Lost (spoilers)

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

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MacGuffin

Quote from: andyk on December 02, 2005, 12:09:49 PMEveryone STOP bitching at Ana Lucia... you sound like a bunch of pussies... she is ONE character on a show tha has like 12 main characters and where there is so much going on more than her... Everyone hated Sawyer at the beginning, or many other characters at the beginning when you didnt know them... now Ana Lucia is not the best character, and Michelle Rodriguez is not the best actress, but give her a frickin break.

Sawyer - who you loved to hate; you can understand Kate's attraction to and repulsion of him; he has personality
Ana Lucia - you just hate; you cannot understand what Jack (will) see in her; she has no other face than mad (character and "actress")

That's the difference.
"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

Gamblour.

Quote from: andyk on December 02, 2005, 12:09:49 PMEveryone STOP bitching at Ana Lucia... you sound like a bunch of pussies... she is ONE character on a show tha has like 12 main characters and where there is so much going on more than her... Everyone hated Sawyer at the beginning, or many other characters at the beginning when you didnt know them... now Ana Lucia is not the best character, and Michelle Rodriguez is not the best actress, but give her a frickin break.

we sound like a bunch of pussies?
WWPTAD?

Tictacbk


grand theft sparrow

NEW EPISODE TONIGHT!!!

And I thought I'd share something 2 friends of mine (who just finished watching Season 1 last week and came over this weekend to watch season 2 which I have on DVR) wrote over the weekend.  All of the research is, as far as they know, accurate, except for what's obviously not.


Shakespeare and "Lost": Written in the Numbers
By Drs. Adam B. Hunault and Teresa A. Jusino
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The Tempest, like "Lost", takes place on an island.  Coincidence?  We think not!  As The Tempest begins, there are 4 characters stranded on this island.  After the shipwreck, there are 15 total named characters that end up on the island...
   
William Shakespeare, author of The Tempest, lived from the 1500s to the 1600s – he was born on 4/23/1564.  He was one of 8 children.  He was the eldest son, and his youngest brother was born 16 years later.  He married Anne Hathaway, who was 8 years his senior.  She has 4 letters in her first name and 8 in her last name.  Shakespeare died on 4/23/1616, but his work wasn't assembled until the first folio, published in 1623.  Shakespeare's mother died in 1608 and his wife in 1623.
   
Shakespeare's lifelong relationship with the mysterious "Lost" numbers doesn't end there.  During his career, he wrote plays in 4 major categories (tragedies, comedies, histories and romances), as well as 154 sonnets of 16 lines each. 
   
Shakespeare's first play was probably Titus Andronicus – this 15 letter title is the earliest instance of Shakespeare referencing "Lost" numbers in his work.  The Bard went on to write six plays with 4 word titles, as well as 4 plays named after a pair of characters, e.g. Romeo and Juliet, (4 x two = 8).  Of all of Shakespeare's plays, 4 dealt with the Roman Empire, while 8 more take place in the Italian Renaissance.
   
In his histories, which were among his earlier plays, Shakespeare had not yet achieved the sophistication necessary to cleverly conceal his "Lost" numbers.  There were 8 major histories, often divided into two "cycles" of 4 plays each.  Shakespeare clearly drew his inspiration from the "Lost" numbers on the first of these cycles (Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV and Henry V – 2+4+4+5=15), while the influence of "Lost" numbers is obvious in his decision to write about Henry IV (4) and Henry VIII (8).  The most famous of characters in the histories is Sir John Falstaff, who has 4 letters in his first name and 8 letters in his last name; the character appears or is mentioned in 4 plays.  Arguably the most famous line in all the histories in King Henry's exhortation "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!" which appears in Henry V, act III scene 1, (3+1=4).
   
The comedies are by far the most fertile source of "Lost" numbers in Shakespeare.  Shakespeare's most memorable comedic heroes, Beatrice and Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing, each have 8 letters in their name, a sum that their union at the end of the play brings to 16.  Shakespeare's comedies famously end in marriage – 4 people get married at the end of The Taming of the Shrew and at the end of Midsummer Night's Dream, while Shakespeare's personal best was undoubtedly the 8 characters who got married at the end of As You Like It (a total of 4 marriages).  One comedy that did not end in marriage was The Merry Wives of Windsor, but it nonetheless featured a "love square" of 4 characters formed by Falstaff and the three titular wives, while the mischief in The Comedy of Errors revolves around two sets of twins (2x2=4).   The title character of The Taming of the Shrew is Kate, who has a 4 letter name, and who may have been named after the character on "Lost."  Historians differ on this point, but the inclusion of characters named Kate or Katherine in 4 plays (Shrew, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V) seems to bear out the theory of Shakespeare's fascination with this instance of the "dark lady" archetype. 
   
In his tragedies, Shakespeare mainly used "Lost" numbers in Hamlet.  That play's iconic "To be or not to be" soliloquy occurs in Act 3, scene 1, (3+1=4).  Hamlet is often noted for its extreme pathos:  8 characters meet a violent end in the play (not including the Ghost, who dies before it begins).  However, traces of the "Lost" numbers also crop up in Romeo and Juliet, where Shakespeare gives more stage time to Romeo of the 8 lettered Montague family and his friend Mercutio (also 8 letters) than to Juliet, whose name cannot be linked to the "Lost" numbers.  More recently, Macbeth has been adapted into a film 42 times and, perhaps not coincidentally, is widely reputed to be cursed.
   
