Wasn't the main reason Ben wanted Jack was to perform that surgery on him?
Yeah, Ben found out he had a tumor just before the Oceanic crash. Course that's only useful to Ben once he knows Jack is a neurosurgeon. Ben either found out:
- after the plane crashed and they built files on everyone
or
- before the Oceanic crash--they already had folders on Jack, Kate, et al (as Larry postulated)

My guess is that Ben didn't know Jack was a neurosurgeon until after the Oceanic crash. Why make an enemy of someone you need? Would have been much easier to convince Jack to operate if Ben had helped Jack, even a little, rather than imprisoning him.

Would have been much easier to convince Jack to operate if Ben had helped Jack, even a little, rather than imprisoning him.
That's not really Ben's style.... ;)
Regardless, I think it's safe to assume that Ben had been expecting "visitors" prior to the crash. For him, it was just a matter of when.

I also suspect he thought that perhaps the crash might have been the doing of Whidmore.

Regarding the whole Charlotte thing.

How do we know it is 1974? Who says? Sawyer? How does he know?

I read this on another forum:

I made a discovery – I have been studying pinball machines lately and I immediately noticed that the pinball machine in the rec room scene was CYCLONE - created by Williams Electronics in 1988...so one of two things:

1) The time periods that Sawyer says they are now in is not 1974 but rather much later (1988) - Everything just seems older because they are so far removed from everything (like Cuba today stil driving cars from the 50s)

2) The pinball machine may be symbolic because of its name, CYCLONE - which may play a bigger role in the show explaining how and why things are happening (like why the statue was destroyed) or it can just be another WIzard of OZ reference.

I don't think LOST producers included a rare pinball machine - in a number of shots - that was created in the late 80s

Good call on the pinball. That is a very famous machine. It is in those shots for a reason. The only other pin from 80s that could rival that one is High Speed for recognition. No way that they made a set decoration error that big...

All right..... new theory
The year is actually 1974.
Dharma Initiative's actual objective is to radically re-designed the future of pinball machines, designing games decades before they appear on the mainland.
Taking it one step further, Dharma is responsible for Pong, Halo, and everything in between....

;)

Just because the pinball machine is from 1988, doesn't mean it still isn't 1974. The clothes on Jack's back are from 2006 (or so). He could have an iPOD in his pocket for all we know.

Bit harder to carry a pinball machine in your back pocket through time, though. Like I said, how do we know it's 1974 (actually 77, three years later)? Sawyer said so. But how does he know?

But we know that any object being touched will also travel through time - like the long boat they were in (remember when they were being shot at) or the guns they carry.

Fair enough Larry. Good point.
I just think the 1974 is wrong, simply because of two clues that we've seen:

1. Pinball
2. Charlotte.

[Edit] Thinking about Lost is so cool. :-0
I'll counter argue myself. If my argument that the only reason we have as evidence that it's 1974-77 is Sawyer; how do we know that the little girl was Charlotte? All we saw was that Faraday seeing a little red-haired girl. Could have been anyone.

Maybe Rose or Bernard were playing pinball in the late '80s when the flash of light brought them (and the pinball machine they were touching) to '74 :)

I don't know, Pinball machines generally preceded video games of the 80's, so the set crew might have saw that as an easily identifiable 70's thing.

-Mike

That pinball machine is listed as a "Blooper and continuity error" on the Lostpedia website, which I believe that's all that it is.

To work SO hard on accurate set decoration (think season two in the hatch) and have that pinball in there as a mistake is a pretty big screw up. It would be like having a lead in a WWII movie wearing a digital watch...

Nothing is ever on a Lost set by coincidence. I don't believe the Lost Wiki on this.

That's what I think, too! That is way too big, and way too obvious in the Horace/Sawyer scene to be a mistake.

Lost has lots of continuity errors and bloopers. Check out the Lost Continuity errors site (http://lostcontinuity.blogspot.com/) and you can find more at lostpedia too.

I might think there was more to this, but since no other sites are discussing this it sorta makes me think it's just a simple error. Even if it wasn't an error then is it supposed to be 1988? That just doesn't make sense.

According to Ben, Charlotte was born on July 2, 1979 in Essex, England. If we're to believe that, the little girl couldn't have been Charlotte, assuming they are in 1974 (at that time). The little girl Daniel saw in 1974 looked to be about 3 or 4, putting her age in the late 30s when she was on the island as an adult. She doesn't look like she's in her late 30s.

We don't know the little girl that Faraday saw was Charlotte. Did she say her name?

No...she could be a little red-haired herring.

I'll accept the fact that TV shows will have continuity errors. In fact even "Reality" tv shows have continuity issues from occasionally (likely due to editing).

The fact that we don't know the little girl's name is likely intentional.

New question: In Season 2(?), a re-supply plane dropped a crate of Dharma Initiative supplies on the island. Who sent it if the DI has been defunct since Ben killed them all off, and even more importantly, how did the plane find the island and where did it come from?

Any thoughts?

cheers

One thought: if the supplies had expiration dates, would the year digits be 04 or 74?

The supply drops could have been set up in perpetuity.

When Sun is looking at the photo in the building with Frank & Christian, there is a person in the background behind her left shoulder. Is that a crew member, or is it a character - possibly Claire?