MovieChat Forums > Land of the Lost (1974) Discussion > Opening credits and implications

Opening credits and implications

posted 9 years ago by dev_nada2
17 replies | jump to latest

Potental Spoilers ahead...

So I'm watching the opening credits and for a change do not focus on the high quality of the special effects. Instead the following occurs to me:

1) They are travelling and are struck by an earthquake. A rare event

2) At the same time (whether triggered by an earthquake or not) a rock face opens up right next to them. Rarer still

3) Immediately after passing through said opening, it is closed by a falling rock. Incredibly rare

4) On the other side of the rock is a dimensional portal to the LotL.

5) After falling down a waterfall (a near lethal distance) they seem dazed but OK.

I know the writers put a lot of thought into the show. Some of this explains to the viewers why the LotL isn't filling up with campers for Grumpy to snack upon.

On further reflection it seems that the LotL has some mechanism for bringing stuff/people in.

A doorway must be triggered when something passes close by. It opens quickly; lets stuff in, and closes. This prevents too much coming in or stuff immediately escaping. Some kind of soft landing system is used to decelerate the new arrivals.

I don't remember a waterfall in the LotL. Does anyone else? Perhaps the dimensional doorway is at the bottom of the waterfall. In this case, the waterfall is back on earth.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

[–] jamorse_99 9 years ago

I thought of it like a house filled with air, I open the front door which swings open to the outside. Then I go to the backdoor and open it. The pushing out of air from the backdoor will cause air to be pulled into the front doorway and also close the front door.
They did mention a waterfall in the season 1 episode "Downstream". They decide to just get on a home-made raft and follow the river either to the ocean or to a city or wherever. They get to a point where they are going to go over a waterfall and exit the raft into a cave tunnel and eventually stumble upon the old civil war veteran mining crystals in the caves. They mention they see the river disappearing underground. The old guy tells them the river goes nowhere. They eventually follow the river and wind up exactly where they started making Rick say it's a closed loop, closed pocket universe.
The waterfall couldn't have been that high up and they were landing in water.

[–] Fletcherj119 9 years ago

And I saw no evidence of water from the waterfall entering the land with them when they first arrived.

[–] Ashaod43 9 years ago

I think you may be WAY, WAY over analyzing a 1970's saturday morning popcorn show.

[–] moundshroud 9 years ago

You really need to watch (or revisit) the last episode of the first season ("Circle"). It gives some explanation as to how the Marshalls got there. More importantly, it points out that their presence in the LotL was a paradox and that they really should have been killed at the bottom of the waterfall.

It also helps to understand David Gerrold's explanation of just what the LotL is, which is a sort of "way station" built by the Altrusians to travel to other times and places through the dimensional doorways. But with the collapse of the Altrusian civilization, the LotL was not maintained and its systems began to malfunction.

[–] Fletcherj119 9 years ago

Good explanation (although I think you mean "weigh station" - just nit-picking).

[–] moundshroud 9 years ago

It's way station. From dictionary.com:

way station - a station intermediate between principal stations, as on a railroad.

weigh station - a permanent roadside station for the inspection of commercial vehicles to protect public highways from overweight or unsafe trucks.

[–] Fletcherj119 9 years ago

Oh. My error.
I always wondered if the Marshalls had experienced the same situations that their original counterparts had experienced (after "Circle"). Maybe Enik had introduced himself and brought them up to speed?
And apparently Enik miscalculated. Fixing the Marshall's "paradox" didn't fix the time doorway. He was still there the next two seasons.

[–] moundshroud 9 years ago

Yes, I think Enik miscalculated. He thought that resolving the Marshall paradox would fix the problem, but evidently he ran into further issues with the dimensional doorways even after the Marshall paradox had been resolved.

"Circle" was originally intended to be the series finale. David Gerrold hadn't counted on the show being picked up for a second season (I believe this was the first Krofft production to do so). The intent was that the series could be viewed in a loop, with the Marshalls falling into the LotL and eventually ending up back in Enik's cave to resolve the paradox, over and over again. It was a rather brilliant conceit, in that the series itself would be a closed universe just like the LotL, with the Marshall's journey being like the river which flowed in a circle.

