Missing Pieces: And So It Begins
If you haven’t seen this clip, you should go to ABC.com or YouTube and look it up with the above title. In summary, the show actually begins with Christian standing in white tennis shoes and his funeral suit in the jungle. He calls Vincent over and tells him to wake Jack up who is lying in the bamboo forest. The dog runs over to Jack like we saw in the pilot episode.
-- Dead Guy Walking: this might have freaked a few people out had the show really began this way. Of course, we didn’t know Christian was dead at this point, but we might have thought it strange to see a man talking to a dog that seems to be listening.
Season 1, Episode 1: The Pilot
The plane crashes and the survivors tend to the wounded. Jack, Kate and Charlie locate the cockpit. The survivors encounter a monster. Sayid picks up the French woman’s transmission. Sawyer kills a polar bear. Kate is identified as the prisoner.
-- Lights, Camera, Action: I think the opening scene was completely under analyzed as we see the focus on Jack’s right eye and a vodka beverage. When Jack is running to the crash site, he passes a white tennis shoe dangling in the tree.
-- A Needle Pulling Thread: Jack looks for a sewing kit and finds it! Kate then happens to find Jack off from the rest of the survivors and is seen rubbing her right wrist. And she sews, sort of. Jack selects the black color thread.
-- Golden Circle: Rose is seen kissing a gold wedding band that is on a necklace.
-- A Monster in Our Midst: the survivors first hear and see the Monster in the jungle. Everyone approaches the jungle edge except Michael, who backs away. Rose says the sound sounds familiar to her.
-- First Flashback: on board the plane Cindy gives Jack two bottles of vodka, he drinks one and stores the other in his suit pocket
-- Let it Rain: while Charlie, Jack and Kate search for the cockpit it begins to rain…it stops when Kate controls her fear.
-- Pilot Crashes: Jack finds the pilot alive and is asked how many survive. To this Jack says, “At least 48”. Moments later the pilot is dead. A bit later, Kate sees the pilot in a reflection in a puddle of water.
-- Airport Security: Jack needs a blade to operate on the US Marshall…and he finds one! Where is the airline security in 2004 that allows a straight-edge razor?
-- Black and White: Locke finds a backgammon game and explains the history of the game to Walt by saying, “It’s older than Jesus Christ.”
-- Drink Up: Michelle, the airline attendant, offers Kate another beverage but she refuses
HINDSIGHT OBSERVATIONS
-- Christian can communicate with the dog
-- The tennis shoe in the tree seems to indicate that the body of Christian is thrown clear of the wreckage and he has lost a shoe in the process, yet we see Christian wearing it in the Missing Pieces clip. This indicates the island can’t reason quite like a human mind kind…sort of like a Starman who comes to Earth and thinks Ford Focus is a good name to blend in with. The physical body and shoe is present, but the manifestation is fake.
-- The discovery of a sewing kit seems a bit lucky…consider that Claire will search for a more common item, a hairbrush, and not find one.
-- The wedding band might be a suggestion of the “eternal circle” since the show’s original title was to be “The Circle”.
-- Keep an eye on Michael as his reaction to the Monster was opposite everyone else
-- My focus is on oddities like Jack’s answer to the pilot about the number of survivors. We just witnessed what Jack experienced and yet he knows the count of survivors? How did he know this? I’m thinking Jack has done this before!
-- The pilot seemed pretty banged up and had been there in his seat since the crash. But he revives and tells Jack he is fine. Was he healed by the island? Moments later the monster says, “Not so fast, my friend.” Does this mean the healing is controlled by something other than the monster?
-- I wonder if the reflection in the puddle of water isn’t a hint of mirrors and reflections.
-- The backgammon begins a long list of games on the show, but the odd phrasing of Locke caught my eye, “Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Archeologists found sets when they excavated the ruins of ancient Mesopotamia. Five thousand years old. That's older than Jesus Christ.” Was it bring religion theme into play or some other reason. It just seemed odd.
-- Beverages have been noticed on the show, but no conclusion to date. Kate’s drink appeared to be yellow or orange like juice. Her refusal might have led to her being awake during the crash where she saw the front section break off. Where they drugging these people?
