Why did the Orchid orientation tape start to rewind? [Archive] - { Flicks N Shows | Fringe Division

JPolarBear

05-31-2008, 03:30 PM

a simple reason...vcr tapes auto rewind when they get to the end of the tape...it had been erased from that point on and cut short...no more tape....to delete the parts seen on the original version.

The "Orchid Orientation video" that's been around since last summer showed much more...a 'making of the video' style..as though it had not been edited yet. It showed the Dr. having make-up being put on him, and a pretty assistant...then the bunny duplicating itself before it was supposed to...none of that was seen on the show...??? It was a huge let-down the way they did it...you can watch the whole thing on youtube: If you don't you won't 'get it'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSZVkch09Qg

Wulery

05-31-2008, 03:30 PM

It is not a hint for time travel, as Locke & Ben didn't start walking backwards either.

TPTB don't want to spoil too much.

Similar stunt was made earlier with "somebody clipped part of the video" maneuver. Pretty uncool way to do it, i'd rather like if they make the tv set break down.

How does that not make it a hint at time travel? It very well could have been foreshadowing.

Tim Bisley

05-31-2008, 03:33 PM

a simple reason...vcr tapes auto rewind when they get to the end of the tape...it had been erased from that point on....to delete the parts seen on the original version.

They don't usually rewind while still playing though, the tapes normally stop before rewinding if it was the end of the tape. Plus, if footage was deleted, the tape would still play with a blank or fuzzy screen till the end, rather than rewind. :)

ikonn

05-31-2008, 03:44 PM

augustwest

05-31-2008, 03:44 PM

that thing looked so old, who knows what it does when it reaches teh end-
i feel, like already said,that it was just a way to leave us hanging.
and it worked

Tim Bisley

05-31-2008, 03:49 PM

I agree that the VCR was old, but that doesn't mean the tape was at it's end. There is usually a Dharma logo at the end of their films. If it wasn't the Island that did it, it could have been that the VCR was just old and rewound itself for no reason, I have had one that did that halfway through a tape.:)

GStar

05-31-2008, 03:54 PM

I'd like to see what people think Halliwax would have said had we got to see the rest of the tape...

In our first demonstartion we will attempt to...shift...the test subject one hundred milliseconds ahead in four dimensional space. For the briefest of moments the animal will seem to...disappear, but in reality....

...it will still be there?

Could that explain Jacob? Has he moved himself forward in time so to most people seems invisible, only to someone like Ben who understands the laws of timetravel and is close with the island knows he is there or can actually see him?

toddintexas

05-31-2008, 03:57 PM

I thought it started to rewind because the writers didn't want Halliwax to let us in on some Lost secrets, but I like the idea of foreshadowing. I also liked the idea of some apparition playing with Locke's head--probably Mr. Eko...or Boone...or Naomi..LOL

I agree that it was just the viewers aren't supposed to know anything more about the Orchid at this point.

I remember back in the day with VCR's that if you had a cassette and the film got stuck or really jumbled and it couldn't move forward, the VCR would automatically stop or start rewinding the cassette.

Intriguing idea that it was a clue that the Island moved back in time. We were given another clue from previously in the episode with Michael freezing the battery of the bomb and then seeing the FDW frozen. So this could definitely be a possibility. Plus in the orientation video outtake, Bunny 15 moved back in time, ie "shift was set for negative 20", so it is possible.

deeannek

05-31-2008, 03:58 PM

"The "Orchid Orientation video" that's been around since last summer showed much more...a 'making of the video' style..as though it had not been edited yet. It showed the Dr. having make-up being put on him, and a pretty assistant...then the bunny duplicating itself before it was supposed to...none of that was seen on the show...??? It was a huge let-down the way they did it...you can watch the whole thing on youtube: If you don't you won't 'get it'."

I thought that looked familiar!!

JPolarBear

05-31-2008, 04:06 PM

They don't usually rewind while still playing though, the tapes normally stop before rewinding if it was the end of the tape. Plus, if footage was deleted, the tape would still play with a blank or fuzzy screen till the end, rather than rewind. :)

I didn't make it clear enough even though i said end of the tape...so i edited it. I meant the tape was erased and then cut short, so it was at the end of the tape, so it auto re-wound.

