Lost Update – Don’t Fear The Reaper

Season III
Lost Secrets Revealed Update 12/02/2006

Love of two is one
Here but now they’re gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear we couldn’t go on
The door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew and then disappeared
The curtains flew then he appeared
Saying don’t be afraid

Many people have asked me how I pieced my ABC Lost theory together and came up with the virtual reality concept. Well, as some of you know, I am a huge Twilight Zone and old school sci-fi movie fan. As I stated in several of my updates, I believe that it is almost impossible to create something unique in today’s media world. It’s all been done before in some fashion. And the Grassy Knoll Institute is about to prove it. The following movies and TV episodes are what I used to arrive at my Lost theory. (It also gives you a quick glimpse into my thought process on the show) Get comfortable Lost fans, settle in to your chair, and clean your computer screen off. We begin with the sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet.

Forbidden Planet, 1956

Plot: Earth interplanetary cruiser C57D travels to the planet Altair IV to check on a research team. They are warned from orbit to leave, but instead choose to land. They meet the Earth archaeologist Dr Edward Morbius and his beautiful daughter Altaira, the only survivors of the expedition. Dr Morbius shows them the marvels of the Krell, the alien race that once inhabited the planet – colossal energy wells stretching to the planet’s core and a mind-boosting device that has enabled him to understand their devices and build an all-purpose robot Robbie as his servant. Altaira, who has never met another man, proves temptation too hard to resist for the crewmen who try to educate her as to what a kiss is. But then at night an invisible energy field enters the ship, destroying equipment and killing men. The crewmen realize it is a monster from the Krell’s ids – that the Krell tried to suppress their base desires but that instead the suppressed emotions used their devices to take energy form and killed them off. And now Morbius’s subconscious, angry at the attentions of the Earthmen towards his daughter, has created his own id monster to destroy them.

From this movie, the Alien presence is introduced, (the aliens are never seen, the Krell was an advanced race that had apparently died out) It also explains the invisible monster the castaways heard as tall palm trees were smashed to the ground while hearing an ominous sound. (When the Krell Id entered the campground, it made a humming type sound, and the force field outlined the size of the monster. The palm trees did the same showing that the monster was huge as the tops of the trees were being knocked down. Still more from the movie. The Alpha male. Dr Morbius and the spaceship captain. Clashing heads for control. (Much like Jack, Locke, Sawyer, Sayid) And one more thing. The love connection. Forbidden love between Altaira and the spacemen as the father looks on with anger. (Sounds like plenty of relationships on Lost) And oh yea, Forbidden Planet, Forbidden Island. Just to obvious.

The New People, 1969

The premise of this series was….A group of young American college students plane crash lands on a deserted island. All of the adults are killed in the crash leaving the students to fend for themselves. The students are a diverse bunch, from every walk of life and every field of study. The New People find out that the island they are on is called Bomano island and was targeted as a nuclear bomb test island. It came complete with buildings, furniture, streets, lights, and even mannequins placed at strategic places on the island.

And oh yea, all the food you can eat. Enough to sustain the new people for many years. The New People decide to form their own government in hopes of righting what was wrong in the real world. The unknown question was whether the United States would ever continue its tests and detonate a nuclear bomb on the island.

Anyone see any similarities to Lost? Plane crash, some died, some lived. A diverse blend of people, each with something to offer and to hide. A new beginning. Just like Lost. A monster, for Lost, an invisible one, for the New People, a nuclear bomb test that could be initiated at any time. Hidden living quarters. For Lost, the hatch, the pearl, and several other hatches. For the New People, a complete town filled with everything needed to survive, including food. Both shows also touched on control, as in, who was running the island. Both had trouble with alpha males personalities trying to control the groups.

Twilight Zone, 1959 – 1966

The monsters are due on Maple street.
Maple Street, U.S.A. Late summer. A tree-lined little road of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice-cream vendor. At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43pm on Maple Street. This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street, in the last calm and reflective moment – before the monsters came.

