THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: Ozymandias on 04 Feb 2010, 07:15
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SEASON 6 HAS STARTED YOU GUYS WHAT'S UP
Revelations!
Resurrections!
Alternate timelines!
John "Smokey" Locke punching Richard Alpert the hell out!
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My mind was sufficiently blown.
Well played, writers and producers of Lost. If you fuck this season up I am going to punch you in your faces.
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so far so good. so far. so good.
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(Are they still lost on a Island?)
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(Sort of.)
I am so excited for the rest of this season, I never thought I would love Tuesdays so much
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*spoiler* Zombiedude, they are now in two presumably parallel dimensions. Although, I'm not sure about whether they're running parallel to eachother timewise.
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No, the alternate timeline is currently in Sept. 22, 2004, the island plotline is in December 2007/January 2008. There may be some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey concurrency to the events on one vs. the events in the other but that seems silly(yes, I'm aware of the irony of disregarding something in a show that involves an evil ancient Egyptian smoke monster thing as silly) and I won't buy it until they explicitly demonstrate it.
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Ok, I'm glad that there is a new discussion about this show.
Is the Japanese leader inside the weird Egyptian tomb the Dharma guy, except with long hair? Or someone completely different?
It's also weird to see the now bad-ass Australian flight attendant do quilted napkin commercials.
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You mean the korean dharma guy?
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Wait, they explained the monster?
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No.
They've just given it a face and a history. They still haven't explained what or, more importantly according to the episode, who it is.
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Well, hello smoke monster dude. Thanks for not killing everyone in the first episode.
Good episode, but still has a resounding WTF as always. Damn you, Lost, and your silly mind tricks.
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Rumblings suggest Jacob might be resurrected as Sayid or Sayid is the new Jacob or Jacob's spirit jumped into Sayid's body...or something. Sounds compelling-ish to me. Not sure what I make of pretty much anything else though.
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Jacob as the new Sayid is definitely interesting. With the people I was hangin' out with the conversation went mostly the other way; we were thinking he is the smoke monster (as in 'Smokey' just becomes whoever has recently died) or he has some relation to it.
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So then Smokey can be multiple people at once? Never thought about it that way. Afterall, Smokey is definitely still New Locke. I dunno, I think we're supposed to think Sayid is Smokey/evil, especially since the Japanese dude is trying to kill him and thinks he's infected by evil but I think that we're being misled and he's mistaken.
For whatever it's worth, I thought last night's episode was pretty terrible. It was far too long and wasted a ton of time getting to where it needed to go. Frankly, the producers can't afford to waste time like that. It doesn't help that I despise Kate immensely but even so, at this point I don't give a shit about what's happening in alternate reality. Ethan's a doctor?? No way!!!! Ugh, I dunno, I was just bored a lot during that episode and only felt engaged when stuff was happening in the Temple since it seems by far the most relevant to the actual story of the show.
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fuck yeah Claire is the new Crazy Jungle Lady.
this can only go well.
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Even if the smoke monster can be multiple people at once, I doubt Sayid is one of them as he's residing in his body whereas there is New Locke and Locke's Dead Body. I think the island "claiming" him is just going to make him like Claire or maybe Richard or maybe he will turn into Jacob.
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I think the island "claiming" him is just going to make him like Claire or maybe Richard or maybe he will turn into Jacob.
the Temple people like Jacob and Richard, so i don't think so.
Sayid has the same "infection" (a better translation for the word he used is actually "possessed", and i think it's intentional that john lennon the translator said "infected" instead) that Rousseua's husband and the rest of their crew had. remember they went into the Temple and when he came out he tried to kill her.
it would somewhat make sense if the Man in Black "claimed" people by corrupting them to help his desire of getting those damn kids off his lawn so he can "go home", but then it would be another level of weirdness that apparently Jacob being alive was keeping the MiB from using something of his. i'm starting to think that Jacob and MiB were simply the first people (or aliens or gods or whatever) to find the Island so they're no more than a supernatural extension of Charles/Ben.