They (The writers) were in a way referencing the orig. video. I think the 'inside joke' being that the Dharma's had to cut out the 'bad thing' that happened, then cut short the entire tape to hide the fact they had erased a large portion of the tape...does that make better sense now?

As I said watch the original video on youtube, so you will "get it"...there is much more to the actual video.

Richardstone

05-31-2008, 04:20 PM

The video that was shown at Comic Con (it's also on the S3 DVD) was a like an Outtake Reel of The orchid Orientation Video.

Tagged for size...

[A test pattern card with a DHARMA logo is held up as indistinct whispers are barely audible. The film jerks and clarifies to show Halliwax. A woman is applying make-up to his face.]

HALLIWAX: I'll never get used to wearing make-up.

MALE VOICE: You look great! It takes away the shine.

HALLIWAX: Who cares if I shine? I'm a scientist, I'm not a...

[Film jumps to show a rabbit on a table. A female assistant lifts it up and passes it into Halliwax's arms.]

MALE VOICE: Turn the rabbit around, please.

[Halliwax does so, revealing a painted number 15 on the animal's side.]

MALE VOICE: Got it.

[Film jumps again; an image of Gerald DeGroot is shown for a brief moment.]

HALLIWAX: Hello. I'm Doctor Edgar Halliwax, and this is the Orientation Film for Station 6 of the DHARMA Initiative. As you [the Narvik building overlaps for a brief moment] have no doubt surmised, Station 6, or "the Orchid", is not a botanical research... [cut, image of building in swan orientation film when "social engineering" is mentioned can briefly be seen] We apologize for asking you to deceive your family and colleagues. This is, of course, in the interest of their own security. The unique properties of this Island created a kind of Casimir effect, allowing us to...

[A shot of the Room 23 film is very briefly shown, reading "God loves you as He loved Jacob". The film resumes with Halliwax holding the rabbit again.]

HALLIWAX: The field you have been selected to study is highly volatile and potentially dangerous. But, over the next few minutes we will demonstrate the elaborate safety measures that have been put in place to ensure... [an object falls from above Halliwax with no crashing noise] ... the hell?!

[On the shelf above Halliwax is another white rabbit with the number 15 painted on its side. Several people start shouting, and the assistant runs past Halliwax.]

MALE VOICE: Hey, what is that?! What's going on...?!

ASSISTANT: Oh God, it's fifteen!

HALLIWAX: ... the hell?!

Don't let them near each other! When did you set the shift?

ASSISTANT: Negative 20!

[A recorded female voice counts backwards from ten, cutting off at "three".]

HALLIWAX: How long?

ASSISTANT: Nine minutes, but we're still learning how to...!

HALLIWAX: [looks at camera] Why is that still running?

MALE VOICE: He told me to keep the camera running...

HALLIWAX: Turn it off. Turn it off!

[The camera cuts briefly to an upside down frame of someone riding a bicycle through the Barracks. (In the Comic-Con version, during this brief intercut, a voice—possibly Halliwax's—says something that sounds like "stop the virus".) The film then cuts back to Halliwax without any alarm or chaos.]

HALLIWAX: Hello. I'm Doctor Edgar Halliwax, and this is the Orientation Film for Station 6 of the DHARMA Initiative. As you have no doubt surmised, Station 6, or "the Orchid", is not a botanical research unit.

[The film cuts off.]

http://lostpedia.com/wiki/Orchid_Orientation_Film

GreatHeights

05-31-2008, 04:53 PM

Yeah, I'm with all of you who think it just happened to mess with us. TPTB are such teases.

Tim Bisley

05-31-2008, 05:35 PM

I didn't make it clear enough even though i said end of the tape...so i edited it. I meant the tape was erased and then cut short, so it was at the end of the tape, so it auto re-wound.

So, you mean someone actually cut the tape with scissors or the like? That would be the only way it would rewind if it reached the end.

As I said watch the original video on youtube, so you will "get it"...there is much more to the actual video.

