However, and this is where even I get a little confused, those on the island that encounter the losties during that time in their past (both 1954 and 1977) still have memories of their meetings in 2007. For example, Charles Widmore tell Locke that he met him when he was just 17, yet Locke hasn’t aged a day since then. Locke tells him that its only been four days since they met, despite the meeting taking place in 1954. I’m not entirely sure how this works, is it similar to what Desmond experienced where he just woke up one day with this new memory. In other words, when did Charles remember remembering meeting Locke?

Then in “The Variable” Eloise is telling Charles that she had to send Dan back to the island knowing full well what would happen to him. She knows, because she remembers. How it is that she knows what happens to Dan on the island before she shoots him after she sends him to the island I’m still not sure (and yes, I’m aware the sentence didn’t make much sense). I can work it out in my mind, but couldn’t explain it in words if my life depended on it.

So, everything that the losties are doing in their “present” always happened in the hostiles past, it wasn’t necessarily the losties doing it but it did happen, for example Ben was probably always shot, and always healed by the hostiles, but in circumstances that didn’t involve the losties. Make sense? No? Didn’t think so.

Dan’s plan was based on his theory that he’d worked out the important ‘variables’ in the complex equation of time, and that these ‘variables’ are the people (not sure if he just meant the losties, or people in general). These people have free will etc etc and should be able to think for themselves, despite what they know, and be able to alter what happens in their future (in the case of the losties). But so far almost everything we’ve seen has really pointed towards time “course-correcting” no matter what the losties or anyone else does. The only thing that went against this was when Dan knocked on the hatch door and told Desmond to go and find Eloise, Des awoke with his ‘new’ memory of Dan that he seemingly didn’t have before.

By detonating the hydrogen bomb, Dan hopes to stop the incident occurring, which will remove the need for Dharma to encase the Swan station in concrete, which removes the need to push a button every 108 minutes, which means Desmond will never not push the button, and that will never cause Oceanic 815 to crash, meaning the losties will never be on the island, they’ll never have to leave the island, Ben will never turned the donkey wheel, the island and those on it will never skip through time and they’ll never end up in 1977…. But, if they never end up in 1977 how will Dan detonate the bomb to prevent those other 47 things from happening. Confused, hell yes. Prediction, don’t worry about it because I don’t think they will detonate the bomb.

With “the incident” just a few hours away, and Dan, umm, not doing so well, what’s going to happen in the last couple of episodes? I’m guessing that the incident will result in the losties returning to the time they belong in (2007), but will it be the same 2007 that they left? Depends if Dan is right or not about being able to alter the future.

Now, I wouldn’t really say that any of these are “spoilers” but if you are trying to avoid anything remotely spoiler-like you might notwant to read the Q and A section that’s after the jump. There we go, vague warning out of the way.

In addition to the official Lost panel on Saturday, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse also took part in a combined EW Panel the day before. Doesn’t sound like they mentioned anything earth shattering, just a few small points about Season 5.

• They were disappointed they didn’t get to tell the stories of the freighter folk (presumably beyond the main four), but that they will cover them in season 5, and using a different method (whatever that means).
• We will be seeing Claire again, but they’ve said it might be a while, and that it will be explained, and that it will make sense. They also said that there are sometimes paradoxes, but they that do have a “plan”.
• The characters on LOST can not change the future, and the flash forwards we’ve seen are what will happen and won’t change.
• Confirmation that there will be 17 episodes in each of the last two seasons. (One more than originally announced due to slightly shorter Season 4)
• Filming for season 5 starts in about 3 weeks.

Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project

The new ARG, also known as “The Project” is being done by the same people who did last years Find815 ARG. I really enjoyed Find815, especially waiting for all the new clues and bits of info, I only hope that this years ties in a bit more consistently with the overall Lost “canon” though.

The first few pieces have appeared, with the most interesting being the new Dharma/Marvin Candle video mentioned at the bottom of this post. It would appear that the ARG “starts” on Monday.

Summary of fan questions, and answers from the official LOST Panel

How accurate these answers are remains to be seen, in all honesty could you blame the producers for just toying with us? Remember they said they would be in total radio silence until Season 5, so take everything they’ve said with a grain of salt, they might be intentionally leading us up the garden path.

