bostonfred
Footballguy
This is a better idea than the jump to conclusions mat, but only slightly.
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*** Official Lost Season 6 *** (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter Twilight
- Start date
Assani Fisher
Footballguy
After 'Across the Sea', many people told me to wait until the series was over before I judged it. Well, its over now and not surprisingly I feel exactly the same as I did two weeks ago. A few reflections about the show as a whole(cliff notes at bottom):
1. "Lost is a show about the characters and their stories. The mysteries are just secondary."
This seems to be a popular line among the Lost-defenders out there. Whats funny to me is that for 5 seasons whenever people complained about not getting answers, the response was always "Just wait...its still early in the story." And now that we haven't gotten those answers, the response is to tell us that the story was purely character driven and that the answers aren't all that important. I think thats BS.
I think that if the Lost-defenders were honest with themselves, they'd admit that the show's main appeal has always been the mystery aspect. Its the mysteries that have caused us to spend hours and hours on online message boards debating different things. Its the mysteries that caused us to go back and rewatch old episodes for clues. Think back to some of the best scenes in the history of the show such as Michael shooting Ana Lucia and Libby, Eithan not being on the plane's manifest, finding out that it was a flash forward and not a flashback at the end of season 3, first seeing Jacob and MiB at the beginning of the season 5 finale, etc. What do they all have in common? They're all great scenes because they're either great reveals or great cliffhangers. I think that anyone who doesn't admit that this is the major reason Lost is so popular is simply lying to themselves to justify how poorly the writers have handled the conclusion of so many mysteries.
Even if I were accept that "its a character driven show", then I don't think the characters are collectively strong enough to make it anything more than an average show. Don't get me wrong....Ben and Locke were phenomenal characters. Sayid, Desmond, Richard, and a few others were very solid as well. However, there were definitely a ton of weak characters such as Kate, Shannon, Boone, Claire, Sun(early on she was ok, but her character was horrendous after her and Jin got separated), Michael, etc. As a whole, the characters' stories just aren't compelling enough to make Lost anything more than a slightly above average TV show.
Listing the best characters only proves that its a mystery show imo. Ben and Locke were quite clearly the two best characters imo, and not surprisingly.....they had huge mysteries concerning their character's intentions and beliefs throughout the show!
Lost clearly marketed itself as a mystery show all along. Every promo was about mysteries and answers to those mysteries. The cliffhangers, the music to build suspense as a cliffhanger/reveal was happening, the character's vague communication, etc. was all in line with a mystery show. And that is what made it so great! So I'm simply not buying this nonsense about it being a character driven show all along.
2. The journey was indeed quite fun and very well done in certain parts.
I'm sure that because of the overall tone of my post, most people will think I hate the show. Thats not true at all. Through 5 seasons it was my favorite show of all time, and I argued for it as the best show ever quite a few times. The scenery was great, Emerson and O Quinn were brilliant in their roles, Sawyer/Hurley provided decent comic relief, the music fit the show perfectly, and so on. Theres definitely a lot to like about the show, and I do admit that I enjoyed it a lot.
3. My expectations were clearly too high, but I still think they could've done a lot better.
As I've mentioned before in these threads, I love movies with big twist endings that make you want to go back and rewatch the movie from the beginning. Movies such as The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, Sixth Sense all do a great job of this. And I was hopeful that whenever the "big reveal" happened in Lost that I'd want to go back and rewatch it from the very beginning.
I guess that with a TV show it just isn't possible to have a totally cohesive story and tie all the loose ends together. But I dunno....I'm not a writer by any means, yet even I can think of some pretty cool ideas that would've easily been better than what they did. A few things I thought would've been cool:
-The Losties traveled back in time to the 1970s(and earlier) and we find out that every problem they encountered in 2004 was actually caused by them in the past. Ben wasn't lying at all when he said "We're the good guys" as they were simply trying to fix the Losties mistakes. I thought that the "we're the good guys" line was actually one of the most interesting things about the early/mid seasons because the Others seemed so obviously bad on the surface. I thought it would've been really mind blowingly awesome if upon rewatching the show, we would've seen that the Others were actually 100% good all along and only appearing bad because of the situation that the Losties put them in when they time traveled. The show kinda hinted at this a bit with Richard only thinking Locke was important because Locke telling him in the 1950s and with Ben only betraying his people because of Sayid, but they had a great chance to tie everything up that way and they just didn't do it.
