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March 29, 2024, 09:48:25 AM

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Reevaluating Lost

Started by Ja'moke, December 10, 2020, 03:49:17 PM

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Moribunderast

I loved Lost. I did initially jump off early in season 3 but I was dragged back by the end of season 4 when I was reading (probably here) that it had gotten really good. Indeed, the time-travel stuff and Desmond stuff really did pick the show up and I found parts of s4 and 5 to be thrilling viewing. Then came the ending and what was point? I know some would argue a fun journey shouldn't be completely ruined by a bad ending but a 6-year mystery with bullshit answers is just a waste of time. The answer to "what is the monster?" might be one of the most offensively lazy piles of shit I've ever been asked to sniff and an earlier post explained why: the clear pivot in how it acted and what it did, only to eventually be "It's some bloke who fell down a river of magic pixie light." Fuck off you absolute pricks.

Luckily for Lindelof he then went on to make The Leftovers which was basically a good version of Lost.

Fr.Bigley

Re-evaluated it. still shit; weak plot points, reeks of screenwriters strike to be honest. went on far longer than needed and just preposterous toward the last few episodes. Could have been something noteworthy, now a mere footnote in a long line of lazily executed american TV of the 00's. literal quote- "We were running out of flashbacks for the characters to have."

Point made.

Ja'moke

Quote from: Moribunderast on December 13, 2020, 12:56:52 AM
Luckily for Lindelof he then went on to make The Leftovers which was basically a good version of Lost.

The Leftovers AND Watchmen, both of which were fantastic.

mjwilson

Quote from: Ja'moke on December 11, 2020, 05:34:13 PM
The "lol polar bear" thing seems to be what most people latch on to to laugh at the show despite it being one of the most logically answered questions in the whole show.


  • brought polar bears to the island
  • trained them to turn a two thousand year-old wheel in a freezing cold chamber
  • consequently teleporting them to Tunisia
  • in order to physically move the island, optionally unsticking some of the people on the island from the linear flow of time

I mean it's answered, but I don't know if you could call it logical.

Ja'moke

Quote from: mjwilson on December 13, 2020, 02:27:09 PM

  • brought polar bears to the island
  • trained them to turn a two thousand year-old wheel in a freezing cold chamber
  • consequently teleporting them to Tunisia
  • in order to physically move the island, optionally unsticking some of the people on the island from the linear flow of time

I mean it's answered, but I don't know if you could call it logical.

Haha, I actually forgot about all that stuff.

I meant more, the Dharma Initiative set up various labs on the island, one of which was a zoological department, and they'd brought polar bears to the island to test on. The polar bears later escaped, hence why they were running around a tropical island.

Like, polar bears being on the island in itself is not some out there idea, and yet many people use that as a sticking point.

But, yes, I completely forget about what they used the polar bears to do.

DrGreggles

I actually quite liked that sort of thing, but a lot of people are unable/unwilling to work things out for themselves.
Maybe Hurley should have said all that directly to the camera for their benefit.

DrGreggles

Reached the end of s1e4 on my re-watch.
Just remembered the moment that pulled me in initially.

gib

Quote from: Ja'moke on December 11, 2020, 10:24:25 PM
To me it always felt like the island was meant to be a sort of purgatory and the castaways were there to be judged, rewarded or punished. Sun even says at one point the island is punishing them. And there are lots of other hints too.

But fans guessed that very early on
. So it seemed like Cuse and Lindelof threw in some other stuff and took a detour to prove that it wasn't that. And yet in the end, they still kind of did the purgatory thing anyway except within the alternate timeline rather than the island itself.

EDIT: Sorry, I just realised purlieu said the same thing above. I agree.

Yup. And the writers said no, it isn't anything like that. Which is what made the ending such a pile of shit for me.

DrGreggles

But the purgatory was the s6 'flash sideways', not what happened on the island.

gib

meh, it was still the ending

DrGreggles

Well, the writers did say that the island wasn't purgatory - and it wasn't.

mjwilson

I quite enjoyed the fact that they made the flash-sideways purgatory, nice successful bit of trolling as far as I am concerned.


Billy

I'm trying to remember when I stopped watching it but I think I only saw the first two seasons, the two that were shown on Channel 4 until Sky poached it from them - we had Virgin Media at the time, who subsequently removed Sky One from their lineup for about two years so we couldn't watch that or new episodes of The Simpsons anymore. Others in my family stuck with it all the way, and the last episode (broadcast on Sky at 5:00am to simulcast with the States) was the last time anyone in the family ever used the VHS recorder, it was On Demand and streaming all the way after that. I didn't even know there were flash-forwards in the show until I read this thread, let alone flash-sideways.

