Follow along! The episode guide to "Pilot, Part 1" is in Finding Lost, pp. 9-14.Wow, it’s so weird and amazing to be back here again. There’s no Dharma Initiative, no Others, no hatches. No one’s been off the island and back again, the survivors don’t know each other. It was like I was watching an entirely different show. But man, I love this pilot every time I go back and watch it. And now, with season 5 behind us, it’s new again. Look, it’s Chah-lie! And Hurley has fuzzy hair! Claire’s back, and round! Locke has... hair! (You know, I really didn’t realize in the first episode that Mount Baldy actually had fuzz around the sides and back of his head.) Jin’s a dick! Sun is submissive! Sawyer’s smoking… and he’s an ass! Jack is... not a tool! Boone and Shannon… still tools.
What I plan to do for our rewatch is point out a few fun things I didn’t notice the first time around, and then a bunch of things that are different now that we’re at the end of season 5. I don’t mean for my lists to be comprehensive, because A) I want you guys to be able to chime in with everything you saw, and B) I want to have a bit of a life for the next 8 months. So here we go!
Fun stuff I noticed:
• When Jack wakes up at the very beginning, I noticed what appears to be a black metal cylinder beside his head. Last year one of my readers emailed me asking if I would rewatch the opening, and wondered if it was Ben’s billy-club. Could it be?
• Hurley says the word “dude” in his third line of dialogue
• Jack saves Rose, Hurley, and Claire in the first 5 minutes. I think this is why I was slow to get on the “Oh SHUT UP Jack” train… I think everyone on that island owes Jack their lives. Maybe he’s right to be holier-than-thou. But honestly, by season 4, we kinda want him to shut up. But in this episode, I thought he was freakin’ awesome.
Things that are different in retrospect:
• We all remember Vincent being at Jack’s side when he woke up, but now we know from the final mobisode (see Finding Lost — Season Four, page 140-141) that Christian sent Vincent to wake up his son, telling him he has important work to do
• As Jack is running to the beach, he passes a white tennis shoe hanging from a bush. I guess now we can assume that was Christian’s.
• Jack tells Kate about the whole counting to five thing, and how you have to stay put and fix things. Kate says if she’d been in his situation during that surgery she would have run out of the door. Both their personalities were already perfected by that first episode.
• Jin says to Sun, “Don’t worry about the others; we need to stay together.” That line is ironic in season 5 (especially if you think of the Others with a capital letter…)
• Kate says she saw smoke in the valley and that’s where the fuselage was. But now I wonder, was she the first person to see Smokey?
• When Smokey attacks that night, Charlie steps up and says, “Terrific.” Which is exactly what Lapidus said when Bram cracked open the crate and he saw Locke’s body in there.
• Kate needs hiking boots, and slowly takes them off a dead body. It’s the opposite action to Jack putting shoes ONTO a dead body, Locke’s.
• Locke spends the first episode staring at the water, and when he’s resurrected, he just stands on the beach looking out at the water.
• The co-pilot of the plane died on impact, just like Lapidus’s.
40 comments:
Yes! Nikki, I'm so stoked about this rewatch - enough to actually use the word "stoked"! I'm at work and my notes from the rewatch are at home, but the comment Kate made about the smoke really rang with me too - could it have been Smokey luring them to the cockpit?
Amazing again, with awesome sauce poured all over it. What struck me most vividly upon reviewing the pilot is the urgency of the imagery. Now, this may sound rather silly considering that we are talking about the survivors of a plane crash but the contrast between Jack's almost dream-like awakening in the jungle and the frenzied chaos that awaits him on the beach is stunning.
The camera shot that begins on Jack when he first arrives at the beach is powerful - the camera moves in a complete circle, panning across the ocean waves, the stretch of beach, a swath of jungle and then returns to a confused Jack - who suddenly bolts towards the off-screen source of intensifying sound and fury. *boom* We're IN!
I also have to contrast our first look at Locke here with the scenes of him fireside on the beach with the Ajira survivors in Season 5. Wrap a blanket around him here and the two images are strikingly similar.
Given the juxtaposition of Jack's heroics and Locke's initial passivity, I find myself thinking of Jacob and Darkman sitting on the beach, watching the Black Rock approach. Were they equally poised in anticipation of the crash of Flight 815?
Busy, busy day today - can't wait to log on later and see what folks have had to say about their own Rewatch!
