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The Black Rock’s Arrival

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here, so if I’m doing anything wrong please let me know…

I’ve been following the site for a long time now, reading all your wonderful (most) and “way-out” (some) theories, but enjoying them all nevertheless. This place is the best I have come across on the web for LOST fans who like to THINK after the black screen is displayed at the end of each episode. It’s where people let their minds be free and dwelve about the myriad of possibilities that might give this amazing show a little more meaning. I’m sure everyone who has contributed (however much or little) has at some point touched on one of the many “truths” behind LOST, and I hope I will too with some of the thoughts I plan to share with you in the days to come…

So let me say, before I jump into the “essence” of my first post, that I am extremely grateful to each and every person who has made this site possible (from the founder/admin, to the most active “posters”, to the least active “readers”) – you have made my following of LOST so much fuller!

And now, to the point. The title of the post is: “The Black Rock’s Arrival”. I know we are all very excited about the last episode, where we finally got some meaning to how The Black Rock and Richard arrived to the island. But has anybody else noticed the following?

1. The first time we see The Black Rock arriving (or what we have all assumed to be The Black Rock), it’s a sunny day at the beach for Jacob and MIB. Calm seas, open skies and all…

2. The second time we see The Black Rock arrive at the island (this time there is no doubt it actually is The Black Rock since we see Richard in it as a slave and we see it stranded n the jungle), it’s the storm from hell, night-time, and what anybody in their right mind would describe as “horrible weather”…

So…. Is it sunny skies or night time? Is it calm seas or tsunami waves? ……..?

Is it possible that the ship we saw on the finale of Season 5 was NOT The Black Rock? I’m not sure about the meaning of this if it were true, but it just might enphasise the point that Jacob has been bringing people to the island for a veeeeery long time, and that The Black Rock is not the only ship that ever got there…

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Written by

fresnele

Location: Spain. Hooked on the show since the Pilot... Lost ever since!!!

26 thoughts on “The Black Rock’s Arrival

  1. Welcome to the site. I hope you don’t mind me ripping on, and making fun of your first post. I’m totally joking.

    This is actually a really good question. Although it’s been asked a lot, I’m not sure there’s been a solid answer for it.

    I strongly think it was the Black Rock that we saw in “The Incident”. Therefore, I’m thinking that what we saw was a different timeline altogether. Just like we have a sideways timeline right now….There was one back then in 18 whatever.

  2. i wish i could provide a link but i am pretty sure Darlton have confirmed that its the same ship and not even necessarily a continuity error but just that by night time it had started storming. i think those differences felt insignificant to them and the bigger story they were trying to tell. but i could be mistaken…

  3. whataboutme….

    I’m sure they’re gonna say those differences felt insignificant to them. It’s their fault they messed up. It’s really gonna piss me off if this turns out to be a continuity error of some kind, and they try answering it with BS, or just simply blow it off.

    If this “Black Rock being in two weathers at the same time” was a mistake…It’s a damn big one that they should own up to instead of trying to make us feel like it’s not a big deal, and not worth questioning.

    It’s looking as if they didn’t have an answer as to what brought the statue down when season 5 ended last year…..which is a tad depressing.

  4. Why does it have to be the black rock? There were no other forms of water transportation in the 1800s. Jacob brought a lot of people to the island. So that ship in the season 5 finale was just one of many ships. You guys are thinking too hard sometimes.

  5. i agree chief. i love this show and i am always all about lost. well now i am on a whole breaking bad trip also but anyway as great a story this has become i also think they make a lot of errors and controdictions. i think the reason being is this story is written season to season and not written all at once. example being they spend three seasons to four seasons building up the dharma mystery then all of a sudden they do a quick 90 degree turn and almost never mention it again. it is almost like they have been ran out of ideas for some things. they also trap themselves a lot in the writting of the show. am i nuts guys or do u guys notice it also?

  6. yea their answer to the busted statue was pretty disappointing. the truth is so often nowhere near as interesting as the mystery or the possibilities. thats usually a problem with sci-fi or horror movies, the reality of the situation never lives up to the build up and mystery we got for most of the movie, like a scooby-doo cartoon where the ghost is always just someone dressed up in a costume. the tension, the suspense, the unknown provide the entertainment, keep me captivated, and take me out of my own world, so to make those unimaginable, unreal things fit into my reality inevitably takes away from their appeal. but im keeping the faith though, and no matter how lame the explanations end up being my brain has had so much fun working around my own ideas with what they first presented us that ill cut them some slack and just try to accept the story the writers want to tell us.

  7. I’m not convinced that it’s a continuity error. As we have seen (mostly in Season 1) the Island’s weather is very temperamental. A storm easily could have crept up and brought the Black Rock inland.

    This is going out on a limb but maybe the moods of the two main island inhabitants (Jacob and MIB) have an affect on the weather.

  8. I just had an idea. If MiB and Jacob are from the future, the “loophole” would have affected them. Thus, the Black Rock incident could have occurred in two different ways – like the real and alternate timeline – and this would explain why in one scenario it was rainy and in the other it was sunny.

