Lost (spoilers)

Started by MacGuffin, October 07, 2004, 01:10:26 AM

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Derek

There are some reviews for the next episode online already. Without being spoilerish, it apparently gets things back on track and kicks things into gear big time.
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

diggler

pretty pretty pretty good
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty

Neil

Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2010, 01:06:53 PM
Quote from: polkablues on April 26, 2010, 01:05:00 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 25, 2010, 05:17:18 PM
I wonder who david's mother is, have they showed this?

I'm wondering if I missed that in an episode.  I don't feel like i have, but cannot be sure?

I just don't think it's the sarah chick, or whatever her name is. The one who jack "saved."

I'm calling Juliet.  You heard it here first.

Dark hair, and pouty eyes. i'm calling Kate.


Yep.
it's not the wrench, it's the plumber.

blackmirror

Quote from: ddiggler on May 18, 2010, 11:45:08 PM
pretty pretty pretty good

Yes, it was.  For the fans of this program, you probably agree completely that LOST is postmodern in attitude and approach -- a multiplicity of parallax views and ontological fugues. I think it seems to resemble life in a way because our lives are, already, postmodern. After pairing this episode with "Across the Sea", my feeling about it is that Jacob, like everyone else on LOST, is himself lost -- and this seems to be perfectly articulated in "What They Died For". Jacob isn't omniscient, he isn't a god. He's made a huge mistake in creating the Monster. He is also a human being that has been given a monumental task. Jacob has become an extremely sympathetic character for me. Notice how he resists his Mother's and his brother's perspective -- he believes, in fact, he WAGERS everything on the fundamental freedom of humanity to choose good, to choose sacrifice, to choose what is best for the world and not just for themselves. His entire life as guardian of the Island is based on this risk, this wager. That is commendable. He wasn't given a choice by his Mother. He wasn't really a candidate, he wasn't really free. But everything he has done since then has been for optimal freedom. Someone has to protect the Island, but he brought a wide range of people, spread a wide net, and finally offers this job as a choice. He gives the remaining candidates a choice, something he was not given. Jacob realizes that the task of guarding the Island is a burden and a blessing, not to be taken lightly, and he knows that it will include a lot of suffering, but regardless of that he has made up his own rules so that there will be an optimization of freedom. The scene where he gathers the remaining castaways around the fire and offers them this job was my favorite from tonight -- how different that was from the talk with Mother outside the cave. His burning ashes was a graceful and simple preparation for the approaching, long-awaited denouement.  I also love the idea that Jacob not only protects the Island, but the Island has given him a purpose he never would have had, otherwise. It is a noble and heroic life. Likewise, he saw in the candidates himself: his own loneliness, his own emptiness, and offered these people a chance to make of their lives something great, something more than they could ever be on their own. Jacob reiterates what Locke and others have said of the Island, if you give yourself to it -- give it your life -- it can give something back to you. Not happiness, but meaning. A life with a transcendent purpose.  For a television show, that's pretty amazing.

Derek

Quote from: Neil on May 18, 2010, 11:46:41 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2010, 01:06:53 PM
Quote from: polkablues on April 26, 2010, 01:05:00 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 25, 2010, 05:17:18 PM
I wonder who david's mother is, have they showed this?

I'm wondering if I missed that in an episode.  I don't feel like i have, but cannot be sure?

I just don't think it's the sarah chick, or whatever her name is. The one who jack "saved."

I'm calling Juliet.  You heard it here first.

Dark hair, and pouty eyes. i'm calling Kate.


Yep.

Kate was a fugitive in the sideways timeline, on the same 815 flight as Jack and everyone else. They are going to a concert, where David says his mother will be. Kate has been tied up in jail....I would say no.
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

OrHowILearnedTo

#1775
Quote from: Derek on May 19, 2010, 12:06:55 AM
Quote from: Neil on May 18, 2010, 11:46:41 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2010, 01:06:53 PM
Quote from: polkablues on April 26, 2010, 01:05:00 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 25, 2010, 05:17:18 PM
I wonder who david's mother is, have they showed this?