-Locke was actually Flocke for quite a long time. Locke was a really strange character with a lot of mysterious beliefs and a quickness to have "faith in the island". I though it would've been really cool to see that after one of his meetings with smokey or when he "saw into the heart of the island" that something really did change(i.e. it was no longer Locke) and that would give a great explanation to his character's actions throughout the series.
-There was a lot more to the "Desmond skipping through time" storyline, and they could've ran with that idea a lot more. Perhaps some of the other main characters such as Widamore and Ben were also skipping through time(when they mentioned that they couldn't kill each other in Widamore's hotel room, my theory was that they were each other's constant).
-Have Aaron be extremely important and the entire "don't let him be raised by another" be 100% true. I speculated a few weeks ago that maybe Alt-timeline Aaron would be raised by Claire and that he would grow up to be good(Jacob?) and the one not raised by Claire would grow up to be bad(MiB?)...it might not be the best story in the world, but at least it would've tied together a lot of loose ends and made the early season happenings actually mean something.
There were quite a few ways for them to go about answering all of these questions, but they decided to make the Jacob/MiB storyline the major one. And I just never really liked their storyline at all. I've already mentioned how bad I think Across the Sea was, and that probably is the main reason I don't like their characters....their motivations and actions simply don't make all that much sense. It definitely doesn't have me itching to go back to rewatch the show from the beginning.....if anything, I bet I'll just get more pissed off doing that because of the inconsistencies I'll find.
I think there were at least 10 theories I read on online message boards that I would've liked a lot more than the Jacob/MiB "story" we got. I put "story" quotes because I still don't feel as if we even got their story, which is my main complaint.
4. Looking back now, character's actions/motivations make even less sense.
-So why exactly did Ben go through all that trouble just to get Jack to operate on him? Jack loved saving people! There was absolutely no reason to not just go up, introduce yourself, and ask for Jack's help.
-Why were the Others so confrontational? Now that we know that the Others were just a random group of largely irrelevant people, it doesn't really make sense that they'd be so rude about "This is our island, don't cross this line ever again" type of stuff.
-WTF was Widamore's motivation? He hired Abbadon and a ton of other people, he set in place a ton of events(Abbadon telling Locke to first go to the island, telling Locke to go back to the island, etc.), him and Eloise supposedly were ok with murdering their child because of some greater good, him and Ben had some huge feud which was never really explained or even important, etc.
-There is a statue to Tawaret, they bring a fertility doctor to the island, Walt and Aaron are seemingly incredibly important....all of which leads us to believe that kids/pregnancy has some huge importance.
-Dharma....they were so interesting early on. Its so disappointing that their entire storyline is pretty much "A bunch of scientists found that the island had a ton of weird properties, they did experiments, their experiments never were successful enough to accomplish much."
5. Its just bad writing
Making certain things/characters seem really important, building suspense about them, and then revealing that they aren't important is simply bad writing. And Lost did this time and time again. Even if you buy into the "it was merely a character driven show" then you still have to acknowledge that Lost did this a ton of times and that its simply horrible writing. I won't even bother listing all of the examples here because theres too many. Some people will say that its just the nature of a TV show as its hard to plan so far ahead, but I would then point to things like the temple...it was only introduced in season 6 and it ended up being completely meaningless.
Cliff notes: Lost was a mystery-driven show. The writers built a ton of mysteries but had no real ideas on how to conclude them. So instead of concluding them, they gave a ton of unsatisfactory answers. Now several Lost fans are claiming that "it was a character driven show all along."
1. "Lost is a show about the characters and their stories. The mysteries are just secondary."
This seems to be a popular line among the Lost-defenders out there. Whats funny to me is that for 5 seasons whenever people complained about not getting answers, the response was always "Just wait...its still early in the story." And now that we haven't gotten those answers, the response is to tell us that the story was purely character driven and that the answers aren't all that important. I think thats BS.