  9. ar420316 –

    I mostly agree. These guys jump from idea to idea, usually sticking with the big ones for exactly a season.

    Season 1 – beach/cave
    Season 2 – Dharma
    Season 3 – hydra island
    Season 4 – freighter
    Season 5 – time jumpin
    Season 6 – Smokie and Jacob

    I hope everything had a purpose. They knew after season 3 ended that they were going to be done after season 6. Therefore you’d think they planned ahead really well, and had answers for everything by the time season 4 started……such as what made the statue crumble. When it looks like that might not be the case, I worry al little.

  10. Instead of “beach/cave”, season 1 should read – “losties”. It was obviously the season that got us involved with the losties’ lives…..and they did a great job with it.

  11. i’ve seen a number of posts on this theory, so i going to jump in with my opinion.

    we’ve seen a bevy of trips to the island.

    each time someone arrives, they arrive in a storm. however when watching the arrivals from the island, the weather is almost always fine. i’m personally thinking of the arrival of 815 when the plane appears to be in a storm to the passengers while it is seen as a beautiful day by ben and his cronies. this also applies to the helicopter (as i remember, may be wrong) and the black rock. i get the feeling the storm is caused by a vessel crossing into the island’s area (halo around the island) on the correct angle. that could explain why the only time we’ve ever seen a vehicle travel the path in good weather was when lapidus was driving the heli away from the ship, and the island was moved (by ben).

  12. A storm can blow up pretty quickly out at sea. Plus coming into land could take a ship quite a long time as they have to continually stop and measure for depth. A ship like the Black Rock would probably have anchored quite aways off shore and sent in a longboat.

  13. in the same podcast the writers noted that it isnt the first time storms pop up out of nowhere, or stop out of nowhere. In fact it happens all the time on the island.

    and the ship didn’t break the statue. it was the ENORMOUS tidal wave. that big of a wave can easily, uber easily break a statue like that.

  14. The Black Rock’s final destination was not the Island, it was the New World (America), right? So, isn’t it plausible that they were sailing past the island and that by night time the storm began and they were brought back to the Island? That is how I envision it…especially because the Black Rock was not headed for the Island but was somehow derailed or brought back to the Island through Jacob/the storm.

  15. @Roland and MrsShepard:
    Yeah, this could work! In fact, there can be lots of good and simple explanations. I think we should all stop thinking about the black rock arriving on a sunny day or a storm. I don’t care, really.

  16. “Hey guys, is this normal? Day turning into night, end of the world type weather.” ~ Charlie Pace, Pilot episode.

    So, if Locke/MIB can remove metal shackles with the flip of a wrist, then maybe weather control is not out of the question.

  17. elsewhere i forgot about that line. i do agree that that was the black rock. i had to think about it for a min after last weeks episode . we have seen some crazy shit on that island so who knows. mrs shepard i think that they were meant to come to the island and jacob knew they were coming. everyone else is there cause they are brought there. i am like chief in the fact that i think as we keep watching we will see that jacob is not all he is cracked up to be and is not so good.

  18. As for a possible explanation about the stormy weather encountered by the Black Rock’s arrival, I recall that when the helicopter was flying to the freighter, that they also hit bad weather. This was the case even though the weather at both the beach and freighter looked fine. So possibly the transition to the island if arriving by sea is always a rough one??

    What I found very bizarre though was that for the ship to take out the statue on arrival, that it must’ve been riding a tidal wave. I agree that it was a fairly disappointing (if not weak) answer to how the statue ended up as a foot. Just hope that this doesn’t start a trend in disappointing answers from this point on!

  19. remember this from season 1 and 2: “If hurleys been on the island for so long, wouldn’t he loose weight?”

    The answer is that the guy playing Hurley is a big fat guy. And the guy playing Hurley isn’t stranded on an island. He’s in Hawaii eating like a big fat guy.

    Flash forward to now: “The Black Rock was in the sea during the day and crashed at night”

    The answer is that day turns to night and, as crazy as it sounds, sometimes storms appear out of nowhere in the south pacific .

    Don’t stress these small answers and expect the real ones to be answered. They will, you may not like how but It’s got to end better than The Sopranos.

  20. On a side note: The Sopranos ending was like a big FU at first but after I had time to digest it, it was one of two things that happened:

    1. The shot went to Black as a bullet passed through Tonys head.

    or

    2. The writers were trying to show the audience how it actually feels to be a mob boss. If you were a fan of the show, you know the actual feeling in the pit of your stomach as you watched the last scene. Who’s at the bar? Who just walked in the door? Why did that guy go in the bathroom? Is meadow going to make it in time? whats going to happen next? This feeling and those questions go through Tony sopranos mind and body every second of every day. Not only did the writers show you a story, they made you feel exactly how the main character feels.

    Both answers are ok with me………. I guess.

  21. All this talk of continuity has me thinking of some funny things. For one, it seems that MIB has trimmed his beard and maybe even gone for a haircut as well, between his meeting with Jacob on the beach and his encounter with Richard in the Jungle.

