Lost!

[innerSpaceman]

For me, it's not so much which questions were answered or not, it's the sheer magnitude of them. That's not even my biggest problem with the finale or the final season. But watch that video I linked to. The overwhelming quantity of unexplained stuff that begged explanation is staggering.


The utter disrespect for the audience in throwing so much absolutely pulled out of their asses stuff, all the while insisting there was some grand plan where most of that stuff would come to make sense, is hubris of the worst quality. It was all outright lies and bullsh!t.

The fact that I knew it all along, and have been saying so since Season One, makes it all the more infuriating. I had to deal with Lost apologists for six years, and it gives me no pleasure to be right in the end, and to have endured six years of undeserved mockery for my convictions that the writers had none.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

The utter disrespect for the audience in throwing so much absolutely pulled out of their asses stuff, all the while insisting there was some grand plan where most of that stuff would come to make sense, is hubris of the worst quality. It was all outright lies and bullsh!t.

Totally on the mark......it was just that "disrespect". And now, to have them come out and pretty much say none of that stuff mattered because what is really important is their interpersonal relationships is just pure baloney.

THEY posed the questions, again and again. They hinted at answers, again and again......if it wasn't important, then why ask to begin with?

And I'd like to add something, bc over and over I keep hearing what was really important was this imterpersonal relationship stuff and not the mythology.

Ok, if that is truly the case, then you'd think they would at least get the personal stuff right .....right?

Well, late in season 3 we have Charlie writing that one of his top 10 moments in his life was meeting Claire on the night of the crash.

To which I say,,,,,,,Oh really?!

Claire spent that first night in the company of Hurley, not Charlie.......and to add further proof against the writers knowing what they were doing from the get go I pose this question:

Why did Charlie want Hurley to help him catch a fish in the second episode of the first season?

[bewitched]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

For me, it's not so much which questions were answered or not, it's the sheer magnitude of them. That's not even my biggest problem with the finale or the final season. But watch that video I linked to. The overwhelming quantity of unexplained stuff that begged explanation is staggering.

See, I don't think it needed explaining. Are there unanswered questions I would have liked an answer for...sure. Did I need an answer...no. The other stuff, no matter how spectacular, was clearly just (extraordinary) fluff of a life lived. The island was (is) an extraordinary place that afforded extraordinary experiences, but in the end, they were experiences of the castaways presented, at times by Jacob as a way to parse and, at other times, merely as circumstance, which facilitated their redemption and their ultimate salvation.

The utter disrespect for the audience in throwing so much absolutely pulled out of their asses stuff, all the while insisting there was some grand plan where most of that stuff would come to make sense, is hubris of the worst quality. It was all outright lies and bullsh!t.

IMO, you are placing far too much emphasis on our own (personal) feelings and not enough on what was presented as a means to facilitate a story or life. Stories are rarely strictly linear. There is fluff. There is nonsense. There are unanswered questions. I will never be able to answer why my father hates me; why life chose to give me a perfect daughter when I had planned for none. Some questions are never answered. Some beg for an answer that never comes. They didn't have to manipulate flashbacks. They didn't have to manipulate a closing scene to fit with an opening scene. Did they always know 100% where they were going? No. They had a general idea of a beginning and an end. They had a story to tell. sometimes it went off track just as reality sometimes goes off track. Most of life's questions go unanswered and yet we still find a beginning and an understanding of the end.

The fact that I knew it all along, and have been saying so since Season One, makes it all the more infuriating. I had to deal with Lost apologists for six years, and it gives me no pleasure to be right in the end, and to have endured six years of undeserved mockery for my convictions that the writers had none.

And you know, no disrespect intended, I have to question why you stuck it out. You have been a pessimist and someone who clearly has been infuriated by the lack of a neatly tied package from the beginning. Why did you keep watching when you clearly hated it so?

I'm no apologist. LOST needs no apology. It's a frickin' TV show. Either you bought into it, or at the very least agreed to go along for the ride, or you never bought in to the premise and thought the whole thing was a bunch of crap. I don't think any of us who loved the ride would for a second apologize for agreeing to suspend reality (and perhaps the natural order) for an hour a week.