So great to be back! Okay. I will try to be succinct, because I feel like I have so much I want to say.
Ahem...
1. It really was so weird to watch it, thinking that the first time i saw it I knew nothing about these people and now I feel like I know some of them better than people in real life. Is that sad, or what, or just Lost :P
2. @Nikki: Jack saves Rose, Hurley, and Claire in the first 5 minutes.
You know, I realized that this is probably why he feels so responsible for them all. He's saved most of their lives over the course of the show. He still gets on my nerves, but I feel less annoyed realizing that.
3. @Nikki: Kate says she saw smoke in the valley.
I thought the same thing! Especially since they hear the noises right after she said it.
4. Almost everyone lies to each other right off the bat. Jack lies about the way his "count to 5" story happened. Kate hides the fact that she's a fugitive. Charlie lies about why he went into the toilet in the cockpit. The one major exception I noticed is Sayid. He openly admits to Hurley that he was in the Republican Guard. He doesn't hide what he was because I think he truly is sorry for what he had done. He can't change the past, but he has an earnest desire to change the future (unfortunately he seems unable to do it).
5. In regards to Vincent - I'm wondering if maybe he didn't survive the original crash. Is it possible he's alive like Christian is alive? His behavior is very strange and oddly purposeful. I wrote up a more in depth look at this on my blog if anyone is interested. What do you think?
6. This may sound a little crazy, but I wonder if Smokey is what brought down Oceanic 815. When Jack and Rose are talking on the plane, there is a groaning and clicking sound very reminiscent of Ol' Smokey. In the very next scene on the beach Rose and some of the other non-main characters are talking in the background about the monster sounds they heard in the jungle and Rose says that the sound was really familiar. Then later, in Part 2, in another flashback, we hear the sound again.
If so, that would have some interesting contemplations. I plan on posting something on this later once I get my thoughts together.
7. Why did the smoke monster go after the pilot? Was it simply because it was the first episode and they wanted to show how dangerous it could be? Or was there some greater reason? Or am I just overanalyzing because it's Lost? :)
It's been months since I've seen the pilot episodes. I really missed Cha-lee in seasons 4 and 5. It's great to be watching from the beginning again instead of watching a random episode from season 3 (not that that's great too). As I was watching Pilot, Part 1, I would make small comments to myself that we knew happened in season five in the 1970s. Suddenly, everything makes sense in retrospect.
A couple of foreshadowing moments I noticed: the look on Kate's face as Jack plays with his leaf-airplane foreshadows her obsession with Tom's airplane; the comment (that Nikki referred to) from Jack about Kate not running foreshadows not only her role as the fugitve that we find out next episode but also her running out of relationships, including her marriage with Kevin and her on-again/off-again relationships with Jack and Sawyer.
I've wondered the same thing about Vincent, especially after the scene where he watches Jack, Kate, and Charlie on their way to the cockpit.
As for why the pilot was killed, I'd like to know the reason too. But it's probably for dramatic effect -- to show how dangerous the monster is, and to take away that tiny bit of security our heroes felt when they saw him wake up and realized, OK here's someone who will know what to do.
But in this episode, I thought he was freakin’ awesome.
I can't stand Jack nowadays (not that I ever really stood him) but one of the reasons I LOVE not standing him is that: he really is a complex character, and contrasting the Jack of the Pilot (where he instinctively jumps into action to save anyone he can) to the Jack of "The Incident" (where he's doing everything in his power to detonate an H-Bomb in order to re-write history) is fascinating and makes all my frsutrated "shut up Jack!" cries to the TV worth the frustration.
Okay I watched all four in a row so I hope I don't mix up my thoughts with the episodes. I will try very hard not to.
Immediately I found myself watching this with a HUGE amount of suspicion and scrutiny. The issue about Ben's black stick thingy next to Jack's head has come up many times and lo and behold, there it was in the scene. So I started to watch it with a different eye...as if Jack had time traveled back/forward to that spot. Why else was he in the jungle when everyone else was on the beach? BIG question IMO. So I started to watch it as if Jack KNEW he time traveled and was re-living this whole thing. That he knows these people already...that he is pretending...that he's letting thing unfold. OR, that he never WAS there the first time...things unfolded differently and he has come back (forward?) to change them. I dunno. I am probably going off the deep end here but so many things just don't add up. Of course by Part 2, I surrendered that idea and started to relax and watch it for what it was. I forgot how many of them "hated" each other in the beginning....and it's so poetic to know that they will wind up so close as friends in the end.
