Thursday, July 24, 2008

Dharma at Comic Con 43

Comic Con opened last night with a jam packed Preview Night.  Ryan Ozawa of The Transmission podcast is covering it in full detail including photos from the Dharma Initiative booth which you can see on  his Flickr stream.

Ryan also has a complete
Comic Con blog with blog posts, audio blog posts, mini podcasts and photos. Last night Ryan was able to interview Emma from the Dharma Initiative booth. You can listen to that interview in the latest Transmission podcast, episode 33, at the 16:34 mark.  Ryan also managed to interview someone who went through the recruitment process.

UPDATE: DarkUFO has a copy of the of the Dharma waiver, which states the "game" is currently referred to as the Dharma Initiative Recruiting Project.

43 comments:

memphish said...

This post from TVSquad includes video of the screen outside the recruiting booth.

Ange said...

COOL! Also, I did a quick side by side picture of the Dharma Wants You page dots and the Dharma image from Comic-con. (pardon my skills, I have no coffee and I only used MSPaint). But yeah, I think it's what we're looking at.

Ange said...

New format seems to have removed comment preview. Without preview is there any way to subscribe to comments via e-mail? I know I can subscribe to the feed, but e-mail is just easier.

memphish said...

I agree about the email.

Zort70 said...

Ange, I hjust posted in the previous thread, but I have found the Dry Cleaners phone number in London and called them.

They seem to be a real business.

Zort70 said...

I'm typing drunk again !

...I just....

Dennis said...

Great post Memphish!!

Ange, that sucks about no comment preview :( I'll switch it back to regular comments for now until they get that fixed...

Zort70 said...

While we are talking about the blog comments, is it me or has the Trash icon disappeared ?

By the way this isn't a complaint, as you are all doing a fantastic job with it, just trying to be helpful.

Ange said...

OH THANK YOU DENNIS!!! I am such a creature of habit! You rock.

Zort: You're cracking me up! I totally was ready to call that place too. I wonder how many calls they have gotten. Hehe my plan B was to stop in there next week when I'm in the UK.

Capcom said...

Very groovy! The origami test has instructions, piece-o-cake. Too bad we can't take that test.

I love the DHARMA booth design, that's a great looking set.

It would be nice if the season 4 DVD includes one of the DHARMA cards or the patch inside. :-) The X-Files movie preview DVD included a free ticket to the new movie.

Zort70 said...

I'm going to watch all the videos / listen to the audios later as I'm at work now, but it looks like fun at ComicCon

Ange said...

Thanks for posting that Memphish. I just got done listening to the podcast. So, everyone who "works" at the Dharma booth has Australian accents huh. That's sort of curious.

I also like how the "tests" seem a little Room 23/VALIS-ish in nature.

The tester mentions Latin or something being spoken during the test. I wonder if its backward speaking and we'll have to dust off our audio skills when they start utilizing the "video" of all of these tests.

Oh, this is so NEAT!

memphish said...

Yeah, I thought the interview with the test taker was very interesting. It also looks like they have once again greatly underestimated the amount of interest LOST fans have in these things what with the test times being fully taken in 5 minutes. I wonder if we're going to be able to take a similar test online somehow.

And thanks for the comment switch Dennis.

Dennis said...

Ok... here something for someone to play around with while we wait for DWY to open...

In The Lost Experience, we found the WhereIsAlvar website before it opened, and we were able to find some hidden content on the site. I was playing around with the DWY website, and found some existing folders (but no pages or photos yet...):

http://www.dharmawantsyou.com/img/
http://www.dharmawantsyou.com/test/

You can tell they exist because if you type in http://www.dharmawantsyou.com/test for example, it will add a / on the end (even though it says "page not found". I've tried a bunch of other things and haven't found anything yet, but I'll keep looking...

Capcom said...

I know! 5 minutes seemed like an awful large amount of time, considering the number of Lost fans that will be queue-ing up to participate! :-o Didn't the interns at the Apollo bar handouts report back the amount of people interested in getting them so they could forecast future participation? Very bad statistical marketing practices if they did not, haha.

I can't wait to see if the new DI explains how they have evolved since the original DI. As people have mentioned, they are not using the all-caps acronym spelling, but spelling it like a name. Maybe they are following more closely the actual use of the term this time around, and not so much the original Hanso meaning of it. They are still talking about making the world a better place though, so that "core value" is still there.

Capcom said...

You-da-man Dennis! :-D

Dennis said...

Also found: http://www.dharmawantsyou.com/css/

maven said...

Busy morning! Lots to listen to! Thanks for all the links.

5 minutes will seem like an eternity to those waiting in line!

FYI: Lena and Joe are hosting a Yahoo IM chat party for Comic-Con at 5pm PST today.

