LOST FINALE!!!!

[manasecret]

Originally Posted by Teuthida

Which is why the writers did a crap job. If the island was purgatory, the show they started with would have made a lot of sense. They kept flashing back to their lives before the island showing their mistakes and flaws, and then working out similar things on the island. Nice and neat.

IMHO, nice and neat is overrated. I'm all for leaving things like life, a little messy, and a little lost. (sorry)

So then they go ahead and make the island the real world (with all its magic, demigods, and unexplainable nonsense) and create another world which basically just does the same thing except in reverse (and in one season) and makes everything before it a mess and completely void.

Everything that happened on the island I think is hardly a void. The island essentially saved all of the main characters. It brought them purpose and love. The island goes on, other stories go on, but the stories of the characters in our story, are complete. They were saved because of the island.

If Flocke did manage to get off the island, what then? Nothing. That whole storyline is pointless.

Disagree. I think it's assumed that Jacob was right in the end, that if Flocke was released, it would be the end of the world. But this is a plot that deals directly with a main theme. Faith. Jacob, Jack, Hurley, they all did their duty based on faith, like Desmond pressing the button.

I bet if you sat the writers down and forced them to explain everything at gunpoint they couldn't. They know less than the people they led on for six years. They can write good characters and create good mysteries (anyone can create a good mystery if there was never an answer to it to begin with) but boy do they suck at weaving a good story.

EDIT: And if they had any forethought at all, the time traveling would have worked really well with how in the finale different events happen at different times in the real world yet converge in the alt (Jack's bleeding, Hurley and Ben's little talk about being number 1 and 2). Missed opportunity. The whole show was a missed opportunity.

Well, can't disagree more, but that's all personal opinion. If they did the ending you wanted, how many others wouldn't have liked that ending? I went along for the ride, and enjoyed every bit of it.

[Teuthida]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

When you have a show where the big draw was for fans to create theories and pieces together snippets and hints of a grand mystery....that ends up never to be explained (or rather never existed)...it's pretty disappointing.







I missed the show. Were the interviews any good?

[Fox 6]

They were

Also i cant wait for Josh Holloways new project. Snakes on a plane 2: Electric Boogaloo.

[Typhoid]

I look at the end like this:

Draw your own conclusions. I think that's one of the reasons why they didn't answer how the Island is the Island, or Jacob is 'magic'. You can think what you want to about those things, because they're arbitrary to the characters themselves. If you wanted it to be electromagnetism, then believe that's what it was. If you think Jacob and his brother were demi-Gods, then believe they were demi-gods.

If you wanted the show to be answered with science and science alone, maybe you just weren't watching when Walt could read minds and showed up randomly, or when Jack's dad appeared in the first season after being dead, or when Jacob was mysteriously off Island randomly, or when Richard never aged, or when Ben was transported to a desert in Africa directly from the Island or even when Desmond doesn't die when exposed to any of the 'electromagnetism'. Maybe after finding out the main evil thing in the first 2 seasons is a clicking pillar of smoke that kills everything it touches and the Island isn't reachable except by one bearing, and appears to appear and disappear - you had your eyes closed. Who knows.

Weeks ago I (believe I posted, as well) said something like:

"I think the end will come down to people being like Locke, or Jack. Some people will just take what is happening as 'faith' (Locke), and other people will require scientific/logical answers to everything (Jack)."

And that is exactly what it came down to for viewers.

The show wasn't about the Island in my mind, and it never was. The show was about the people. It just happened that the people wanted to figure out what the fuck was up with the Island, but it's more about their struggles in their lives, and them reconciling who they used to be and changing into who they are, mixed with them building strong bonds with one another through the struggles on the Island. The Island was just the setting for these people to change their lives on and let go of who they used to be, and realize their own flaws.

I also like how the whole show was basically Jack vs. Locke.
In the beginning Jack was the scientific-type person who needs a logical answer to everything, and Locke worked off of a 'believe' mentality. They clashed. Locke died. Locke was taken over by Smoke Monster. Jack essentially turned into Locke, saying there is a reason to the Island, and it must be protected, thusly fighting Flocke - who now takes the role as early season Jack trying to get off the Island at all costs.

And I really liked how it ended. A lot. I think it ended really, really well.
Then again, at no time during the show did I need answers to anything. I was invested in the characters.

I will definitely be watching this show again.

[Bond]

I agree with Typhoid. The questions and the mysteries were just a way to propel the story arcs of the characters ... when we didn't know much of the background of the characters, the questions were the focal point of the show, but as we began to relate to and empathize with the characters, they became the focal point.

LOST, at its core, was a love story, and if you aren't one for love stories then I could see some cause for displeasure. However, probably should have seen it coming - it was always about love.


Also, the island was certainly not purgatory. Perhaps the sideways universe was purgatory, or it was a concocted universe by the castaways as a way to find one another before moving on. Jack was the last to *find* the church, but he was not the last of the castaways to die. I would assume Hurley and Ben lived to a ripe old age. It was interesting that Ben did not feel comfortable entering the church: perhaps he still felt as though he had not properly redeemed himself? Or perhaps he was waiting for Alex to move on? I quite like the latter option.