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Maybe the islands effects on Locke and Rose, what with the walking and the no cancer, just extend really far if you're on there for ages? There's something missing in that, but the island seems somewhat sentient so it may just pick and choose.
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For whatever it's worth, I thought last night's episode was pretty terrible.
Early screenings of the first 11 episodes definitively called this the worst of the bunch. It only goes uphill from here.
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I guess I'm glad that less than 1/3 of the final season ever is any good...
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I meant this episode was the worst of the bunch.
Not these 11 episodes.
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oooh, that makes more sense actually!
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[...] some wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey [...]
I love you.
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You mean the korean dharma guy?
Oh, I thought he was japanese due to all the Japanese stuff in the Dharma camp.
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Pretty sure Pierre Chang isn't Korean. He's still not at all the guy from the Temple, considering he's both dead in 2007 when all the Temple stuff is taking place AND he was part of the Dharma Initiative while the Temple guys are clearly Others.
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Also, uh. They're obviously not the same person.
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Well yeah, there's also that.
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Black smoke now looks like John Locke and they haven't explained that at all. People just look at him and go, "It's you!" and he says yes and knocks them out and/or kills them, minus Ben.
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a bit more accurately, we know for certain that the Smoke Monster is taking the form of Locke, but piecing that together with last season, we now also know for certain that the Smoke Monster can take many forms, most notably when it appeared to Ben as Alex while "Locke" was, conveniently, "off fetching a rope".
also, the Smoke Monster is the guy sitting with Jacob on the beach. and he "wants to go home".
so excited for tonight. it is a Locke-centric episode which apparently shows him as being a substitute teacher in the X timeline.
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I have a question - have they explained the black smoke creature or the polar bear yet?
Yes, they have explained the polar bear, though. It's a very mundane explanation: it was one of a few polar bears the utopian researchers were using on the island. It's implied they needed to train them to safely utilize the donkey wheel room underneath the planet which had the unfortunate side effect of teleporting anyone who used it through time and space.
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Damn, I was hoping random little boy was actually the polar bear. But the polar bear was only ever a polar bear...
Well it's interesting to see smokey is officially stuck as Locke now. And I'm interested to see by what, "You can't just kill Jacob," really means. Also come onnnnn Sun go to the temple already!
Also also I really like what they're doing in the "what if the plane didn't crash" flashes.
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The thing about the "plane didn't crash" stuff is at this point it's all just cute and clever. "Oh look, Rose is a supervisor!" "Haha, Ben is a school teacher!" "oh boy, Ethan works in a hospital." The only problem is...I don't care. At all. It's irrelevant at this point and if it does serve some sort of ultimate purpose, and clearly it must somehow, the writers have given absolutely no indication of what that might be, to the point where right now there's no hook, no grab, nothing that makes me want to watch anything happening off-island.
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I agree, but I'm also really enjoying it.
I like that in some other reality, Locke had a happy ending. Yeah, it's sort of pointless but...d'awwww Helen and Locke.
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And I'm interested to see by what, "You can't just kill Jacob," really means.
i believe when the creepy little boy said "you can't just kill him" he was referring to Sawyer (and by extension, the other Candidates).
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I took it more as a "you can't just kill him and expect it to end there" sort of thing. Like ultimately he will be replaced or come back somehow. Or not expect some kind of repercussion for messing up the balance, which I'm guessing since he tossed that white stone into the sea, which was referring to Jacob being dead.
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So Jacob is not protecting the island from the rest of the world but protecting the rest of the world from what's on the island? And 'john locke' can't get off the island without the protector's permission - which is why he needs Sawyer?
Probably totally off target here, but that's my current guess.
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That was my guess too.
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Food for thought - the alternate time-line isn't 'What if Flight 815 never crashed', but more 'What if Jacob hadn't interfered'.