A power outage following a meteor sighting gets the residents of Maple Street on edge. Since the power failure has even stricken the vehicles on the street Pete Van Horn sets off on foot to find out what’s wrong. Just after Pete leaves a young boy says he knows what is going on. He shows that in one of his comic books there is a story about aliens coming down, assuming human looks, and living in the neighborhood for a while – while they plan their attack.

At first the adults don’t believe the story until one of the neighbor’s lights go on in his house. Then someone else’s car starts for no reason. As things are going on and off randomly the people start to accuse each other of being the aliens. The fear and hostility of the neighborhood grows. When Pete Van Horn comes back one of the neighbors shoots him because he thought he was an alien.

As a full-scale riot breaks out two aliens sit up on a hill overlooking Maple Street. They comment on how all they need to do is switch on and off a few lights and the people of Earth will destroy themselves.

The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.

In Monsters, the setting was a typical neighborhood but with other worldly occurrences happening behind the scenes. Aliens were toying with the humans, turning on lights, allowing cars to start. These simple experiments caused the neighborhood people to become suspicious of each other, than accuse, become violent, and finally murder. The same is going on in Lost. (This is where I got the experimentation’s on the castaways)

Twilight Zone, The After Hours

Express elevator to the ninth floor of a department store, carrying Miss Marsha White on a most prosaic, ordinary, run of the mill errand. Miss Marsha White on the ninth floor, specialty department, looking for a gold thimble. The odds are she’ll find it, but there are even better odds that she’ll find something else, because this isn’t just a department store. This happens to be the Twilight Zone.

Marsha White is at a department store shopping for a gift – a gold thimble for her mother. She gets onto an empty elevator. The elevator operator tells her that it is an express elevator to the 9th floor. The 9th floor seems to be deserted and empty – like a storage room. Out of no where a sales lady appears and shows her the one item for sale on that floor – a gold thimble. She purchases it and takes the elevator back down stairs.

On the way down she notices that the thimble is slightly damaged. She talks to the management but they are unable to understand why she keeps telling them she bought the item on the 9th floor – because there is no 9th floor. While Marsha is describing the 9th floor and the saleslady to the managers she sees the saleslady and calls out to her. Suddenly, it is revealed that the sales lady is a mannequin and Marsha faints from the shock.

Marsha wakes up in the managers office after the store has closed. She tries to get out but all the doors are locked. Suddenly she starts to hear her name being called out. She starts to frantically try and get out of the building. All the mannequins slowly begin to come to life and continue to call out her name.

It is finally revealed to Marsha that she too is a mannequin and had her chance to live in the outside world for a month but forgot to come back. The next day the manager notices that one of the mannequins in the store looks just like the woman he tried to help the previous day.

Marsha White in her normal and natural state. A wooden lady with a painted face who, one month out of the year, takes on the characteristics of someone as normal and as flesh and blood as you and I. But it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask, particularly in the Twilight Zone.

This episode inspired the part of the theory that not all is what it always seems to be. Castaways on an island struggling to survive and battling evil people from the other side. Or, merely an illusion. It’s not real. Only a dream. A different reality. A virtual reality.

Twilight Zone, To Serve Man

Respectfully submitted for your perusal – a Kanamit. Height: a little over nine feet. Weight: in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty pounds. Origin: unknown. Motives? Therein hangs the tale, for in just a moment we’re going to ask you to shake hands, figuratively, with a Christopher Columbus from another galaxy and another time. This is the Twilight Zone.

A race of aliens arrive on earth and begin to convince the entire population of their friendly motives. They start to aid mankind in every way from eliminating war, hunger, and introduce a way to produce extremely cheap power.

After the first meeting with the U.N. one of the Kanamit representatives accidentally leaves a book behind. U.S. decoding experts including Michael Chambers start immediately trying to de-code the Kanamits language and therefore understand the book.

Eventually they decipher the title “To Serve Man” and everyone is relieved because they now know that the Kanamit’s are here to serve humankind.