I also question Vincent's behavior. We've always joked that he's the dog of death. Something is just WAY more off there.
I found Boone's efforts to help with the pens touching. He has an earnest heart and I found myself feeling so sad for him. Shannon, not so much. LOL
And OMG...I think Sun has changed the most out of anyone. Jin too I guess, but Sun...wow! I mean, they all look a bit younger but she really looks like a different person!
Awesome! Here's to the rewatch!
There are tons of things I thought about when I was rewatching this episode--I actually watched twice just because it was SO darn good. I can't even believe how amazing it was to see our little Losties worrying about food instead of cataclysmic electromagnetic melt-downs, time-warps, immortal weird people armed with flaming arrows, and all that sort of end-of-existence stuff. Anyway, here's some thoughts on my part:
1) There has GOT to be some significance to the fact that Jack woke up in the jungle. Not only was he in the jungle, but he was surrounded on every side, tightly, by a bamboo forest--there is NO way you could just fall or slide into that! It just feels all wrong but I don't know what that means...
2) Awesome thought about the "smoke in the valley"--that's a definite possibility and verrry interesting to think about, I never caught that.
3) It cracks me up every time to see that scene with Jack and Kate around the fire where Jack's demonstrating the crash with his little hand-made plane replica. Jack would do that!
4) I have always like Jack, but at the same time he's often irked me--I love him for his heart and bravery and persistence to carry out what's right, but I've also felt like he needs to get over himself too, not that he thinks he's awesome--he's got major self-esteem issues--but just that he thinks because he's dad says "he doesn't have what it takes", he has to be prove him wrong in everything he does and therefore, whatever Jack says is law. But I love seeing just pure Jack like he was in the beginning, at least in those first few minutes--we got our man in shining armor for a little while, I really hope we get him back in the last season, trimmed and polished into his armor after everything he's been through. He deserves to earn his badge back.
5) When we see Kate for the first time, walking past bleeding Jack in the jungle, she's rubbing her wrists--though none of us knew it at the time, it was because she'd been HANDCUFFED during the crash.
6) Did Kate land in the jungle too like Jack? Away from the others? We never see her by the wreckage--and her handcuffs were found in the jungle (by Walt). Or did she just run off into the jungle immediately after waking up? I found it weird that she was separated from the wreck like Jack--significant? Who knows.
7) I love the line you mentioned, Nikki, about Jack counting to 5 and Kate saying she would have ran for the door--it's so true that that right there is perfect characterization--but also describes the journey that both of those characters are about to undertake from that point on--Kate, the runner, has stopped running for once in her life (and literally has nowhere to run!) and Jack, the man who conquered fear is now about to face deeper and more real fears than he's ever know and discover that he can't take them for once. Such great lines between them! And already the quadrangle has met it's first to axes!
8) I found it so heart-warming while rewatching the first few minutes of this episode to see Jack helping Claire knowing now that she's his little (1/2)sister! You can just see the look on her face even though she can't know what he is--she's clinging to him with all the trust in the world without even knowing his name. Aww! I really we get some more moments between them...well first off I really hope Claire comes back as Claire...Eek!
@HUMANEBEAN:
I love your thoughts on the duality of things, it's definitely a HUGE part of Lost's vibes--the ying and yang effect and how every element of the show has an opposite, Jack vs. Locke, science vs. faith, Jacob vs. Man-in-Black, etc. The thing I find interesting about that two is that, despite their juxtpositions, Jack and Locke vs. Jacob and Man-in-Black seem to also have opposite positions respectively on the science vs. faith thing--Jack is the man of science and Locke the man of faith, whereas I get the feeling that Jacob is more a man of faith and the Man-in-Black the man of science. By their conversation the Man in Black seems to place a very scientific, pessimistic view over humanity by saying that "they come, they corrupt, they kill, they destroy--it always ends the same" as if humanity was a lab experiment with conclusive results but Jacob seems more carefree faith-reliant that whatever that ship brought was what should happen. Interesting at least. I still can't figure out if I really think Jacob's the good guy, regardless I really love his character as we've seen it. I have this tiny voice saying maybe he's not the "good" one despite what it seems, but who knows?