If what Smokey Locke says is true, and Jacob had been there pushing them to the island all along, without that interference their lives could have gone in completely different directions. The most obvious example of this is Locke. Just after the ground broke his fall, Jacob turned up to tell him everything was going to be ok. Subconsciously this may have given Locke the faith he has so fervently stuck with throughout the series, and without it, he turned into a miserable wreck, bottling up his disappointment with how his life turned out. Anyway, I'm rambling and you get the idea. This is my favourite theory so far, especially since the whole rollercoaster time-line the island rides helps explains most counterpoints.
Thoughts?
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yes, all signs point to the alternate timeline as being one in which Jacob never existed/never interfered in the real world.
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The problem with that theory of course is that they all ended up on the plane anyway.
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The problem with that theory of course is that they all ended up on the plane anyway.
that's not really a problem, or a plot hole, it's just convenience. is it unrealistic that even without Jacob, the same people would end up on the same plane? yes. but it's not a problem with the theory, it's just a problem with the writers doing something for dramatic effect. sure, they could have had the flash-sideways' start without having a sequence of them on the plane, but it would have been substantially less dramatic.
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Hey 'mos, here's a blog reviewing the last season (http://neverseenlost.wordpress.com/), by a dude who'd never seen it before.
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No thanks.
I have to deal with that shit on a regular basis from my own friends, I don't need to read some dick who thinks he's cute and clever do the same thing.
HURF DURF HURF DURF I THOUGHT THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE STUCK ON AN ISLAND
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yeah pretty much.
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Things you may have forgotten:
A) Claire abandoned Aaron. She disappeared into the forest with Christian Shepard(who very likely could've been Esau) and Kate took care of him assuming Claire was gone.
B) Jack didn't get his appendix removed until Season 4, on the Island. Depending on how old Jack is, that means the alternate universe could be changing events before the bomb even went off (though this is unlikely).
My current theory:
The alternate timeline isn't an alternate timeline at all. We're seeing flashbacks to the universe trying to course correct. Just as the universe kept trying to kill Charlie no matter how much Desmond saved him, it's trying to reach the same outcome it would've had if the bomb hadn't been destroyed. Thus, it's trying to create a series of events that results in the 2008 timeline being true. However, since the bomb has such a profound effect on the timeline, the actual events that happen during the course correction are...unpredictable.
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That sounds pretty good, actually.
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Man.
Michael Emerson is so fantastic.
Just saying.
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As far as I can remember, all the best bits of Lost have directly involved either Ben or Desmond.
There is a reason for that.
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Unfortunately, Desmond seems to have had his role killed alongside Farriday. I keep hoping that they will bring him back to start tying everything together but I fear that they decided he wasn't important anymore.
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Well, Desmond didn't come back last season, did he? I don't remember him coming back. And Farriday went kind of mad and wasn't really that important to begin with, I think. So hopefully Desmond is happily off with Penny instead of being wrapped up in this.
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But why was he on the plane and where did he then go?!
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I really don't remember whether or not he was on the plane. If he was on it, well, who knows where he is, because they haven't shown him since the last plane crashed.
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Desmond was in the first half of last season a lot and showed up mysteriously on the alternate Oceanic 815 at the beginning of this one. He's not gone or forgotten.
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Imdb has him in Lost for 2010. I remain cautiously optimistic.
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I think it's pretty obvious that he'll be involved. They wouldn't have had him in the first episode if he wasn't going to come back in some way later on.
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Yup, Desmond was def on the plane in the flash sideways. The character is clearly important to the narrative, and not just because of the oops-I-didn't-push-the-button plane crash thingie, and the earth-shattering kaboom (TM) that blew the hatch. I don't think he's a "Candidate," but they kind of have to address the whole time travel thing. I'm hoping he'll get an ep that focuses on him, similar to The Constant, and if they do that, they may bring Faraday in at that point -- well, unless he was never conceived in the flash sideways . . .
Anyway, I'm looking forward to next week, when we'll discover that Richard has been Batmanuel this whole time.
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I would watch the fuck out of a show that was Miles and Sawyer as cops fightin' crime.
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I smell a spin-off...
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I'd watch it.
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So, hey.
That last episode.
Answers. Jacob. Esau. Nestor Carbonell m-fin' rocking the house.
