LOST @ D23 Expo

Today is the last day for the D23 Expo, the first Disney fan convention held at the Anaheim Convention Center. Apparently, some LOST-related goodies were revealed.

First up is the Season 6 poster unveiled at the last LOST panel at Comic Con 2009. Thanks to TheODI for posting the pic that lll4815162342lll Photoshopped together.


Click here for the bigger version.

As you can see, the poster features most of the main characters (Daniel Faraday, Boone Carlyle, Miles Straume, Michael Dawson, Ana Lucia Cortez, Charlotte Staples Lewis, Shannon Rutherford, Desmond David Hume, Mr. Eko, Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen, Jack Shephard, James "Sawyer" Ford, Johnathan "John" Locke, Benjamin Linus, Sayid Jarrah, Elizabeth "Libby" Smith, Sun-Hwa Kwon, Jin-Soo Kwon, Claire Littleton, Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Juliet Burke, Charlie Hieronymus Pace, and Richard "Ricardus" Alpert) and the three recurring but very important characters (Frank Lapidus, Bernard Nadler, and Rose Henderson-Nadler). There is one character missing, though: Walt Lloyd. Why is he missing from the poster? Will we ever see him again on LOST? Also, will we ever see the real John Locke - i.e. not the Man in Black/Flocke/Jacob's Nemesis - on LOST?

Anyway, a few of the actors whose characters have died are confirmed to appear in the final season. It is interesting that Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie), and Ian Somerhalder (Boone) have new shows premiering this fall - i.e. V, Flash Forward, and The Vampire Diaries.

Next up is the appearance of Sterling Beaumon (young Benjamin Linus) and François Chau (Dr. Pierre Chang) on the Expo floor. Not as terribly exciting as the previous one, but they signed stuff that includes the official Season 6 promo poster. Click here to view the autographed Season 6 promo poster.

Next up is the LOST memorabilia auction next year. According to IGN, Profiles in History will handle the auction of LOST props and costumes sometime after the series finale in 2010. Included in the auction are Ben's fake passports, Hurley's lottery ticket, Faraday's journal, Sun's business card, Horace's DHARMA Initiative jumpsuit, eight DHARMA buses, Jack's Ford Bronco, and Hurley's Camaro. Photos of props and costumes, as well as other LOST-related pics, can be found here.

According to Joe Maddalena, president of Profiles in History,

"We're going to be selling it episode by episode, season by season, starting with the pilot. You can buy stuff specifically from a certain scene."

I wonder how much Faraday's journal could sell... Maybe I should bid for it? Hehehehe...

Last is Maddalena's bigger revelation: the date for the LOST series finale. Say what???!!! The final season premiere date has not even been announced, and there's already a date for the series finale??? Anyway, according to Maddalena, the LOST series finale will air on May 19, 2010 - no time reported. However, since ABC has not confirmed any date or timeslot related to LOST's final season, I will not mark that date yet on my Outlook/Windows Mail/Google/BlackBerry/iPod Touch calendar. Perhaps I would put a tentative label on it. One great thing about this date, though, is that it falls on a Wednesday, which means the show may return on its original timeslot - i.e. Wednesdays at 9 PM.

To tide us all over, there is an ongoing ARG featuring Paul Schreer and his artwork, particularly his Damon, Carlton, and a Polar Bear painting that he gave to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse during the final LOST panel. I haven't been following it due to work, church, and WRIT 409, though. There is another ARG featuring the LOST University. Some of the courses sound like DVD bonus features - indeed, these would be included in a supplementary Blu-Ray disc that is presumably included in the Season 5 Blu-Ray release. A shame I don't have a Blu-Ray player, though. I did sign up for e-mail alerts, so I would be posting the e-mails once I get them.

Is it possible to be even more excited - and, at the same time, sadder - about LOST Season 6???

Foxy Breaks Radio Silence

WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT!!!

Matthew Fox, who plays Jack Shephard, broke radio silence during the 49th Monte-Carlo Film Festival. As many of us have guessed, the sixth and final season will show the aftermath of Juliet detonating Jughead's core. Foxy added that it will develop in a way that is "very surprising - and probably very confusing, initially, to the audience." He also said that the two separate timelines - 1977, when the majority of the main characters are, and 2007, when Flocke/Anti-Jacob, Locke's body, Jacob, Sun, Ben, Frank, Richard, Ilana, Bram, et cetera are - "are going to be solidified into one, and we will be operating in a more linear time, to the end of the series," by the fifth or sixth episode (as in, a third of the way into the season). He also said, "I do know how the show's going to end, I know what the last images will be," and hinted that it will lead to "a final conflict." But he also mentioned that Jack and Locke "will come head-to-head again" - how can that happen if Locke is still dead? Will Jack take on Anti-Jacob for some noble reason? Or will John Locke be resurrected on the Island? I think the former is very likely, especially if you consider Flocke's face when Jacob said, "They're coming." Foxy also said that Damon, Carlton, and the rest of the writers "will prove that they did know all along where they were heading with it... All the pieces will come back into play." He also wisely acknowledged that, "[y]ou're not going to please all the people all the time."

