Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

I'm not sure what you're having a problem with? If they're instrumental in the indecent and the Hatch then they were always instrumental in it. I'm not sure if you're thinking about it too hard or not hard enough but it makes perfect sense to me.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

I believe the answer from Sawyer was "He was...." But I could also be misremembering.

I'm loving the time travel stuff, but I'm a huge fan of disjointed storytelling. I love knowing how things end ahead of time, but then develop slowly how everything got to that point. I already know that the end of the series isn't what the show is about for me personally. It's most definitely the ride. There's no way the show can wrap up in an hour or two what's it's built for 6 years that will make everyone happy. I've accepted it. :)

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

The thing I have a problem with is that the Losties were not always in the 70s. At some point in the present/future they were put in a situation that allowed them to be there. Before that even took place they were in the present time as it moved along. This was until the events that took place that allowed for a time shift to happen then the incident and other circumstances would have been caused by something else. You can't be involved in the past if you haven't yet travelled back or if you weren't there in the first place.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

yeah

this is the first time these events have occured in the 70s

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

But the thing is, as the episode title indicates, things are playing out the same way they always have. The Losties were always supposed to travel back in time and be part of the Dharma Initiative in the 70s.

I think the root problem here is that you're not getting what most of us are trying to explain, and I can't think of a way to explain it better so that you do understand. I tried to provide a simple description of what's going on from the perspective of a single character (using Hurley just as an example), but it doesn't sound like it helped.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

I understand your point dsa, but I think you're just going to have to accept that the problem you have with the time travel will not be addressed because they do not accept your theory of time travel.

Think of the timeline as a bubble. All of "time" takes place in this bubble, and once this bubble is created, it cannot be changed. It's beginning, middle, and end has been determined. If you are outside the bubble you can see the entirety of this "time." The causes and effects have all already occurred. They went back in time, because that is how the line was designed. They were always supposed to go back, so they do. Basically they are all robots with no "true" free will, and no matter what they do, it is what they were supposed to do from the day this "bubble" was created. Choice is an illusion. We just cannot see that because we are in the bubble.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

I understand what you're trying to tell me but it doesn't get around the fact that Hurley doesn't experience the 70s until his year of life in 2008 which is nearly four years after the arrived at the island the first time. However, he is show the ramifications of events that he and the rest supposedly caused before they ever were even capable of existing in the 70s. The 70s were what they were based on who lived then and what events took place. If I went back in time right now to the 70s then I could maybe do things that would alter the world as we know it. However, I wouldn't see those alterations until after I was able to go back in time and be a part of that period and not before that. That is the cycle of failure that they're running into here whether people agree with me or not. Maybe they were supposed to go to the island as part of their destiny but their 70s lifes were not made possible until the plane crash of 2008.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Again, you're thinking of time as linear. That is not how the show is viewing it. Everything has already happened. The "plan" was laid out, and they have no choice in the matter.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Not as time travel works in Lost you couldn't. That's the thing, your thoughts on time travel are not how the show is laying it out. You're basing it on a belief that you could alter events. The show is saying that there is a path and it can't be broken. Everything in the 70s was always this way. The losties were always there.

In your example they would say your grown up self was always in the 70s, therefore whatever you did then that you thought was changing things, already lead to what has happened in your present. ;)

That's what I'm finding awesome. Jack sticking up and saying he wouldn't help Ben and ultimately, thinking he was going to change things, when in fact, it's what actually happened in 1977. Him being there and making that stand is what caused to happen what he thought he was stopping. God I'm loving this show! :lol:

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

But imagine if they saw the 1977 Dharma recruit photo in 2009 that Sun saw before moving in time. They would have seen themselves in a photo that was 30 years old looking the same age and having no recollection of taking it. Although their linear life experience has not seen 1977 yet, history has. History has already recorded it. Once they went to 1977 and had the photo taken, what happened suddenly happens in their linear life experience and the photo is created, thus explaining what they saw in the first place.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Ugh, I just had a complicated post written out and it got deleted!

Basically, I think I get what dea_shea is saying now. I think he understands this looping time concept - where the losties go back to the '70s and participate in events, the results of which are experienced by their 'other selves' in the 2000's and who in turn go back to the '70s - effectively recreating the same situation over and over. It's just kind of a cycle.

But shea's point is what started it? At one time, what the losties are experiencing in the 70's couldn't have happened, because their young selves hadn't yet grown up, crashed, and gone back in time.

Now if past/present/future all effectively exist at once (which is actually a pretty accurate description of our real universe and the fabric of spacetime - often visualized as a sphere), there might not need to be a 'start'. I'm not sure that's the direction they're going in though.