@SONSHINEMUSIC:
I've thought about that too in regards to Vincent! He's always seemed so...strange. And like you said very "purposeful". I remember during some scene in the second scene Ana Lucia made a comment about Vincent taking a liking to her for some reason and having a revelation as to why that was significant--but I can't remember why. I need to do a Vincent investigation and figure this puppy out. =P
And I definitely don't think you're crazy for wondering about the Pilot and Smokey--I had the same question and I'm sure it must be sigingificant, with all the tiny details that have been proven significant already by the writers--something as huge as a guy getting ripped out of a plane must have weight to it. I wonder if the monster wasn't actually trying to shut him up because he might have given something away to the Losties that "it" didn't want them to know--perhaps if the Pilot had lived, they would have figured out far too soon that the plane crash was not an ordinary one, or maybe the Pilot would have known a better way to make contact with the outside world which we obviously know everyone who was on the island before our Losties seems determined that the Losties never leave it. Hmmm, things to think about.
@JAZZYGIRL:
Wow, that's a very interesting way of looking at it--fascinating! I'm not sure that's going to be exactly right, but still an interesting perspective to watch with. Must have made your mind melt! =P
And in regards to Sun/Jin--I don't think that it's so much that their characters themselves have changed more drastically than any of the others (I'd say they're all pretty equally nothing like their Pilot selves!) I think it's just how they were portrayed because while Jin likes a total @ss and Sun looks completely helpless--in flashbacks we learn that it wasn't necessarily like that, Sun was already very rebellious, had had an affair, lied a million times to Jin's face and was planning on ditching him and running away to America! It was just the fact that all those hopes had now been dashed and she was trapped that made her this docile broken thing again. But physically she does look totally different, I'm not sure why--her face seems strangely younger now for some reason, maybe it's just that she actually looks happy(er) now instead of like she's about to commit suicide.
ashlie: First poster! I look forward to your notes! :)
humane: Nice comparison of Jacob and MiB with Jack and Locke. What's interesting to me is if we use their placement at the beginning, then it makes Jack the Man in Black. MiB emerges from the jungle, and returns to it. Jack emerges from the jungle, then returns so he can be stitched up. Jacob sits on the beach staring at the water, like Locke.
Sonshine: Great points!! I loved them, and I saw so many of them. What I LOVE about reading what you guys have to say is that in some cases you point out the change, and I saw it, noticed it was different, and forgot to write it down. Like the scene where Jack talks about letting the fear in. I sat on the couch and said, "Ooh, nice rewrite of history there, Jacko." Haha! But didn't write it down, of course.
I also noticed that the plane pulling apart had that metal-screechy noise that Smokey makes. Good call!
One thing I was thinking about when watching this (and something many of you have mentioned in regards to the pilot being eaten) is that we have to remember in season 1 they had some idea of what they were going to do, but probably hadn't even conceived the Dharma Initiative, much less Ben and Jacob and everyone. So I'm thinking the pilot was eaten to show the violence of Smokey.
That said, five seasons in and we now understand just how complex Smokey is, and yet it similarly mauls Nadine when Rousseau's crew lands. Why? Why let Ben go free after judging him, but kill Nadine? Why kill the pilot? Why spare Eko, then kill him? It came after Keamy's men, and we cheered, but it comes after Rousseau's people and we don't. Does it discriminate?
Does this come back to the Man in Black again? If he is associated with Smokey (if he IS Smokey) then he'll destroy anything in Locke's way, probably. Or in Ben's. He needs those two to make it to the statue. Not sure why it thought the pilot interfered, or that Nadine would get in Locke's way...
Re: The leaf plane: EVERY TIME I watch that scene, I burst out into laughter. It's just SO ridiculous and over-the-top, and yet it's SO Jack. There are people dying around him, but he finds a scalpel, sterilizes it... and carves a plane out of a palm leaf. HAAAAHAHAHAHA!!
And Susan, I too noticed how Kate stared longingly at it, as if she suddenly remembered what was in that briefcase and that she needed to get it.
Jazzy: You're echoing one of the early fan theories: That Jack had something to do with the crash and was behind it, and that's why there are so many ties to him (Claire, Christian, Aaron). But I think the only way to make that character work is to think of him as starting from scratch. I really don't think he's aware of what is going on. Also, he's not ga-ga over Kate. By the third episode he'll be already treating her in a way you don't treat someone you're in love with...
By the way, one of my fave lines watching this again was when he asks Kate if she's ever used a sewing needle, and she says, "I made the drapes in my apartment." and he says, "That's fantastic. Listen..." HAHA!!
