Month: January 2008

LOST: The Beginning of the End

Spoilers ahead

First, another question left over from last season: How did Penny know to broadcast on that frequency to talk to Charlie?

OK…on to tonight’s episode of LOST: The Beginning of the End

I enjoyed it. A ton of unanswered questions, a few easter eggs, … well, it wouldn’t be LOST with out that, would it?

All in all, I enjoyed the show. I saw right off that it was Hurley in that car (his hands gave it away). The fact that Charlie is dead, but not really, brings up two really interesting things about what we’re seeing: 1) Christian and Yemi were likely the same sort of manifestations from something on the island, and 2) we saw Charlie when he was OFF the island.

Does that mean that the island is doing that? That was my first thought, but while I was mulling this over, I think it’s more likely that Charlie is bounding around in time the same way that Desmond did last season. I think both Christian is doing the same thing, and that’s what Jack saw in Season One.

The “did you notice” things:

The “flash forward” scenes in this episode occurred before the “flash forward” scenes from last year’s finale because Jack said he was thinking of growing a beard.

That was Christian sitting in the chair when Hurley looked in the cabin.

That “fancy phone” comment from yesterday that seemed so out of place in yesterday’s disastrous “popup video”-style show was a phrase that Rose used during tonight’s premiere.

Hurley referenced the same thing that Jack said in last year’s finale: They’re not telling the truth about what happened to them.

That’s it for now… In the words of Locke, “We’re going to have to watch that again”.

Thoughts Before Tonight’s LOST Premiere

Season 4 Premiere
Some of the fathers on LOST are pretty powerful figures, or have positions of power. Sun’s father, Mr. Paik, is the CEO of Paik Heavy Industries and is powerful enough to have guys that round around a beat people up (or worse). Charles Widmore is a wealthy industrialist. Kate’s stepfather was a military commander in the Gulf War. Jack’s father was the head of surgery.

When Naomi came on the island, she said that Flight 815 had been found. If the people backing what’s happening on the island wanted to keep it a secret, what better way than to stage a fake aircraft crash site? It would keep people from looking for survivors, and keep the island a secret. We’ve seen Widmore Construction (the banner on a power station in “Fire+Water”), Widmore Labs (which made the pregnancy tests and the balloon that the real Henry Gale used), and Widmore Industries (the office building in “Flashes Before Your Eyes”).

I think Widmore with the resources he probably has is capable of staging something like a plane crash.

We’ve seen many military personnel in the show and know that Kelvin and Kate’s father knew each other.

Is Ben trying to keep these men away from the island, so he can harness the healing properties or whatever else the island has for the common good? Or is working with them? Or neither?

What will happen if the castaways find out that…

… Jack’s father was involved with medical procedures, and was using Island medicine (wow that sounds weird… “Island medicine”…heh) to cure Sarah?

… Kate’s father helped organize all the military operatives (like Kelvin, and possibly Greta and Bonnie from the Looking Glass station) to get the on the island?

… Mr. Paik helped build the structures of the island, along with Widmore?

… Charles Widmore is not only staging everything in the ocean, but he actively tried to make sure Desmond got on the island by getting Libby to give Desmond the boat, and making sure Desmond was put on that island?

I think their kids would be pretty upset…

Remember… LOST PREMIERE TONIGHT!

LOST Season 3 Finale With Annoying Text

Lost Logo

Season 3 Finale! With Pop-up text! Sounded like a great idea!

Wrong!

From the very first message, I knew what they did was a big mistake: They gave away the surprise ending! If you were one of the last LOST fans to see the finale, it ruined the ending right there. Phrases like “fancy phone”, and other things made those messages pretty annoying.

In the end, I just ignored the messages and watched the show. I hope they never do that again.

I did realize something that I hadn’t noticed before: Sawyer called Hurley, “Hugo”. Remember when Sawyer was reading through all the messages that people put in the bottle? He wondered out loud about the message that Hurley wrote, because it said something about the $150+ million. Maybe I missed it (and if I did, please let me know which episode it was in), but I don’t think Sawyer ever said anything about that to Hurley… Did he?