Simply because of the Dharma village when Sun and Lupidas arrive after the Ajira crash. It appears to be an alternate future, or a parallel timeline where the losties haven't gone back to the 70's yet and the others never moved in.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

What I could buy is that certain events happened in the past before the Losties ever arrived to the island. These events took place without any of the Losties in the picture and they led to the way Ben was and is now. Now that the Losties are "back in time" some of them think that they are going to be smarter and alter what the destiny is. However, the destiny of Ben and the Dharma initiative had already been determined and now the Losties are stuck amongst it no matter what choice they make. Sort of like me punching a kid in the nose in the cafeteria one day. And then the next day I travel back in time to shortly before that occurs and restrain myself from repeating this same course of action. However, some other kid gets up and punches that same person in the nose that I had hit in the previous period of time. The outcome would be relatively the same regardless of what course of action I chose. However, there is no plausible way I believe that the Losties were able to go back in time and cause things to happen that they witnessed in 2004 three years before their time travelling experiences ever occured.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Well isn't the crux of the issue? We're talking about TIME TRAVEL on a TV SHOW. None of it's plausible.

People get killed by a monster made of smoke and John Locke is back from the dead, but this time travel stuff! It just makes no sense! :lol: ;)

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

There are some very real experimentations going on with light particles to observe an effect before the cause. This is what's going here in the Lost universe. The events in 2000's did not have to happen before the Losties were sent back to the 1970's to live with the Dharma folks. There was never a version of the 1970's without the Losties there with events unfolding exactly as we are watching. There's no free will to do or not do here, as we've seen any attempt at that is just an illusion that causes things to play out exactly as they are destined to.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Jesus God, just accept the fact that the writer's view of time travel differs from what you'd like to see in a fictional story, and move on with life. It's not like time travel is a storyline to go with if you're looking for plausibility in the first place, not to mention the rest of this show in general from the very beginning.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Don't have a hissy fit about it. It is simply a discussion. I still watch the show and enjoy it, but I just wish that I could buy into what they're selling on the time travel business and I just can't. This is why people differ on movies, shows, cartoons, etc. There is either something that makes you enjoy it which in this case for me is the cast and their interactions with one another and the Desmond and Penny storyline. If you don't want to discuss your opinions on the time travel stuff then don't. I have seen a few different interpretations of what people think is going on here and I have mine as well.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Their actions in 1977 led to Ben becoming the leader of the Others which he was in 2004.

When Locke was in 1954, Richard Alpert didn't know him but he told him about Jacob and convinced him to come see him after he is born in 1956. This, of course, had already taken place because Locke went through what he did to get on Flight 815.

The Losties that are in 1977 now have always been there but they weren't there back in1977 because that would make them all a lot older than they are now in the present. They've always gone back in time to be part of Dharma in 1977 then disappeared at some point. That's why they have no memories from 1977. They're creating them now.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

wonder if there are any easter eggs in that supermarket?

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

^ Aisle 9

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Yup that's pretty much what I was going for with my bubble description.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

How many times during a sci-fi show have you wondered—well, if “A” changed the timeline, why didn't "B" change it? Why does killing this butterfly reset the world when killing that microbe (or convenient bad guy) doesn't?

Writing time-travel stories, you basically have to choose between two theories. There's either an infinite number of infinitely branching timelines, or there's one and only one timeline. We've seen the first version so often that I'm really enjoying finding the drama and obstacles inherant in the second choice. So far it seems every bit as exciting, and *at least* as scientifically plausible.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

the only way the losties can change the events that happened in the past is to live through the events in their present in the past and then go turn the wheel again so they can go back with the knowledge of what should've been done and change it. but since they didn't have that knowledge when they went back to 1977 they have to live and learn. when the 2008 losties first arrived in 1977 they had no idea what made ben go bad or what caused the incident. once they find out then they can turn back the clock again but since they have no bill n' ted phonebooth it ain't happening.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Dude. They lived through Adult Other Ben in 2004 as they entered 1977. That's all Sayid needed. That and the crapola he put him through off-island. Bam! Bullet in the heart. Island--I Don't Think So. No matter what they do in the past, it's cause & effect. They are the catalyst for major events. The only thing that can be changed is the timeline. It needs to be fixed so that everyone is back in the present. But they haven't completed their mission yet.

If you have ever noticed when people were traveling through time, they would arrive and leave at specific moments. Not random. They were right around significant happenings. When Jack was on Flight 316, the second he finished reading John's suicide note, turbulence hit and they started to flash off the plane. When Locke and Ben turned the wheel they were sent through at opportune times. Ben, when Sayid lost Nadia and Locke, when the cameras were in the desert and it was 3 years later to match island time.

Re: Lost -- "Whatever Happened, Happened" -- 4/1/09
 

Unless Sun and company also time traveled and landed between the time of the purge and the time that the other lives in the barracks, then it's obvious that the Losties in the past have changed things. We've been given no indication that Sun and company time traveled.