    Another thing is the North American accents of both Jacob and MIB conceivably well before said accents came to exist.

    Just looking to poke a little fun at some of these unavoidable continuity mishaps.

  22. Wow, what a response for my first post! Thanks Chief for your kind welcome!

    Like I said in the original post, I’m not sure of the significance of this, but I just wanted to bring the point up (I actually saw a couple of other posts along these lines that were published as I was submitting this one, so apologies for any “stepping on feet”, this was completely unintentional).

    I really hope there is a little more to this than meets the eye. The Black Rock has been a mystery since season 1, and Richard – well, Richardus! What’s not mysterious about him??? I just can’t believe that they’ve made a glitch with this since it was something everyone was expecting to learn about. It would be a real shame….

    While we’re talking about errors, what did you all think about the spanish-spoken parts in the last episode? I’m not sure if any of you actually speak spanish, but the accent that the actors used was South-American, not Spain-Spanish! And Tenerife, the last time I looked, was one of the Canary Islands! I should know, I’m Spanish! LOL So I was a bit disappointed to see that the producers didn’t make a better job at casting the actors that spoke in Spanish – Isabella, the priest, the doctor, etc. I could understand Richard having a funny accent (he was cast a the beginning of LOST and maybe they hadn’t decided on his origin yet)… but the rest should have been Spanish natives. With all the attention to detail in LOST, this was a slight let-down for me…

    And while we’re talking about Richard – despite a whole episode about his origins and how he came to the island and sided with Jacob, we still haven’t learned two key things about him:

    1. How he came to speak LATIN. With his humble origins back in Spain, I think it’s safe to say he did not know Latin when he came to the island. So he must have learned it there. And if he did, why is Latin so important in the island? The question the “Jacobites” (those sided with Jacob) always seem to ask (“what lies at the shadow of the statue?”) has been answered in Latin, so the language must be important in some sense.

    2. Why he is known to some as “Richardus” and not Richard or Ricardo, his name in Spanish.

    And if the significance of Latin comes from Jacob, why doesn’t he speak in Latin with Richard and, for example, Illana (who also seems to speak Latin) in that language? Hmmm… too many questions on this…..

    Ok, sorry for the long post but I’m on a roll…. Has anybody else noticed this:

    1. The statue’s FOOT has FOUR toes. This has been shown multiple times and can be seen very clearly, for example, here:

    http://www.bagofnothing.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/lost20foot20statue.jpg

    2. The statue’s HAND has FIVE fingers, as can be seen holding the Ankh here:

    http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090518033511/lostpedia/images/5/57/5×16-fourtoedstatue.png

    Although the full hand cannot be seen, we can clearly distinguish four “external” fingers holding the Ankh, and we can only assume there is an opposable thumb holding the Ankh (otherwise it would fall)…

    So… OK, we have a humanoid statue with a hippo’s head – but 5 fingers in the hands ad 4 toes in the feet? Now, that would be interesting….! Is it possible this is also a glitch?

    I know, again, this might not be pivotal in the development of LOST – but doesn’t it make you think that they would mess up these small details?

  23. The ship we saw in the first Jacob/MIB scene…it’s not important which ship it was if you ask me. The point of the ship in that scene was to illustrate Jacob bringing people to the island. It could have been any ship. Or it was the Black Rock and like alot people here say, there was a sudden storm. It just doesn’t matter.

    We are getting a bit too much into details sometimes, including myself. It’s just impossible for the writers to keep in mind every single detail of over 100 (?) hours of showtime…

  24. really? with all the mysteries on the Island we are worrying about it going from sunny to stormy (and stormy enough to lift a huge ship hundreds of feet in the air)..the ship they saw from the Beach is the Black Rock – Case Closed.

    but keep posting..

  25. Sorry JacobsDoubleWide, I wasn’t aware of your supreme knowledge on this topic – otherwise I would’ve asked you directly… just kidding!

    Actually, I think it’s cool that people rip other people’s thoughts to pieces – it’s what brainstorming is all about, and after all, that’s what this site ultimately is: a brain-storming think-tank for LOST. So I say: BRING IT ON! LOL

    I did say at the very beginning of my post that I myself was doubtful about the relevance or ultimate significance of this, but nonetheless I thought it was interesting enough to mention. I just can’t let myself believe that the writers just “forgot” about that small detail – it must be intentional, although perhaps not meaningful!

    However, about attention to small detail – I think that is the very essence of LOST, and any mystery really. Many times, we learn things just by the face someone puts on as a reaction to something, about a tone used in a sentence, or about something that flashes in the background (just some weeks ago I remember a post about a poster behind Locke in the employment agency and people thinking it might be Desmond and Penny). I thought WOW how did they catch that? And, if it IS Desmond and Penny, then it was no coincidence, the writers must have done it for a reason (even if simply an Easter Egg!).

    Coincidence – there is a word. And there definitely is NOTHING “coincidential” about LOST, that’s for sure…….

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