I think that if the Lost-defenders were honest with themselves, they'd admit that the show's main appeal has always been the mystery aspect. Its the mysteries that have caused us to spend hours and hours on online message boards debating different things. Its the mysteries that caused us to go back and rewatch old episodes for clues. Think back to some of the best scenes in the history of the show such as Michael shooting Ana Lucia and Libby, Eithan not being on the plane's manifest, finding out that it was a flash forward and not a flashback at the end of season 3, first seeing Jacob and MiB at the beginning of the season 5 finale, etc. What do they all have in common? They're all great scenes because they're either great reveals or great cliffhangers. I think that anyone who doesn't admit that this is the major reason Lost is so popular is simply lying to themselves to justify how poorly the writers have handled the conclusion of so many mysteries.
Even if I were accept that "its a character driven show", then I don't think the characters are collectively strong enough to make it anything more than an average show. Don't get me wrong....Ben and Locke were phenomenal characters. Sayid, Desmond, Richard, and a few others were very solid as well. However, there were definitely a ton of weak characters such as Kate, Shannon, Boone, Claire, Sun(early on she was ok, but her character was horrendous after her and Jin got separated), Michael, etc. As a whole, the characters' stories just aren't compelling enough to make Lost anything more than a slightly above average TV show.
Listing the best characters only proves that its a mystery show imo. Ben and Locke were quite clearly the two best characters imo, and not surprisingly.....they had huge mysteries concerning their character's intentions and beliefs throughout the show!
Lost clearly marketed itself as a mystery show all along. Every promo was about mysteries and answers to those mysteries. The cliffhangers, the music to build suspense as a cliffhanger/reveal was happening, the character's vague communication, etc. was all in line with a mystery show. And that is what made it so great! So I'm simply not buying this nonsense about it being a character driven show all along.
2. The journey was indeed quite fun and very well done in certain parts.
I'm sure that because of the overall tone of my post, most people will think I hate the show. Thats not true at all. Through 5 seasons it was my favorite show of all time, and I argued for it as the best show ever quite a few times. The scenery was great, Emerson and O Quinn were brilliant in their roles, Sawyer/Hurley provided decent comic relief, the music fit the show perfectly, and so on. Theres definitely a lot to like about the show, and I do admit that I enjoyed it a lot.
3. My expectations were clearly too high, but I still think they could've done a lot better.
As I've mentioned before in these threads, I love movies with big twist endings that make you want to go back and rewatch the movie from the beginning. Movies such as The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, Sixth Sense all do a great job of this. And I was hopeful that whenever the "big reveal" happened in Lost that I'd want to go back and rewatch it from the very beginning.
I guess that with a TV show it just isn't possible to have a totally cohesive story and tie all the loose ends together. But I dunno....I'm not a writer by any means, yet even I can think of some pretty cool ideas that would've easily been better than what they did. A few things I thought would've been cool:
-The Losties traveled back in time to the 1970s(and earlier) and we find out that every problem they encountered in 2004 was actually caused by them in the past. Ben wasn't lying at all when he said "We're the good guys" as they were simply trying to fix the Losties mistakes. I thought that the "we're the good guys" line was actually one of the most interesting things about the early/mid seasons because the Others seemed so obviously bad on the surface. I thought it would've been really mind blowingly awesome if upon rewatching the show, we would've seen that the Others were actually 100% good all along and only appearing bad because of the situation that the Losties put them in when they time traveled. The show kinda hinted at this a bit with Richard only thinking Locke was important because Locke telling him in the 1950s and with Ben only betraying his people because of Sayid, but they had a great chance to tie everything up that way and they just didn't do it.
-Locke was actually Flocke for quite a long time. Locke was a really strange character with a lot of mysterious beliefs and a quickness to have "faith in the island". I though it would've been really cool to see that after one of his meetings with smokey or when he "saw into the heart of the island" that something really did change(i.e. it was no longer Locke) and that would give a great explanation to his character's actions throughout the series.
-There was a lot more to the "Desmond skipping through time" storyline, and they could've ran with that idea a lot more. Perhaps some of the other main characters such as Widamore and Ben were also skipping through time(when they mentioned that they couldn't kill each other in Widamore's hotel room, my theory was that they were each other's constant).