Shakespeare's least understood plays are the enigmatic "problem plays," or romances.  There are 4 of these plays.  In addition to The Tempest, which bears a clear resemblance to the premise of "Lost," the baby Perdita who was at the center of the action in A Winter's Tale is believed dead for 16 years before she returns to Bohemia.  Perdita, in Spanish, translates to "little lost one."
   
However, Shakespeare's relationship with the acclaimed television drama doesn't end with his use of the numbers.  Through his writing, he was trying to depict the struggle between science and faith, which was done with greater success through the characters of Jack and John Locke on "Lost."  Shakespeare shows his inclination toward the Lockean ideal of a "state of nature" most clearly by virtue of the name "John" being the most used name in his plays, even naming one of them "King John."  He only uses the name Jack – with its French spelling, "Jacques" – once, and the speech given him, the "Seven Ages of Man" speech, is a defeatist one in which nature is an enemy to be fought against, otherwise we would fall victim to it and be left "sans everything."  Shakespeare's most popular character, Falstaff, is called both Jack and John at different times, which is fitting since he is his own worst enemy.
   
"Lost" has clearly influenced many famous writers besides Shakespeare—some obvious examples being the philosopher John Locke's "tabula rasa" clean slate theory and argument that human authority must bow to nature, or his French colleague Rousseau's "wild child" theory about children raised from infancy in the forest.   However, we will leave the study of these links to other teams of dedicated scholars.  For our purposes it suffices to point out the very clear influences of "Lost" on William Shakespeare's plays, some of the seminal works in the English language.  These influences have curiously been omitted from serious scholarship until recent years.


Dr. Adam Hunault is a renowned expert in Star Trek, specializing in the Original Series and how it relates to modern philosophy.  He earned his doctorate in Geekology in 2005 with a celebrated dissertation on Star Trek's "47 Conspiracy."  He currently teaches Advanced Buffy-verse Studies and chairs the Star Trek  Department at Harvard University.

Dr. Teresa Jusino is most well-known for her paper, "Hamlet: Early Prototype for Norman Bates?" and "Cordelia and Edgar: Only the Good Die Young?", which were delivered at New York University in 2000.  She earned her PhD in Shakespeare and Pop Culture in 2001, and currently teaches a course in Firefly and the Modern World at Yale University.

Kal

That seems very interesting, but I really dont know how much the writers took all that stuff in consideration for what they created. I think a lot of the stuff that happens, like where the numbers come from, or WHY those numbers dont have explanation. There are so many theories and stuff I read online, its amazing how it relates to so many different things. The whole thing is so out there that it kinda makes sense. I dont know... but I'm excited about new episodes returning tonight!

RegularKarate

Ugh... I hate that kind of numerology shit... anything and everything can be connected by numbers because everything is made up of numbers and there's really only ten of them.

Kudos to your friends for liking Lost enough to connect it to something random like that.

Can't wait for the new episode(s) tonight... is the first one going to be a recap or rerun do we really get two?

Kal

Nah, I think its a recap of the first 48 days for EVERYONE... and a new episode after that!

Gamblour.

Great story-centered episode. Not much emotion, but some great plot going on. The smoke....man. My friends, fairly unfamiliar with the show, thought it looked horrible. I let it slide.
WWPTAD?

matt35mm

Quote from: Gamblour on January 12, 2006, 12:08:40 AM
Great story-centered episode. Not much emotion, but some great plot going on. The smoke....man. My friends, fairly unfamiliar with the show, thought it looked horrible. I let it slide.
Yeah, it's too bad TV shows don't have enough time or money to produce good CGI.

I thought it was a pretty emotional episode.  The flashback story had a lot of emotion.

Kal

Little by little they make another connection, and they explain little things we are carrying from the beginning, which is good... The Mr. Ecko story was very good, and unexpected. They still have to show the reason why he also ends up on the Island. I just want to see more Locke, which I think after the previews for next week, we will.

The episode was very good, great way to come back and make people get excited again!


grand theft sparrow

Best episode of the season so far.  I might even be inclined to put it up there with Walkabout from season 1, maybe not for pure emotion but Eko's past is almost as interesting as the island.  As much care as they've put into his backstory, they're definitely going to have him and Locke get in a tussle somewhere along the way.

And SOMEBODY watched City of God before directing this episode...

Gamblour.

Quote from: kurtzsparrow on January 12, 2006, 09:28:26 AM
And SOMEBODY watched City of God before directing this episode...

Explain...
WWPTAD?

modage

i thought of that too during the opening minutes.  not directed anywhere near as kinetically but my mind still went to City Of God. 
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Kal

Just cause of the kids playing soccer in a "favela"? And guns and shit like that in the middle?

You guys need to leave your country for a bit...

Gamblour.

Quote from: kal on January 12, 2006, 10:46:38 PM
You guys need to leave your country for a bit...

What's that? Are you being condescending? I must have missed the kids playing soccer.
WWPTAD?