Looking forward to the premiere tomorrow! I can’t wait!

Top 10 Things I Hope We Find Out In Season 4 of LOST

Lost Logo
spoilers ahead!

Top 10 Things I hope to find out in Season 4 of LOST:

1) Whether Danielle is part of the same group that Jack radioed in the final
episode of Season 3. My guess is that she is.

2) What happened to Walt, if anything. My guess is that he’ll have been lost
at Sea, or will become “inexplicably” older.

3) What’s going on with the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42? Hurley assumed that
they’re bad luck; I think they’re actually numbers that need to be repeated
in order to keep bad luck away. That would explain why the numbers were
being repeated over and over in the radio transmission that Leonard Simms
and Sam Toomey heard.

4) Whether or not the main characters’ fathers actually play (or played) a
larger part in what’s going on. I’ve thought since season 1 that Christian
Shepard played a part in Sarah’s miraculous recovery when Jack operated on
her after the car crash. I still think that whatever Dharma has in the
way of cures was something that Christian was using. Charles Widmore is
powerful, as is Mr. Paik. Widmore owns a construction company, the likely
company that built the hatches in the first place.

5) Whether or not the island is in a “slip stream” (for lack of a better word)
of time. The island is very hard to find, quite probably because it’s not in
the same time frame as the rest of the world. What better place to hide?
Remember, there is that issue of Jack telling Dr. Hammill to get his father
“down here” to see which of them is more drunk. Jack really couldn’t have
forgotten that his father was dead… Could he?

6) What the heck is Ben really working on? Is he really one of the “good
guys”, trying to keep whatever group is now coming onto the island from
exploiting whatever power the island has?

7) Who is in that coffin? Jack went to the funeral; Kate didn’t. Could it
have been Michael? Locke?

8) What’s really happening with Desmond? It appears that more people have
this ability, or are at least aware of it; especially after Ms. Hawking’s
discussion with him in the antique store.

9) What was the real purpose of the Swan station? Was it how the island was
kept hidden, or was the magnetic energy surrounding it used in some way by
Ben’s group?

10) Is John Locke going to end up being the “new Ben”? Ben sure seemed
freaked that John could see Jacob. I think everyone assumes that it was a
powerplay that Ben made to make sure he stayed in charge, and that might
be partially true. What if Ben realizes that John is dangerous in a way
that could be bad for everyone?

Only time will tell when (and whether) we find out the answers to these
questions.

What do you think? What do you hope is answered in the upcoming season?

Toy Story 3

Looks like Pixar is going to do “Toy Story 3” – in 3-D! In fact, they’re going to convert “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” to 3-D as well.

Pixar has long been a favorite company of mine, and I’ve been a fan since long before “Toy Story” came out. I was able to see John Lasseter lecture at Siggraph in 1994, and was able to speak with Ralph Eggleston at first Automous Agents conference in 1997. He gave a speech where he spoke about the technology they were developing to control the ants in “A Bugs Life”. I asked him a few questions afterwards, and when I gave him a business card, he noticed that the web site I had at the time was named “lightyear” (after Buzz, of course). That was when I was working on Mosaic. I had done a few 3D products before then, but didn’t start to do anything serious with 3D graphics until a few years later when I started working with Java 3D.

Thanks to Andy for pointing me to the info about “Toy Story 3” via Ain’t It Cool News.

Latest on the Writer’s Strike

Statement of WGA and AMPTP

LOS ANGELES — The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) have issued the following statement today:
On Wednesday, January 23, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will begin informal discussions to determine if there is a basis for both parties to return to formal negotiations. Both the AMPTP and the WGA have agreed to make no public comments about the informal discussions until those discussions have concluded.

The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) represent writers in the motion picture, broadcast, cable, and new media industries in both entertainment and news. For more information about the Writers Guild of America, West, please visit www.wga.org. For more information about the Writers Guild of America, East, please visit: www.wgaeast.org.