Analyze This

During the pre-finale special, the writers stated that one of the main the focuses of LOST was the resolution of Jack’s relationship with his father, Christian. One could argue that all the characters had some “issues” in their lives: Kate with her mother/step-father, Michael with Walt, Sun with Jin and her father, Charlie with drugs, Claire with her unborn son, etc., etc. These aspects of their characters moulded how or why they reacted to the various situations during the series; they were not the focus of the series. Yes, they learned from the experiences presented to them, but I didn’t watch LOST to be part of Therapy 101. Especially, at the end when the call went out: “Group hugs, everyone!”

In my opinion, the whole point of LOST was to say, as the tagline of “A Scanner Darkly” so succinctly stated: “Everything is not going to be OK”. This whole series had the hallmarks of a Philip K. Dick story. There have only been 2 other excellent versions of his works made into film: Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” D/C or F/C versions and Gary Fleder’s “Imposter”. The others are mundane or terrible, because they failed to understand the basic underlying principle of our post-modern existence, “Everything is not going to be ok.” (See Spielberg’s “Minority Report” as an example of how not to end a Philip K. Dick story.)

So, my question to you is: “Why did you make everything ok in the end?”

Plan B

It has been argued that the entire story of LOST was planned out from its inception, and this is perhaps true, but only on a rudimentary level.
The original story concept had the character of Dr. Jack Shephard being “killed off” either in the pilot episode or shortly thereafter. Actor Michael Keaton was to play the role, until it was decided that Jack would be the focus of the series. At that point, Keaton backed out. Change #1.
Michael Emerson, who played Ben Linus as an adult, claimed in the pre-finale special that his character was originally scheduled for only 2-3 episodes, but this was also changed. In fact, he appeared in 60 episodes of LOST. Change #2.
Here are 2 examples of the plan being changed. If it was changed twice; once at the source and again in midstream, then it could have been changed more times, such as: making a clean, sweet & “feel good” ending.
It is true that the conclusion of any series, is to say good-bye to the characters and the show, but a weepy, sentimental and therapeutic ending was not in keeping with the style that was established in Season 1.

Honestly, that’s where you make your money.

During the 2 hour special prior to the last episode, the writers said that they wanted to respect the intelligence of their audience. They failed at the end.
One of the main reasons I began to watch and yes, became obsessed by LOST was that not only did it not involve police/criminal investigations, hospitals/doctors or lawyers/courts, it dealt with some fundamental philosophical issues, such as: free will vs. determinism and the struggle between good and evil. The ending of this series dropped all that, so they could “focus on the importance of the relationships between the characters.” I pretty much got the “importance of the relationships-thing” while watching the first 5 seasons. These people went from being complete strangers to a closely knit community in about 3 months (LOST time). I didn’t need to be blunged by it and then buried in it, at the end. If the “relationships” were so important, then what happened to: Charles Widmore, Ana Lucia, Michael & his son, etc. during the sentimental, “pairing off”, church scene at the end? Scheduling problems with the actors? When did Benjamin Linus have an epiphany? He went from a sociopath to Hurley’s little helper in a matter of moments.
The question everyone wanted answered was “What the hell is the island all about?” Jacob’s 30 second analogy of a corked wine flask, just doesn’t cut it.In addition, the startling revelation that we all eventually die, was a real cop out.
These people were experiencing a living nightmare, Twilight Zone-style. Therefore, it should have had a Twilight Zone ending.
Alternate ending:
The whole “All Dogs Go to Heaven” timeline should have been dropped. The focus should have been entirely on the struggle between the Oceanic survivors and Jacob. Who, if anyone, will replace Jacob?
When Jack finally buys the farm, and he watches the jet fly over (but doesn’t know who made it onto the plane), he sees Vincent and closes his eyes.
Then, return to the opening scene of the pilot episode, when Jack opens his eye, sees Vincent and is lying in the jungle. When he rushes to the beach, his look of horror, could be from the accident scene or it could be because he realized the whole thing is about to begin again. Fade to Black!
That’s an interesting ending. That makes people ask questions, like they did at the beginning of the series.
Now, if people ask me if they should experience LOST, this is what I would say:
“It was a great concept, and there were some wonderful episodes and story lines, but don’t expect a lot from the ending; just enjoy the series, while you’re watching it.”
It was disappointing, because it was “safe”; and “safe” was NOT what LOST was all about.

