Anything that involves plugging a giant wine cork into an island's hole isn't a good ending
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Reetae reviews the ending of LOST by comprehensively reviewing the series.
- Thread starter Arta
- Start date
Anything that involves plugging a giant wine cork into an island's hole isn't a good ending
just checking in to say that I love Lost, warts and all. A thing a lot of people forget is that the air surrounding the show had built up so much hype over the answers that there was nothing they could do to deliver a satisfying ending. It may seem easier in retrospect, with all these years we have to look back upon the show and it's faults, but man, Lost was caught between a rock and a hard place. I found myself really empathizing with the direction it took because it tried to focus on being emotionally satisfying instead of trying to please those hooked on the lore, like I had been for so long. It would have been an impossible task.
Well, as someone who loved Lost, including the ending, I gave this a shot (well, at least the first couple of episodes) and I don't really agree with... well, anything, really. It's annoyingly nitpicky, it's concerned with things that largely don't matter to me personally and, frankly, I really think it completely misses the point of the series or watching television in general. Also, 10 hours of this is just overkill. I appreciate the effort, but... no.
I love that this review talks about how the ending HAD to be bad- so much of the discussion gets fixated around whether the final episode was good or not, but the problems with the series and how its showrunners were handling it began long before the last 2 hours. Yeah, I don't like the finale, but, at the same time, there is literally no 2 hours that could have followed the constant dripfeed of mysteries they doled out (clearly without any idea of what they actually meant) that would have been satisfying, so in a way, I kind of absolve the finale itself of fault. (Even though it does plenty of stupid things on its own too) The problem is that Lost COULD have been the character centric show people claim it was in retrospect had it maintained the relatively grounded nature of the first season, which didn't really even throw that many mysteries out in the grand scheme of things and had satisfying character arcs for most of the main cast. The producers insisted on continuously upping the ante throughout the show's run, though, and layered on more and more mysteries where it became obvious there was no consistency or grand plan. To top it off, they completely butchered so many characters in the last 2 seasons that to say it was always a character show isn't really doing the final 2 seasons any favors either. Then they marketed the show around the mysteries and pulled the "you'll get all the answers" bs repeatedly in interviews and, especially, in the final season marketing. They really made their own bed here and it was such a disappointment as a fan who, just like the others, was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and ride it out. The final episode wasn't the real disappointment; the showrunner's handling of the series was the real disappointment.
They shouldn't have piled up so many mysteries in the first place. Weird island, monster, coincidences, faith VS facts, all of those are good. They created the problem themselves and did it to fool us.
I mean, you can argue you were entertained being led by people who had no idea what they were doing, but you were still being led by people who had no idea what they were doing.
And it set up things and then properly paid them off.
It is also an ending you can put at the end of any show and it work just as well. It is a feel-good curtain call of an ending and nothing else.
The mysteries were only important in how they impacted the characters and changed the status quo. They were a mechanism for driving character interactions and changing the playing field. If a mystery impacted nobody but the viewer, it would be a very boring mystery. But I think the way the mysteries impacted the characters themselves was personally satisfying.
I mean, I really cannot empathise with the people behind the show at all. Cuse and Lindeolf shouldn't have encouraged this hype for 5 seasons and then went and had an about turn with season 6. They should not have lied constantly. They should have just admitted they had no idea what they were doing, or admitted they had made mistakes and that there was no master plan at work here.
What did you want them to say? "Watch our show! Expect nothing!"? ABC would fire them, lmao.
How about just not lying? There's like shit in this video series that is really illuminating on how often they did it. Everything will have a logical and reasonable explanation? Nope. There won't be time travel in the show? Nope. There won't be alternate universe shit cause that would hurt the stakes of the show? Nope. Dead means dead? Nope. We killed Libby off but we have some huge reveals about her later? Nope. And it just goes on and on and on. It's ridiculous that there is all of this evidence of them doing this.
And not just pay offs with major story arcs, there are many little "ah ha!" moments you don't catch until you rewatch the show, it's a very rewarding series.
Dead did mean dead though. Characters never came back to life. We just saw spirits and visions.
I find it personally interesting as a creator that people assume creators have everything figured out from day one and nothing ever changes ever. It's a very immature look at the creative process with a very shackling set of expectations that storytellers would loathe to have imposed on them. And that if you ever deviate from a plan in favour of one you find more interesting, it's called "lying", now. Christ.
And S6 Sayid was just... what... faking dead?
People probably assumed that here because the creators themselves repeatedly stated as much. And, no, generally I don't expect that, but when you drop things like Jacob's cabin or tease at things like Libby having more significance, I do expect you to know the payoffs for those things. If you deliberately introduce a mystery and call attention to it, you better know what you're doing.