Edit: If you watch this TED talk by J.J. Abrams (entitled Mystery Box), the creator of LOST, you might get a better idea as to why there wasn't a need for concrete answers. The talk is captivating and engaging, but Abrams fails to reveal just quite what is truly inside the mystery box, but does it matter? I don't think so. At a point, the answer becomes irrelevant, and the journey and struggle is far more important ... kind of like life.

[Teuthida]

Lost at its core wasn't a love story. It's what it got twisted into it. If it was a love story about the characters why not just take place in LA without the mysteries?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

[manasecret]

Abrams is also big on puzzles, and very big on letting you figure out the puzzle yourself and not giving out the answer. (He edited a Wired issue with this theme a few months ago.) For any puzzle, the journey and self-discovery is what is the real fun and of importance, not the final answer. A simple example is using cheats during video games -- sure if you're stuck, you can look up the answer or use a cheat to make the game easier, but then you miss the self-accomplishment of it all. Or another example -- looking at the answers of a crossword puzzle without trying to get them for yourself. There's some satisfaction in getting the answers, sure, but it doesn't match the satisfaction of discovering them for yourself. This I think probably comes directly from his thoughts on mystery boxes.

That is likely where he left Lost. Many of the questions are puzzles that are given enough clues to let you decipher. The others are left as mystery boxes, for you to never know the true answer of what's inside, but with your imagination, leaving infinite possibilities.

[Teuthida]

That's like writing 3/4 of a book and then telling the reader to write the rest.

For your game cheating analogy...that would be like getting all the answers before the show ended. Sure the princess keeps ending up being in a different castle but Mario eventually gets her in the end. Lost is more like Mario trying to rescue the princess except at the end he doesn't find her and instead wakes up and it was all a dream.

What was fun was for the viewer to guess the answers during the course of the show. To never get any just flat out sucks.

[manasecret]

Which answers didn't you get? Can you list a few that you're wondering about?

EDIT: As far as the game cheating analogy, what I mean is that many questions are decipherable to a single or most logical conclusion without Abrams giving direct answers. But other questions are like the unopened mystery box, no single answer given.

[Teuthida]

Pretty much everything mentioned in that video above (although some of those can actually be answered if you think about them).

The numbers. They made them out to be so important and holding such great power. They explain it away by saying Jacob had a thing for numbers. That doesn't answer squat.

Walt. Had powers (Hurley and Miles also had powers but everyone passed talking to the dead off as normal so it's not really a mystery) which scared Ben and Juliet so much (not sure if that scene was in the main show or just online) that they let him go after trying so hard to acquire him.

Ties into the list of the good and the bad (which is why I also think they originally had the island set up to be purgatory but changed it...the children not being able to be born there would fit nicely with that too).

Locke being able to walk. Rose's cancer disappearing. Just the healing properties of the island?

Baby Aaron. There was so much damn focus on him. Nothing ever comes of that. He was born (after many attempts by the others to kidnap him and Claire), taken off island, and is seemingly a normal kid. He also figures into the whole kids not being able to be born on the island. One could say it was the nuke that prevented this (yet Richard knows about the nuke and still gets Juliet to come to the island to figure it out). It probably goes back further since that four toed statue is a fertility goddess.

Mostly I'm angry that they never had answers to how things worked: The donkey wheel which both moves the island and teleports the person pushing it...and is somehow frozen (which makes sense why they used polar bears...sort of...but still never to explain why it's frozen), MIB turning into the black smoke (yet Jack could chillax in the magic jacuzzi and come out normal...is it because he's now like Jacob?), explaining away everything by saying someone is "special", immortality and all of Jacob's powers and ability to share them.

Basically the whole nonsense with the light and evil escaping (MIB never came off as being evil incarnate). Why did Jacob have Richard and the others kill all of the Dharma initiative if he's the good guy?

Argh, basically nothing makes sense. No wonder they choose to ignore everything. Everything was poorly thought out.


EDIT: Hell for the whole donkey wheel thing all they had to do was show someone or something near the light, have the area freeze over slightly and disappear...and maybe reappear somewhere else on the island. MIB could deduct having an external wheel could maximize that power and leave the island. But no. We get "I'm special."

EDIT 2: And I get not explaining everything to leave things up to the viewer...I'm fine with that...but instead they make everything so final trying to explain away everything with a magic light and being special...and then have everyone die that one can't assume those mysteries are ever discovered.

EDIT 3 (to your edit and previous mention): Abrams didn't have anything to do with the show past the first season.

[Bube]

Ethan's superhuman strength wasn't answered!

[Fox 6]

"I f----- your sons dog."

[Teuthida]

More here: http://www.ihatemike.com/blog/2010/5/27/found.html

[Teuthida]

[Dylflon]

Alternate ending:

The whole thing was a crazy dream Vincent was having!