As for “Thus began Jacob’s plan to bring candidates to the Island to do the one thing he couldn’t do. Kill the MIB. He had a huge list of candidates that spanned generations. Yet every time he brought people there, the MIB corrupted them and caused them to kill one another. That was until Richard came along and helped Jacob understand that if he didn’t take a more active role, then his plan would never work.”

Well what in the show actually supports this? Where did Richard come from and why doesn’t he age? Why didn’t Richard just kill MIB?

Who was it that actually convinced Ben to gas the Dharma project people? I thought it was Richard actually, which is not consistent with the MIB corruption theory unless you think it wasn’t Richard but the MIB that did it–
which then means that the entire narrative is suspect because *anyone* at *anytime* could have been the MIB.

Furthermore, if MIB knew all these people were coming to the Island to kill him, why didn’t he just exterminate them all on sight?

Basically, while most of this theory is not inconsistent with what we saw on the show, there is little evidence to actually support it.

As for the ending being filmed with the pilot, that just proves that you could slap that end on any show and it would be beautiful and sweet (think Seinfeld, Friends, the Jeffersons + All in the Family, etc.) –it would be consistent with, but utterly disconnected from, anything that happened before.

Also, the “writer” who contributed this exposition spells many of the characters’ names wrong (it’s “Frank Lapidus” for example) so for that and other reasons, I call BS.

As far as I’m concerned, Lost proved to be little more than an experiment for the writers to see how much the audience would accept at face value. And the number of people insisting on all the boards of the finale’s brilliance, says people will accept quite a lot. The writers were far too cleaver, inventing mysteries and pseudo-science they had no idea of resolving in any believable fashion, so they didn’t even try.

“Everybody dies sometime”. Well, duh. That is the lamest ending to a great mystery I’ve seen. Yes, the ending was emotionally powerful, in that almost all the characters get to “live” happily ever after, but it failed to answer far too many of the unresolved mysteries. When watching the pilot episode for the time, I remember thinking all those years ago, ok, this is going to be a modern day Gillian’s Island, then the noises were heard from the jungle and they heard the prerecorded message from Roussou that had been playing for years…that’s when I was hooked. It was the questions, the mystery, that drove me and many others of my ilk.

As to his explanation as to why Michael was left out, insider explains because he hadn’t earned it. Michael killed Ana Lucia and Libby. Okay. But what about Sayid? Sayid has killed more people and inflicted more harm that Michael ever did. At least Michael’s motivation was the safety of his child. Sayid’s killings haven’t always had a better motivation at heart. Insider might reply that Sayid’s ultimate sacrifice at the end of the Candidate redeemed him. But Michael also was blown up on the freighter. He sacrificed himself to buy more time for the others to get off the boat. Why didn’t that earn him his place in the sideways flash?

NY Times Lost Live event:

It’s 10 10 minute parts, very informative and entertaining.
charlieromeobravo
May. 27, 2010 14:56pm

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Yeah, I’m still not buying that they had the final scene planned out so well that they wouldn’t include Ben. What about Juliet and Penny? They didn’t know that Ben would become such a key character but they somehow had planned out Juliet and Penny?

@CRB – I’m not so much mocking the WAAAALLLTTT! storyline as I am this idea that they had this final scene planned out so well from Day 1 that they refused to include Ben because he wasn’t in their original version.

What about Juliet and Penny? They didn’t know that Ben would become such a key character but they somehow they knew that Juliet and Penny would work out like they did and had them written in? Riiiiiiggggghhhhhhttt……….

It’s 10 10 minute parts, very informative and entertaining.

You might try looking for the New York Times Lost Live event on You Tube. Carlton and Damon explained the Walt thing to some degree. Some of it was that they were stupid and cast a 12 year old to play a 9 year old but they also touch on Walt’s specialness. Basically, Walt’s paranormal abilities freaked The Others out so much that they just wanted him gone.

RE: The Crash Images: ABC wins the “we’re fuckwit douchebags” of the year award for basically showing the whole world that they don’t pay attention to the shows they broadcast beyond the ratings numbers. If they had a inkling of a clue of what the show was about and how people watched it they would have realized that EVERY image of that show was laboriously picked apart by the viewers. The producers know that and were very careful about what they presented on the show because of that. ABC putting some random image in there just screwed with people who are used to every image meaning something and it was particularly misleading given the contents of the previous 2 hours of TV we just watched.