Ben and the missing 1/2 hour (Locke's 2 mile walk to the others)...any ideas?

Crazy observation: I just rewatched this scene in the last few minutes of the finale to check this, and I confirmed that Ben says goodbye to Locke AFTER blowing up that first dharma time travel room (is there an unofficial name for this yet??), and before he sends Locke on a 2 mile walk (Ben tells Locke that the others will be waiting for him 2 miles east of the orchid). All we see Ben do after that scene is to turn the wheel (scene takes about 3 minutes), and we know that by the time he turns the wheel and the sky changes color, Locke has completed his 2 mile journey since he is shown with Alpert and the others. If you go back and watch it this will be very obvious. I don't think this is an accident...why make a point of telling him he has to walk 2 miles? If this was something that was supposed to happen immediately, why not just have been say "they're 1/2 mile away," or "walk due east of here..it's a short walk." If Locke did in fact walk 2 miles, then there is a time period of about 1/2 hour between when Locke blows up the first room and when he turns the wheel. Any ideas on what he was doing during that time? Does anybody else think this is significant or is this just post-Lost OCD? It usually becomes more managable after 4-5 weeks post finale.

It appeared to be really cold where the wheel was located. Maybe he had to go deep deep down.

Or maybe he had to go to the bathroom. I usually make by kids go before trips of 2 hours or longer. Maybe he was exercising some fore thought.

retroactiveman wrote:Or maybe he had to go to the bathroom. I usually make by kids go before trips of 2 hours or longer. Maybe he was exercising some fore thought.

Haha. Yeah that would have been smart of Ben.

I think, however, that this has to be chalked up as an accident or "oversight", if you will, by the writers. I am a fan of dissecting these lines and small scenes as well. Trust me, I do it as much as anyone. But, sometimes you have to step back and wonder "who else besides me picked up on this?"

The majority of Lost viewers don't pick apart every line like us enthusiasts do. And when taking that into consideration, you have to think that this is nothing. In other words, if this had any kind of significance they wouldn't make the average viewer have to calculate the time between when Ben and Locke departed vs. the time it took Ben to turn the wheel vs. the time it takes for an average man to walk 2 miles, just to figure out how significant it is.

Keep up the good work though. I like these types of observations.

Im with Irocz on this, great observation but I suspect it means nothing.

Irocz28 wrote:I think, however, that this has to be chalked up as an accident or "oversight", if you will, by the writers. I am a fan of dissecting these lines and small scenes as well. Trust me, I do it as much as anyone. But, sometimes you have to step back and wonder "who else besides me picked up on this?"

This is an issue that I have great difficulty with as a LOST viewer / fan / theorist / dork; most of the time, you watch a TV show or movie, and you find these little inconsistancies, and you mock the production team. With LOST, all these little bits could be, and often are, clues. I said to MollyCocktail once, "in order to do this show, the writers and producers have to be perfect, because anything that seems inconsistant will be over-analysed to death".

They know we're out here nitpicking everything. They encourage us. They know they can't make a mistake like overlooking a 2 hour walk. I don't know what it might mean, but as yet, I've never seen anything that big turn out to be a mistake.

Cagedfaraday: I don't know if it's a typo on your part but it's a 2 mile walk, not 2 hours. I'd be a lot more worked up about 2 hours, but I still think it's significant.

I noticed the typo just as I clicked to close the window. Hadn't got back to edit. Now that you called me on it, I can't edit it, otherwise I make you look nuts.

So, I'll leave my mistake and say "that's what I meant".

Ha ha! I'm glad you don't think the theory is nuts! The more I think about it the more I think this is something. He literally does about 3 minutes of stuff after telling Locke about the 2 miles. And I think 30 minutes might be a real stretch on the low end...in reality it would be more like 40 minutes, when you consider he's having to walk through the jungle. I walk my dog exactly 2 miles every morning...takes me 30 minutes and that's the absolute fastest I can go without starting to jog (I'm 5'8", so I don't have short legs or anything)....plus I have that ridiculous speedwalker thing going on. There's no way in hell Locke could stomp through the jungle that fast unless he was running, which he didn't appear to be, so I'm thinking 40 minutes, minimum.

I noticed that too but it struck me more as bad editing.

I still think it's nothing. You can't expect the writers to say, "Ok, since Locke has to walk 2 miles, we have to have Ben occupy himself for another 40 minutes. That will give Locke time to arrive at the Others camp. Then we can have Ben turn the wheel."

I remember posts analyzing instances where it would take a few of the Losties like 2 days to walk to a destination, but then after they would reach their destination, they would turn around and it would only take them 1 day to get back to the beach from that same destination, or something like that. I am willing to look past these inconsistencies if it is necessary for that particular character to be at that particular place at that particular time for the betterment of the storyline.

Irocz28: I still think it's nothing. You can't expect the writers to say, "Ok, since Locke has to walk 2 miles, we have to have Ben occupy himself for another 40 minutes.

I think you may be missing the point. Why did Locke "have to walk 2 miles"? Why introduce an arbitrary distance for him to walk that would create a timing discrepancy in the plot? I think for anyone to claim that this is a mistake by the writers, you have to buy into one of the following scenarios, and correct me if there's another alternative:

1. The 2 mile distance is quite significant and necessary to the plot, and they just took liberties with how long it appeared to the audience for Ben to get down into the room and turn the wheel. (If this is the answer, then can we speculate as to why the 2 miles was so important to the plot that they had to gloss over a huge time discrepancy?)

or

2. They just randomly had Ben tell John to walk 2 miles, because it sounded like a good round distance to tell someone to walk from point A to point B. Then, they carelessly forgot about the 2 miles and failed to reconcile the moment Ben turned the wheel with how long it took Locke to get to the others.

I think this is a different situation than, for example, having Locke walk from one dharma station to the other, when we may already have a general idea of the distance between 2 well known locations in the show. I could see how they'd be boxed in in that type of scenario. This is a random spot in the woods that he's told to go, so there's seemingly no logical reason that I can see to introduce the concept of a 2 mile walk as a writing hurdle they had to overcome by just glossing over it. Or, and for God's sake I hope this isn't it...does Ben turning the wheel somehow alter space/time so that Ben reaching the others is a similar scenario to the doc washing up on the beach?

I agree with Kristen. I think the writers did it because the temple should be farther away from the orchid than 1/2 mile (why, I don't know it just makes sense to me) and John arriving to the others at the same time as the sky turning purple adds drama and effect.