I'm wondering if I missed that in an episode.  I don't feel like i have, but cannot be sure?

I just don't think it's the sarah chick, or whatever her name is. The one who jack "saved."

I'm calling Juliet.  You heard it here first.

Dark hair, and pouty eyes. i'm calling Kate.


Yep.

Kate was a fugitive in the sideways timeline, on the same 815 flight as Jack and everyone else. They are going to a concert, where David says his mother will be. Kate has been tied up in jail....I would say no.

"We are going to a concert"

picolas

Quote from: blackmirror on May 19, 2010, 12:03:57 AM
Quote from: ddiggler on May 18, 2010, 11:45:08 PM
pretty pretty pretty good

Yes, it was.  For the fans of this program, you probably agree completely that LOST is postmodern in attitude and approach -- a multiplicity of parallax views and ontological fugues. I think it seems to resemble life in a way because our lives are, already, postmodern. After pairing this episode with "Across the Sea", my feeling about it is that Jacob, like everyone else on LOST, is himself lost -- and this seems to be perfectly articulated in "What They Died For". Jacob isn't omniscient, he isn't a god. He's made a huge mistake in creating the Monster. He is also a human being that has been given a monumental task. Jacob has become an extremely sympathetic character for me. Notice how he resists his Mother's and his brother's perspective -- he believes, in fact, he WAGERS everything on the fundamental freedom of humanity to choose good, to choose sacrifice, to choose what is best for the world and not just for themselves. His entire life as guardian of the Island is based on this risk, this wager. That is commendable. He wasn't given a choice by his Mother. He wasn't really a candidate, he wasn't really free. But everything he has done since then has been for optimal freedom. Someone has to protect the Island, but he brought a wide range of people, spread a wide net, and finally offers this job as a choice. He gives the remaining candidates a choice, something he was not given. Jacob realizes that the task of guarding the Island is a burden and a blessing, not to be taken lightly, and he knows that it will include a lot of suffering, but regardless of that he has made up his own rules so that there will be an optimization of freedom. The scene where he gathers the remaining castaways around the fire and offers them this job was my favorite from tonight -- how different that was from the talk with Mother outside the cave. His burning ashes was a graceful and simple preparation for the approaching, long-awaited denouement.  I also love the idea that Jacob not only protects the Island, but the Island has given him a purpose he never would have had, otherwise. It is a noble and heroic life. Likewise, he saw in the candidates himself: his own loneliness, his own emptiness, and offered these people a chance to make of their lives something great, something more than they could ever be on their own. Jacob reiterates what Locke and others have said of the Island, if you give yourself to it -- give it your life -- it can give something back to you. Not happiness, but meaning. A life with a transcendent purpose.  For a television show, that's pretty amazing.
:bravo: welcome!

Kal

I don't want it to end!!!!!!!!

©brad

Does Lost Owe Us Anything?
Source: Gawker
By Richard Lawson

As the bigtime Lost finale approaches (Sunday, 9pm), folks are getting concerned that the show won't end satisfyingly. Well, concerned might be too gentle. Some people are preemptively angry. We're wondering today: Do they have a right to be?

It's sort of that age-old (well, TV age old at least) question of what, if any, contract have the creators of a serial television show signed with the audience. In a perfect world, or a vacuum, television writers would be able to write the episodes and seasons they wanted and the fans, grateful for the free(ish) entertainment, would lap it up all the same. Some small disappointments, some favorite episodes, but mostly everything would be the same mid-high level of enjoyment. Sometimes that does happen with easier-to-swallow series like NCIS or Two and a Half Men, but for more complex shows, the ones that really suck viewers in, a sense of the proprietary begins to emerge. Ownership of the show's content is transferred from the minds behind the story to those gobbling it up and demanding more far faster than the creative folks can produce.