Katey: I can't even believe how amazing it was to see our little Losties worrying about food instead of cataclysmic electromagnetic melt-downs, time-warps, immortal weird people armed with flaming arrows, and all that sort of end-of-existence stuff
LOL!! No kidding, eh? IMAGINE!
6. As for Kate coming out of the jungle, that was a big question back in season 1, and eventually the production answer was that Evangeline Lilly was the last person cast, and arrived 2 days (weeks? it was a long time ago now) into the shoot. They'd already begun filming the beach sequence and she wasn't there, so they had to come up with a reason why, so they had her emerge from the jungle instead. But it's a good question: why would she have landed in the jungle, and the marshal up on the beach? Any significance beyond production?
Hmm... maybe you're on to something after all, Jazzygirl! Both Kate and Jack could have come from... somewhere else.
Jazzygirl: I agree about Sun and what she looked like. I even said to my husband as he walked into the room, "Check out Sun!" Her face was so much rounder. Plastic surgery? Or did she lose a lot of weight and her face took on a more gaunt look? She was already so slim... she certainly didn't NEED to lose anything! :)
Maybe Smokey killed the pilot because he wasn't meant to be there? Remember that Lapidus was the one who had been scheduled to pilot 815 that day...
To all who mentioned Vincent - before I read all these comments I was convinced Vincent is Jacob after rewatchingthe pilot(mainly because of the scene when he watches Charlie, Kate and Jack on their treck - any normal dog would have run up to them) He looks a bit like jacob, doesn't he? However, I forgot about the mobisode and the fact that the writers probably hadn't yet concieved of Jacob.
Remember when he tried to pull the blanket off not-dead Nikki and Paolo? He is no ordinary dog.
Erin: interesting! So you would agree with the theory that Smokey's job is course correction? He wasn't SUPPOSED to be the pilot, so Smokey is helping course correct to change things to eventually make Lapidus the proper pilot. I like it!
Ali Bags: OOH!! I never THOUGHT of that. And you know, as I was saying... or started to say, and then got distracted by something shiny... they hadn't conceived of many of these things yet BUT they can shape earlier episodes, use them in the later ones and make it look like they'd figured that all along. So early on they create a creepy dog. Then later he becomes connected to Christian. And now, as you suggest, the dog could BE Jacob. I LOVE that theory!
Notice the painting in Jacob's cabin of the golden dog??
Hey y'all, I have the next two posts written and had them post-dated to appear tomorrow morning, but I've changed the time so they'll go live tonight instead. I'm just having too much fun discussing these to wait!! :)
One thing I forgot was as Jack was recounting his version of counting to 5, you can clearly see his tattoo that has a number 5 on it. I know Nikki has mentioned in her book the translations of the tattoos from his flashback in Thailand...I can't remember right now. But I notice it the first time that the 5 is right there.
And to answer the thing about Kate...well, yes...LOL...she could have zapped into the jungle from somewhere else too. I think I'm totally off the mark with my theory because I do agree, he "acts" so normal around everyone. I'm just trying to make this mathematical equation add up! Good luck, right? Aren't we all! LOL
And don't forget that Kate took the handcuffs off before the plane crashed so she wasn't wearing them when it went down. I think it's just a plot thing that Walt finds them inland.
My thoughts:
Whooo! Here we go, starting at the beginning once again (third time for me, I think) but finally this is it... we're starting at episode 1 and going right on through to the finale! It's so exciting to know we won't be stopping until The End.
Watching the pilot, it seemed to me like it was "Lost: The Movie". Many of the elements that will go on to make the show so great are already present, specifically the great writing is there at the beginning, and unlike other shows of this nature, momentum is built right from the beginning, and I was on the edge of my seat (again) by the end of the episode. Also, the characters don't know each other, and it's fun to see them meet.
It's also great to go back to the beginning, because when think about things like Walt's mom dying or Ana Lucia hanging out with Christian as we're watching later seasons, they are things that happened some time ago. But as we watch the pilot, we can think, "Oh my God, Walt's mom JUST died. Ana Lucia and Jack JUST talked at the airport." And so much else JUST happened that we didn't know about here as first time viewers. Not to mention, we now know what the Others are up to at this time. And the Tailies. So watching the first episode is much more interesting knowing all that has been and is going on that the episode isn't showing us.
So much fun to begin again and watch witn a new perspective!
This is only a test.
