White Shoe?

[rhpratt]

Does anyone think that the white shoe hanging on the tree as Jack runs by in the very beggining has any meaning?

[chaos28]

It's likely just debris from the plane crash.

[Black Cat Binx]

I wondered if anyone else thought it might be significant somehow. The camera stayed on it for quite a while.

I'd like to see the show again just to watch all of it more closely. 8o

[TechnoChickenBone]

I think that shot may have been done just for emotional reaction, preparing the viewer for what he/she was about to see.

[bambam15155]

maybe the shoes belong to kate

[knelly86]

i wondered at the significance as well, and the fact that it could be kate's is quite possible, and i can't remember if they ever showed her feet at first, plus jack says for her to get better shoes.

[toonaspie]

i you look at some of the pictures, you'll notice kate was wearing sandals (thus jack requests for her to get better shoes for hiking) so that couldnt have been her shoe

since the white shoe was shown just as Jack was running towards the beach I'm gonna go with technochickenbone's theory

I love your screen name by the way, technochickenbone!

[Furey]

The man in the suit was wearing shite sneakers.

[Enchirito]

White Shoe from episode 1
http://tinypic.com/cm0jd

Suit Man from episode 4
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v32/fansite4dom/Lost/jacktree2.jpg

I still can't decide if they have any connection or not. I do think that Suit Man's white shoes symbolize his 'White Rabbit' role, but where will Jack's rabbit hole lead?

[Slash Aragashi]

To wonderland, of course. Isn't that where they are now? I wonder if people could tie the "late" on that one guy's hand to the rabbit being late. And now he's on time?

...Yeah. This is weird.

[azteclady]

I believe that the white shoes and the polar bear in the comic book, and probably a host of other things already shown or about to be shown, are simply foreshadowing used to fuel all sort of wild theories. They play no part in the explanations for the bear and the guy in the suit, but the audience will engage in a flurry of speculation until said explanations are given.

Red herrings, if you will, this things/incidents also serve the purpose of raising interest in the series.

Beto

[kaycee13]

Doesn't Charlie's hand say FATE? Or are you talking about someone else?

[AilaAolani]

Charlie's hand originally said Fate but was change to LATE

[MsHllywdJenn]

Well people, if you're REAL JJ fans then you'll know that there ARE no accidents. Everything has a purpose and a plan. We may not know it now but 10 episodes down the road we'll be looking back and saying, "OMG! Why didn't I see that?!!" :eek

Is the white shoe related to future episodes? It very well may be. At the time, I think technochickenbone (I agree the name just rolls off the tongue) :D , is right as well. Preparing the viewer that something bad has happened, but the fact that "the ghost" is wearing white sneakers and there was a white sneaker in a tree so close to Jack where no other debris was made visible? An accident? A spur decision? No, I don't think so. ;)

I'm super excited about the rest of the season and all the discussions that get spawned off this show. These message boards always get me fired up and excited.

[Woodnymph12]

Great observation with the shoes & the suit-man!

I don't know if there's anything of special significance to the shoe, or if it's just to set the scene. But does anyone remember back in March when there was that early report on the filming of the pilot that mentioned a shoe?

*scrounges for article* Here's the part posted on the fansite news page:
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Honolulu Star-Bulletin - Lost begins filming
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin has a little blurb on filming of the Lost Pilot, with some very interesting details: ABC's two-hour pilot of the castaway drama "Lost" filmed its first two days this week in a rain and bamboo forest along Old Pali Road where three survivors of a plane crash -- actors Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly and Dominic Monaghan -- on an unnamed and deserted Pacific island find the dead pilot hanging in a tree, a dog (which suddenly vanishes) and a child's shoe... I'm wondering if the child's shoe and the vanishing dog were just mistaken interpretations of things a journalist saw, or if they could have been originally filmed, but not included in the pilot for some reason. (Abandoned concepts? Or something they are saving for later?)

[Enchirito]

whoa good find Woodnymph12.

What if the reporter was not just misunderstanding what he saw and there will be a later/flashback scene where the dog actually vanishes and the group finds the shoe. Since only the viewers have seen the shoe so far.

Odds are he just misinterpreted it though. But odds are boring. :D

[WhereRwe]

What makes you think the shoe is a kid's shoe? That looked like an adult man's shoe to me. It looked like a deck shoe, one worn on boats. My BIL had a pair similar to that one.

WhereRwe

[Woodnymph12]

The shoe looks pretty generic to me-- like it could have been worn by a man or woman, or an older child. Though I agree it isn't obviously a small child's shoe, like you would expect if the scene was about finding a child's shoe. But odds are boring.Well said!

[azteclady]

MsHllwdJenn said:
"Well people, if you're REAL JJ fans then you'll know that there ARE no accidents."

Gee.