-Have Aaron be extremely important and the entire "don't let him be raised by another" be 100% true. I speculated a few weeks ago that maybe Alt-timeline Aaron would be raised by Claire and that he would grow up to be good(Jacob?) and the one not raised by Claire would grow up to be bad(MiB?)...it might not be the best story in the world, but at least it would've tied together a lot of loose ends and made the early season happenings actually mean something.
There were quite a few ways for them to go about answering all of these questions, but they decided to make the Jacob/MiB storyline the major one. And I just never really liked their storyline at all. I've already mentioned how bad I think Across the Sea was, and that probably is the main reason I don't like their characters....their motivations and actions simply don't make all that much sense. It definitely doesn't have me itching to go back to rewatch the show from the beginning.....if anything, I bet I'll just get more pissed off doing that because of the inconsistencies I'll find.
I think there were at least 10 theories I read on online message boards that I would've liked a lot more than the Jacob/MiB "story" we got. I put "story" quotes because I still don't feel as if we even got their story, which is my main complaint.
4. Looking back now, character's actions/motivations make even less sense.
-So why exactly did Ben go through all that trouble just to get Jack to operate on him? Jack loved saving people! There was absolutely no reason to not just go up, introduce yourself, and ask for Jack's help.
-Why were the Others so confrontational? Now that we know that the Others were just a random group of largely irrelevant people, it doesn't really make sense that they'd be so rude about "This is our island, don't cross this line ever again" type of stuff.
-WTF was Widamore's motivation? He hired Abbadon and a ton of other people, he set in place a ton of events(Abbadon telling Locke to first go to the island, telling Locke to go back to the island, etc.), him and Eloise supposedly were ok with murdering their child because of some greater good, him and Ben had some huge feud which was never really explained or even important, etc.
-There is a statue to Tawaret, they bring a fertility doctor to the island, Walt and Aaron are seemingly incredibly important....all of which leads us to believe that kids/pregnancy has some huge importance.
-Dharma....they were so interesting early on. Its so disappointing that their entire storyline is pretty much "A bunch of scientists found that the island had a ton of weird properties, they did experiments, their experiments never were successful enough to accomplish much."
5. Its just bad writing
Making certain things/characters seem really important, building suspense about them, and then revealing that they aren't important is simply bad writing. And Lost did this time and time again. Even if you buy into the "it was merely a character driven show" then you still have to acknowledge that Lost did this a ton of times and that its simply horrible writing. I won't even bother listing all of the examples here because theres too many. Some people will say that its just the nature of a TV show as its hard to plan so far ahead, but I would then point to things like the temple...it was only introduced in season 6 and it ended up being completely meaningless.
Cliff notes: Lost was a mystery-driven show. The writers built a ton of mysteries but had no real ideas on how to conclude them. So instead of concluding them, they gave a ton of unsatisfactory answers. Now several Lost fans are claiming that "it was a character driven show all along."
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boubucarow
Footballguy
I honestly would have trouble remembering all of this stuff in their entirety. But a lot of these are stretches to be included on this list. Many of them played major roles in further revealing the main characters to us or functioned as a turning point in character development. I am sure some seem to have no place at the same time. I really won't know until I can watch it all again which I surely will.
I think a lot of them were either answered or really not a huge deal the only one I wanted to know which seemed like a huge deal was number 4.
I can see that if you like how things ended. I still don't feel that even under that circumstance the final confrontation was epic enough. I could buy into some type of team confrontation (Jack, Kate, et al) but something grander.
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Premier
Footballguy
Awful.
Carver
Footballguy
Like??I think a lot of them were either answered or really not a huge deal the only one I wanted to know which seemed like a huge deal was number 4.
They dealt with Aaron being a devil child (and "special"). He wasn't.Like??I think a lot of them were either answered or really not a huge deal the only one I wanted to know which seemed like a huge deal was number 4.