What shall we make of these statements? While I'm not saying that he's lying and it's entirely possible that Darlton did tell him what's going to happen in Season 6, I wonder whether Darlton told him a rough outline or one that has a bit of specifics. I understand why Darlton would tell him something - he's the protagonist of the show - but did they tell anyone else in the cast?

Regardless, Foxy's statements make Season 6 look very interesting, don't they?

Well, let's hope Damon and Carlton will shed some light on these hints on the final (WAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!) LOST Panel at Comic-Con 2009.

More Unresolved Mysteries and Questions for Season 5

We all know that LOST is the kind of show that poses several questions for every mystery that it answers. I did not find a relevant article that posed the pre-Season 4 questions, so I did not do a recap like I did for Season 3.

I found this article from Yahoo! Canada, which posed five major questions that may be answered at the end of Season 5.

1. What happened to the Island?
2. How does Locke become Jeremy Bentham?
3. What's going on with Widmore and Ben?
4. Who the heck is Jacob?
5. What happened to Claire, Jin, and Michael?

What happened to the Island?

In the season-4 finale, "Other" boss Ben (Michael Emerson) turned a frozen wheel and - poof! - made the island disappear, along with Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) and other "Lost"-aways; the Oceanic Six fled on a helicopter. Ben - landing in North Africa - aimed to protect the island from arch-nemesis Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), who seeks to control it. The show has been exploring the space-time continuum, and that theme will be heightened this season in the search for the island.

Based on filming reports, cast interviews, and hints, it is very probable that the Island moved both in time and in space. Where it went is still unclear even with spoilers, but it is possible that the Island moved to the DHARMA Initiative heydays. Team Darlton has mentioned that Season 5 is about the DHARMA Initiative, whose members were killed in The Purge. Any ideas on where the Island moved?


How does Locke become Jeremy Bentham?

The cliffhanger revealed that Locke was "Jeremy Bentham." Under that alias, he apparently died after visiting Jack and some others who left the island with troubling news: They need go back. While visiting Locke's casket, a cryptic Ben tells Jack they must rally his fellow crash survivors - and return with Locke's lifeless body. Lucky for Jack, Ben always has a secret plan. Emerson tells New York magazine his bug-eyed alter ego will "carry on what seems to be his calling or his life's work or his war, whatever it is - I'm not sure exactly what it is." But it includes orchestrating a survivors' reunion.

I have no idea! But speaking of Locke, EW's Doc Jeff Jensen has a theory that is plausible and makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't be surprised if his theory turned out to be correct.

What's going on with Widmore and Ben?

Widmore is the wealthy industrialist who staged the fake plane crash of Oceanic 815 and ordered a team of mercenaries on a mission to find the island and kill everyone on it. Widmore and Ben appear to have a deep-seeded rivalry, deepened further after Widmore's agents murdered Ben's daughter in cold blood. Off the island, Ben recruited Oceanic Six survivor Sayid (Naveen Andrews) as an assassin; he also dropped by Widmore's home in the wee hours, vowing to kill his daughter as revenge. Whatever game they're playing, it has rules - and Ben says Widmore has broken them. One possible rule: Widmore and Ben cannot kill each other. That would be a very Harry Potter/Voldemort-esque plot twist.

My theory is that Widmore is either a descendant of Magnus Hanso or one of the original Hostiles. Either way, he was forced to move the Island and is, therefore, banished from it. Of course, this theory is based on Widmore's declarations in the last scene of episode 4x09, "The Shape of Things to Come" ("I know who you are, boy. What you are. I know that everything you have you took from me," and "That island's mine, Benjamin. It always was. It will be again."). But I don't think Widmore would say those if they were baseless, would he?


Who the heck is Jacob?

We've never seen Jacob, though he seems to be the all-knowing island messiah. The shadowy character lives in a creaky cabin that moves around a lot, hates technology and has communicated to the Others through Ben. Last season, Ben brought Locke to the cabin; Locke could not see Jacob but heard him say, "Help me." After Widmore's men stormed the barracks, Ben and Locke visited Jacob again - this time, Jacob spoke to Locke through a representative, Jack's ghost-daddy Christian (John Terry), who said to move the island. Ben, sensing that he'd been replaced by Locke, did the deed and peaced out. As far as we can tell, Jacob has unknown powers, dead people for friends and a cabin fever that keeps him locked in. Online theories abound: Is Jacob an ancient supercomputer, a divine entity, a superhuman being? Expect the unexpected, and expect to see more of him this season.

All I know is that we would see Jacob's likeness in some way. We may probably see more of him in Season 5. It is actually hard to tell because we've seen very little of him. Right now, I don't subscribe to any theory regarding Jacob. Let's wait and see.


What happened to Claire, Jin, and Michael?