The second season changed that whole concept. My belief is that the Marshalls-2 arrived and identically experienced everything just as the Marshalls-1, with the exception of the "Circle" episode. If the Marshalls-2 had entered the LotL through legitimate means, there would be no more paradox for Enik to resolve. Or perhaps the paradox still existed but Enik (perhaps driven by a constant sense of deja vu) chose not to inform the Marshalls because he analyzed the paradox and determined that resolving it would put the LotL into a perpetual loop.

[–] Fletcherj119 9 years ago

Some of their experiences were the result of circumstances; being in the wrong places at the wrong times (confrontations with dinosaurs such as in "Tag Team"); Enik was now situated inside the Lost City instead of where they found him originally; the Sleestak probably wouldn't have tried to lure them into their caves a second time ("Album"); the original Marshalls had taken the key off of the pylon that the Paku had stolen the crystals from ("Stone Soup"); they had destroyed the intelligence that had controlled Holly and Cha-Ka on "The Possession"; there was no longer a diary to follow from "Follow That Dinosaur"; the pylon that had brought Beauregard Jackson to the land was destroyed; etc...

[–] moundshroud 9 years ago

Some of their experiences were the result of circumstances; being in the wrong places at the wrong times (confrontations with dinosaurs such as in "Tag Team"); Enik was now situated inside the Lost City instead of where they found him originally; the Sleestak probably wouldn't have tried to lure them into their caves a second time ("Album"); the original Marshalls had taken the key off of the pylon that the Paku had stolen the crystals from ("Stone Soup"); they had destroyed the intelligence that had controlled Holly and Cha-Ka on "The Possession"; there was no longer a diary to follow from "Follow That Dinosaur"; the pylon that had brought Beauregard Jackson to the land was destroyed; etc...

I think we're coming from two different points of view on this.

You are assuming that the Marshalls-2 are chronologically entering the timeline immediately upon the exiting of the Marshalls-1.

My assumption is that the Marshalls-2 arrive at the same place in time that the Marshalls-1 originally did, effectively taking their place. Time has been "rewound" back to where it was to the point of their original arrival. The most apparent evidence of this is when they arrive in the cave and find none of the equipment left by the Marshalls-1. They are existing in a LotL which has been untouched by their predecessors, and therefore the events of the first season would play out again exactly as they did before - with the exception of the last episode, otherwise they would continue in a loop.

[–] Fletcherj119 9 years ago

Interesting.
I never looked at it that way, mainly because Enik watched it all happen. He wasn't situated in a neutral place, such as inside the pylon on "Timestop", but simply in a cave inside he Lost City.

[–] moundshroud 9 years ago

The more I think about it, the more I think that Circle effectively creates a split time line, along the lines of the Star Trek theatrical reboot. Perhaps Enik did not fail. Perhaps, just as there are Marshalls-1, the Enik which resolved the paradox is Enik-1. It's possible that he was indeed able to get home. This means the Marshalls-2 encounter Enik-2, who does not resolve the paradox. Enik-1 may have been somehow protected due to his proximity to the dimensional doorway which resolved the paradox, even though it wasn't an enclosed place like the "Timestop" pylon.

[–] Fletcherj119 9 years ago

If Enik-1 resolved the paradox, there shouldn't be a paradox for Enik-2 to deal with. But it also looks as though Enik-2 was unable to create the dimensional doorway that Enik-1 had set up. He needed to rely on finding the key to the temporal regulator on "Timestop".

[–] hyperjet 9 years ago

I don't put any stock in that episode making LOTL a paradox. Enoch was just seeing a rerun of them going over the waterfall. It was more of a mildly working Altrusion artifact. I can see LOTL being sort of an inter dimensional airport hub, so to speak.

[–] chaospirations 8 years ago

Reading this post makes me wish this series continued longer than it had. It was a kid's show, but in essence it was one of the most sophisticated science fiction series presenting concepts well beyond the target audience. It was challenging children to think about scientific topics that many modern day adults could never grasp.

[–] Fletcherj119 8 years ago

That's true of the first two seasons; the third was more like a cartoon.

[–] metalunamutant 8 years ago

In the DVD commentary, Gerrold said they did this episode as a way of “ending” the series (sending the Marshalls back home) because they were unsure if there would be a second series. And if there was a second series (as it turned out) the episode could *still* be shown as a sort of “final” episode even in a second series.

Gerrold said he always lamented the vast majority of TV series never doing a finale because most never know if they’re going to be cancelled or renewed until after filming is done. And it’s a real shame as many show creators always have a nice or clever way to end “their characters” etc they just are never given a chance to do it.