From Lostpedia

• The arm: In the Swan Orientation Film, Marvin Candle/Mark Wickmund had a prosthetic arm which he didn't have in the Pearl Orientation Video.
  • He doesn't have a fake arm. It might be a hoax to create fear of an incident within the viewers.
    • But the Swan or the Pearl occupants are not going to watch the other orientation video, so they cannot compare them. And if you watch the Swan Orientation once probably you are not going to detect that his arm is a prosthetic one.
  • He lost his arm before the filming of the Swan Orientation Film. If this is true it would suggest that the psychological experiment that the occupants of the Pearl were observing was not people entering the Numbers into the computer but in fact watching them use the Swan for its original purpose.
  • Both films are dated 1980, the Pearl Orientation Video was recorded in the Pearl (on the Island), the Swan Orientation Film was filmed somewhere else (possibly off the Island) so maybe he was ‘healed’ by the Island like Locke and Rose.
  • Since the Swan orientation film was made at a laboratory (judging by the obvious fire door "Exit" sign in the background), and the Pearl orientation is done inside the facility itself, we can assume Marvin/Mark spent some time on the Island in the intervening time, which could possibly explain the healing of the arm and younger appearance.
  • He might also be related to or be Montand. Rousseau claims that Montand lost his arm in the Dark Territory. Rousseau says that "Montand lost his arm" shortly after the arrival of her research team.
• In the video, it is claimed that the Pearl station functions as a monitor for the experiments in another station. This could be -
  • formerly factual - it was an experiment, but after the Incident is no longer just an experiment
  • false - The Pearl itself is also an experiment, and they don't want the subjects to know it, hence the video camera in the station, and the admonition to record all details, "no matter how minute"; also the Numbers in the Swan may actually be significant.
    • But if they are significant, why do they put the notebooks in a dump ?
• The 1980 copyright date may be a false date
• Marvin Candle was himself a subject of the Life Extension Project and not only gets younger, but had his arm cloned and reimplanted.
• The garbled static in the tape may be a result of: 1) the tape's age, 2) the tape's overuse, 3) electromagnetic damage related to DHARMA projects, 4) an intentionally removed splice of missing tape
  • the Swan Orientation Film also has some imperfections in the quality, as does the DHARMA orientation film in the Sri Lanka Video. These imperfections may have been caused by radiation, possibly electromagnetic, as a result of the Incident or a system failure.
• The names Marvin Candle, Mark Wickmund and the Flame station could all somehow be related in subject. Perhaps Dr. Candle/Wickmund can be found at the Flame.
• The Pearl could have originally been monitoring the Flame station. There is no direct evidence from the video that the station originally monitored the Swan other than an image of the computer room in the background as Wickmund speaks. However, the feed seen in "The Cost of Living" shows that at least one other station has a computer room similar to the Swan. Thus, this could be the station the Pearl inhabitants originally watched. After the incident, however, emphasis could have changed to also cover the Swan due to its now huge importance (i.e. the imperative button procedure).
• Marvin Candle is not in the Swan, but in a mockup of it. Anyone who has seen Oceans 11 might understand this a little more.