The video shown at Comic-Con that you can find on the net, that I watched last year is an 'out-take' to the video Locke watched. It wouldn't even have been on the actual video, the gag is, someone found it in a vault or whatever. Technichally, the 'out-take' footage is the original and the video Locke watched was the re-take. I 'get it', thanks :biggrin:

JPolarBear

05-31-2008, 05:41 PM

So, you mean someone actually cut the tape with scissors or the like? That would be the only way it would rewind if it reached the end.

Yes, exactly, and as you said, the ComCon tape is meant to be the 'raw footage' before it was edited down. I think if compared, we'd see that what Locke sees is also on the longer tape. They made lots of tapes, they must've had an editing machine somewhere in one of the stations. (and the orig. was meant to seem like it was taped over something else.)

Q? why does the Dr. use a different name on each tape?

Tim Bisley

05-31-2008, 05:50 PM

They made lots of tapes, they must've had an editing machine somewhere in one of the stations.

That is very true. Though, I still don't think the tape was at its end though. Glad we cleared that up :biggrin:

Q? why does the Dr. use a different name on each tape?

No idea. That's three he has had now, Edgar Halliwax, Marvin Candle and Mark Wickmund :confused:

Pythagoras99

05-31-2008, 06:12 PM

the scientific concepts of the timeshift and how it worked seemed to indicate the bunny could only move 'forward' in time. i'm not sure how to explain that the same concept moved the island BACK in time.
Perhaps the metal in that room added to that.

Not sure why you say that. The timeshift is based on the negative energy from the natural deposits of exotic matter, which means in involves bent time and space -- like the wormhole that sent Ben to Tunisia, but done in a very controlled manner. For that kind of time travel, backwards would be no more difficult than forwards.

It is unclear to me however, if the rewinding was supposed to hint at or symbolize anything, though. It might just have been a way to get the explanation over with, and get to the action, instead of witnessing the whole experiment -- and set up the line, "is he talking about what I think he's talking about? -- If you mean time-traveling bunnies, then yes." I thought that was pretty funny.

So, you mean someone actually cut the tape with scissors or the like? That would be the only way it would rewind if it reached the end.
That's what I was thinking. Radzinski was a busy guy with those scissors. I guess it's sort of like in the shining, when Jack was going crazy, he was typing out the same phrase over and over, on hundreds of sheets of paper. I guess in Radzinski's version, he'd visit each DHARMA station, find its orientation video, "make some edits", and go back and add it to his invisible map. You can't make clean edits on a video tape by cutting it, but you can cut it shorter.

slowlie

06-03-2008, 09:41 AM

It is unclear to me however, if the rewinding was supposed to hint at or symbolize anything, though. It might just have been a way to get the explanation over with, and get to the action, instead of witnessing the whole experiment -- and set up the line, "is he talking about what I think he's talking about? -- If you mean time-traveling bunnies, then yes." I thought that was pretty funny.

I've been looking for the proper forum to theorize this idea, and this one seems best. Also, full disclosure, I haven't rewatched both pts 2 & 3 in their entirety yet, but there may still be justification enough for the idea:

I too thought the tape stopping and rewinding seemed quite significant (works both in a "don't show the audience any more yet" and "hey, it just started running backwards by itself, that's creepy" sense). But I didn't think too much about it until I just began to rewatch pt 2, and noticed it BEGINNING with 2007 Kate, driving her car away from the airport (having met with Jack), and stopping, reversing to get back to him.

What do you folks think -- are there any other cues from the show that hint at things stopping and reversing?

This might not even need to hint at the island going back in time; it does enough to support the theme of Jack's reversal of perspective, and wanting to get himself & everyone else back to the island. (Or, taken further, the hint that if you're unhappy with your life as it is, maybe it's possible to go back and change the events that put you there. A wiser man than me once said, "only a fool is bound by time and space.")

BTW -- Lost does an excellent job of giving significance to (the possibly pointless drudge of) a time travel story, by focussing on the universal human angle, showing us the strong & convincing feelings of regret that would make people want to change events from the past. We don't always need to see the Orchid or the frozen donkey wheel to relate to the idea that we wish we could go back and do things differently.

wesb

06-03-2008, 02:19 PM

I agree that it was just the viewers aren't supposed to know anything more about the Orchid at this point.