Good times.
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They ain't dead!
Oh wait, they are!
They aren't! But they are standing on hell's doorstep!
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Man when Richard started saying that I was silently praying that he meant something else.
He didn't, but he was still wrong, so that was cool.
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Soooo last episode was yet another one that could have been tightened up significantly, defluffed and filled with more substance/answers. I mean we basically knew everything that was "revealed" (Richard didn't age b/c of Jacob, Jacob was there to keep to the man in black from getting into the wider world, man in black needed someone else to kill Jacob, the candidates were there to see who could replace Jacob if and when that happened, Richard was Jacob's emissary to facilitate this process and so on). The only new stuff was the minor details i.e. when Richard got to the island (we already basically knew it was on the Black Rock, had for a while), that Richard was first approached by the man in black (and who cares, nothing came of it and he backed out of his decision to go over to him last episode making it even less relevant), aaaand....that might be it. I liked the episode but I'm really wondering if the writers are ever going to stop wasting huge amounts of time this season.
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Well, there was the whole 'this is why we're actually on this island' bit?
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But we already knew that from a few episodes back when the whole candidate thing was explained, right?
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No I mean the "the island is the gateway to hell thing". The whole cork in the wine bottle majig.
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The "Hell" thing was Richard going a little nuts, it's not actually that. Plus we already knew the cork in the bottle I feel like. Or it was obvious if not explicitly stated before. After all, we did know already that Man in Black wanted to leave more than anything and that Jacob was keeping him on the island. Since it's pretty obvious Man in Black is both super powerful and very evil, the "keeping the wine in the jug with a cork" metaphor was a cool way of letting us know that what we've all be thinking for a pretty good amount of time is correct. I dunno, somehow doesn't seem like a substantially new answer to me.
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I thought Jacob confirmed that they were in fact standing on the doorstep of hell? Did I misinterpret that? Yeah, it confirmed the whole Man in Black is trying to get off the island theory we all had, but any confirmation is nice. At least they're starting to wrap stuff up.
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I'm pretty sure he was being metaphorical.
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I enjoyed last week's episode with Desmond (FINALLY!) and how this parallel thing is working. It's cool that even though things are completely different because of their not being on the island, everyone is still connected and can sense it. And this week - Libby! Who may be crazy, but I doubt it. I hope Hurley gets a memory jumpstart soon. Edit: And he did! I guess Desmond is going to go around and make sure people experience this.
Edit edit: And Locke, who is finally happy, got run over by Desmond why?...
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My god this was a bad episode
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Edit edit: And Locke, who is finally happy, got run over by Desmond why?...
I want to say his connection thingy with someone else is with his father, and this relates to the whole getting pushed out a window thing. It's either that or having a near death experience and finding the one thing/person that truly matters to you as both Charlie and Desmond had.
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I think it's the latter. His "memories" need to be triggered by something akin to being pushed out a window of a highrise and running him over with a car might just do the trick. Obviously Desmond knows somehow that everyone needs to "remember" the island for whatever reason. But it's not like they can go back, the whole thing is at the bottom of the ocean...
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or a couple of feet below it anyway. wild gamble that it means Locke is going to be able to walk again?
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Well, earlier in the season Jack did tell him to come visit him, so my guess is they'll meet in the hospital and Jack will do something while he's trying to save Locke that helps him walk again.
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Necroed to give a nice big shout out to Lost and its writers now that the show has been wrapped.
Fuck you, you fucking fucks.
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Nah, it was awesome. It wasn't what anybody really wanted it to be, for sure, but it was the only fitting end.
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I have never in my life watched more than possibly ten minutes of one episode of this show, and listening to or reading people talk about it is frankly surreal. One of my favourite Lost-related memories is overhearing someone saying "Well, of COURSE they were smugglers, how else did the polar bear get there?!" and having no idea what they were talking about. And now I do!
Speaking theoretically, as I can't see myself having any time until at least 2013, should I watch this show right through? Is it worth the investment?
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Based on the last five hours of my life, yes. So much yes.