This episode setup a lot of themes for the rest of the series. Of course, we had little clue at the time. It was written by JJ Abrams and then he turned things over to Damon. He did also write the episode premier of Season 3, “Tale of Two Cities”.
JJ IS DNY-NO-MITE!
It occurred to me that we might get some insight to the plot of LOST if we better understood JJ Abrams. I like M. Night Shymalan and notice his “pattern” is observing in his films.
His first film was “Taking Care of Business” with Jim Belushi. It tells of a prisoner and a successful businessman who switches places by a twist of fate. In the end the two become friends and better people.
His next film was “Regarding Henry” with Harrison Ford. Ford is mean and concerned only with his job. An assault removes his memory and a loss of memory. What he learns about his old self he does not like and in the end his relationships and himself become better.
His next file was “Forever Young” starring Mel Gibson. He loses the one thing that matters to him, a girl, to an accident. With nothing to live for he agrees to try a new experiment and is frozen. Soon his chamber is forgotten until two young boys discover it and release him. His body has aged due to stasis, but not before he finds his true love is still alive and has a second chance to marry her.
He does “Armageddon” and then “Joy Ride”. The later is a tale of three youths who tick off the wrong guy and he haunts them. When the bad guy is finally dead a twist reveals that maybe he isn’t.
Abrams moves to TV and does a very un-sci-fi show called “Felicity”. After this comes “Alias” and then “LOST”. More on Alias in a bit.
He does “Mission Impossible III” with Tom Cruise. Then came “Cloverfield”, the Godzilla-like film. He also helped on the script of “Superman Flyby” based on the comic book.
He is producing “Fringe” on FOX and is busy with the 11th Star Trek movie. Currently he is writing a screenplay for Stephen King’s book series, “The Dark Tower”.
Busy man.
ALIAS AND LOST
We can notice a few trends in Abrams other work, mainly a love of science fiction. Especially worthy of notice is the work with King which is referenced in LOST.
11 writers have worked on both shows. 18 actors have worked on both shows.
The main character is Sydney…the name of the originating airport in LOST.
Sydney’s father is named Jack. Her half-sister is Nadia. Her lovers include a Michael and a Charlie Bernard.
“So It Begins” is the title of the LOST Missing Pieces mentioned above as well as 1.2 episode of Alias.
LOST schedule in Season 2 was interrupted due to a two-hour feature of Alias on ABC. The Alias two hour was merely two episodes back-to-back so it may have just been a marketing move to grab audiences both directions. The names of the two Alias episodes were the same names of the LOST episodes the prior and following week.
Driveshaft’s “You Are Everybody” is played in Alias.
In season 4, a scene in Alias is shot in an airport where the public address system announced, “Oceanic Flight to Sydney is now boarding…”
The finale to Season 1 of Alias is the same as Season 3 of LOST…a man is trapped on the other side of a door with a window and is drowning. In both shows a helpless person attempts to free the drowning victim by smashing the window with a fire extinguisher.
Several themes such as numbers, deception, and phrases like “the looking glass” are used in both shows.
I’ve also watched the Fringe and find similar patterns as well.
What might be a possible clue then is JJ Abrams explanation of how he wanted Alias to end. His goal was to make a full CIRCLE and have the show begin back at where it began. The difference would be that the next generation of children would be facing the same challenge. Hmmm…
Also of note is a speech given by Abrams in 2007 where he presented a “magic box” where anything the imagination could conjure up would be in the box. This parallels the magic box on LOST. Abrams was actually given a “magic box” as a child and he claims to this day he has never opened it.
SEASON 5 PROMO
Seven versus six. Aaron is not shown and Desmond and Ben are included on the off-island, city-landscape left side. On the right we only have Sawyer and Locke as “original” survivors.
“Destiny Calls” is the tag phrase for this season and it also happens to be the tag phrase for the new airline that showed up in the latest Dharma Special Access video. See that post for details to the website of the Ajira Airlines.
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Enjoy,
KC
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