So if little Ben dies, he’ll never grow up to be big Ben, who’s the one who made us come back here in the first place. Which means we can’t be here. And therefore, dude? We don’t exist.

MILES: You’re an idiot. [Takes a seat at the table]

HURLEY: Am I?

MILES: Yeah. It doesn’t work like that. You can’t change anything. You’re maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus. That is what always happened. It’s just…we never experienced how it all turns out.

[Hurley looks at Jack, confused.]

HURLEY: This is really confusing.

MILES: Yeah, well, get used to it. But the good news is that Linus didn’t die, so that means the kid can’t either. He’ll be fine.

KATE: Didn’t look like he was gonna be fine. What if you’re wrong?

MILES: Well, if I’m wrong, then I guess we all stop existing, and none of it matters anyway then, does it?

Next miles and Hurley are sitting in the barracks (Kate has left after getting mad at Jack for not DOing SOMETHING!!!) and are still on the space time talk.

[Hurley is seated in the house, questioning Miles.]

HURLEY: Let me get this straight.

[Miles is pacing.]

HURLEY: All this already happened.

MILES: Yes.

HURLEY: So this conversation we’re having right now…we already had it.

MILES: [Claps his hands] Yes!

HURLEY: Then what am I gonna say next?

MILES: I don’t know. [Shakes his head.]

HURLEY: Ha’! Then your theory is wrong!

MILES: For the thousandth time, you dingbat, the conversation already happened, but not for you and me. For you and me, it’s happening right now.

HURLEY: Okay, answer me this. If all this already happened to me, then…why don’t I remember any of it?

MILES: Because once Ben turned that wheel, time isn’t a straight line for us anymore. Our experiences in the past and the future occurred before these experiences right now.

[Hurley’s face tightens in confusion as he thinks, Miles stares at him.]

HURLEY: Say that again.

MILES: [Pauses in exasperation and pulls out his gun and holds it out for Hurley to take.] Shoot me. Please. Please!

HURLEY: Aha! I can’t shoot you. Because if you die in 1977, then you’ll never come back to the island on the freighter 30 years from now.

MILES: I can die because I’ve already come to the island on the freighter. Any of us can die because this is our present.

HURLEY: But you said Ben couldn’t die because he still has to grow up and become the leader of the Others.

MILES: Because this is his past.

HURLEY: But when we first captured Ben, and Sayid, like, tortured him, then why wouldn’t he remember getting shot by that same guy when he was a kid?

[Miles blinks and looks around. Hurley raises his eyebrow.]

MILES: Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.

HURLEY: Huh. [Crossing his arms.]

 

We learn later in the episode that Benā€™s memory of getting shot are changed from being healed by Richard in the temple.  How that happened specifically is still a mystery.  This scene was cut between Kate, Roger and Juliet working on little Ben in the infirmary. So it was cut into the episode with a purpose, I think it explains to us how the time travel thing works in Lostā€™s universe.  So read on and read me BCmE theory again.

Bomb Changes (most) Everything.

Call it my #BCE post.Ā  Since I started re-watching LOST Iā€™ve been considering two options that Iā€™d been thinking were mutually exclusive:

  • Whatever Happened Happened (#WHH) ā€“ Canā€™t change the past, whatever happened happened, one continuous timeline, and even though Daniel, Sawyer, Miles, Juliet, Hurley, Jin, Kate and Jack are in 1977, they still have memories of time that happened after that (before they jumped back in time in 2004 or 2007)
  • Bomb Changes Everything (#BCE) ā€“ This comes from Danielā€™s revelation about focusing on the Variables, and that their actions can change the past, that if he can negate the magnetic anomaly then that changes the future.

But, what if Iā€™m wrong?Ā  What if theyā€™re not mutually exclusive.Ā  What if we can do both, whatever happened, happen while negating the magnetic anomaly and changing the need for button pressing to keep the massive magnetic field at bay, and the resultant accident that caused Oceanic 815 to crash on the island?

First we need to backtrack a bit, along these time-jumping soaked theories.Ā  We were first introduced to the concept of time travel from the effects that turning the failsafe key had on Desmond.Ā  Heā€™d become a bit detached from time, his consciousness returning to the key moment where heā€™d tossed his ring in the river, and left Penny and joined the army, setting down a path where heā€™d enter the sailboat race to win Pennyā€™s heart (or at least give him the assurance that he deserved Penny) which brought him to the island.Ā  In that same story (Flashes Before Your Eyes) we were introduced to Eloise Hawking, who told Desmond that the Universe had a way of course correcting, she could have saved ā€œred shoesā€ life that day, but heā€™d only die the next.Ā  Trace that down the line and we get Danielā€™s assertion that whatever happened, happened.

Desmond experimented with this line of thinking, setting his goal to save Charlieā€™s life, and if he could continue to do that, by his thinking, then we could change his future and end up with Penny and live happily ever after.Ā  In The Constant we saw the culmination of this story, when we saw Desmond make a call from the freighter and reconnect with Penny (his Constant) and sets down the path to being saved from the island with the Oceanic 6 and going into hiding with Penny on their sailboat.

Desmond is special. I think Desmond IS the constant, by turning the failsafe key (at some point in the future) his being/consciousness is a constant which we can glean a nugget of proof from when Daniel made contact with him while hopping through time at the beginning of Season 5.Ā  Daniel was able to get a message to ā€˜present dayā€™ Desmond to seek out his mother (Elosie Hawking).Ā  Odd cross-timeline communication.