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I liked the finale as a whole, it was about as fitting an end as any for the show, but seriously it would've been nicer if it wasn't specially tailored for Maximum Commercial Breaks
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I kinda feel like the ending was a bit of a cop-out. They ended the flash-sideways neatly, but they really didn't answer many questions or wrap up the real story line at all. Yeah I cried my eyes out for the last ten minutes of the show, but it just sort of... ended.
I am not sure what to think.
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after reading a dozen internet summaries of the end i'm glad i never watched more than a couple hours of this show. i mean it'd be a great concept, if the writers had bothered to think of that ending from the beginning. but they didn't, so, respect lost.
(hurr)
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They definitely tried to hide the fact that there was zero continuity throughout the show by making the ending "profound" which in reality was a concept most people laughed at when we all thought of it in season 1.
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Lost re-enacted by cats in 1 minute (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-DShnvNNv0&feature=player_embedded)
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I was disappointed by the fact that they didn't explain the ghosts thing. Which might have explained why Walt and Michael weren't in the alternate universe.
WALLLT!
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Much as I like cats, I don't think that video has encouraged me to watch the series.
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But didn't Michael die in the explosion of the ship?
I kinda feel like the ending was a bit of a cop-out. They ended the flash-sideways neatly, but they really didn't answer many questions or wrap up the real story line at all. Yeah I cried my eyes out for the last ten minutes of the show, but it just sort of... ended.
I am not sure what to think.
This. I don't feel like any questions except those from the sideways were answered.
Also I still want a Miles/Sawyer cop show spin off. It would be the best show.
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Oh hey, in previous seasons they seemed to make a big deal about Walt in the flashbacks, like he was some sort of Significant Dude. Then he was never heard from again
Not in a sinister way, though. I think he just went to live with his grandma or something
I would've liked Michael in Walt to be in the rest of the show, but oh well what can you do
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As far as I can tell, Walt was the only real ball-drop by the writers because they somehow didn't consider that the kid would hit puberty and wouldn't age within the shows continuity. But it's OK, it's not important.
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They really pushed towards Walt being psychic and having influence on things with the island, and it really seems to me that after about season 3 they had no idea how to tie anything together. Season 6 made it very apparent that they were faced with too many storylines to knit and decided to angle it as "alternate universe is purgatorial and you all found each other in the afterlife and can happily remember the island." Really, it just felt like an easy out by saying that all of the events and intrigue and mysteries unsolved don't matter since everyone dies.
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Fuck the haters who gonna hate.
Loved the finale. Cop out? I guess. Whatever. It was satisfying and enjoyable.
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But didn't Michael die in the explosion of the ship?
He did, but then he appeared to Hurley as a dead person on the Island. Like beat mouse said, it kind of feels like explained that away with the whole 'it's purgatory'.
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I started my relationship with lost about a year ago and finally finished up. I'm pretty satisfied with how things turned out. I think Michael Emerson is the best thing to happen to television in the past several years and I found myself getting teary a few times without fully understanding why.
Yeah, there's lots of questions that didn't get answered, but I honestly kind of like it that way. In life there's never going to come a point where you're seated and told why everything happened the way it did.
Going into the show I had a lot of people tell me that Jack/Matthew Fox sucked. Can anybody explain why people said this? He didn't always have the best dialogue to work with, but when they actually gave him good writing I thought he consistently hit it out of the park. The ending with him on the island was beautiful.
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I like how one of the potential endings everybody thought was stupid 5 or 6 years ago is now good.
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Not the same ending. The island wasn't purgatory and I'm not sure why people keep saying that. Everything that happened for 6 years was real and not explained away with "they were dead."
The flash-sideways was a sort of purgatory thing, but it was also just an epilogue. A nice little happy ending that we got to watch for the entire season.
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I like how one of the potential endings everybody thought was stupid 5 or 6 years ago is now good.
