if the polar bear would have eaten everyone it might have been OK.
I said Purgatory-like
- Undo (never happened) the last two seasons (5 and 6). maybe even parts of season 4.
- Another plane crashes on the island
- Our heros go to investigate, look for, and help any survivors.
- but they’ve been so mind-f*cked by all that has happened to them, they are totally paranoid - they don’t know if this other plane crash is an illusion or real.
- So they don’t approach the new survivors openly, and instead hide from them, and try to steal stuff that may be useful.
Our heros have become new Others !
(the cycle continues)
Purgatory Lite?
That’s not “what happened” either. The sideways-flashes were an afterlife vision type thing, but the main story was Jack vs Old Smokey. The fact that the sideways-flashes were an afterlife vision type thing was pretty stupid, but that’s not what Lost was about.
How about this then: “But no, it’s just another timid sideways-flashes afterlife vision type thing that offends nobody and takes no risks.”
Please advise if this is acceptable for you.
By the time Lost ended, the only satisfying conclusion would have been the broadcast of the ritual suicide of the writers and producers.
Suicide seems extreme. I would have accepted a notarized promise not to ever write another screenplay for anything ever again, on pain of death.
That would be a shame. I quite enjoyed Fringe. Yeah, it was really stupid, and they totally ad absurdiumed all three of Clarke’s laws (so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was deliberate). But it was still enjoyable. After Lost, I was careful not to get my hopes up for anything more than mindless entertainment, which probably helped.
I think I got about half way through that novel and then it started talking about his childhood and who really gives a shit. I quit reading at that point. That article was a “please feel sorry for David because you were mean to him about Lost and here’s some sappy stories of his childhood. Now go watch his new show.” piece of crap.
This was the problem and everyones complaint about Lost. They’d introduce a new mystery and then couldn’t figure out how to wrap it up and then say, “Ok pretend that never happened but check out this new mystery.” Over and Over and Over.
This.
This quote from Lindendorf in the article proves they were lying the whole time about knowing how they were going to end it.
“I wanted the ‘Firefly’ trajectory. Like, we’re going to be kind of pushing up against cancellation, and we’re going to make 13 of these things, and then it will be like this cool cult success."
No way in hell I’m watching the new show. And I read somewhere that they said the show is not about the mystery but how people deal with it. I don’t give a crap about peoples feewings about the mystery I want to know about the mystery and eventually a revelation of the mystery.
If Lindelof so wants to have a series cancelled in the first season, I’m happy to help.
Shouldn’t the Harlem Globetrotters have been involved at some point?
Man, what a whiny, snivelly little wuss. A “Yeah, I fucked the ending up. I enjoyed it but clearly it didn’t work for a lot of people and it’s been 3 years so I’m done apologizing and moving on with my life” would have been fine. Snivelling about his daddy issues? Dude, you’re 40+ and your daddy never “told you you were special” and your dad had been gone for 10+ years. GET OVER IT.
And…I notice in all the crap he was spewing about his new show, how the writers talked about the mythology and how it was a big ol’ therapy session to assuage his doubts and fears and there were huggles and everyone was soooooo sooper supportive ‘n’ stuff…he neglected to say whether they started by planning on how to end the fucking thing. In other words, he’s learned nothing.
I’ll be giving it a big miss.
I think it could have been fixed. Forget everything from the time that the characters jumped back in time (s5?).
Starting there.
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Minor point–Jack & Co. get back with Locke with Locke wearing Jack’s dead daddy’s shoes and either A) Locke suddenly sits up, alive. The shoes DID do something–imbued with magical life force from the island or something or B) Ben PALTR’s Jack and said “You bought that “we need your dead dad’s shoes to bring Locke back to life” shit? Wadda maroon. What an ultra-maroon”
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Whidmore is about to launch a huge strike against the island.
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Hawkings(?) goes to the Hanso group and says "Ok, we gotta team up to stop Whidmore. She works with Desmond (who’s her catspaw on the island) to get the Others and the Losties to join in the alliance.
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S5 is spent clarifying what the conflict is actually about and getting all the factions preped for THE FINAL CONFLICT. Who cares who controls the island? We never got an explanation (“It’s a cork” doesn’t count) of what relevance the island actually has. We find out that:
A) The island is older than the earth–it’s (what?) 4 billion years old. No–it couldn’t possibly be, but there you are–every test proves it. Ditto the foot statue. It couldn’t possibly be that old, BUT IT IS. It’s almost as though the earth formed around the island.