Hellfire Snail
Footballguy
Excellent post. I think the majority of the time, the people who enjoyed the show interpret those who didn't as whiners or "haters" (which has been overused to the point of being numbing). And because someone enjoyed the show, naturally they'll feel defensive when someone else is critical. I know I can be that way.But it's so glaringly apparent how much BETTER this show could have wrapped up. It's mind-boggling how much better it could have been. Many of my friends who watch the show agreed that there were scores of theories put together over the years that would have made much, much more sense and been much, much more affecting. There were so many possibilities and constructs that would have allowed for more compelling scenes, more mind-blowing reveals and even more compelling interaction between these great characters. It's not just the mysteries that got deflated--to me, the character resolutions and what unfolded among them also could have been more impacting. It's not like it was impossible to have developed something other than two magical beings going against each other. It's not like it was impossible to have all the mysteries pointed at satisfying resolutions. It's simply that they weren't. And to ignore that fact, I think, is extremely difficult.It makes me think of what DeNiro say in A Bronx Tale. "The saddest thing in the world is wasted talent". LOST had the chance to truly be legendary, and it feels like the potential of it was largely squandered.
prosopis
Arizona Chupacabra
I loved this show and I will miss it a lot. I just read about 12 pages in here. I still love the finale and I will watch it again this week. It was nice to see this thread grow by this many pages with the finale. I remember when after every episode I had to read through 6-10 pages. That died down recently.
I agree with the Dark Tower comparison. If you like audio books the Dark tower series is excellent. I have read the series twice and probably listened to it four times. More then once I walked into work with swollen red eyes
after listening to a particular part.
Stephen King once said a great story is taking ordinary people and putting them in extraordinary circumstances. That is what Lost was to me. In some ways I could relate to almost every character and I cared what happened to them. Most of the acting was top notch on this show and that helped a lot. I will say it again. I am going to miss this show a lot.
I agree with the Dark Tower comparison. If you like audio books the Dark tower series is excellent. I have read the series twice and probably listened to it four times. More then once I walked into work with swollen red eyes
after listening to a particular part.Stephen King once said a great story is taking ordinary people and putting them in extraordinary circumstances. That is what Lost was to me. In some ways I could relate to almost every character and I cared what happened to them. Most of the acting was top notch on this show and that helped a lot. I will say it again. I am going to miss this show a lot.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Was that church also the lamp post station?
mlball77
Footballguy
Great post.And I'm with you on the Dark Tower series, having read it twice.... and having gotten a little choked up several times.Endings to a great story/saga are sort of bittersweet in most instances. Can be a great conclusion, maybe happy or maybe sad, but you're sad to see it end.I loved this show and I will miss it a lot. I just read about 12 pages in here. I still love the finale and I will watch it again this week. It was nice to see this thread grow by this many pages with the finale. I remember when after every episode I had to read through 6-10 pages. That died down recently.I agree with the Dark Tower comparison. If you like audio books the Dark tower series is excellent. I have read the series twice and probably listened to it four times. More then once I walked into work with swollen red eyesafter listening to a particular part.Stephen King once said a great story is taking ordinary people and putting them in extraordinary circumstances. That is what Lost was to me. In some ways I could relate to almost every character and I cared what happened to them. Most of the acting was top notch on this show and that helped a lot. I will say it again. I am going to miss this show a lot.
beer 30
Footballguy
That ####### map in the hatch!We spent months analyzing that damn thing and for what? I guess that relates back to my dissatisfaction with the whole Dharma thing. Just a colossal waste of time that had a lot of potential.
Native
Footballguy
We learned about most of the things on that blast door map. All of the Dharma stations, smokey, the tunnels, etc
AcerFC
Footballguy
Was it fatguy who brought up that list of plotlines that went no where.
Thought of it today when i was listening to the Stern show. Howard hated the show after watching for 3 seasons while Fa Fa Fooey loved it. But then Howard started grilling Gary about what the Dharma Initiative was all about and why women couldnt get pregnant and Gary could not answer one question.
John Hein came in and seemed to know what most of the answers were but there were some that he said, we didnt get the answer for that. Of course Howard made a huge thing out of it.
I just thought it was funny after that list was posted here
Thought of it today when i was listening to the Stern show. Howard hated the show after watching for 3 seasons while Fa Fa Fooey loved it. But then Howard started grilling Gary about what the Dharma Initiative was all about and why women couldnt get pregnant and Gary could not answer one question.