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I mean I get that the timeline split when the bomb went off and the flash-sideways was the purgatory after that, but all the same, I'll echo the complaints that a lot of other people had, in that the ending was sufficient for that timeline but left the Island part of it (ie the interesting part) high and dry. As it stands it's sort of a late-period Stephen King ending. Which I'm generally okay with, I just think it's sort of a waste of the interesting setting.
I'd welcome a spinoff, but not a TV spinoff, and probably not a film spinoff either. Novelizations or comix would be good.
Wonder what the creators have up their sleeve for their next show.
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I honestly don't know why people think Jack would suck. When it comes down to things, he is a little me me why me sometimes, but if I were in his shoes, I'd probably react the same way. But as an actor, I think he did really well with Lost. All of the actors did.
Thinking about it more, I guess I am ok with having some questions about the island left unanswered and I can deal with the cast being dead. They all found each other (minus Michael and Walt, but I think that's mostly due to Walt being to old to fit in the sideways properly and I guess because Michael being stuck undead like on the island) and they're all happy in the afterlife. They all definitely did not die at the same time (such as characters who died throughout the series and Hurley and Ben obviously being on the island for quite a while after the others escaped and Jack died), so the island is definitely not purgatory and that makes me happier. The sideways being some afterlife thing is just fine, but I am glad that the island itself is still a bit of a mystery.
A Sawyer/Miles comic would be good too. Maybe nedroid (http://twitter.com/nedroid) could take up the case...
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I still want Sawyer and Miles to get a spin-off buddy cop show. I would watch it until the end of time.
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Me tooooo! And we won't be deprived of Sawyerisms!!
Actually I think that is the thing I will miss most - Sawyer making fun of people.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or_BGsW7Mgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODByPPenRYk
<3
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Explanation allegedly from someone on the writing staff RE: the finale.
Also, hopefully I can answer some of John's questions about Dharma and the "pointless breadcrumbs" that really, weren't so pointless ...
First ...
The Island:
It was real. Everything that happened on the island that we saw throughout the 6 seasons was real. Forget the final image of the plane crash, it was put in purposely to f*&k with people's heads and show how far the show had come. They really crashed. They really survived. They really discovered Dharma and the Others. The Island keeps the balance of good and evil in the world. It always has and always will perform that role. And the Island will always need a "Protector". Jacob wasn't the first, Hurley won't be the last. However, Jacob had to deal with a malevolent force (MIB) that his mother, nor Hurley had to deal with. He created the devil and had to find a way to kill him — even though the rules prevented him from actually doing so.
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 everytime 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.
Enter Dharma — which I'm not sure why John is having such a hard time grasping. Dharma, like the countless scores of people that were brought to the island before, were brought there by Jacob as part of his plan to kill the MIB. However, the MIB was aware of this plan and interferred by "corrupting" Ben. Making Ben believe he was doing the work of Jacob when in reality he was doing the work of the MIB. This carried over into all of Ben's "off-island" activities. He was the leader. He spoke for Jacob as far as they were concerned. So the "Others" killed Dharma and later were actively trying to kill Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and all the candidates because that's what the MIB wanted. And what he couldn't do for himself.
Dharma was originally brought in to be good. But was turned bad by MIB's corruption and eventually destroyed by his pawn Ben. Now, was Dharma only brought there to help Jack and the other Canditates on their overall quest to kill Smokey? Or did Jacob have another list of Canidates from the Dharma group that we were never aware of? That's a question that is purposley not answered because whatever answer the writers came up with would be worse than the one you come up with for yourself. Still ... Dharma's purpose is not "pointless" or even vague. Hell, it's pretty blantent.
Still, despite his grand plan, Jacob wanted to give his "candidates" (our Lostaways) the one thing he, nor his brother, were ever afforded: free will. Hence him bringing a host of "candidates" through the decades and letting them "choose" which one would actually do the job in the end. Maybe he knew Jack would be the one to kill Flocke and that Hurley would be the protector in the end. Maybe he didn't. But that was always the key question of the show: Fate vs Free-will. Science vs Faith. Personally I think Jacob knew from the beginning what was going to happen and that everyone played a part over 6 seasons in helping Jack get to the point where he needed to be to kill Smokey and make Hurley the protector — I know that's how a lot of the writers viewed it. But again, they won't answer that (nor should they) because that ruins the fun.