New York Times TV critic Mike Hale touches on this point today, looking at how the balance of power in the Lost story has shifted over the years:

Certainly we have always expected the satisfaction of resolution and revelation in our fictional narratives, but we had to let creators provide it on their own terms and then judge the overall result. "Lost" is a sign that that's not so true anymore, at least with regard to television. Now that the public conversation about how a work should play out can be louder, and have greater impact, than the work itself, the conversation will inevitably begin to shape the work in ways that earlier television producers - or, say, Charles Dickens - never had to reckon with.

And he's right. Lost showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have themselves admitted to curating a balance between what they wanted to do and — in a more workmanlike, episode-to-episode, little details kind of way — what the audience was clamoring for. "You hate Nikki and Paulo? Fine, here, they're dead," they seemed to say (in their biggest and most unfortunate mea culpa). It was an interesting thing to watch, nerdy fanboys who make the product conversing with the nerdy fanboys who consume it. It was kind of charming, a friendly back-and-forth about a great mind-bending adventure. Neither side seemed to be terribly irked by the other, and the dialogue between lord and serf progressed mostly civilly.

But at some point that relationship kind of soured, didn't it? At some point this season or last, things got a little more urgent. And as episode after episode failed to answer this riddle or that mystery, rancor grew and grew. Now you have beleaguered cast and crew trying to hold strong against the backlash—they made the show they wanted to make, and fans will have to deal with it one way or the other. What happened happened. Which, OK, holding firm on artistic principle is all well and good. We can get behind that.

And yet they then announce that the Season Six DVD package will contain answers to additional mysteries. So wait a tic. They had answers to things but didn't put them in the show? Why, did they run out of time? Do they not care about creating the perfect bow-topped present for us? And this here is where the anger comes in.

While walking home with a friend from a viewing party on Tuesday night, I sighed and said words I never thought I'd say. "I feel like they lied to us, I feel cheated, all the time travel and Dharma stuff and everything that happened up until we met Jacob and MIB was filler." I felt sincerely disappointed with the penultimate episode (and the one before it...) and, more strangely, I felt genuine anger toward Cuse and Lindelof. I was mad that they'd created this beautiful mystery box (where's that box from Season 3 anyway?) and then filled it with, what, hokum about the light inside us all and the struggle between faith and curiosity? All of this is just about the age-old and well-worn debate between the heart and the mind? This was not the creepy hatch-beeping, number-pushing, mechanical smoke dinosaur ride I'd signed up for six rainy years ago. And they knew. They knew it wasn't going to be, but they kept stringing us along. They kept acting coy at interviews, promising us that they'd wrap things up properly, that most of these strings (the bigger ones at least) were all leading to one common, perfect knot. And yet so far this season has felt so rushed and vague, such a severe left turn from the previous five years of narrative. By the time my friend and I reached Bowery, I was a bit whipped up, mad that I'd ever let myself love again after the slow march toward disappointment that was the whole X-Files mythology.

Look at something like The Sopranos. That show was capital-A Art, and its unsatisfying ending (to some, not me!) mostly came to be accepted as a confusing but artistically justifiable maestro's stroke. Why can't Lost be the same? Well, because while The Sopranos certainly had its share of unanswered questions — where's the Russian from the Pine Barrens?? — creator David Chase was typically fairly tight-lipped and determined about where the show was heading. He never indulged the audience in the same way that Lindelof and Cuse, whether by mandate of ABC or by their own ego, certainly did. They stuffed us full of mysteries like Se7en gluttons and promised, promised, us that if we just held on for three more seasons, we'd be happy. Or mostly happy. At least content. But now the time's come and the final episodes have felt a bit like diversionary farts. Isn't it sad that Sun and Jin died? Yes, it is, but not enough to make us stop wondering about Walt and Why Aaron Is Special and Egyptian Hatch Symbols. All those questions. You promised guys. You really did. And now we just have to eat the thin soup it really feels like you're going to give us on Sunday. And that sucks. Basically, I went to sleep angry on Tuesday night.