John Hein came in and seemed to know what most of the answers were but there were some that he said, we didnt get the answer for that. Of course Howard made a huge thing out of it.
I just thought it was funny after that list was posted here
shadyridr
Footballguy
So the purgatory/flash sideways scenes were all basically a red herring. I think I wouldve liked the last season without those scenes. Of course it wouldnt have been a happy ending (with Jack and a bunch of others dying, while the people on the plane survived) but I felt the whole purgatory thing was a cop out. Basically without those scenes many people wouldve been sad at all the people who died but the showing of the purgatory made us forget all those things and feel good.
Masked Vigilante
Footballguy
I've mulled it over for a day and put me in the "I loved the ending" part.
Haters gonna hate.
Haters gonna hate.
saintsdave75
Footballguy
apparently, one question was answered: MIB's name:
http://www.spinoffonline.com/2010/05/24/me...s-man-in-black/
http://www.spinoffonline.com/2010/05/24/me...s-man-in-black/
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SmoovySmoov
The Way of the Samurai
Found on Lostpedia, this is from someone who works for Bad Robot:
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
It's a TV show.
Masked Vigilante
Footballguy
Very cool if this is legit
AcerFC
Footballguy
desmond was not in the pilot (at least that i remember). Penny either so this seems off to me
Fennis
Footballguy
Penny wasn't even on the Island.
Eviloutsider
Footballguy
Desmond and Penny were not around in the pilot either.
(whoops, others beat me to it)
(whoops, others beat me to it)
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Fennis
Footballguy
or Libby and she was in the church.
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
I'd like this theory if Jack's story wasn't only about 15% of the show.
And if it would have happened, you would be talking about how great it was
SmoovySmoov
The Way of the Samurai
Yeah, that gets brought up throughout that thread. It's at 17 pages.
shadyridr
Footballguy
Well this is clearly bull#### because Desmond wasnt in season 1. Was Juliette in the church?
Tusken Raider
Footballguy
I thought that was
, & actually made me a little misty eyed, especially when Jack told him he'd done enough & needed to go be with his wife & child. I took this to mean Desmond was dying, even after Hurley & Ben lifted him out.
My take is that Christian was a key figure in Jack's life. He helped Jack reconcile his feelings about where he finally was (dead), and was a central character throughout the show's journey. And, we needed SOMEONE to finally explain what happened in the end. It sure as hell wasn't gonna be Vincent.
I don't listen to Stern but in Season 1 my wife heard him say he had inside knowledge & knew the basis behind the show, saying it had to do with Nazis or WWII experiments or something. Although they could have gone that route (I remember one of the Others holding a Luger type pistol at one point), I'm glad the writers didn't. Overall, I loved the show, the characters, & all of the mythology that went along with it. When I was 14 or so, I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time. It was the most compelling story I had ever been through. When I read the last page & put the book down, I was filled with a strange combination of sadness that it was over, but awesome sense of fulfillment to have been taken on such a great journey. While Lost pales in comparison to LOTR, this was only other time I've felt so genuinely thankful to have gone along for such a great fictional ride.
Premier
Footballguy
Awful.
shuke
Black Ice Skeptic
rabidfireweasel
Footballguy
but shuke, part of what nerd a nerd is that they get worked up about the small ####.In other words, relax, nerds.
shadyridr
Footballguy
Well cant you basically end every show or movie that has an otherwise sad ending with a scene of everyone reuniting in purgatory and thus have a happy ending? Thats what I feel like they did.
shadyridr
Footballguy
I agree. Not sure what everyone was expecting here. It was part of the ride and it was fun as hell.
Premier
Footballguy
I especially love the "they could have wrapped it up in 3 seasons" shtick.Yes, they could have. And they could have made about $800 million less. Brilliant idea folks.
Fennis
Footballguy
Thats what I get for starting on page 102.
Bobcat10
Footballguy
well, he's not saying they were all in the pilot. he's saying it was written, with people from season 1, right after writing the pilot. so that's still a bit off too (and that juliet/libby were in the church i believe). although one could argue that since season 1 ended looking down the hatch that the desmond/penny story was conceived by this point.
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Mr. Pickles
Footballguy
I buy it.