In the end, Jack got to do what he always wanted to do from the very first episode of the show: Save his fellow Lostaways. He got Kate and Sawyer off the island and he gave Hurley the purpose in life he'd always been missing. And, in Sideways world (which we'll get to next) he in fact saved everyone by helping them all move on ...
Now...
Sideways World:
Sideways world is where it gets really cool in terms of theology and metaphysical discussion (for me at least — because I love history/religion theories and loved all the talks in the writer's room about it). Basically what the show is proposing is that we're all linked to certain people during our lives. Call them soulmates (though it's not exactly the best word). But these people we're linked to are with us duing "the most important moments of our lives" as Christian said. These are the people we move through the universe with from lifetime to lifetime. It's loosely based in Hinduisim with large doses of western religion thrown into the mix.
The conceit that the writers created, basing it off these religious philosophies, was that as a group, the Lostaways subconsciously created this "sideways" world where they exist in purgatory until they are "awakened" and find one another. Once they all find one another, they can then move on and move forward. In essence, this is the show's concept of the afterlife. According to the show, everyone creates their own "Sideways" purgatory with their "soulmates" throughout their lives and exist there until they all move on together. That's a beautiful notion. Even if you aren't religious or even spirtual, the idea that we live AND die together is deeply profound and moving.
It's a really cool and spirtual concept that fits the whole tone and subtext the show has had from the beginning. These people were SUPPOSED to be together on that plane. They were supposed to live through these events — not JUST because of Jacob. But because that's what the universe or God (depending on how religious you wish to get) wanted to happen. The show was always about science vs faith — and it ultimately came down on the side of faith. It answered THE core question of the series. The one question that has been at the root of every island mystery, every character backstory, every plot twist. That, by itself, is quite an accomplishment.
How much you want to extrapolate from that is up to you as the viewer. Think about season 1 when we first found the Hatch. Everyone thought that's THE answer! Whatever is down there is the answer! Then, as we discovered it was just one station of many. One link in a very long chain that kept revealing more, and more of a larger mosiac.
But the writer's took it even further this season by contrasting this Sideways "purgatory" with the Island itself. Remember when Michael appeared to Hurley, he said he was not allowed to leave the Island. Just like the MIB. He wasn't allowed into this sideways world and thus, was not afforded the opportunity to move on. Why? Because he had proven himself to be unworthy with his actions on the Island. He failed the test. The others, passed. They made it into Sideways world when they died — some before Jack, some years later. In Hurley's case, maybe centuries later. They exist in this sideways world until they are "awakened" and they can only move on TOGETHER because they are linked. They are destined to be together for eternity. That was their destiny.
They were NOT linked to Anna Lucia, Daniel, Roussou, Alex, Miles, Lupidis, (and all the rest who weren't in the chuch — basically everyone who wasn't in season 1). Yet those people exist in Sideways world. Why? Well again, here's where they leave it up to you to decide. The way I like to think about it, is that those people who were left behind in Sideways world have to find their own soulmates before they can wake up. It's possible that those links aren't people from the island but from their other life (Anna's parnter, the guy she shot —- Roussou's husband, etc etc).
A lot of people have been talking about Ben and why he didn't go into the Church. And if you think of Sideways world in this way, then it gives you the answer to that very question. Ben can't move on yet because he hasn't connected with the people he needs to. It's going to be his job to awaken Roussou, Alex, Anna Lucia (maybe), Ethan, Goodspeed, his father and the rest. He has to attone for his sins more than he did by being Hurley's number two. He has to do what Hurley and Desmond did for our Lostaways with his own people. He has to help them connect. And he can only move on when all the links in his chain are ready to. Same can be said for Faraday, Charlotte, Whidmore, Hawkins etc. It's really a neat, and cool concept. At least to me.