Break for a second, and consider a scene from Fringe.Ā  In the scene, Olivia was investigating the Observer August, and some lab flunky was explaining time, and poured water through a tube, to demonstrate how we usually experience time, one-way, first-in-first-out.Ā  He then stopped up the tube, and filled it with water, then stopped up the other end, and said, I think these people experience time like this, all at once.

Okay, end break, and consider an explanation from time from LOST University, where spacetime is considered a landscape of events.Ā  If we laid out all the events that are possible on a sheet of paper called space time, we could arrive at different places on that landscape by drawing a line (time) to travel between events.Ā  Consider that time travel is ā€˜cheatingā€™ by bending space time (the paper) and moving between two events not in a line (time) along space time, but through a space (from one side of the paper to the other) backdoor.

In that sense, and as Iā€™m trying to understand it, everything happens at once, the concept of time is how we travel through space time.Ā  But we only experience time as we move through it.Ā  So as far as weā€™re concerned whatever happened, happened, along the line weā€™re traveling.

There have been hints of this that weā€™ve observed in Season 5.Ā  Sawyer witnessing the birth of Aaron, just as we saw it in Season 1.Ā  Locke telling Richard to tell past Locke that heā€™d have to die in order to bring the others back.Ā  Sawyer remembering that his parents died while he was stuck in 1977.Ā  This dual presence might even explain Christian Shepherd wondering around the island like he owns the place.

Consider the Variables (my team name for Sawyer, Juliet, Kate, Jack, Miles, Hurley and Jin) explode the bomb like Daniel (is he team Variable, or is he dead, because he was always meant to go back and get shot by his mom) told them to, thus creating (or really shifting to) a new timeline where the Incident never happened, no emergency sarcophagus for the magnetic anomaly at the Swan Station, no need for a failsafe, and no need for button pushing.Ā  BUT, all those things have already happened, and they have always happened.Ā  But our people have shifted lines at the point of the incident from the one where all the safety procedures were necessary to one where they are not needed.

So, what changes?Ā  Sawyer is still an orphan (that already happened) and heā€™s now synced with his future self along that time line, but can recall the memories (as if a dream) of the past timeline only itā€™s 2004 and heā€™s back on Oceanic flight 815, maybe having lived out all the things that he did the first time.Ā  Same with all the characters on that flight.

Who is on the island in 1977 (for real, not a Variable) that could have changed thing for people on the mainland?Ā  I canā€™t think of anyone.Ā  Remember the popular theory is that the Swan hatch with Radinzsky, Kelvin Inman and later Desmond was unknown to the hostiles (Widmore, Eloise, Benjamin) even up to the purge. Danielleā€™s research team didnā€™t come to the island because of the magnetic anomaly, so theyā€™d still land to investigate the signal and be attacked by Smokie just as we saw in Jinā€™s journey through time.Ā  Ben would still be a part of the purge, then make Widmore an outcast.

Some of my own pushback.Ā  Eloise is pregnant with Daniel, perhaps, so Daniel is yet to be born, and this is a paradox, heā€™ll be born on a timeline where the magnetic anomaly has already been negated, and his life would be totally different, maybe a concert pianist.Ā  But if he did that, then how did the Variables ever get the idea to explode the bomb.Ā  Well two Daniels, just as there are two Lockes, two Christianā€™s…

Iā€™ll need to ponder this more, but wanted to share it with the scads of people that want to read this! šŸ˜‰

It’s Ess Tee Ewe Eee Vee Eee

And it’s pronounced, as my Dad once wore on his church league basketball jersey: Stew-Vee

If you haven’t come here from Jeff “Doc” Jensen’s column, then let me post a picture of what I woke up to this morning.

steuve

All’s forgiven Jeff, my name’s been misspelled all my life, my favorite is “Stlieve” Ell-Eye? Really?

Once when I was at Naval Postgraduate School, I won a prize and the navy wife pronounced it like the Swedish Chef was trying to say my name. So I’m used to it.

If you’re here for the first time, I run the twitter rewatch, titled Watch From the Beginning (#WFTB) using my special twitter account LOST_WFTB. We’re currently re-watching the beginning of Season 5, with the next twitter re-watch happening on We3dnesday for Season 5 Episode 5. Tune into Twitter and re-watch with us. (And urge Doc Jensen to show up for once… Just one night…)

Peace, out.

LOST Game Changers – The 23rd Psalm

This is a classic episode, that it ends with Mr. Eko quoting the 23rd Psalm while fire engulfs the plane wreckage that became his brother’s tomb, isn’t the game changer… It’s just the capper of a very revealing episode, that twists in things from the first season, swirls it around with what we know of the second season, and sets up a chess piece for upcoming seasons.

The backstory of Mr. Eko is telling, he’s not afraid to do what is right to protect the people he loves, but he’s also all about getting the business done, the right way, even if it means bending the laws, rules, killing people. The way the story tell of Eko’s Nigerian gangster past is somewhat surprising that we know he was wearing a priest’s collar, and has a habit for etching bible verses in tree branches. How that story is told, while winding around the Heroin infused statues of Mary, then loading them on the yellow plane that Locke found, that had lead to Boone’s death just is classic twisty LOST story telling.

The game changer was the approach of the smoke monster, to Charlie’s sound of alarm to the face to face meeting of Smokie and Eko. The slow plan through the smoke as it takes it’s measure of Mr. Eko, with flashes of faces and times that we’d never encountered, made it another screen capture/pause/wedbetterwatchthatagain moment.