Then, there's no hope for those of us who are *not* REAL JJ fans?

:P



Beto
first JJ show I watch

[Enchirito]

Whoa!
I just noticed that the Polar Bear was wearing white shoes!

That's why he could run so fast!

[Enchirito]

Look!

http://tinypic.com/fbd45

and you didn't believe me.

[Taskamask]

Yo! thats awesome! look at that screen cap! i didnt notice that the first time, but it looks real. its probably only a frame long!

[they see ALL]

on a serious note, didn't lock not have his shoe on in ep 1 or his ep???

also, the body of the lady (that was in the water when kate and sawyer went swimming) didnt have a shoe...

maybe the others have something to do with this???


:rolleyes:

[the whirlwind]

Product placement.

[Thomas Hobbes]

Re: the white shoe hanging in the tree. I think this may be important.
The camera zooms in on the shoe. When Locke wakes up, he is only wearing socks (I think he took his shoes off on the plane). He wiggles his toes, and now he can walk. Jack tells Kate that her shoes aren't appropriate for going into the jungle, so she pulls a pair of boots off a dead body.

When they meet Mr. Friendly for the first time in the jungle in the Hunting Party, Mr. Friendly states that the losties are guests. "Tell me, you go over a man's house for the first time, do you take off your shoes? Do you put your feet up on his coffee table?

The Others with the teddy bear all have bare, dirty feet. I don't know whether the rest of the Others have bare feet or shoes.

The shoe at the beginning is white. This fits in with all the white/black analysis.

Does this matter at all? Do the Others not wear shoes simply because they've been there for a long time and their old shoes got worn out? Are they just fed up with getting sand in their shoes?

Or does having bare feet enable you with super strength, the ability to walk again, and the ability to be really sneaky?

I don't have any answers, but I find this interesting.

[Thomas Hobbes]

Going along with this idea, when Locke first enters the hatch, he takes off his shoes, either to be stealthy, or a good guest, and places them perpendicular to the wall, just like any one of us would do visiting a friends house who doesn't allow shoes indoors. Take 'em off, place them perpendicular to the wall.

[Mysterious Mike]

I don't think the white shoe is anything but a random prop to show that there was debris strewn around the jungle from the crash.




Going along with this idea, when Locke first enters the hatch, he takes off his shoes, either to be stealthy, or a good guest, and places them perpendicular to the wall, just like any one of us would do visiting a friends house who doesn't allow shoes indoors. Take 'em off, place them perpendicular to the wall.


I have never really read a concrete answer on why Locke takes his shoes off when he enters the hatch.I think the best bet is indeed for stealth purposes. Another one I read was because his shoes were wet but that doesn't really make a lot a sense to me.

[GerfalconCP]

WOW! this is really weird because i was rewatching episodes 1-4 and a few other episodes tonight and i noticed that Jack's dad was wearing white shoes. Then i saw this topic up tonight and I am just completely at a loss for why it would just pop up on THIS night of all nights ... very weird ... Well, here's a couple of things

1 - When locke goes into the hatch he speaks of being on sacred ground. This makes sense because Locke also believed that opening the hatch was his 'destiny' and that 'fate' had brought him to the hatch. It's obviously a parallel to the Bible when Moses takes his sandals off when he sees the burning bush. And we all know how TPTB like to use Biblical references recently.

2 - The White shoes from the first season are not mistakes. I am a firm believer that what Jack was seeing in the fourth and fifth episodes of season 1 where not his imagination. Jack's dad is back on the island either A) as a clone or B) as himself resurrected ... i tend to believe in the former because i would hope that nothing happens with resurrection in this show ... that would make me angry. But we all know that Jack never found his dad in the coffin ... many people shrugged it off because they just assumed that jack couldn't get his dad onto the plane and decided to just take his coffin instead. But could the others have found that luggage first, taken jack's dad, made a clone of him, and then released him. Then Jack's dad or his 'clone' found the shoes on the tree and used them. He didnt have any shoes when the Others sent him out because they dont believe in shoes.

3 - The Others are opposed to shoes. This is my main reason for writing this. I think that eventually this will turn into less of a religious affair and more of a societal affair. The others are obviously more primitive in their societal believes while the survivors of oceanic crash 815 are still trying to live a democracy. One of the many symbols of the societal differences between the others and the survivors is shoes ... the others are against them and it just symbolizes their primitive nature ...

PHEW! That's all i got ... still is weird that this topic was brought back from the grave on the same night i planned on starting a topic about it ...

[GerfalconCP]

Someone please give me some input! I'm going crazy!

[PandoraX]

If you guys really want the answer...