I'm so glad we're finally into this rewatch! Here's a thing I wasn't going to bring up until episode 9, "Solitary", but since you already mentioned it, Nikki, I'll add my comment now.
Way back in 2004, when season one was first on the air, I began to notice how often the phrase "the others" kept being repeated by seemingly everyone in the cast. In the Pilot, Part 1, only Jin says it, at about the 17-minute mark. But then later, in "Tabula Rasa", Boone and Kate each say it, and Sayid says it twice. In "Walkabout", we hear Jack say it. In "White Rabbit", Sun, Charlie and Jack each say it, and Locke says it twice. Up to this point, these were always references to members of their own group of Lostaways. Then finally in "Solitary", Danielle says it 3 times, with the third time being loaded with weighty significance and capital letters: "The Others".
I think the writers were very clever to gradually get us used to the idea of other people besides the 815ers being on the Island. Just hearing that phrase over and over got us ready for the big reveal of "The Others". Over 5 seasons, the writers have gradually introduced many different story elements. Time travel, anyone?
Sorry to run ahead to episode 9 like that, but this thing with the others got started in the opening segment of the Pilot, Part 1. I think that's really cool!
@Jazzygirl: Shannon, not so much. LOL
I just find this funny because I feel kind of the opposite. Watching the pilot I commented to my sister how much I missed Shannon and hated how they killed her off when she was really developing some real character.
@Erin: I love the idea of Smokey killing the pilot as some sort of course correction. That kind of ties in nicely with my theory about Smokey possibly causing the crash. I HAVE to go ruminate on that more.
I too thought Shannon improved over her season and a half. Her flashback was so sad, and I was sorry for Sayid when she died.
Hi, all... I just wanted to say hello and that I regret I probably won't be able to participate early on. Happy Rewatch!
Ha, Nikki, that's one of my favourite quotes too - "That's fantastic. So anyway, how about you sew up this huge gash in my back?" Awesome.
Yay, rewatch! Nikki, great notes. I hope I can keep up with all the comments on these eps! Anyhow, looks like everyone has pretty much covered my comments!
@ the Kate coming out of the Jungle thing: I just assumed she landed on the beach (maybe close to the Jungle) and ran into it to remove what was left of her handcuffs before anyone noticed she was wearing them in the chaos. I don't think she unlocked both sides when the plane went down. Just the chain holding them together & to her seat. I could be wrong on this.
@ at the Jack 'count to 5' story: This story now really annoys me. Perhaps, because I find Jack so annoying now. He obviously misconstrues the entire story to make it appear like he controlled his own fear & thought up the count to 5 idea and made himself do it. Now that we have seen Christian ordering him to count and he reluctantly obeying & then getting angry at his Father for helping him makes it all the more disingenuous to act like he is "the stuff" in this scene. I guess he has either glossed over the fact in his mind that it was really his Father compelling him to do this or he deliberately exaggerated just because he wanted to impress Kate. Either way, the little bit of positive heroic & admirable turn he took in the first part of the episode (i.e. first 10 minutes) in my mind totally disappeared & reminded me of why I don't like him yet again.
Last thought, wow! Sawyer has really grown character-wise in the last couple of seasons!
I just finishd episode 1, and the thing that really struck me was how much I disliked Shannon early on. It was quite irrational, really. I did get to like her more as she developed, but I really hated her from the get go. And I never really noticed that Locke didn't have a line! Apart from the 'Hey, get away from that still-running jet engi-... oh, never mind.' Hurray for the rewatch!
I am new to LOST and watched 4 seasons in 2 months after visiting Hawaii. I teach literature for a living and will look through the lens of thatwith my comments--especially through Dante which I see permeates all levels of LOST.
Jack wakes up in the forest confused and alone just as Dante does in the Inferno. All the characters are spiritually "lost" IMO and "working out" their salvation, so to speak.
Hi! I've lurked for a couple months but this is my first post here. Hoping I can keep up with a rewatch.
Re: Jack waking up in the jungle at the start. Some have suggested time travel of some sort. What if it's simply the island (Jacob?) transporting Jack off the plane into the jungle to ensure he will survive the plane crash. After seeing how several of them woke up similarly in the 70s when Ajira crashed, I'm not convinced Jack in the first episode needs to be anything more than the island moving Jack where it wants him to be.
Its fun to rewatch these episodes with the five season context of "Lost" under our belts. We seem to get answers that bring us even more questions.