I remember back in the day with VCR's that if you had a cassette and the film got stuck or really jumbled and it couldn't move forward, the VCR would automatically stop or start rewinding the cassette.

I think that the orientation videos are just a storytelling device the writers use to give us information that can't be quickly gotten any other way. They just come out and tell us what they want us to know.

In this case, we were to be given two quick bits of information:
Ben's putting the metal in the booth was intended to cause some sort of trouble or breakdown that wasn't intended by the builders of the station. (This information was given successfully.)
The mention of some slight ability on Dharma's part to manipulate time was intended to lend some credibility to what the Frozen Donkey Wheel was about to do. (IMHO, that whole thing was a contrivance, and while the video may have helped, the whole wheel thing still came across as very clumsy storytelling.)After that, there was nothing more the writers needed to give us, so they ended the "presentation" so as to quickly move on with the story at hand. A malfunction is the quickest way to stop it, but if a viewer isn't paying attention, they may not understand that a malfunction happened. If the VCR simply stopped, some might think that Locke stopped it. Having it burst into a bunch of sparks would look kinda silly, especially since Ben was about to cause another bunch of sparks in about 30 seconds when he blew up the "bunny booth." Having it go into rewind is very visual, and with Locke obviously unable to get it running properly again, they made it very clear what had happened and that we weren't going to see any more about time traveling bunnies.

I like the ideas about foreboding and all, and they may even be right, but my explanation here is all we need to explain what we saw, and it's at least a possibility.

Q? why does the Dr. use a different name on each tape?

I think it's because the writers want us to absolutely understand that we don't know the guy's real name. And that's because his name will be significant and a surprise when we finally hear it. I think it will eventually be revealed to be or sound something like, Montand, as in Rousseau's line, "This is where Montand lost his arm," and the connection will be more credible if we know that we know that we don't know his real name.

Note: The actor that plays Candle/Wickmund speaks fluent French, and this may just tie in to what I think will be Dharma reveals that tell Rousseau's backstory...

slowlie

06-03-2008, 03:18 PM

Excellent post, wesb. I'd like to think there's more to it, storytelling-wise (as I posted earlier, the idea of things reversing) but you've done a great job to sum up what needed to get conveyed by the tape, and its sudden stop. Likewise with the summation of Dr. Candle / Halliwax / Etc; we know that we DON'T know his name, and that's more important than knowing his real name, for now.

hezekiah

06-03-2008, 07:15 PM

Any guesses?

"Someone was messing with Locke-AGAIN. Just like the other videas it gave Locke enough information for him to believe he knew what was going on when actually it really told him nothing much at all. I'm willing to bet Ben had a hand in goofing up the machine-after all, he brings Locke down there and hands him the video to watch."

shoegirl

06-03-2008, 10:53 PM

I think that the orientation videos are just a storytelling device the writers use to give us information that can't be quickly gotten any other way. They just come out and tell us what they want us to know.

In this case, we were to be given two quick bits of information:

Ben's putting the metal in the booth was intended to cause some sort of trouble or breakdown that wasn't intended by the builders of the station. (This information was given successfully.)
The mention of some slight ability on Dharma's part to manipulate time was intended to lend some credibility to what the Frozen Donkey Wheel was about to do. (IMHO, that whole thing was a contrivance, and while the video may have helped, the whole wheel thing still came across as very clumsy storytelling.)After that, there was nothing more the writers needed to give us, so they ended the "presentation" so as to quickly move on with the story at hand. A malfunction is the quickest way to stop it, but if a viewer isn't paying attention, they may not understand that a malfunction happened. If the VCR simply stopped, some might think that Locke stopped it. Having it burst into a bunch of sparks would look kinda silly, especially since Ben was about to cause another bunch of sparks in about 30 seconds when he blew up the "bunny booth." Having it go into rewind is very visual, and with Locke obviously unable to get it running properly again, they made it very clear what had happened and that we weren't going to see any more about time traveling bunnies.

I like the ideas about foreboding and all, and they may even be right, but my explanation here is all we need to explain what we saw, and it's at least a possibility.

I think it's because the writers want us to absolutely understand that we don't know the guy's real name. And that's because his name will be significant and a surprise when we finally hear it. I think it will eventually be revealed to be or sound something like, Montand, as in Rousseau's line, "This is where Montand lost his arm," and the connection will be more credible if we know that we know that we don't know his real name.

