Shame Desmond didn’t try to use it the last time he thought the sh*t was going to hit the fan: When he accidentally shot the computer during the confrontation with Jack, Locke and Kate.
No and no. Desmond only thinks he is responsible for crashing the plane because of the timing of the crash coinciding with the system failure. What he’s not taking into consideration, and what vaderspal alluded to in a previous post, is that the plane was destined for that island anyway, otherwise it wouldn’t have veered so far off course (a thousand miles, or “thousands of miles”, I can’t recall which) in the first place. And the system failure couldn’t have drawn the plane off course just before crashing it, due to the vast distance it would’ve had to have covered in such a short time, which surely would’ve been felt by the passengers and/or flight crew had they been zooming at light speed through the sky. Which brings us to this theory. . .
This theory doesn’t entirely hold up, when you consider that if the system was in failure mode for over an hour, thereby having enough time elapse to draw the plane that far off course towards the island in order for it to have been nearby enough to crash there, then the hatch would’ve been destroyed by the time Desmond got back to it to enter the code, seeing as how it only took moments (perhaps minutes, but certainly not an entire hour or more) for the hatch to implode during this system failure. The radio dying, them going off-course towards the island and crashing there are all tied together and intentional. It’s the logistics that haven’t yet been neatly explained, in spite of a couple of the players thinking they’ve figured it out.
As soon as the show ended, I rolled my eyes in disgust. This whole friggin’ thing was nothing more than an elaborate ruse by the father to keep the undesireable boyfriend away from the daughter? What a lame premise for a show this complex and, up to this point, interesting. I know there’s got to be something more to it, since he only brought Desmond to the island 3 years ago, and the “research” there has been going on for at least 16 years. But if we don’t get a better explanation within the first episode or two next season, I give up, because that’s just, well, lame.
I don’t believe the father arranged to have Desmond get stuck on the island. But I believe the scenario would be more of one in which Desmond disappears, girlfriend knows he’s lost at sea, girlfriend snoops into her father’s business and finds he’s involved with some wacky research cult involving EM fields on some uncharted island. She’s desperate to find Desmond, she’s rich, she thinks “well, if he’s not dead maybe he ended up on that island” and goes about trying to locate the island.
By the way, does anyone think they should rename this show “Daddy Issues”?
Re: The computer. I also believe that Locke only smashed the monitor. In a previous episode when the computer was shot it was a small boxy thing that Sayid repaired.
I’m curious, is the Defcon Penguin phrase a Doper only thing or have any other sites picked up on that? I watched it with my boyfriend and I kept saying Defcon Penguin so much that he started using the phrase, too. I think I will use Defcon Penguin for any totally f-ed up situations from now on.
Um … I had another thought about something but forgot it by the time I got to the end of the thread, dangit!
He didn’t have a reason to; he had time to escape and get to his boat. I doubt he thought the resulting explosion would destroy the world (as might be implied by Kelvin’s “Saving the world” line), just the island at most. In the finale, he had no time left and no hope of escape from the island.
I wondered this at first. But if you listen more carefully during the Lockdown episode, when the real lockdown occurs, or in the finale during the fake lockdown when it’s more obvious, there is a verbal warning and countdown before hand. So the shift holder should have plenty of time to get to th timer room. Unfortunatly for Locke, he wasn’t prepared, and the countdown warning had become distorted.
I’m thinking that the lockdown occurs specifically for the air drop. The doors are much thicker (and therefore undynamitable unlike the rest of the hatch) in order to shield the incoming supply plane from the electromagnetic anomaly. While it probably takes a severe build up (108 minutes) to actually crash a plane, the pre 108 strength of the anomaly is probably enough to screw with a plane’s navigation and electrical systems.
Well, random “oh my god, oh my god” moments thrown into a “must do this every 108 minutes” things helps to up the anty of any prolonged psychoticalogical testing scenario.
Especially when the fate of the world is in your hands… and there’s already been an “incident”…
See my previous post about the lockdown being a way to shield incoming plane from the normal (pre-108) anomaly buildup. Basically, the normal anomaly strength is enough to keep the island invisible to navigattion systems and to mess with the electrical/communication systems on planes and other vehicles, except during lockdown when the insanely thick doors come down. So the flight would have had navigation/communication problems flying near the island anyway. But Desmond being late for the system failure meant the buildup became catastrophic and since the plane had diverted close to the island it was crashed by the anomaly.
Phew; I watched my downloaded version yesterday. I must say I feel truly sorry for Locke. I’m kind of still depressed about him and the whole timer closing in on itself “incident.” Saddening.
Also, Michael: you suck. (Worth noting that www.letyourcompassguideyou.com does NOT have a 325…though it does have a 324)
I read the thread and haven’t heard any guesses as to what the light might be. I have none and no scientific knowhow to boot, but was just wondering.
Lastly, and this has been in the back of my head for quite some time: is it conceivable that the Others ARE actually good? I mean, our Losties & the Others have been killing each other but it seems like one of those Grangerfords vs. Shepardsons sort of things at this point. I also doubt that the Others have anything to do with the 4-toed leg of mystery so I’m not writing off the possibility that there are other Others who are in fact sinister.
No. I heard there was a raging debate on the IMDB MB Wed PM about this, but I re-watched that sequence and the resemblance was so superficial as to be laughable. The guy had dark hair, and that was about it.
I know some people think those of us who trust the public comments of the writers/producers are foolish, but Carlton Cuse publicly stated that the season finale would contain the explanation of why the plane crashed. I don’t see any reason not to believe him.