Q: When the hatch imploded and the sky turned purple, did the Island move then?
A: No, but something happened.

Q: What is the fate of Jin and Locke, are they actually dead?
A: Jin will still be on the show in some form. You haven’t seen the last of either of those characters. Death is a relative term. There is a lot of story yet to be told for both characters.

Q: Will there be a Rousseau flashback?
A: We will see Rousseau’s story in season 5, to use the word flashback might be disingenuous. We’re steering away from the flashes.

Q: What happened to Vincent?
A: What about what happened to the Island and Sawyer and Juliet? Vincent’s OK and will appear in season 5.

Q: Will Kate ever see Sawyer again?
A: Yes. Kate will see Sawyer again.

Q: What happened to the non-speaking “beachies” who were being ferried over to the freighter at the end of season 4?
A: They’re dead. Faraday is probably going to be ok.

Q: Is there a limit as to how far the flashes can go back and forth in time?
A: We’re going to tell stories in a new and exciting way. This year, when season 5 starts, you’re not going to know when and where you are, no constraints. There will be story telling
both on and off the Island and in different periods of time.

Q: How did Daniel know about the secondary protocol?
A: His notebook says what happened and what will happen, and it will figure prominently in season 5.

Q: How old is Richard Alpert and how many toes does he have?
A: Quite old. We will see Alpert barefoot in the very near future and that puns intended: the very near future.

Q: Regarding Locke’s pseudonym Jeremy Bentham, and one of his big things was the panopticon, are the people on the Island being watched, and by who?
A: Good question. Their response is cut short when a new Dharma/Marvin Candle video is shown.

Candle reveals that his real name is Pierre Chang, and among other things tells us that Geroge W. Bush is the president, and that if all “this works” we’ll be seeing this video 30 years after it was filmed…in other words he record this in the late 1970’s. I think I’ll cover more about this video in a separate post. Watch the video

Sources
Clearly since I’m not in San Diego I couldn’t have gather this info myself, instead I just combined the more interesting bits from the good coverage at these sites:
http://livelost.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/hawaii
http://www.youtube.com/user/tapdawg
 http://www.docarzt.com

On the Island it is supposedly almost Christmas 2004, remembering that the plane crashed on the 22nd September 2004.

In Find815 the main character Sam made mention that he wouldn’t be home for Christmas (no year mentioned), which would lead you to believe that the expedition he was on was taking place around December/January. Originally I thought this was taking place at the end of 2007/start of 2008, to coincide with the “press release” from Oceanic stating that they would begin flying again on the 31st December 2007. Seemed to make sense that they would abandon the search, and then resume flying. Right?

The conclusion of Find815 saw the discovery of Flight 815 in the Sunda trench. This is then reported at the beginning of “Confirmed Dead” linking the two stories together, but creating more questions than it answers…as usual.

In order for the team of Freighters to be assembled and then sent to Island you could assume that the “wreckage” of 815 was discovered no later than mid-December 2004. Of course its likely that it could have been discovered earlier, but thats not my argument. Even if what we saw in Find815 was taking place in 2004 it doesn’t line up, since the freighters have landed on the island before Sam Thomas and Christiane 1 have discovered the wreckage…

From ‘Confirmed Dead’, we know that the wreckage was definitely discovered before they were assembled and sent to the island. So the question is, were the ‘flashes’ that we saw in this episode ‘flashbacks’ or ‘flashforwards’…stay with me.

I have a theory that the freighter is in fact connected to Penny, but not the Penny that Charlie spoke to when he disabled the jamming equipment. That was 2004 Penny, who knows nothing about any freighter. A ‘future’ Penny might know something about it. Why do I think Penny is connected to the boat, because when Naomi first lands on the Island she is in possession of a photo of Desmond and Penny.

Timeline could then be something like this. Plane crashes in September 2004, wreckage found end of 2004 (by Christiane 1), freighters assembled in 2005, freighters land on Island end of 2005 (their time…which is only the end of 2004 on the island), some of the Losties are rescued early 2006, Hurley goes nuts late 2006, Jack goes nuts early 2007…weirdness ensues…Jack gets back to the island for the series finale…

In other words time on the island is running at a different rate to time off the island. And really what other good reason is there for the obvious lack of years being mentioned around certain events if there is nothing strange happening. I think that makes sense.