Day & Night

[LockeRulez]

(Sorry if this has been posted before.)

I've been noticing this recently, but it was VERY pronounced tonight in "The Candidate". The island keeps switching RAPIDLY from day to night. I wish I could remember all the episodes before this to really point out the timeline, but this is good enough.

The Losties were on the sail boat at day time, captured, and brought to the cages and all of a sudden its night time. The Losties were in the cages and broken out at night, get to the plane during the day, presumably at dawn. Then get to the Sub during the day, take off, and 5 minutes later it explodes and all of a sudden its night again.

All of this could possibly be plausibly explained EXCEPT (to me) the time between the cages/plane/sub/explosion seemed way shorter to me than being able to go through an entire day. Even if they were rescued from the cages exactly at dawn and the sub exploded at dusk, that's still 12 hours between the cages/airplaine/sub. no way. they were on the run from Widmore, and no way were they taking their sweet time to get to the plane/sub.

And don't forget that if we believe Jacob/MIB were watching The Black Rock from shore (during a clear day) and they crashed into the Statue during a stormy night, something clearly changed from light to dark too quickly.

What do you think is going on here?

Time going faster? (Nobody is sleeping much if it keeps switching from Day to Night in real time.)

Day/Night time somehow being linked to Jacob/MIB or good/evil, with it changing when the "scales" are tipped one way or another? (Think about this one: Night when MIB rescues the Losties from the Cages, Day time at a Airplane/Dock when MIB is on the defensive, Night time again when MIB destroys the sub)

Multiple "universes" being shown on the Island, and just stringed together by clever editing? This is definitely my crackpottiest theory, that we're not just seeing 1 story on 1 island.

Other ideas?

[spinaltumor]

No idea, but symbolism is quite possible. I guess we'd really need to map out the scenes and whether they're at night or day to really tell.

[monsterjester]

YES! Good call LockeRulez, I was thinking about this. If it was always this way, someone would notice. But it makes me wonder about the "continuity error" of Locke and Sun showing up at the ER simultaneously in the flash sideways. Maybe time is unstable on the island, and in the alternate timeline. Or if the island's always moving, maybe it's always in a new time zone. Or maybe it is just editing, and they wanted us to think Sun and Jin had more time for happiness before the bad times (in both timelines). But I think you're on to something, the light/dark thing was WAY weird in this one especially.

[LockeRulez]

yup.. we've noticed this before, but not as pronounced as in The Candidate. and usually we've just said: "Well, the island is really big, and they've been hiking for a while". But now we're on the Hydra Island, which is presumably much smaller. And on the run from Widmore.

[charliesring]

I personally think that they are just on a tight shooting schedule, so they are probably thinking that so long as the day and nights are going in the proper sequence its ok.

[broncojeff]

i agree with charliesring.

It would be pretty cool if the sudden changes between night & day were realated to Jacob/MIB but I think it has more do do with the shooting schedule.

[monsterjester]

That's what I've always assumed, but this episode just seemed SO weird about it. Like it's broad daylight when they take the sub down, but dead of night when they swim back to shore? It was a matter of minutes! You can say they got further out than we saw before Jack found the bomb, but... that makes no sense. He waited around for all that while before helping Kate? I guess it's nitpicky, but I really don't get how that sub can be that close to the shore and not be grounded on mud, let alone have depth to dive. Even if DHARMA or the Others had been maintaining the lagoon for ships, it hasn't happened in a long time. Is the island really floating?

[markedman]

I think charlesring is right.... but

If there is something going on with day and night, wouldn't it have to mean that instead of just an island flash and a flash sideways, there are at least three flashes? And the one we think of as the island one is really at least two?

[LockeRulez]

there is no way that production issues are the explanation. this is LOST, and besides some of the CGI, nothing is done sloppy..

except maybe Sun and Locke getting to the hospital at the same time... and Claire's sonogram..

I'm going to put it all out on the limb right now and say this is ALL intentional. Darlton is misleading us to believe these are Production issues, but no way! they are way smarter than that. Just wait till the finale when we found out it was all intentional.

How? I've said before that it is unlikely there are only 2 universes. If we're really seeing Multiple Universes (rather than the sideways being some Matrixy sorta thing), then it follows there are infinite combinations, and we've been seeing a ton of universes all along.

Also, one explanation about the sub is that it went far enough out to get out of the Island's "bubble" and we know time moves "differently" in vs out. and when they returned, it was night on the island.

[spinaltumor]

If they were outside the bubble, then that would have been one helluva swim.

[gravedigger]

May 5, 2010 9:48:31 GMT -5 charliesring said:

I personally think that they are just on a tight shooting schedule, so they are probably thinking that so long as the day and nights are going in the proper sequence its ok.

D&C admitted as much on the OLP. I think they like it though because it reinforces the unusual time anomalies of the island.

[LockeRulez]

May 5, 2010 21:51:26 GMT -5 spinaltumor said:

If they were outside the bubble, then that would have been one helluva swim.

regardless it is a helluva swim. the sub was traveling for at least 5 minutes, and is no doubt significantly faster than a human can swim, especially carrying another body. so maybe this is the explanation.. it took THAT long to swim back. Go Super Hurley!

May 6, 2010 19:06:50 GMT -5 gravedigger said:

May 5, 2010 9:48:31 GMT -5 charliesring said:

I personally think that they are just on a tight shooting schedule, so they are probably thinking that so long as the day and nights are going in the proper sequence its ok.

D&C admitted as much on the OLP. I think they like it though because it reinforces the unusual time anomalies of the island.

well that's a bummer.