But, from a more "behind the scenes" note: the reason Ben's not in the church, and the reason no one is in the church but for Season 1 people is because they wrote the ending to the show after writing the pilot. And never changed it. The writers always said (and many didn't believe them) that they knew their ending from the very first episode. I applaud them for that. It's pretty fantastic. Originally Ben was supposed to have a 3 episode arc and be done. But he became a big part of the show. They could have easily changed their ending and put him in the church — but instead they problem solved it. Gave him a BRILLIANT moment with Locke outside the church ... and then that was it. I loved that. For those that wonder — the original ending started the moment Jack walked into the church and touches the casket to Jack closing his eyes as the other plane flies away. That was always JJ's ending. And they kept it.
For me the ending of this show means a lot. Not only because I worked on it, but because as a writer it inspired me in a way the medium had never done before. I've been inspired to write by great films. Maybe too many to count. And there have been amazing TV shows that I've loved (X-Files, 24, Sopranos, countless 1/2 hour shows). But none did what LOST did for me. None showed me that you could take huge risks (writing a show about faith for network TV) and stick to your creative guns and STILL please the audience. I learned a lot from the show as a writer. I learned even more from being around the incredible writers, producers, PAs, interns and everyone else who slaved on the show for 6 years.
In the end, for me, LOST was a touchstone show that dealt with faith, the afterlife, and all these big, spirtual questions that most shows don't touch. And to me, they never once waivered from their core story — even with all the sci-fi elements they mixed in. To walk that long and daunting of a creative tightrope and survive is simply astounding.
I'm not sure I believe that this is an inside source, but it does make sense.
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Someone at io9 made a Lost Mystery report card:
(http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/9879/500xlostanswersheet.jpg)
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#1: Yes.
#2: See #1.
#3: No idea.
#5: The Dharma Initiative was paying tribute to the Island's former inhabitants. (This is directly from Darlton's mouths)
#6: Who cares.
#9: Charlie was fated to die because...that's...fate? Why does it need a deeper meaning?
#10: Yes, it was meant to get Locke off the Island and find a loophole to come back, allowing MIB's plans to continue.
#11: Her husband died and she fell into a deep depression leaving her in the institution. Doesn't matter anyway.
#12a: The actor was a douche.
#12b: Alex.
#14: There probably was an answer to this once upon a time, but he grew up too fast. Doesn't matter now.
#16: Aaron was never important. They answered this in season 3, the psychic was a fraud.
#18: See wall of text above.
#19: The Island did it.
#20: Probably nothing. The point is that, to do so, the Island would be destroyed. And that's bad.
#21: Question rendered irrelevant by the fact that there's not really a sideways reality to speak of anyway.
#23: Ben led a coup against Widmore. He couldn't kill him at the time because of Jacob's rules.
#26: Ben made those decisions. Jacob brought in people through his magic powers, Ben recruited people for his own purposes.
#27: No idea.
#28: Jacob's rules.
#29: Seriously irrelevant.
#31: Dharma station that was to be constructed? Who knows, not relevant.
#32: I'm thinking no.
#33: A method of controlling the hatch inhabitants. Probably inspired by Smokey's claiming.
#34: He's a liar liar liar.
#35: Irrelevant
#36: Yes.
#41: Vincent ate him.
#42: Sayid described it himself: he just didn't care anymore. He lacked an internal drive, really, and was content to do whatever he was told.
#43: He turned human after the Island was deactivated.
#44: No idea.
#45: Really no idea.
#48: No idea.
#49: Jacob's rules.
#50: MIB I'd wager.
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(http://imgur.com/0UNwD.jpg)
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Explanation allegedly from someone on the writing staff RE: the finale.
stuff
I'm not sure I believe that this is an inside source, but it does make sense.
Wow, that does make a lot of sense. Especially when it comes to the Dharma Initiative, which I hadn't thought about much this season.
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And yet, the real mystery remains (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIl0rYbW_hU&feature=player_embedded).
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That is hilarious and I have never even seen the show.
In fact I now feel that I don't need to.
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John that is most excellent. I will share it with people that will enjoy it.
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That was awesome. I will have to share that...