I don't think you're right (and quite frankly, I suspect you derive a great deal of pleasure from thinking you now have definitive prove to give you an "I told you so."). I think a story was told. It was well told. It made me laugh, it made me cry...it made me look forward to Tuesday night. Was it always exactly what the writers originally had in mind? I don't know, circumstances (such as Mr. Eko's 3 season arc unexpectedly becoming a 15 episode +/- arc) change, people (Walt) change. Do I care? Not really. Would I think differently if I had an exact outline of their original plans? Maybe. But I didn't. I was along for the ride. It was wild. I was unpredictable. It was amazing. And yes, at times it was stupid, pointless and pedantic but you know what? It was a great ride. I'll miss my Tuesday nights. I'll miss my Wednesday obsessive armchair quarterbacking. I'm satisfied to think the characters I've grown to love have found their redemption, have found their peace....

[innerSpaceman]

Frankly, Bewitched, I "stuck it out" because LOST was damned good entertainment. Since I knew all along the questions and mysteries were fluff that would never be explained, none of that stuff EVER bothered me. It doesn't now.

It SHOULD bother everyone who went along with it, and poured over every hint for meaning and substance, and took in the lies that were said by the writers and staff outside of the show that it would all make sense in the end.

And a story is NOT life. Fluff is not there to 'just happen.' Not that much fluff. In a novel or a movie, such sloppy writing and loose ends would be unforgiveable. In most tv shows, they get a pass for that sort of stuff. I'd say Lost is an exception that is rightly held to a higher standard than most tv shows. Those CONSTANT questions and mysteries deserved a bit of denouement. LOST is NOT life. It is a written, constructed piece of meticulously planned and expensively budgeted entertainment.


Again, the unanswered mysteries are NOT the reason I'm ultimately disappointed with the finale and the last season in general. But it's a sloppy, cheesy rip-off nonetheless.

[mousepod]

I agree with iSm.

Additionally, the more I think about the LOST finale (and the other recent pieces of mass entertainment that have pissed me off), I've been wondering why it is that I have such a negative reaction. For me, it's not just that the writing was sloppy or that questions were left unanswered.

I've come to a fuzzy conclusion that the reason that I have such a viscerally negative reaction to the way the show wrapped up was because of the philosophy that was finally revealed at the end. The people who enjoyed the ending have tended to argue that it was "all about the characters" and "love is the constant". That's all nice, and is probably why my initial reaction was that I felt somewhat emotionally satisfied, if intellectually troubled. I admit it, I'm a softie. Show me the dog at the end lie down next to the dying hero, and my heart strings are tugged.

However, like iSm said, the story isn't real life - it's a construct. What bothers me is that the show was set up as a mystery - with the undercurrent of Science vs. Fate. The producers promised (as late as season 5) that there was a scientific explanation for the mysteries of the Island. Even if the explanation was sci-fi mumbo-jumbo, that would have been OK with me. Instead, all of science and logic were tossed out in favor of a conservative Christian message on a feel good "all people go to heaven" Sunday School level. If the "real" Locke was a "man of faith", and Jack was initially a "man of science", then the message of the show is that "faith wins", because in the final season when Jack becomes the man of faith, the "Locke" that argues for reason is the show's embodiment of evil. If, by the show's logic, the opposite of faith is science, then science is evil. Scary subtext.

Throughout the entire sixth season, the producers have said that the "flash-sideways" is "real", not an "alternate reality". So the finale basically said that "science can't solve life's mysteries" and "the religious concept of an afterlife is real". That's the kind of message that chills me to the bone.

I know it's only my opinion, and I know it's not going to be a popular one... but I think that's why I'm bummed out. Fans of the ending say it's about the people and relationships. I think it was about god and religion.

[mousepod]

I guess I'm not alone.

[Ghoulish Delight]

[scaeagles]

That was perfect.

[CoasterMatt]

So, what happened to the one armed man?

[BarTopDancer]

That.