But then the next day I woke up and felt silly. I'm just watching a free TV show that has provided many hours of viewing entertainment and countless more of theorizing with friends and wasting work days reading Doc Jensen and The Tail Section. If the show's mythology does come down to a rudimentary rumination on faith, well... so be it. I'll still have loved the entire first season, I'll still have covered my eyes when barefooted Others first walked by, still marveled at Elizabeth Mitchell's coolly brilliant acting. Lost was a great show! And it's still a pretty good one. Plus it's not even over yet, I could yet be satisfied. Why be so mad? What do they—Them, the Lost powers that be, the true Others — really owe me, or any of us, anyway?

We invested lots of time, they invested countless dollars and man hours and creative energy. We propped up the show with our eyeballs, our blog posts, our participation in those agonizing summertime internet Easter egg hunts. They created the whole thing, out of nothing. Is that really equal work done? Not really. They did all the heavy lifting. Let them end it their way. We should just be grateful for the fun. That's the best way to think about it.

But then I think about every forgotten question and I'm mad again. And then I'm not. I catch myself. This is silly. Is it silly? Are we all being silly about a TV show, or do we deserve something grander, more wholly definitive than it feels like we're gonna get?

MacGuffin

Hurley says goodbye to 'Lost'
Jorge Garcia writes about the popular series' end
Source: Variety

At 5 a.m. on April 24, I became unemployed.

I just wrapped my six-season run on "Lost." The job that went above and beyond anything I could have imagined was over. When I auditioned for "Lost," I was just another out-of-work actor struggling to land a pilot. When I first went in to meet the producers, there wasn't any material for me, except a few sides they had for the character Sawyer.

I felt great about the audition; so great, in fact, that getting the part wasn't important because I knew I couldn't have done any better. Then I got the call that I was going to test, and that they were going to write scenes specifically for me. I remember noticing I was the only Hurley in the room waiting to test. I called my agent from the parking lot afterward and said, "I don't know what it meant but it felt like a good thing."

When I got hired I hadn't even seen the pilot script. All I knew was that it was a J.J. Abrams show and that it would shoot in Hawaii. I figured, if anything, I had just scored an extended Hawaiian vacation.

Moving to Hawaii was a dream come true. When I worked the magazine stand at Borders in Westwood, I remember seeing a picture of Kelsey Grammer in his Hawaiian home on the cover of Architectural Digest and thinking that having a home in Hawaii was a good benchmark for success. Not two months in my new apartment in L.A., I was trying to figure out what to pack for a show that I had no idea how long would last. Now six years later, I walk around my house trying to figure out what to pack from all of the stuff I have amassed in Hawaii over the show's run.

During the pilot and the first summer of shooting we bonded quickly as a cast. After all, not unlike the show's premise, we literally found ourselves on an island with one another. We'd go to each other's houses on the weekends and nights when we weren't shooting. When the shows started airing, we would usually gather at the house of whomever the show was going to feature that week to watch and congratulate each other.

We had no information about what was going on beyond what we read in the script each week. We knew we were making TV that was not like anything seen before and crossed our fingers hoping we would find an audience who liked what we were doing.

The series premiere brought in better numbers than we anticipated and I remember saying to the other actors the next day, "I hope you like it in Hawaii because we may be here for a while."

As the seasons progressed, moments of being recognized on the street grew exponentially. There was a time during season one when all I had to do was tie my hair back to become invisible. Obviously, that does nothing for me now; neither does wearing a hat and sunglasses. At times both Daniel Dae Kim and Terry O'Quinn remarked how they enjoyed disappearing when they were around me as I would be the only one getting recognized.

Hawaii has been a wonderful place to hide for six years. Sometimes I could almost convince myself that "Lost" was a just a little show I did with friends in the jungle. I always liked to think of us as the tinkers in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" until something would shake that fantasy and I'd be forced to recognize how huge the show was becoming, like getting nominated for a Golden Globe. J.J., always the consummate mensch, wanted my experience to be enjoyable and easy at the awards, so he gifted me my first custom-tailored tuxedo.

