Polar bear
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(Redirected from Polar bears)
Polar bears are occasionally depicted on Lost, and have been encountered both on the Island by the survivors and off the Island by Charlotte Lewis.
The polar bears were brought to the Island by the DHARMA Initiative, who held them in cages at the Hydra station and conducted unspecified research on them. Text on the blast door map suggests that they were attempting to genetically modify the polar bears to allow them to survive in a different environment than their usual Arctic home. Following the purge, the Hostiles took over and the polar bears were set free or otherwise escaped. They were able to swim from Hydra Island, where they went on to breed and inhabit the main Island. (Access Granted) (Official Lost Podcast transcript/October 30, 2006)
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Appearances
- Sawyer, Kate, Boone, Shannon, Charlie and Sayid encountered a polar bear in the jungle, and Sawyer shot it. ("Pilot, Part 2")
- Michael is chased by what is presumed to be a polar bear while looking for Vincent. (Its roar is distinctly different than that of the Monster.) ("Tabula Rasa")
- Walt was shown reading Hurley's comic book which depicts a polar bear, and later hid inside a banyan tree while a polar bear rammed at him. ("Special")
- Hurley was reading the comic book with the polar bear drawing while he was on board the plane. ("Exodus, Part 2")
- Michael gave Walt a stuffed polar bear in a flashback. ("Adrift")
- Two polar bears appeared fighting on an ice floe in the Swan Orientation Film. ("Orientation")
- A stuffed polar bear toy appeared in the gigantic crib in which Drive Shaft filmed their commercial, "You All Every Butties". ("Fire + Water")
- The Latin name for "polar bear", Ursus maritimus, was shown on the blast door map. The direct quotation is STATED GOAL, REPATRIATION ACCELERATED DE-TERRITORIALIZATION OF URSUS MARITIMUS THROUGH GENE THERAPY AND EXTREME CLIMATE CHANGE, implying that the bears were involved in experimentation of some kind. ("Lockdown")
- One of the patients in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute is holding a stuffed bear during the basketball game. ("Dave")
- Tom says one of the cages at the Hydra was formerly used to house "bears". ("A Tale of Two Cities")
- An attacking polar bear appeared as a flash between the end of Locke's dream and him running out of the sweat lodge. Later, a polar bear was shown holding an unconscious Mr. Eko in its cave. ("Further Instructions")
- A tuft of polar bear fur was discovered by Locke and Charlie. ("Further Instructions")
- A polar bear is seen in the painting in Charles Widmore's office. ("Flashes Before Your Eyes")
- A polar bear skeleton is found in a desert in Tunisia by Charlotte Lewis. It was found with a leather collar on bearing the Hydra symbol. ("Confirmed Dead")
Trivia
Production notes
- According to the Season 1 DVD featurette, "Welcome to Oahu", FX supervisor Kevin Blank wore "polar bear chaps" and ran through heavy brush in order to simulate the legs of the polar bear seen in "Pilot, Part 2".
- Originally, director J.J. Abrams had been vehemently opposed to using a CGI polar bear on the show. The first version had a stuffed prop bear shot out of an air cannon towards Sawyer as he pretended to shoot at it, and this was the version that ended up on the pre-broadcast commercial before the pilot aired. However, someone posted a freeze-frame capture of this online, which according to J.J. looked "laughable and ridiculous", and he conceded that he had to try the CGI version, which he and the production team liked much better (shown below). This is the version that ended up in the airing of "Pilot". J.J. remarked that he was surprised people would analyze the show in such detail.
- Lost: The Official Magazine (Issue 11) had an article on polar bear production for "Further Instructions", showing images of Jonathan Arthur in his polar bear costume for the episode. It shows how the polar bear scenes were made.
- Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse suggest that fans curious about Charlotte's discovery of a polar bear skeleton in Tunisia watch the Orchid video, and further draw a link between the polar bear with the bunny in the video. (Official Lost Podcast/February 19, 2008)
 Original stuffed bear used for "Pilot" scene, freeze-framed |
 CGI polar bear used in the final version of "Pilot" scene |
Miscellaneous trivia
- A band called You All, Everybody (a Lost tribute band) wrote and released a song about the polar bears in September 2006.
- Polar bears have also been used as a vehicle to illustrate that the survivors did not always tell each other what they knew. In "Solitary", Charlie is surprised that Michael hadn't heard about them, and Hurley tells Jack that Steve didn't know about the bears either and laments, "Well, how am I supposed to keep straight who knows what around here?"
- In "Dave", when Hurley asks "Did either of you see a guy run through here -- in a bathrobe, with a coconut?", Charlie replies, "No, I saw a polar bear on roller blades with a mango."
- In "Further Instructions", Charlie tells Locke that he used to get high and watch nature programs on the "Beeb" (BBC), where he learned that polar bears are very clever and "are like the Einsteins of the bear community."
- Polar bears known as "panserbjorne" play a prominent role in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The bears are forced to relocate from the Arctic when a window to a world in another dimension is opened.
- Polar bears are left-handed
Unanswered questions
| Unanswered questions |
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- For fan theories about these unanswered questions, see: Polar bear/Theories
- How do the polar bears survive in a totally different environment on the Island?
- How many polar bears are there on the Island?
- Why did the DHARMA Initiative conduct experiments on polar bears?
- Why was there a toy truck in the polar bear's cave?
- How did a polar bear skeleton with a DHARMA Initiative Hydra collar come to be in Tunisia?
- How do the polar bears know that an image of a knife and fork equates to food, as seen on the big red button in the cages that Sawyer gets shocked with?
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| Birds • Boar • Cats • Cattle • Chickens • Dog (Bpo Bpo) • Dog (Vincent) • Rat (Eloise) • Horse (Kate's) • Horse (Others') • Horses (Bedouins') • Medusa spider • Moths • Orangutan (Joop) • Polar bear • Rabbits • Shark •Sea urchins • Tree frog | ||||||