We now see that Jack's iconic "eye opening" in the bamboo grove is repeated with his Ajira Flight 316 experience (as well as some aspects of Ben and Locke's arrivals in Tunesia after turning the donkey wheel which may of maynot be seen as evidence of a wormhole or "stargate"). It calls into question his experience of the crash. Back in 2004 I thought the "whoosh" had maybe brought him back to life...but now, I don't think so.
According to a "whispers transcript" the pilot was killed as part of a plan the whisperers mention. Also if Jacob had brought Oceanic Flight 815 to the Island (ala the "Black Rock" in "Incident") the pilot would have had to have been given coordinates and a course to even find the Island. Maybe the pilot switch was short notice like the 70 hour window Mrs. Hawking had for Ajira 315.
We find out later that Oceanic Flight 815 departed Sydney around 2:15 PM and according to the pilot's "story" flew east for 6 hours and then reversed course for a least 2 (1000 miles off course) and yet crashes in daylight. This mirrors Ajira 315 which emerges from nighttime to daylight after a flash of white light. None of the 815 survivors seem to notice or mention this anomaly.
As for "Cerberus" bringing down Flight 815 in later episodes it appears not to be able to hop the sonic fence and Charlie and Kate seem out of reach while high up in trees (although it seemed able to deposit the pilot in a tree). The smoke detector/Christian haunting scene at St. Sebastian Hospital...not sure if that was "smokie" or if that was off Island (whatever that may be).
I found it interesting that when Jack was asked by the pilot how long it had been since the crash, without hesitation Jack answers 16 hours. He gave his watch to Hurley to time Clair's contractions and is not wearing a watch in the cockpit. We later see how good Jack is with time with Gabriella (4:30 AM??) in "Hunting Party".
In retrospect the Charlie to Kate dialogue after Kate's banyon tree 5 countdown "We were dead...I was..And then Jack came back and he pulled me up" just seems like it might be about something other than just what transpired. Probably a reach...remember Desmond's comment to Jack at the stadium..."Lift it up"..."your ankle".
When we see m.i.a. Vincent watching Kate, Charlie and Jack make their trek to the cockpit is that his leash hanging on the bush behind him. Later we see Walt, leash in hand, seaching for Vincent just off the beach when he discovers Kate's handcuffs. Can Vincent walk himself?
Is the "juice" that some people get before coming to the Island in anyway related to "Locke's" whacky paste?
Can anyone tell me what they hear after the camera does the 360 degree loop from front to the back of Jack when he emerges from the bamboo grove onto the beach? There are two screams and someone shouts something. I can't quite make it out. It sounds a little like "doctor come" or "doctor tom"??
Another reach. Is "Drive Shaft's" song title "You All, Everybody" a sly homage to Heinlien's short story "All You Zombies"?
@Katey - It occurs to me that another way of looking at the contrast between Jack and Locke (and the duality of the show) is the conflict between cynicism and optimism. Jack, the man of reason, is fairly cynical about that which he cannot immediately prove (and control). He discounts speculation on the unknown, mysterious happenings and/or what he considers unreasonable hope that things will work in the survivors favor.
And yet, he badly wants to believe that he can save the Marshall, prevent chaos in this motley crew and keep the group from disintegrating into Lord of the Flies-style self-preservation at the expense of the whole. "Live together or die alone". Through all that awaits them (and the impact of his own wrong-headed decisions) this conflict within him will continually force the Losties into situations beyond their control ... and only fuel his messianic impulse to save them all, consequences be damned.
Locke, on the other hand, is almost perversely optimistic about their chances. Having miraculously survived the crash and had the use of his legs restored to him, he has unwavering faith in their ability to survive whatever the Island throws at them. Yet (as we will see) his life has given him every reason to be cynical about the inevitable consequences of putting faith in others. (pun very much intended) "Don't tell me what I can or can't do!"
His maniacal insistence on the rightness of destiny will put the Losties through as many trials and tribulations - and cost lives - as Jack's single-minded skepticism regarding anything as nebulous as 'fate'. Over time, the two will switch roles as Jack begins to see the necessity of faith ... and Locke most certainly will come to rue his lack of rational deliberation.
Neither optimism nor cynicism alone offers a winning formula for life (not to mention plane crashes on remote South Pacific islands, otherworldly security systems dba 'smoke monsters', machiavellian natives/hostiles/Others, electromagnetic energy sources, time-shifts, wormholes and vengeful/altruistic gods).