Damon & Lindelof officially refuted the idea that the shoe was of any significance, aside from showing the tragedy of the plane disaster. Sorry if anyone had their heart set on it, but the shoe is not the big clue from the pilot. This is available for free download at iTunes or at http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/podcasts/103322.html (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/podcasts/103322.html)

[ccmerlot]

I think Locke removed his shoes for the same reason that Others don't wear 'em: stealth. Lockes shoes were indeed wet, and squelched with every step. Others are known to pass completely silently. They have shoes (Ethan wore shoes, and Henry.....that is, if Henry is an Other) but don't wear them when sneaking around the jungle.

[Badger]

Good point about Locke taking off his wet shoes, I agree. However, generally speaking, shoes or no shoes do not make one stealthier. If you step on a stick and break it, it makes noise; shoes or no shoes it still makes noise.

However, there are a few reasons for not wearing footwear. Firstly, over time it rots and becomes unusable. Footwear also holds water next to your foot and can result in trenchfoot, which is a very serious condition. Furthermore, once accustomed and conditioned to it, bare feet afford more grip on slippery surfaces such as logs and wet rocks for example. In addition, bare feet offer more sensitivity to subtle changes in friction in situations such as those.

For this reason many native peoples who live in tropical jungles although they may have access to footwear, be it modern or self-made, often eschew its use.

That said, the only people we have seen not wearing any footwear were the group that passed by Jin and Eko. The others on the boat as well as Ethan, Goodwin and Henry (assuming he is an 'other') were all wearing shoes. Perhaps the group we saw not wearing shoes was simply for the fact they didn't have any or for the reasons I mentioned above, but stealth alone is not one of them, other than one can feel when they are about to place their weight on something that could make noise.

Lastly, before it's mentioned again, when Ana Lucia said they didn't leave any tracks was not because they didn't wear shoes. Bare feet leave tracks, just not in a pattern as recognizable as footwear. Animals do not wear shoes (ok, some horses do ;) ) but they leave tracks. All movement leaves tracks or traces of some kind, be it a broken or bent branch, disturbed leaves or footprints. Simply because Ana Lucia could not track them does not mean they left no trace of their passing.

[PandoraX]

If you guys really want the answer...

Damon & Lindelof officially refuted the idea that the shoe was of any significance, aside from showing the tragedy of the plane disaster. Sorry if anyone had their heart set on it, but the shoe is not the big clue from the pilot. This is available for free download at iTunes or at http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/podcasts/103322.html (http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/podcasts/103322.html)

Please see above! LOL

[lostmaniac32]

2 - The White shoes from the first season are not mistakes. I am a firm believer that what Jack was seeing in the fourth and fifth episodes of season 1 where not his imagination. Jack's dad is back on the island either A) as a clone or B) as himself resurrected ... i tend to believe in the former because i would hope that nothing happens with resurrection in this show ... that would make me angry. But we all know that Jack never found his dad in the coffin ... many people shrugged it off because they just assumed that jack couldn't get his dad onto the plane and decided to just take his coffin instead. But could the others have found that luggage first, taken jack's dad, made a clone of him, and then released him. Then Jack's dad or his 'clone' found the shoes on the tree and used them. He didnt have any shoes when the Others sent him out because they dont believe in shoes.

What if they find Jacks dads clone in the dharma medical building. That would be sweet for two reasons

1) it would be a plot twist noone but me and other crazy people could see coming

2) it would be dramatic irony (maybe) because we would be the only ones to know who it is. Think about it in the previews only the girls look like their going. They would not realize who it was. Imagine them saying

"cmon jack we just met this amazing doctor who you can talk to about medical stuff with. He even has some alcohol on him."

That would be amazing

[timmende]

in the pilot lock is moving his feet and you can see him with no shoe. next shot he stands up and he is wearing two shoes. there is no shoe store on the island so were dit he get his shoes

[GrahamK]

The Others are opposed to shoes. This is my main reason for writing this. I think that eventually this will turn into less of a religious affair and more of a societal affair. The others are obviously more primitive in their societal believes while the survivors of oceanic crash 815 are still trying to live a democracy. One of the many symbols of the societal differences between the others and the survivors is shoes ... the others are against them and it just symbolizes their primitive nature ...



:confused: Seriously? Come on, seriously? Shoes as a symbol of democratic society? Cast off your footwear and become pure?

Reminds me of the scene in Life of Brian when Brian's sandal falls off and his 'followers' argue about what it means.

[mjgill85]

in the pilot lock is moving his feet and you can see him with no shoe. next shot he stands up and he is wearing two shoes. there is no shoe store on the island so were dit he get his shoes
We see him putting on his shoes in a flash back in Walkabout

[I Like Freckles]

He clearly found his luggage (and his cutlery collection). I'd assume that maybe he also packed a shoe or two and maybe even a fresh pair of underoos and the fantastic bonus gift that he got for ordering his set of Ginsus.