He was calculating the fastest possible route they could take and making sure he could still beat them if they took it. Not pointless at all. Besides, they didn’t need a map, they had a guide: Rousseau.
Huh?
Except we see Jack on an Oceanic flight in the flash forward. So someone made that site in haste…and should update it to mesh with the new plot!
I tend to agree that this is going to turn out to be the case. Jacob, whether a person, an entity, or a technology, possesses the powers the Dharmites were there to study and the smoke monster is just one manifestation of it. Jacob was also Ben’s mom, Dave, Christian, and the whispers in the jungle which seemed to be discussing the person who heard them. My WAG is that Jacob used to tell Ben anything he wanted to know about anyone on the island, and Ben would then turn to his people and dole out information as he saw fit to manipulate the situation. The Others simply know too much about the private lives of dozens of strangers who dropped out of the sky. I’m not talking about things you can dig up with enough resources, I’m talking about detailed personal information that exists only in the person’s head. How the hell would Juliet know that Sawyer killed the wrong guy in Sydney? How would she even know he killed anyone? He wasn’t telling people, and he didn’t get caught. Such knowledge had to come from inside Sawyer’s head.
Overall, I think this is a good theory. I suspect this, in some form, is where the writers are headed. Good call. I’m jumping on the meltdown bandwagon now.
Maybe a private equity firm bought them and resumed operations! It’s all the rage these days! What a marketing slogan! "Only a paranormal phenomenon can bring down Oceanic! And you STILL might survive! If someone will buy a turd like Chrysler, someone would want an asset as omnipresent as Oceanic. That plane is everywhere! 
How do we know he didn’t get found out? Sawyer killed who he thought was the original Sawyer then did something that got him kicked out of the country; they put him on Oceanic 815 to get rid of him.
Suppose a few days later that the Australian authorities track down the gun used in the killing and manage to trace it back to the person who sold it. That person gives them Sawyer’s description. At that point they realize that the person they sent out of the country is their prime suspect and send out an APB for him, only to realize he is one of the missing persons who was on Oceanic 815.
This doesn’t mean that they don’t have some other method of getting information, only that it isn’t necessary for them to have other methods in this case.
I’ve been going back and forth on this for a while. On one hand, the Others seem to have Kaiser Soeze’s intelligence network–they can get everything on anyone. Stuff even the person in question didn’t know, solutions to unsolved crimes, etc. OTOH, we’re not given enough of the facts to be sure that the information wasn’t really already out there, at least some of the time. They’ve shown us that Mikhail was gathering the intelligence, but we don’t know what resources he had or if any of them remain after Locke blew up the Flame.
Well, my wife reports that during the “clip show” before the episode, they mention the Smoke Monster and its ability to take on different forms–and while they are talking about that, they show the scene where Walt appears to Shannon.
This seems to contradict what everyone thinks is going on with Walt, and they don’t actually say ghost-walt is the Smoke Monster. But my wife reports that it seemed stronly implied.
-FrL-
Maybe the island healed Oceanic Airlines.
Ooh, I wish it would heal Delta!
If the smoke monster took on Walt’s image, why would it have aged Walt? They’re only supposed to have been on the island now, what? 60 days? That’s some growth spurt.
I tried to make this point in a previous LOST thread. For someone, no one’s convinced. But it seems right to me. I explained it through reference to Dharma’s remote viewing project, though, rather than the Smoke Monster’s psychic powers.
-FrL-
Maybe Jacob is a Cylon. There are no children among the Cylons so maybe this is the best version of Walt the Smoke Jacob could do.
My impression of Johnny Carson’s Carnac.
(envelope to forehead)
Johnny:Smoke monsters, stage mothers, and Southern Baptists.
Ed (Unneccesarily):Smoke monsters, stage mothers, and Southern Baptist.
(opens envelope)
Johnny: What are three things that are frustrated with children hitting puberty?
Ed: Hi-OH! (Uncontrollable laughter).
I’ve been wondering how any possible rescue by helicopter would affect the overall story, since it mostly takes place on the island. If everyone is rescued, it’s all over; no need for three more seasons.
But I think what will happen is that only Claire, the baby and most of the non-speaking characters will get rescued, but the main speaking characters we know will get left behind.
I doubt they’ll all get rescued. But the flash forward device seems to substantially expand their territory for future story lines. Still they really can’t tell the remaining story in flash forward mode, we’re still missing a bunch of back story (so we still need flashbacks), and Jack’s flash forward suggests that even those who get off the island might return.
I’m wondering if the producers aren’t going to just start using Walt again and “ask” us just to forget that he has aged. Everyone has been talking about it since forever that he is going to age. He was gone for long enough that I even sort of forgot what he’s supposed to look like EXACTLY.
I wouldn’t mind if Walt just popped in every so often and no one made his “aging” a mystery. We just suspend disbelief and move on.
Yep. It seemed to me that they were trying their best to make him look younger by dressing him in huge clothes, only showing him from way-high or way-low angles, close-ups on his face, and was it just me or did it sound like his voice was “processed” to make it a little higher?
If we can suspend our disbelief with Desmond’s flashbacks and an island that increases sperm count, let’s try to suspend it for a poor kid that went through puberty.
But why would the island also kill pregnant women? There’s a dichotomy here in that being on the island is great for everybody EXCEPT those who would reproduce.
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We know that Jack and Kate are alive, in the real world due to the flash forward in this last episode.
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Naomi said that they found all the survivors, and that they were dead. In addition, she said that Charlie’s band had realeased a greatest hits album of some sort.
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We now know, based on the information presented in the flash forward, that #2 could not have happened.
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Therefore, Naomi lied.
Why did #2 not happen?