Claire (Emilie de Ravin), who we recently learned is Jack's half-sister, seemed to survive a house fire - but then things got weird. She walked off in the jungle with her (un)dead father Christian. The next time we see them, she's in the shack with Jacob, acting creepy. As for Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) and Michael (Harold Perrineau), they presumably died on the freighter when it exploded. In an earlier flash-forward, Jin's wife, Sun, was shown at his memorial in Korea. Some bloggers speculate he'll turn up in early episodes, dead or alive, this season. If he perished in the blast, maybe we'll see him cavorting with Jacob, Christian and other ghost people.

Michael is definitely dead. In Season 4, he told Sayid that he was on the freighter to die. Before the freighter exploded, our favourite Undead Daddy Christian Shephard told him, "You can go now," which presumably meant that the Island is letting him die (he has attempted to kill himself several times after he returned to Manhattan). However, being dead on LOST doesn't mean that the character will never be seen again, right?

Claire and Jin's fates, on the other hand, are not so definite. Claire may or may not have died when an RPG destroyed her house in the Barracks. Mistaking Sawyer for Charlie when she came to and ghostbuster Miles's behaviour toward her make it difficult for the audience to tell what really happened to her. It is also baffling that Claire left her son Aaron in the middle of the jungle and her demeanour in Jacob's cabin is not helping either. I think I'll have to wait and see.

Jin seemed to die when the freighter exploded. He may have jumped into the ocean just before the freighter blew up; he may not have. But as I mentioned before, I think Sun would have a stronger motivation to go back to the Island if Jin is indeed alive. I did see something on one of the Dharma Special Access videos that may validate my theory (i.e. that Jin is alive). Either way, he will appear on Season 5 - based on rumours and filming reports anyway. But I still maintain the belief that Jin is alive!

Well, there you go. Hopefully, at least one of these questions will be answered by the end of Season 5. After the season finale, I will go back and recap any answers that the show gave for these questions.

Incidentally, LOST blogger Jopinionated just posted an extensive list of theories and questions for each character. Check it out, y'all! Apparently, "extensive" is an understatement. Hehehe...

LOST Season 5 begins in two days! Remember, it starts with a recap show at 8/7 central on ABC. The season premiere, "Because You Left," begins at 9, followed by episode 5x02, "The Lie".

I can't wait!!!

LOST Scoop from Doc Jensen!!!

EW.com's Jeff Jensen reveals the title of the LOST Season 5 premiere in his latest column.

What could it be???

Of course, he doesn't just give the answer right away. He gives three false titles before he finally reveals the Season 5, episode one title. He also recaps Comic-Con 2008 (including his cameo in the introductory video at the LOST panel) and says a bit about the LOST Book Club at ABC.com.

Could the Season 5 premiere be...

"The Sacrifice"???

In Doc Jeff Jensen's own words:

What do you think of that for the title of season 5, episode one? I kinda like it. It evokes the price paid by Michael and Jin to help save their friends — and the price paid by Ben to save the Island. And it might suggest some kind of thematic context for the death of John Locke/Jeremy Bentham. I also like ''The Sacrifice'' because it links to a Russian film about death and survival set against the backdrop of apocalypse, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, who also directed an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, long suspected of being a Lost source text, despite not being part of the current Lost Book Club. All to say, ''The Sacrifice'' would make for fitting title for the first episode of season 5...

Is it? Is it?!

You can scroll down, or read the full article here to find out.


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"Because You Left".

Can we expect a Jack-centric premiere, since he was the reason (i.e. his stubbornness, his insistence, etc.) they left the Island, which resulted in the horrible events that Jeremy Bentham/John Locke told them?

We shall wait and see....

LOST Panel at 2008 Comic-Con Confirmed

The schedule for the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con is complete! Here is the bit for the LOST panel:

12:00-1:00 Lost— If the most recent season finale was any indication of things to come, you will not want to miss this panel. Co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse will discuss season 4 of Lost, leading up to the season finale. They will answer your questions and maybe even offer up some surprises of their own. Hall H

Friday is also Star Wars Day! Yay! Not only that: TheOneRing.net is hosting a panel about The Hobbit at 10:00 to 11:00. Yay!

Entertainment Weekly is also hosting a panel entitled The Visionaries: Showrunners in the afternoon.

1:45-2:45 Entertainment Weekly’s The Visionaries: Showrunners— Carlton Cuse (Lost), Damon Lindelof (Lost), Josh Schwartz (Chuck, Gossip Girl), Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies), and Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) are the television producers who are changing the face of television with deeply immersive entertainments marked by distinctive, cutting edge storytelling. They have also been at the forefront of bringing "genre programming" or "cult TV" to the mainstream. Prepare for a candid conversation about creative integrity in a commercial medium and the future of broadcast TV in an increasingly digital world. Spoiler Alert! Upcoming plot developments may be teased. Moderated by Entertainment Weekly senior writer Jeff Jensen. Room 6CDEF

Unfortunately, I can't go to Comic-Con because I haven't gotten my Canadian passport (hehe) and work will be crazy that time. Oh well. Thank God for my favourite LOST sites; some are attending Comic-Con and will be live blogging. I hope ABC releases the LOST panel audio as a podcast later on again...