Except for Sayid, who was literally resurrected by evil water.
And the problem isn't that they hadn't it all figured from Day One, because few people could really believe that. The problem with Lindelof and Cuse is that they kept saying they did have a masterplan and knew how shit was going to happen and how the viewer should just "trust them" because when the answers arrive it'll prove "they always had a masterplan". If they had said "ok, we had this original idea about this element but during the course of the show we realized it didn't really fit" or "the show grew organically beyond what we originally envisioned for this X thing so it wasn't appropriate anymore" or whatever, instead of insisting that IT WAS ALL PART OF THE PLAN (even going as far as blaming Rebecca Mader for that Charlotte birthday fuckup), then I guess fewer people would complain. Because they'd (hopefully) understand that those things can and -in most cases- do change.
Sayid comes back to life.
I don't assume that at all. Saying you're not doing a thing and then doing the thing, and having this scenario repeatedly play out, sure sounds like compulsive lying. Blaming one of your actresses for a mistake and then it coming out after the actress calls you out that you made it up sounds like a fucking a lie.
I actually forgot about Sayid in S6. It's been a while. Chalk that up to my bad. But I think I'm getting beside the point here, and was beside the point by even bringing that up in the first place.
Anyway. The show did know what it was doing. It just changed what it was doing when the showrunners found an answer they thought was better or more satisfying. Even then, It is entirely normal in the creative process of a several year project for creators to become interested in different things, or become less interested in following up on something else later. Storytelling like this is a constantly evolving and changing process, and Lost had more freedom than most shows because it held back it's full hand whenever things happened. That means that the contents of what it was holding back changed.
This is backed up by an essay from someone who was actually in the writer's room of lost itself. http://okbjgm.weebly.com/uploads/3/1/5/0/31506003/lost_will_final.pdf
It is incredibly naiive to hold writers to something as strictly as you appear to be. The process is always evolving, and always changing, as the people behind the process itself constantly evolve and change.
But it's not a lie. The fact that it wound up to be untrue does not make it a lie. Lying requires intent to mislead. The point is that what the creators wanted to do with the show changed. Whatever they said when they said it, they had the intention of sticking to it.
Lost was on the air for six years. Six. Years. That's over half a decade. Expecting the creator's intentions or plans or whatever to never deviate over that time is fucking insane.
I'm not a mind reader, I just bothered to watch these videos.
I largely agree. It's not realistic to expect things not to change and I'm all for giving creatives some slack on that.
The problem is, and this is where we differ obviously, I absolutely believe there was intent to mislead. I realize the video series in the OP is really really long, but I would encourage you to watch it, as part of the point of the length is just the sheer number of times they mislead, either intentionally or not, and the promised x but didn't deliver. It's really hard to see all of it laid out and believe they weren't intentionally deceiving on some level.
And re:writers from the show saying stuff- there are multiple prominent writers and directors from the series on the record in this series directly contradicting Darlton by saying x was totally made up as they went along and they had no idea what certain elements were.
Appealing to the videos doesn't mean you wouldn't have to be a mind reader to say that the creators intended to "lie".
Being bad at delivering on something that has been promised doesn't make the promise a lie, it makes it an unfulfilled promise.
The attempts in this thread to twist the writers of this show's intent into something malicious are ridiculous.
I don't know you how explain the Charlotte thing- where both producers INVENT quotes from an encounter that never happened- without acknowledging that, yes, maybe these guys were trying to pull the wool over our eyes. And that's not to mention the 30+ other examples in the series. I realize we can never know for sure but I feel like the most reasonable assumption at the end of the day given all the facts laid out is that they were stringing viewers along to keep ratings and interest high. That there was no master plan, despite their repeated assurances that there was. I have no faith that Darlton acted in good faith themselves towards the audience.
Did you even watch the video? There is no way the segment at 41:26 is anything but a deliberate attempt by the producers to mislead, by making up a story out of whole cloth.
https://youtu.be/u6yUi1KhFe4?t=41m26s
The fact that this thread keeps getting made again and again, a decade later, speaks to the impact of the show.
The video review has numerous interviews, audio from the Lost podcasts, behind the scenes footage, audio commentary, etc juxtaposed with what happened on the show as evidence of them trying to mislead viewers. Like you can handwave this if you want to since no one's forcing you to watch, but there's absolutely no way you're convincing me that they werent straight up lying about Charlotte's actress telling them to lower the age of the character and then lying some more when they got called out on it blaming the continuity consultant.
I wish everything could end with a light cave and a cork in the ground.