This dichotomy is there from the first scenes of LOST and runs right up through the fade-to-white finale of Season 5. Now THAT'S an impressive concept to sneak into a primetime network TV show.
Nik, the thing about the pilot that I keep coming back to is the aviator's wings that Kate found in the jungle, leading to the discovery of the pilot's body in the trees overhead. This could simply be a production error/choice, but those specific wings were only in use for a short while at the end of WWII and shortly thereafter. Given all that we've seen of the passage of time on the Island (and it's links to WWII and early fifties' history) this would seem to loom as significant.
I can certainly see how the showrunners wouldn't have had the entire mythos of the Island mapped out at this stage - but they DID have a sense of where the story was going in time (Adam & Eve skeletons, drug plane crash, Hurley's link to the source of the numbers, old-time radio broadcast, etc.). I also recall Darlton commenting on the fact that there was something else of significance in the Pilot that people had missed. (I know, I know, NOT CANON)
Could the pilot and his aviator's wings be the overlooked element? His untimely death at Smokey's er... hands and the fact that he stepped in at the last minute under mysterious circumstances perhaps points towards larger meaning.
Late comments as was on hols last week. But here are my observations nonetheless:
Part 1
• Before Jack's waking in the jungle we know the mobisode actually just took place and Christian instructing Vincent to wake Jack up as "he has work to do" is this canon?
• Two cuts on face - Indian warrior?
• Tennis shoe – spotted this first time round, when Christian is in Jacob’s cabin, he is rocking in a chair wearing only one shoe – the other shoe!!!
• Locke is first on the scene to help Jack and it's almost as if the camera does not really want to feature/promote him to be known to the viewer.
• Smoke Monster in the initial scene, Nikki's book pointed this out to me, and upon this rewatch, it certainly looks suspicious although apparently Darlton dismissed it?
• Why did the pilot have to die? I know he was going to try and radio for help, but never got round to it, was it because he was 'not supposed to be there'?
• Jack's story of counting to 5, we know can see it not as a new viewer, but having been fresh out the season 5 finale, it's almost poetic!
• Sawyer and Jin seem to be real @s!*'s and it's great writing how they slowly become fan favourites and we love them!
@humanebean: That is such an interesting thing about the pilot's wings. Something I never would have ever noticed, but interesting to contemplate. Hmmmm...This is why I love Lost and why I love Nik at Nite :)
I still find it amusing that Jack says to Kate, "You're gonna need better shoes," when he himself is wearing wingtips.
Nikki said: "As Jack is running to the beach, he passes a white tennis shoe hanging from a bush. I guess now we can assume that was Christian’s."
Yes. I guess that Christian was thrown out from the coffin during the plane crash. Actually, the shoe is the proof that Christian´s body is on the island and my guess is that Smokey found both the body and the coffin. He made disappear the body but helped Jack to find the empty coffin knowing that it would disturb him. That would lead to the theory that those apparitions of Christian on the island were always MiB (as it was confirmed by himself on the last season).
Nikki said: "As Jack is running to the beach, he passes a white tennis shoe hanging from a bush. I guess now we can assume that was Christian’s."
Yes. I guess that Christian was thrown out from the coffin during the plane crash. Actually, the shoe is the proof that Christian´s body is on the island and my guess is that Smokey found both the body and the coffin. He made disappear the body but helped Jack to find the empty coffin knowing that it would disturb him. That would lead to the theory that those apparitions of Christian on the island were always MiB (as it was confirmed by himself on the last season).
Am I reading too much into it or does the wound in Jack's side make you think of the spear thrust in Jesus' side after He had died? There's a continuity between the last scene of season 6 and the first shot of season 1 which makes me think of resurrection, and this gaping, bloody gash only strengthens the suspicion that it was intentional.
Jack saves Rose, Hurley, and Claire in the first 5 minutes. I think this is why I was slow to get on the “Oh SHUT UP Jack” train… I think everyone on that island owes Jack their lives. Maybe he’s right to be holier-than-thou. But honestly, by season 4, we kinda want him to shut up. But in this episode, I thought he was freakin’ awesome.
I'm beginning to wonder if the reason why so many fans - including yourself - bitched about Jack is that you had expected him to be perfect or near perfect. After all, he was the leading character, male, white and so-called leader of the castaways. He wasn't allowed to make many mistakes.
It's a pity that those same fans failed to understand that Jack was a lot more interesting when he was showing his flaws.
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