Capcom said...

There are some interesting thoughts beginning on DarkUFO about the Europa mythology, which is something to think about.

link

maven said...

I hope some more test takers post some more of the questions asked of them. I know it's really hard to remember everything (especially under such pressure), but as more and more test takers get interviewed and post, we might begin to see a pattern emerging from the questions. It does seem to remind me of Room 23.

Dennis said...

If *I* was at comic-con, I would have taken my audio recorder in. Hopefully someone will do that at some point.

I don't think this needs a post of its own, but JJ abrams is going to be selling limited-edition Bad Robot figurines.

Capcom said...

Oh man, I so like that little robot! :-D

Lookout Ebay, here they come!!

Capcom said...

BTW, interesting that the DI is still utilizing the Swan symbol with the origami. At first I thought that it was the symbolic Peace Crane, but it's one of the many versions of the simpler swan design. Hmmmm. Maybe it's their way of saying, "We're back brand new, but we don't discount the old ways either." Or...it means nothing. :-D

Also, now that we are more or less brought up to the present with the FF scenes, I wonder how today's DI at Comic Con connects with the conditions on the island, as per the pre-return Oceanic-6 peeps. I guess that we'll find out in the coming days.

memphish said...

Do you think the new DI could be Ben's few ideas about returning to the Island?

Dennis said...

memphish, I saved your SeekTheSix.com post as a draft, since it's not LOST related. It's pretty hard "game", because if you mess up, you have to start all over, and the pictures move around.

BTW, I thought LOST had the number 6 trademarked (as well as 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, & 42)? :)

maven said...

I don't know if the new DI would be related to Ben. He seems to think that they are "silly", and they were ruining the pure essence of the island.

Maybe Widmore is behind this recruitment drive. All the personnel have Australian accents from the reports I've heard. They definitely don't have Danish accents like Alvar!

memphish said...

The Lostpedia blog has a photo of the release you have to fill out before you go in the booth. Unlike TLE I, it seems that they want everyone to understand this is made up, though it's "real."

lost2010 said...

It looks like a ride at Disney world . . .which I guess sort of makes sense when you think about it.

memphish said...

Anyone have any sort of list of all the people who plan to live blog the LOST panel? I recall the last couple of years I was following at least 5 or more people.

BTW Ryan and Jen both went through the Dharma booth, so hopefully they will have even more details of the testing later this evening or tomorrow morning.

Dennis said...

NEW DOTS!!!!

;)

memphish said...

Ryan and Jen took the Dharma test. Here's what they posted about the content.

Jen took the Ganymeade (?) test, I took Amalthea.

What was your first live concert? What is the sound of terror? What was the first album you bought? Who is your constant? What is the sound of red? When were you last truly happy?

Word association for photos: a tree-lined road at night. Skeletons. A child in a sprinkler. Little red riding hood in bed with the wolf.


Jay of Jay and Jack got an appointment time for later so they'll have a first-hand experience to podcast about as well.

maven said...

Ryan posted a little more about his and Jen's time in the Dharma booth:

He mentioned Almalthea. It's mentioned that the Horn of Almalthea relates to fertility. Also, the Ganymede test is mentioned.

So far I've heard of Europa, Amalthea and Ganymede versions of the aptitute tests. Europa and Ganymede are also moons of Jupiter. Very "2001"ish!

memphish said...

Dang Maven. You're fast. I never even thought to look those words up. Maybe we should add some Greek Mythology to the Book Club.

maven said...

It's funny that the fan that was interviewed kept saying he couldn't pronounce the various names of the aptitude tests to choose from. He chose Europa because he could pronounce it! They must have all been Greek mythology names. Something else to study up on! LOL

maven said...

DocArtz has posted Tapdawg's Booth Test. I think I heard him picking the Callisto test. Another moon of Jupiter.

maven said...

FYI: "Callisto is named after one of Zeus's many lovers in Greek mythology. Callisto was a nymph (or, according to some sources, the daughter of Lycaon) who was associated with the goddess of the hunt, Artemis."

Dennis said...

Someone should make a new post for all the tests...

lost2010 said...

Channel G4 is covering Comic Con tonight. I noticed it as I was flipping through.

Capcom said...

We need to study the cheat-sheets before we take our tests online. :o)

Capcom said...

Wow, thanks for the reminder Lost2010! Ellen (I think) told us about this last week, and I forgot about it.

Capcom said...

OK you guys, before they signed off on the live G4 coverage tonight, they said that tomorrow they are featuring the Dharma booth, so get to your TVs (or TIVOs) from 7pm to 10pm (EST) to check it out. Thanks again 2010 for the heads-up!

Seacrest out. :o)

Ange said...

I'll post one Dennis.

Ange said...

New post! The tests...