• From: Seattle, WA
  • Registered: 2009-11-19
  • Posts: 590
  • User Karma: 13

Topic: Let's talk about the Lost finale (spoilers)

OK, so I'm friggin' starved for conversation about this show. The Jay & Jack show is delayed to Wednesday, the TFN board is covered in spoiler-black, and 2k is dead.

So, you guys. Awesome people. DIF fans. What did you think? Do you still have questions? Were you happy with the answers? Are you glad you stuck with the show?

And please, for God's sake, if you stopped watching the show, or never watched the show, don't come in here crowing about how happy you were you quit the show. No one ever bragged about walking out of 'Jedi' when Leia's getting poked in the ass by an Ewok.

I'm comparing Lost to Star Wars, you ask? Why yes I am. The show, at least the part on the Island, appears to follow pretty closely a hero's journey for Jack, from his first refusal of the call in the Pilot, to his death in the finale. More comparisons to come.

For now, I want to hear from you guys.

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Florida
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 703
  • User Karma: 27

Re: Let's talk about the Lost finale (spoilers)

Still digesting, but my initial reaction was "Ok...?"

Right off, yes I've seen the whole series; I had a marathon viewing right before this season started.

I guess when your show is called Lost you can't wrap things up with everyone being "found," nor will it be all neat and tidy, and I guess that's what I was expecting.

The whole final season is filled with poignant moments, but I don't feel like they really come together.  Sure the deaths of the last few episodes were moving, but how did they advance the plot?  We're always going on about storytelling on the show, and we always say that if a scene doesn't advance the plot, or give you some insight into a character or their motivation, it shouldn't be in there.  So how does killing off Sun and Jin help do anything other than whittle down the number of candidates?  Now, I get the need to create drama for drama's sake, especially in a show like this; I suppose that's what it comes down to.

There is also the matter of the "alternate LA" the series spends the whole season setting up.  Honestly I would have preferred it if they hadn't tried to explain it, because the explanation doesn't explain anything.  It feels like they wanted the last episode to have a scene where we bring everybody back together and everybody's happy, and worked backwards from there.  Again, nice scene, but is that really what six years was building toward?  If they really are all dead and having one last hurrah in limbo before moving on, great, but there were clearly survivors that made it off on the plane.

The season opens with the Island underwater.  The alternate LA is not "as things would have gone," but truly an alternate reality.  So I can buy that half the season is about these disembodied spirits trying to remember a past life, and then finding each other again in this world they've constructed in their shared consciousness.  If they're all dead, though, then they all have to die.  No one makes it off the Island, and the Island sinks, never to be found again.  Then we have the reveal that what we've observed as alternate LA, has just been Lost in limbo.  The End. I guess that's the only way everyone can really be "found" because in the end they all wind up in the same place. (Except for Linus, who...is not worthy...?)

Again, all this is based on initial reactions.  Lost is a dense narrative, one which I cannot recall rote.  The fact that right now I don't get it, but I want to get it, means that I'll be revisiting this universe again, and often.

Matt Vayda's Website

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Kyle
  • Kyle
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Carmel, Indiana
  • Registered: 2010-04-20
  • Posts: 284
  • User Karma: 61

Re: Let's talk about the Lost finale (spoilers)

I never saw any Lost other than like, the first half of the pilot.  The pilot seems pretty straightforward, and seems like a show I want to see.  However, every other conversation about Lost I've seen/heard/observed in some fashion over the years has left me with zero interest in ever getting into it.  It seems like a meaningless pile of plot twists and confusion that never bothered to tie it all together at the end.

If that's inaccurate, fine, but that's the impression I get very strongly and there's too many episodes for me to commit to giving it a shot anyway.

When.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Seattle, WA
  • Registered: 2009-11-19
  • Posts: 590
  • User Karma: 13

Re: Let's talk about the Lost finale (spoilers)

emfayder wrote:

If they're all dead, though, then they all have to die.  No one makes it off the Island, and the Island sinks, never to be found again.

Six people made it off the Island, the Ajira Six: Lapidus, Richard, Claire, Kate, Sawyer, and Miles. They went on to live full and productive lives. Three people stayed on the Island to protect it: Hurley, Ben, and Desmond.

Eventually, as everyone eventually does, all of them had died. Whether this was in 2011, or 2025, or 2090, we don't know. But once they were all gone, they came together in a Limbo-like construct that Hurley created so they could all be together one last time before heading off into the great Unknown. Think of it like the Matrix. The Island is at the bottom of the ocean in Limbo because that's what Hurley wanted.

Last edited by Gregory Harbin (2010-05-25 03:45:36)

Posted from my iPad
http://trek.fm

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Registered: 2010-01-26
  • Posts: 847
  • User Karma: 13

Re: Let's talk about the Lost finale (spoilers)

I did stop watching Lost a while back, but I'm not gonna brag about it. I'm actually kind of disappointed. My best friend was a faithful Lost viewer, and I always felt like he was in on something that I was missing out on.

Anyway, no, I'm not here to tell you what I thought of the finale. Instead, lemme just say this:

In my mind, there are three kinds of serial entertainments — and this goes for books, movies, TV shows, any medium where a serialized story is being told. There are the stories where you keep watching/reading/whatever because you have to find out what's going to happen next, or how it all ends. Think the old Republic cliffhanger serials. Then there are the stories where you don't really care that much what events occur in the plot; you're just hooked on the characters or the setting or the writing or whatever. Finally, there are the stories where an ambiguity has been set up and you're just dying to know what it means.

In my experience, types one and three — the plot-driven and the mystery-driven serials — are always a let-down on some level or another when they finally end.

I'll give you a for-instance. I got out of the habit of watching "The West Wing" after the start of the fifth season. Sorkin left, they radically changed styles, and I just wasn't enjoying it any more. So I turned it off and didn't go back.

That meant that, effectively, "The West Wing" ended for me with Zoe's kidnapping and Bartlet's middle-of-the-night resignation. (Er. Spoiler alert for a seven-year-old story.)

If I'd been watching 'cause I wanted to see how it all played out, or 'cause there was some mystery that wanted solving, that would have been the least satisfying finale ever. But as it is, I actually kind of enjoy stopping there. Because it's organic, to borrow a grotesquely overused phrase. What happens in that storyline makes perfect sense, and how it ends is inevitable in light of how it began. So I can pop in the DVDs, watch right up through that episode, turn them off and go on about my life secure in the opinion that it was pretty much the best TV series ever.

I think whether you enjoyed the Lost finale probably depends on whether you were watching for the plot, or for the mystery, or for something else. If you were in it for the plot — as I was, back when I watched the first season-and-a-bit — then I really don't think any ending could have felt truly satisfying.

Thumbs up Thumbs down