I don’t think that’s the explanation. I think people are jumping to conclusions.
I’m going on a Physics 101-102 level understanding of magnetism, but I think that while the magnetic field could reverse direction (by reversing the direction of current through the electromagnet), that would only affect the direction of the magnetic force felt by other magnets that already had a polarity–the force felt by something like a regular piece of iron is always attractive. Still, we’re going to have to allow for science fiction given the presence of mind-reading image-displaying smoke monsters and such, so I think you’ve hit upon a likely explanation.
BTW, I haven’t seen any discussion yet of the jungle-whispers we heard in the scene where our heroes were being captured. Anyone know if someone out there has deciphered them and posted the results yet?
Doesn’t hold up, IMO, precisely because the plane wasn’t “flying near the island anyway,” it was clearly drawn there on purpose, over a thousand miles off course, which the pilots not only couldn’t tell, but couldn’t correct, either. No. The system failure couldn’t have caused the plane crash, not only because the timing is all wrong, but because, as someone else pointed out, airplanes are mostly aluminum and wouldn’t be drawn to a magnet, giant or otherwise, anyway.
I’m not buying it. And if that’s truly the explanation that the writers want us to believe, then they’ve obviously forgotten more than one important fact that they’ve been feeding us throughout the series. In which case, I’ll just quit watching because it changes from something resembling intelligent writing to thinking their viewers are idiots.
In which case, see my previous comment. He thinks we’re idiots and I have no interest in trying to intelligently decipher clues and events that turn out to be completely illogical crap that doesn’t fit with the facts they’ve fed us, just to pander to the audience.
What I’m saying is that that was the conclusion that I jumped to when I saw the final scene. And I did so without influence from anyone else’s commentary, as it was an immediate impression based solely on my viewing of that scene. And if my conclusion turns out to be right, I think it’s a pretty lame storyline. Feel free to disagree, I’m just stating what I thought and how it would make me feel if it turns out I’m right.
Okay, this may be laughable for those of you who know more about this stuff than me, but it just occurred to me:
We’ve been talking and talking and talking about how the magnetic force could reach 40,000 feet into the sky and crash the plane. How the hatch doors have to come down, theoretically, to protect the airdrop plan from the magnetism.
And yet, the entire time, we’re supposed to accept as a given that the magnetic forces that are so incredibly strong are located in the same enclosed space as a not-visibly shielded computer and yet the computer still works?
Clearly a different kind of selective magnetism is going on here…
Haven’t there been real cases of planes’ radios or navigation devices just going kablooey in mid-flight and leading them off course? Ever since the beginning of the show I’ve been assuming that’s why the plane was 1000 miles off course.
I think the answer to these kinds of things is “it’s television.” We’re all thinking too much. Let’s just turn our brains off, sit back, vegetate, and be entertained. 
Also, if the Dharma Initative was doing experiments with electromagnetism, maybe what they were trying to do was find some way to control or extend the electomagnetic field or alter the way it works somehow. That could (maybe) explain how the magnet crashed the plane.
8 pages? Two before the show actually started? We’re all crazy…
Everyone speculating about the electromagnetic anomaly has to remember one very important fact: JJ Abrams doesn’t give a rat’s ass about real science. Look at Armageddon, where he spun MIR while two space shuttles were attached. Look at Alias with its Rambaldi artifacts. He’s writing the next Star Trek movie. He’s only got a loose grasp of science. So anyone pointing out irregularities with inverse square laws should just take a deep breath and realize that normal laws of the universe don’t apply here. You’ll only go crazy trying to rationalize unintended errors.
That being said…
The pilots knew the plane was off course. JJ’s best friend (the pilot) said as much before his face was torn off in the pilot episode. So Desmond’s System Failure did crash the plane through some sort of deflector dish phaser beam.
But why the heck would Desmond go along with Locke’s decision? He was already aware that the electromagnetic effects were real – he came in to see everything shaking off its foundations two months ago – so while there was a psychological experiment running on top of the button pushing, Desmond knew something else really was going on.
But fer crissake, how much of a moron can Locke be? He carried that printout all the way to the button-pushing station but never realized he was looking at dates, and never thought to look at the date he arrived at the island? Did Eko look at the printouts and realize what John didn’t? Bunch of idiots.
Another time magnetism was brought up was in “S.O.S.” When Rose visits the faith heater (Isaac), he tells her that there are certain places where there are forces that special energy, he says it could be geological or magnetic.
Whether or not, that man was a charlatan or not is open to question. But he did offer to return Bernard’s money…
If we’re supposed to believe/suspect that the Hanso group had some sort of hand in getting all these interconnected people onto this one particular flight, why couldn’t they have had a more active hand in getting the plane to go to the ‘right’ location?
I mean, we don’t have to assume that the island super-magnetic-thingy managed to get the airplane there from hundreds of miles away. The pilot and/or tinkered with instruments/flight computer could have brought the plane directly over the island purposely.
And, even if the plane’s skin is mostly aluminum, isn’t there plenty of structural steel? Wouldn’t the engines/mountings have steel in them for strength? And so forth.
The plane was 1000 miles off course because the pilot changed course when the radio went out. The plane was not pulled off course, and the pilot didn’t fly it there accidentally. In the pilot episode, the pilot tells Jack & Kate that when their radio went out, he changed course to land in Fiji, but that rescuers would be looking for them along their original course 1000 miles away.
Although I suppose that gives a way for someone to have caused the crash. If the procedure when the radio goes is to change course to a certain airport, then I suppose you could sabotage the radio to go out at the correct time so that the changed course would pass over the island.