It's telling that there's only one example that everyone seems to be pointing to, whereas everything else is just vague gesturing in the direction of a many-hour long video essay that they expect everyone to watch before arguing with them. "The creators were dicks once, that means that they were dicks all of the time!".
Many of us watched the series months ago. I actually rewatched that segment to pull out those examples earlier for a very similar reason.
You denied there was any malicious attempt to deceive. A malicious intent to deceive is then pointed out, which you're handwaving away because it goes against your narrative. It shouldn't matter how many examples we have, as you didn't mention needing a specific number before (as if takes more than one to prove the point)
I never actually watched the series, my wife did and it took me a glance from a couple of episodes to realise the writers were making shit up as they webt and had no clear arch or had any intention of explaining any of that shit lol
People are pointing to it because you're handwaving the more plothole esque contradictions as leeway that should be afforded to creatives. Like, fine, you like the series and you believe them. That's great, but if you aren't going to actually watch the vids the thread is based on, I'm not sure what other discussion can take place here. I respect that it takes a lot of time to watch the vid, but you should also respect that those of us who already watched it don't want to waste our time transcribing all the points from a 10 hour video series when you could just watch the vids themselves to get them.
The points have been made. They're in the video series that this entire thread is about. If you don't want to watch them and discuss the thread's subject, I think we're kind of done here.
There is also the time they clearly lied about ABC putting in those buffer footage for the end credit of the final episode when they were the ones who did it.
I generally expect people who enter a thread about a video review series to at least try to watch some of it before posting about it.
People keep pointing to this example because it is the insane way they handled it. A normal person would have just said, "Hey, we fucked up". These guys invent an entire story about it, blame another person, just so they can avoid any criticism toward themselves. And when they're caught, they tell another completely different story to blame another person. It's incredible the gall they have.
Not only were they lying but the fact that tried to blame the actress for that plot hole is one of the most dick head moves I've seen. All just to cover up the idea that they goofed writing the consistency of the timeline.
It does matter how many examples you have because you are arguing that the showrunners were malicious in their intent throughout the entirety of the show and one example just doesn't back that up, bucko. I'm sorry if those standards are too high for you, but you guys are the one to bring it to that level, not me.
I watched the series as it aired and was heavily invested in all of the gossip and talk surrounding the show at the time. I don't need to watch a 10 hour recap to be qualified to talk about Lost.
Bucko? If you're going to argue without even attempting to watch the videos in the OP, you could be a little less patronizing about it.
Your original post that spawned all this merely said
That doesn't sound like you needed a specific number to me. You were trying to paint everyone here as twisting the facts, when it's been demonstrated that is not what happened.
Congratulations, you guys now have an out to dismiss everything I'm saying. Hope it was worth it?
One example...
If you watched the series you would see the numerous examples of the writers saying one thing in one season and directly contradicting it in another season. It's literally 10 hours of him pointing this stuff out. It isn't just one example. Why are you here if you didn't watch the very thing this thread is about?
Many people have posted in this thread and have given opinions about the show without watching a 10 hour review. Those people were actively involved in the discussion at hand and posted their thoughts on the show itself, because it's not just about the review, it's also about the show it's reviewing. It's a patronizing line of argument to expect a person to sit through a ten hour review before they can talk about a 100+ hour show they've already watched and invested a lot of separate time into, especially when a discussion is clearly already happening in the thread with people who haven't watched said review.
The difference is, as far as I know, they didn't ignore evidence when it countered a claim they baselessly made
Sorry mate, this is a losing battle. I understand people dismissing the flaws in favor of the years of entertainment, but defending the writers? Nah. They were full of shit from the beginning. You don't even need to watch the videos to know this.
I watched upto part 7 so far. He's right, show is great but the last season is a betrayl, and the ending sucks.
I used to watch this with my mother, and she's not into anything sci-fi at all. She eventually gave up half way, as the plot went nowhere. All I remember was that the first season was incredible.
I said that they were dicks once and that didn't make them dicks for all time. That's hardly ignoring evidence. That's pointing out that I can't extrapolate a thesis behind the mentality of the show itself from a single incident.
There are countless instances of them deliberately lying over and over, many in that same video I already linked to! But since you refuse to watch it...
And as a person who actively consumed Lost and all of it's behind the scenes content including a lot of rumors and fan theories (I was basically an addict, lmao), as well as a lot of stuff over the way the show has been talked about by it's creators and participants post-mortem, and has rewatched a lot of the show in chunks over time-- appealing to the ten hour video essay isn't as big of a point of concern as you think it is.
And there are many other people in this thread who are discussing the show without having seen the video. Because as the video is about the show, so is the thread.