B) It’s been discovered by civilizations throughout history. Whoever controls the island wins (Ark of the Covenant-esque). Alexander had it for a while. England and France fought over it, etc. Which is why everyone wants it (We still don’t know why, in the real version, everyone was so hot to get their hands on the island)
C) Hanso, Hawking and Whidmore, working together discovered it. Hanso wanted to exploit it (“win” economically), Whidmore wanted to use it to win power-wise and Hawking wanted to explore it/learn from it.
D) The numbers: For some reason (doesn’t need to be explained) certain people who are touched by the island can mess with probability when they recite the numbers. (Hence Hurley’s magic powers in S1/2.)
E) Jacob is the last Whitmore representative from their last visit in the late '70s. (There was no “purge” in the '90s, it happened circa 1978 and until the crash, nobody but Desmond has been on or off the island since)
F) The Smoke Monster is a non-thinking protector on the island. It’s controlled by whatever group is nominally in control of the island. In olden days they thought they needed bones and magic symbols to control it. In Ben’s time, push-button acoustic devices. None are really needed. You run the island, you control the beast. -
S5 is largely everyone being drawn into various camps (and the core group does NOT stay together. Jack signs on with Hanso while whatsherface–the bimbo that Jack and Sawyer kept fighting over–signs on with Whidmore while Hurley goes with Hawking.
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Season 6: all out war for control of the island. Eventually, disillusioned by all three factions, our heroes (including Ben?) form their own faction and in the climax, make the island vanish for good (or for 100 years or whatever) so it’s out of reach of everyone.
Great ending? No. Better than that fucking church with the stained glass “COEXIST” bumper-sticker window and the fact that 2/3ds of S6 were a fucking dream sequence? Yes.
The cork/island thing makes no sense. If the island is a cork to keep evil all bottled up then what about Hitler et al?
It was much better ending the way it did. The fact that they were throwing random mysterious bullshit and having people interpret it in so many different ways is classic.
The fact that the series producers anticipated it being canceled and just tossed a bunch of incoherent story arcs and plots devices at us is priceless.
Have a sense of humor at being duped by circumstance.
I quit Lost in the second season because I suspected it was headed in the same direction as Battlestar Galactica remake, which “resolved” numerous intriguingly mysterious supernatural plotlines by suggesting that some version of God engineered events for inscrutable reasons. Bleah.
Just as with Lost, the majority of fans saw this as a cynical cop-out that retroactively undermined the entire run of the show. Other fans called the critics grumps who just didn’t understand the ending or did not grasp the artistic vision of the writers.
In the case of BG, however, creator Ron Moore admitted that there never was an ultimate resolution planned. In his DVD commentaries Moore mentions that before filming the last season he and the writing staff went on a writer’s retreat to Tahoe and spent days looking for a way to tie up all the loose ends and unexplained mysticism. They failed. In a later commentary he explains a moment of revelation he had where he realized “it’s not about the story, stupid, it’s about the characters” (loosely paraphrased). In the commentary he seems to feel genuinely satisfied with this answer, but to me it’s a bald admission that new mysteries were introduced with no thought of their eventual resolution and for no other conceivable reason than to boost ratings.
Does any of this sound familiar to the Lost audience? At least with Lost the writer’s were considerate enough to foreshadow the destination of the plot in the show title.
A satisfactory ending to either show would have explained the various mysteries in a way that had relevance to the story arc and characters. But neither show even attempted to explain half the events that took place. That is an unsatisfying ending to me no matter what happens to the characters.
Depends which side of the cork you’re on.
I thought about the lamiest things that bothered the heck out of me and it had nothing to do with conspiracies, Dharma, Jacob, smokey, etc.
When we first met the Others they looked really disheveled/dirty (when they took Walt?) then when we saw the town they were clean-cut. Did we miss something?
I was particularly bothered by the tailers and the stewardess that was taken where couple seasons later we saw her with the two children. And then what? Did they die? Eery to me nothing was mentioned!
I saw folks cried at the ending and my coworker said she cried. Becuz it ended, not cuz it sucked.
Just saw Carlton Cuse on a Talking Dead (walking dead review show) and how he was a big fan of TWD and thought ugh what if did Walking Dead the way Lost was undone.
Yes, there was a bit of a reveal when Kate or somebody ran across a bunch of costumes and makeup kits, and realized that the Others were purposely dressing up like hillbillies that to terrorize the Losties. No joke.
Actually, though, that scene at beginning of one of the seasons (season 3?) where there was this nice looking college campus looking place, and then the camera (virtually) pulled back and we realized it was in the middle of the Lost island jungle was one of the best surprises during the mid-series.