Note: The actor that plays Candle/Wickmund speaks fluent French, and this may just tie in to what I think will be Dharma reveals that tell Rousseau's backstory...

I like your theory.

I did wonder as the tape started looping, and we've seen Goodspeed on a "taped loop" in John's vision/dream during CF, if we aren't supposed to start wondering if the island is on some kind of permanent infinite loop or moebius strip. (perhaps around a black hole)

Outrajess

06-03-2008, 11:01 PM

Because we got all the info we needed.

"The subject MAY APPEAR to DISSAPPEAR for a few seconds BUT IN REALITY..."

This is the answer to what happened to the island. The same thing.

simone5p

06-03-2008, 11:44 PM

I think that the orientation videos are just a storytelling device the writers use to give us information that can't be quickly gotten any other way. They just come out and tell us what they want us to know.

In this case, we were to be given two quick bits of information:

Ben's putting the metal in the booth was intended to cause some sort of trouble or breakdown that wasn't intended by the builders of the station. (This information was given successfully.)
The mention of some slight ability on Dharma's part to manipulate time was intended to lend some credibility to what the Frozen Donkey Wheel was about to do. (IMHO, that whole thing was a contrivance, and while the video may have helped, the whole wheel thing still came across as very clumsy storytelling.)After that, there was nothing more the writers needed to give us, so they ended the "presentation" so as to quickly move on with the story at hand. A malfunction is the quickest way to stop it, but if a viewer isn't paying attention, they may not understand that a malfunction happened. If the VCR simply stopped, some might think that Locke stopped it. Having it burst into a bunch of sparks would look kinda silly, especially since Ben was about to cause another bunch of sparks in about 30 seconds when he blew up the "bunny booth." Having it go into rewind is very visual, and with Locke obviously unable to get it running properly again, they made it very clear what had happened and that we weren't going to see any more about time traveling bunnies.

I like the ideas about foreboding and all, and they may even be right, but my explanation here is all we need to explain what we saw, and it's at least a possibility.

I think it's because the writers want us to absolutely understand that we don't know the guy's real name. And that's because his name will be significant and a surprise when we finally hear it. I think it will eventually be revealed to be or sound something like, Montand, as in Rousseau's line, "This is where Montand lost his arm," and the connection will be more credible if we know that we know that we don't know his real name.

Note: The actor that plays Candle/Wickmund speaks fluent French, and this may just tie in to what I think will be Dharma reveals that tell Rousseau's backstory...

Well said.

I have also wondered if (since someone brought this up in another thread recently) if Mark, Marvin, Edgar is someone we would "know." Perhaps Adam or MDG from the BDM, or as you mentioned, Montand from Rousseau's recording.

Horapollo ylemMoritasgus

07-27-2008, 11:43 PM

As we now know, Candle, etc., has been revealed at the Comic Con to be in reality Pierre Cheng.

As for the VCR, it operates with magnetic heads to read iron shavings on magnetic tape in a VHS cassette. It could be as some say the electromagnetic field has caused the tape to rewind. Or it could be the heads were just dirty, or picked up dirt from the old VHS, and Locke just needed to clean the heads.

I'm sure Sawyer would have something to say about that.

Avius

07-28-2008, 12:36 PM

wesb, while I agree with your take on the videos, there is one more aspect to the video rewinding. I believe that it is also a foreshadowing of time rewinding.

Merch

08-02-2008, 02:31 PM

the scientific concepts of the timeshift and how it worked seemed to indicate the bunny could only move 'forward' in time. i'm not sure how to explain that the same concept moved the island BACK in time.
Perhaps the metal in that room added to that.

It's all about speed. At what speed you're traveling determines your perception of time and at how time passes for you.

http://www.everything2.com/title/Theory%2520of%2520relativity

Science link. They can be a headache, but I give a brief scan and see if any science words from lost stand out. This one had some. Other links in the link had other intersting info. What I combed out of it for posting.

Also, there are certain exotic particles (http://www.everything2.com/title/exotic%2520particles) that travel faster than the speed of light anyway, but they have no mass and travel backwards in time.