I think the time spent under the cast tent on set will be what I'll miss the most. We sang songs to Terry and Naveen's guitar playing, made valiant group efforts to complete a Friday edition of the New York Times crossword puzzle and played a lot of Scrabble.

My last day on "Lost" was also my longest: 20 hours. Without going into details, I can say the shoot was dangerous, physical and wet. But what could be more appropriate? How else could we end this epic show without an epic marathon night of shooting? At the end of it all we all remarked how we expected the end to be more emotional for us, but we were too tired to cry.

I'll admit I got a little teary with Matthew Fox. I thanked him for everything he taught me, including taking me on his trip to Japan to see Green Day that first summer of shooting. At the time, flying at the last minute to a foreign country was way out of my comfort zone, but then again nothing on "Lost" was ever in my comfort zone.

I stuck around after even after I wrapped to see the martini shot of the entire show. I could feel director Jack Bender's resistance to call "print" on that last take. In fact I'm pretty sure he asked for one more take to delay the inevitable.

I still don't think the end of it all has hit me yet. Maybe I'll feel it when the finale finally airs Sunday. Or maybe it will hit me when I board the plane at Honolulu Airport for the last time as a Hawaiian resident.

I have no clue what my next adventure is going to be, I just know this job is going to be a hard one to follow.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

AntiDumbFrogQuestion

Quote from: Derek on May 19, 2010, 12:06:55 AM
Quote from: Neil on May 18, 2010, 11:46:41 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2010, 01:06:53 PM
Quote from: polkablues on April 26, 2010, 01:05:00 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 25, 2010, 05:17:18 PM
I wonder who david's mother is, have they showed this?

I'm wondering if I missed that in an episode.  I don't feel like i have, but cannot be sure?

I just don't think it's the sarah chick, or whatever her name is. The one who jack "saved."

I'm calling Juliet.  You heard it here first.

Dark hair, and pouty eyes. i'm calling Kate.


Yep.

Kate was a fugitive in the sideways timeline, on the same 815 flight as Jack and everyone else. They are going to a concert, where David says his mother will be. Kate has been tied up in jail....I would say no.


Yep AND!!!!


I don't want to call anyone ignorant, but if you can remember back a couple months to the FIRST EPISODE OF THE SEASON, KATE RUNS INTO JACK ON THE PLANE..."aw jeez, Kate, I didn't recognize the mother of my own child"

I kinda don't know if whoever called Kate as Mom is joking or not...because I know some people who wouldn't be.

modage

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

MacGuffin

I was crying my eyes out.  :yabbse-cry:
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

polkablues

Ditto. I don't know if it all holds together intellectually, but that's a question for tomorrow and the day after. It was as emotionally satisfying a finale as we could have possibly hoped for. For now, I'll just say it was perfect.
My house, my rules, my coffee

Myxo

Since this thread has a (SPOILERS) tag on it, I'll open up.

I'd never seen a single episode of the series but watched the final tonight. I figured hey, I'll just see what I can follow. A co-worker of mine spent the better part of an hour this past Friday explaining things to me. I remembered telling her "what if they're all just dead and none of what your'e watching is really real? What if their experiences are just some sort of purgatory? Like a process of letting go?" She seemed mad at me for that notion. But from everything she had told me, I sensed enough religious allegory to make some good guesses. She was mad at me because everyone being dead all along seemed like the "easy route" to her. For a series with so many loose endings she just felt like that would be too easy an ending. I can't comment myself yet.

Seems like a good series. Even though I've seen how it ends, I'd like to watch the whole thing now.

..oh and the music for the finale was absolutely spot on great. It made the show engaging for me, even when I was confused. Was like a road map telling me how I should feel. An interesting way to watch a TV show.