Mobius Strip

[Overlord]

Narrative perspective and using the camera as cinematic narrator is a fascinating topic that J. Woods discusses in his review this week. He has a comment about the opening scene of LOST when Jack stumbles upon the beach that I found interesting and would invite this forum to comment on. Its long but worthwhile:

The camera/narrator of Lost even manipulates audience perspective without offering any clear signals that it is doing so. Consider the loop shot in the pilot episode, when Jack first makes it out on the beach: Jack is standing with his back to the jungle with the camera starts on his left. The shot then sweeps into his perspective and off to the left, showing the beach. But as the the shot comes back around, Jack then appears on the other side of the shot, and the camera is now on his right. The camera was moving away from Jack and to the left; the only way for the camera to sweep so far around to end up on Jack's right side is if it swept behind him and into the jungle. But that's not what happens -- the perspective is always in front of Jack and on the beach. Something strange is happening here, as the camera tracks a Möbius strip pattern that displaces the audience, character and setting from their established relationships to each other. The camera/narrator starts with the audience in a third-person point of view, witnessing Jack, then shifts into a first-person point of view, but when it slips back into third-person, the perspective is the mirror-image of where it began. This is a very different take on multiple perspectives.

[Fifth Toe]

In the last season five podcast, and I do not believe this is a spoiler because they are not commenting on a future episode, the producers say Spoiler Below

the compass

is in a mobius loop. I agree the mobius strip/loop presents a solid metaphor for their view on timelines and perspective within a multiverse spacetime explanation.

[OK, I'm Lost]

The only thing I know about Mobius is from The Matrix.

[plkrtn]

A mobius strip/loop is a shape with only one side and one boundary.
If you were to walk along one, you'd walk across the entirity of both sides without ever having to cross a boundary/edge.

The infinity (∞) symbol is a form of mobius strip. Take from that what you will

Oh and lets not get into Klein bottles, although I'm pretty sure the show will.
If you dissect a klein bottle, you get two mirror image mobius strips
However, a true klein bottle can only exist in four dimensional space, not the fourth dimension being spacetime either.
This image of a 3d shadow of a tesseract (a 4D cube essentially) rotating around a plane in 4 dimensional space does a lot for me to explain what is going on with this show!

I think its time to study Euclid!

[Ebenezer Grymm]

So if you try to apply the Mobius Loop to the Lost plot, how would you do that?

I can wrap my head around the plot repeating easily enough, but I keep trying to think of that ant walking the loop infinitely, but the ant must age, and he'd remember being on that path.

The only way I can explain them not aging is they've all been pulling a Desmond, consciousness traveling, since... well it would have to be either when the Swan EM caused the plane to crash, when Locke stopped pushing the button, or whatever happens with the incident.

...I don't know quite where else to go with that.

Or we could be watching them on their first trip through and they do age on further trips. Or they could be on some trip in the middle, and they've been doing this since they were young, aging each time. The compass ages...

Nah, something has to wipe their memory of the previous trips if thats the case. The temple wipes memories, and radiation was used to explain Daniels memory loss. Hmm.....

[Tenzing Norgay]

Originally Posted by Fifth Toe

In the last season five podcast, and I do not believe this is a spoiler because they are not commenting on a future episode, the producers say Spoiler Below

the compass

is in a mobius loop. I agree the mobius strip/loop presents a solid metaphor for their view on timelines and perspective within a multiverse spacetime explanation.

Yep, but I believe they only went so far to say that the mobius loop symbolism is important to the development of the mystery/magic feel of the show. It remains to be seen how literal to take that, it certainly wouldn't be like them to give away too much - especially at this time of the year.

If people feel this talk is spoilery... please accept my humble apologies.

[OK, I'm Lost]

Thanks plkrtn! I can follow the thread now.

[Lost Lost Lost Lost]

I don't think it is spoilery any more. The compass in the Variable shows the paradox they are stuck in. A lot of people on here call it a time loop. A time loop would follow the logic that's been developed for time travel. While the compass being passed back and forth is a loop, it steps into paradox by having no origin or end in sight.

If you follow the rules of WHH in a paradox loop, you are bound to stay in the loop, and time stops progressing for you. Your timeline is circular, certainly not a normal timeline.

I've heard that looping shot in the pilot discussed before, and I guess you could say it shows and symbolizes Jack being in a loop.

[Ebenezer Grymm]

I donno, if it applies to the compass I don't see how it wouldn't apply to everything else also. I just can't see the compass being the one special case.

Something about the way Richard told Locke he still had the compass, just that it was a bit rustier (more rusty? with a little more rust?) stands out a lot more now, like a carefully planted line. The one guy who doesn't get rusty (metaphorically) with time talking about something stuck in a loop that does.

[primate]

they really went out oft their way to make this compass thing an issue eh?

same with locke needing to die. where did that idea come from? from richard, who was passing on a message from locke, who had acted on a message from richard, which came from locke.