Mr. Chambers soon joins thousands of other people who have booked flights back to the Kanamits home planet. Just as he is about to board the ship his assistant breaks through the crowd and begs him not to board. She has figured out the book and yells “It’s a cookbook”. Mr. Chambers tries to escape but a Kanamit pushes him aboard.

The recollections of one Michael Chambers, with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of man, the cycle of going from dust to dessert, the metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone’s soup. It’s tonight’s bill of fare on the Twilight Zone.

It’s a cookbook! Great line. This episode solidified my belief that sometimes what you perceive isn’t always what is true on the Lost island. Did their plane really crash? Are they really on an island?

Twilight Zone, Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

Tonight a presentation so special and unique that, for the first time in the five years we’ve been presenting The Twilight Zone, we’re offering a film shot in France by others. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival of 1962, as well as other international awards, here is a haunting study of the incredible, from the past master of the incredible, Ambrose Bierce.

Here is the French production of An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.
A Confederate spy is about to be hung by Union soldiers. The hanging is going to take place on a bridge above Owl creek. The soldiers fix the noose around the spy’s neck and step off of the plank sending the spy toward the water. Just then the rope snaps and the spy falls into the water. He struggles to get the noose off of his neck and swims to the surface. He makes his way down the river managing to avoid the Union gunfire.

As he is floating down the river he notices all the small things he had never noticed before. He realizes how great it is to be alive. Once he makes it to shore he starts to head home. He runs through what seems to be an endless forest until he finally sees his house. His wife is waiting there for him. He is filled with delight.

Just as he is about to embrace his wife his head snaps back. He is back at Owl Creek Bridge, swinging from his neck on a rope that didn’t break.

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge – in two forms, as it was dreamed, and as it was lived and died. This is the stuff of fantasy, the thread of imagination, the ingredients of The Twilight Zone.

The imagination and will to live and the power of the mind are the elements this episode offer to my theory. In a matter of seconds, the prisoner escapes the hangman’s noose, avoids the shots fired from the soldiers rifles, and eludes the army as he makes his way home to his loving wife and son. The mind can sometimes make you believe one thing when in reality you are doing another. Same holds true in virtual reality.

Twilight Zone, Five Characters In Search Of An Exit

The Major awakens. He does not know exactly who he is or how he got to this place. And what kind of place is it? He is in the bottom of a featureless steel cylinder whose open end is many, many feet above. It’s a strange kind of prison.

But the Major is not alone here. First, he encounters the Clown…a sardonic, sarcastic joker who also has no idea what his real name is. Also present in the Cylinder are the Hobo, the Ballerina, and the Bagpipe Player. They have all been here for a long time but no one knows how long. None of them seems to feel hunger or fatigue.

And then there is the titanic, ear-shattering peal of a great bell that sounds at odd intervals. The Major is determined to escape the Cylinder and learn the secret of who he is. The others have long ago given up hope but the Major’s fierce spirit energizes them. They concoct a plan where they will stand on each other’s shoulders and use a rope made of fabric to throw a grappling hook over the edge of the Cylinder.

After several heart-breaking failures, the Major maneuvers himself to the edge of the Cylinder. He sees something! Something he cannot believe! He prepares to tell his fellow prisoners, but the giant roaring of the bells come again…and he loses his balance and falls outside the Cylinder into the snow below. They are all dolls in a Christmas charity drive donation barrel. A child picks up the major and puts him back into the barrel.

The five characters represent the Lost castaways. A diverse bunch of people indeed. Doesn’t the clown remind you of Sawyer? More people are added just like in Lost when the tail section survivors hook up with the castaways and oh yea, they encounter the “Others.” Of course the barrel represents the island on Lost. And they must all pull together to accomplish the common goal ahead of them. And when they do, they get the shock of their lives.

So there you have it. How I arrived at my Lost theory.

Come on baby… And we had no fear
And we ran to him… Then we started to fly
We looked backward and said goodbye
We had become like they are
We had taken his hand
We had become like they are
Come on baby…don’t fear the reaper

Back To Lost Theories Archives

LURKING ON THE GRASSY KNOLL