Flood the bunny in the vault with energy. Get his speed up. From Halliwax's point of view and ours, (stationary), time for the bunny is moving slower. From the bunny's point of view (moving) Halliwax's time is moving slower. Bunny is cranked with energy to get him to light speed, which would be the point at which he disappears, but since it's negatively charged exotic matter that they're using, it sends the bunny backwards.

The Vault is used to localize and control the unpredictable nature of the matter.

The point is that of time dilation (http://www.everything2.com/title/time%2520dilation). An observer in one frame of reference, observing someone in a frame travelling at some velocity relative to them, would observe time to travel slower in the 'moving' frame than in their own 'stationary frame. Of course, an observer in the 'moving' frame would observe time to travel slower in the 'stationary' frame as form their point of view the states of motion of the two frames are reversed. To the 'moving' person, he himself would age at the normal rate of one second per second (http://www.everything2.com/title/one%2520second%2520per%2520second).

Reading up on science that TPTB have shown or hinted at always makes me groan. I use to by-pass the links most of the time because trying to sort through theories and math always took more time than I wanted to commit. :cool: There's always something else to do, a place to go, errands to run, etc. The kind of science going on is heavy. But I love lost and I want a better understanding so I've been reading up.

If you can get through some of it, it gives interesting and plausible scenerio's for things that might come up. A lot of it is theory, or idea's that haven't been proven or disproven, which actually helps the creators get away with some things.

Anyway, the exotic matter/particle line has me searching for more info. Still trying to find a parallel as to how two bunny 15s can end up in the same room.

wesb

08-12-2008, 04:39 PM

As we now know, Candle, etc., has been revealed at the Comic Con to be in reality Pierre Cheng.

I was extremely pleased to see that...

When he gave his real name, it turned out to contain the very-French name Pierre. As I've been expecting that Chang will turn out to be the "Montand" (a name also very-French) mentioned by Danielle as having lost his arm, and which fits well with the fact that the actor's ability to speak fluent French may yet come into play. I've long suspected that he will be part of Danielle's back story, and that Danielle was part of Dharma.

Now, TPTB have already said that not all of Danielle's story is true, and I've also held for a long time that the woman was quite delusional, and that her explanation of how she came to the island will turn out to be a heavily-edited version of the facts, but that it will have been heavily sprinkled with grains of truth. In fact, I've believed for a long time that Danielle was a very-deluded-and-somewhat-crazy Annie, and that Ben was not merely Alex's adopted father...

UnderAlienControl

08-14-2008, 04:52 AM

It's obvious the Orchid isn't generating any tangible EM, because if it was the VCR and tapes would be useless. That's why the orientation was on film at the Swan-the EM field is unkind to tape.

What it looks like is that the tape hits it's end cue and starts to rewind, lending credence to the theory that it shows Locke just enough to keep him on point.

I think it could have been that once Ben got enough metal into the chamber a small reaction started taking place that affected the tape. That's what it looks like to me.

But, have you thought about where you might have seen something like this happen before? Not exactly, but similiar? Think about it...(<>..<>)

Horapollo ylemMoritasgus

08-23-2008, 12:56 PM

I was extremely pleased to see that...

When he gave his real name, it turned out to contain the very-French name Pierre. As I've been expecting that Chang will turn out to be the "Montand" (a name also very-French) mentioned by Danielle as having lost his arm, and which fits well with the fact that the actor's ability to speak fluent French may yet come into play. I've long suspected that he will be part of Danielle's back story, and that Danielle was part of Dharma.

Now, TPTB have already said that not all of Danielle's story is true, and I've also held for a long time that the woman was quite delusional, and that her explanation of how she came to the island will turn out to be a heavily-edited version of the facts, but that it will have been heavily sprinkled with grains of truth. In fact, I've believed for a long time that Danielle was a very-deluded-and-somewhat-crazy Annie, and that Ben was not merely Alex's adopted father...

I had LOST track of this thread...your observations are very good and I'll have to check out your theory.

I can't recall...when Ben told Alex she'd be safe at The Temple, did either Danielle or Karl indicate they knew where it was? I'm thinking he gave them all a map...