Now, Heroes on the other hand, that was one that had a great first season and then had the worst case of diminishing returns I've ever seen from a programme. I missed an episode of Season 3 when I was on holiday, realised I was basically the only one I knew still bothering with it and gave up on it after that.

mjwilson

I think I had a year's gap after the move to Sky, then I switched over to iTunes to watch it.

DrGreggles

I was also on Virgin Media at the time and my recollection is that the first bit of s3 was about to start on Sky when the channel disappeared. Pretty sure I had to rely on torrents for them.
By the time the rest of s3 was broadcast I had moved to Cambridge and got Sky, so was able to watch on TV again.
There's every chance I'd not have bothered otherwise, as I nearly gave up after those first 6 s3 episodes, but it returned with 2 amazing episodes* - and I was back in!


*Juliet and Desmond centric IIRC, 2 of my favourite characters

Ja'moke

Quote from: DrGreggles on December 13, 2020, 04:27:52 PM
Reached the end of s1e4 on my re-watch.
Just remembered the moment that pulled me in initially.

Locke wheelchair reveal?

DrGreggles

Quote from: Ja'moke on December 13, 2020, 11:28:59 PM
Locke wheelchair reveal?

Yep, then the cut to him on the beach moving his foot.
First time it became clear to me that there was more to this than survive/escape the island.

touchingcloth

WERE NOT THE ONLY PPL ON THIS IRELAND, AND WE ALL KNOW IT!!!!!!!!!

Ja'moke

I was in from the moment they test the radio and hear the distress signal from the French woman and realise it has been playing on a loop for 16 years. Punctuated with Charlie's, "Guys, where are we?"

mjwilson

Quote from: touchingcloth on December 14, 2020, 09:45:06 AM
WERE NOT THE ONLY PPL ON THIS IRELAND, AND WE ALL KNOW IT!!!!!!!!!

I always remembered this moment as Locke being the only person prepared to speak the obvious truth to all the other idiots.

But actually he's just making a big move to distract attention from Walt (who has been poisoning people). Good work Locke.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Ja'moke on December 14, 2020, 12:15:41 PM
I was in from the moment they test the radio and hear the distress signal from the French woman and realise it has been playing on a loop for 16 years. Punctuated with Charlie's, "Guys, where are we?"

Just seeing the name here made me suddenly remember that Charlie is the name of the Hobbit one and that his band was called Driveshaft, and has given me an ear worm of "you all everybody". I thought that information was buried away mentally for good - fuck you, friend.

Ja'moke

Quote from: mjwilson on December 14, 2020, 02:02:05 PM
I always remembered this moment as Locke being the only person prepared to speak the obvious truth to all the other idiots.

But actually he's just making a big move to distract attention from Walt (who has been poisoning people). Good work Locke.

Yep. Not poisoning though, it's when Walt burns the raft.

mjwilson

Quote from: Ja'moke on December 14, 2020, 04:46:08 PM
Yep. Not poisoning though, it's when Walt burns the raft.

Ah thanks, I mixed up the raft plots.

petril

the poor ending was a second and final warning to NOT do a fucking X-files - if you're having a mythology, get it planned and don't write it all on fag packets at the last minute.

I watched the first few, but never truly got into it, so I didn't bother. I liked all the archivey Dharma vids, I remember watching them over and over because they hit a perfect sort of overseas version of hauntology(does hauntology necessarily have to be from Britain? it feels it must but I'm not sure)

Menu

Quote from: petrilTanaka on December 14, 2020, 09:00:12 PM
the poor ending was a second and final warning to NOT do a fucking X-files - if you're having a mythology, get it planned and don't write it all on fag packets at the last minute.


Are there any, ahem, 'oven-ready' shows that did plan it all and therefore had a great ending that made sense?

BeardFaceMan

Breaking Bad? It certainly had a great ending that made sense.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Menu on December 15, 2020, 01:13:35 AM
Are there any, ahem, 'oven-ready' shows that did plan it all and therefore had a great ending that made sense?

I'm struggling to think of many, mainly because it's anathema to the US system of making (i.e. the writers' room) and commissioning (i.e. make it til they're sick of it). All of the examples I can think of which go out on a high are British-made, and I suspect even Deadwood would have gone to shit if they'd have kept on making it rather than just canning it.

There must be some examples out there, though. All seasons of The Wire are very well reviewed, so I hope when I finally get round to watching it I'm not disappointed.

Hat FM

Quote from: BeardFaceMan on December 15, 2020, 03:50:57 AM
Breaking Bad? It certainly had a great ending that made sense.

i think the makers of breaking bad had a very simplistic idea for how it ended
Spoiler alert
walt dies
[close]
but they mostly made it up as they went along.

NoSleep

Something the makers of BB were distinctively good at (and continue to be so with BCS).