Lost: Season Six (2 Viewers)

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Josh Dial




I don't know what else to tell ya. Cuse and Lindelof literally stated that they (the LOSTies, on the Island and in the flashbacks) aren't dead, and that the Island isn't purgatory. They said it, recorded it, and had it written down and plastered onto the internet, for all eternity. Your idea is very interesting (and I mean very, it could be a great show in the right hands), and in many ways it's better than the reality of LOST. However, it's not the way it is according to the powers that be.


Regarding the Bad Robot staff writer, it definitely looks suspect, and I certainly wouldn't change my interpretation over some nameless blog post. That being said, the so-called radio silence was self-impossed by Cuse and Lindelof--it doesn't apply to everyone who ever worked on the show. If a key grip or camera 'B' operator or Matthew Fox wants to come out and say stuff, they are free to.

Again, like I said, I'm glad people have that interpretation, and they find those who back it, including the way the authors wrote it. I'm just saying I will prefer my interpretation (and those who follow it, of which apparently based on google is a bunch) because wow, it to me is the difference between the show really sucking and being about something.


I'm glad that's what the writers Want to assert. I'm kind of reminded again of LOTR. Frequently, schools would point out all of the references and the illusions to the world at war. And bless his soul, Tolkien would come out and say it was all BS and none of it had anything to do with WWI/WWII.

But, in that case, as a good prof once told me, the writer himself couldn't estimate how much the world had influenced him and his writing, and we'd be much better off if he had stayed quiet and we all took our own meaning from something. Because having the meaning spoonfed to us is like being given a shopping list. Where finding meaning is more like enjoying what the list meant to someone and what they were trying to do with it (a romantic dinner? Feeding kids?)


Because there is no joy in a solid meaning. So, I'll check out of the thread, and leave it to those who wish to say "I have definitively have the answer" because I advocate that no one has the answer as to what they really mean

 

[Josh Dial]

Originally Posted by mattCR


Because there is no joy in a solid meaning. So, I'll check out of the thread, and leave it to those who wish to say "I have definitively have the answer" because I advocate that no one has the answer as to what they really mean

I would agree that solid meaning is, for the most part, detrimental to enjoying a show such as LOST. However, meaning and interpretation only applies in any real sense to analogy, symbolism, inference, metaphor and the like. Saying specific things that happened were completely different things isn't interpretation, it's just being stubborn to be stubborn. Thinking that Jacob is more evil than the Man in Black is interpretation, thinking that Walt had special powers (making the bird hit the glass) is interpretation, saying it's likely that Sawyer and Miles stayed friends after the Ajira flight landed is interpretation. If you say Tolkien was really channeling his experiences in The Great War (specifically the Somme) into the Dead Marshes, that's interpretation. Saying Middle Earth and all of LOTR was actually a dream world concocted by Samwise as he napped on his couch isn't interpretation.


Some things, many things, can be interpreted many ways. Other things are just the way they are.

 

[NeilO]

Originally Posted by TravisR



If (and it's a big if) they talk about the show when the DVDs are released, do you really think they're going to definitively say what they intended with the ending? Maybe someday they will say what they intended but I wouldn't expect it in under three months. What would be the point of letting people debate if they plan on telling everyone exactly what the ending meant? Or if they want everyone to recognize their interpretation of the ending, why not have explicitly spelled out everything inside the show so there was no question?

Of course, they might just say what they say in the clip shown on ABC with Diane Sawyer in post 1697. I do think they will say some other things and perhaps answer other questions.

The point of letting people debate is for people to have that experience. If they want to add in what they meant in the ending that still won't end the debate. I remember an Isaac Asimov anecdote about him seeing people debating the meaning of Nightfall and he said that it was something different and that he was the author. The person holding the debate that his being the author was immaterial to what it "really" meant.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

And bless his soul, Tolkien would come out and say it was all BS and none of it had anything to do with WWI/WWII.

No, he DIDN'T. He never said that. Not once. As I've already explained in painful detail in this very thread the LAST time someone (was it you?) made this idiotic, false and unsupported assertion. Tolkein said that LotR was not an allegory of WWII (which anyone with half a brain knows from reading it, since there is nothing in it that resembles the Blitz, D-Day or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and none of the main characters is a true close analog of any of the major war leaders.)

Since much of the book was planned out and even written before the start of the war, of course the war had little influence on it. (Little, not none. He sent the chapters out as a serial to his son in the army, and it is inevitable that both his accompanying letters and his son's comments on the manuscript would have been informed by their experiences.)

But he insisted (including in the introduction to the revised edition) on the applicability of his tale to the modern world and his war to other wars.

But he never denied that most of his fiction was influenced by the First World War, in which he experienced the horrors of trench warfare and lost most of his friends. It was without question the most important event of his life, and Tolkein was too smart and too honest to do something as moronic as deny its impact on his soul and his work. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said of another conflict, "We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top….In our youths, our hearts were touched with fire."


So if Tolkein is your "evidence" for the Lost writers not quite understanding that they were really conforming to your pet theory when they thought they were writing something else entirely, I'm afraid you're going to need a better example. (And possibly a bigger boat. )


Regards,


Joe

 

[Jeffery_H]

Originally Posted by Holadem



My feelings exactly.


--

H

You and others have nailed it and that is certainly an unreliable source. I would dismiss it for sure and not even remotely consider anything they claim to be true. I am just surprised more of this sort of trash hasn't appeared by those seeking their attention.

 

[Joseph Young]

ABC sets the record straight about LOST finale's plane crash images. What's the final word on those images of the crashed plane over the end credits? "...the photographs were really just a nostalgic, transitional touch added by ABC executives — and not executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse."

 

[Holadem]

Originally Posted by Joseph Young What's the final word on those images of the crashed plane over the end credits? "...the photographs were really just a nostalgic, transitional touch added by ABC executives — and not executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse."

Now that was a moronic decision if I have ever seen one. -- H

 

[Steve Y]

Originally Posted by Joseph Young What's the final word on those images of the crashed plane over the end credits? "...the photographs were really just a nostalgic, transitional touch added by ABC executives — and not executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse."

That's what I took those images to mean: a nostalgic remembrance. As in "this is where they lived". And a way of remembering the show, which will always be famous for its first season. It wasn't a tacky idea (I thought it was rather nice) but it was misguided. The execs should have known that anything other than a black screen and credits was bound to get misinterpreted by some fans as a "final twist".

 

[Jeffery_H]

Originally Posted by Josh Dial



Well, here ya go:


http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b8208_lost_redux_okay_now_it_purgatory_get.html


http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Official_Lost_Podcast/Season_3 (listen to the podcast for April 30th, "D.O.C"/"The Brig," and scrub to 3:30) "we were not lying, and it's not purgatory."


They specifically say it's not purgatory, that they aren't lying about that fact, and that if they were lying, they would get tarred and feathered, so they aren't lying. Damon Lindelof literally swore that they aren't dead, and it isn't purgatory.


If you can't believe a man swearing an oath to his fans, and then doing swearing it again alongside one of his best friends (as he refers to Cuse), then how can you truly believe anything in life?

Yes, I would agree with that, but only at the time this was stated.That does not mean they can not change their minds and it was written in stone, as in Lost, everyone has a choice. I am not saying that is not correct, only that no one can make it an absolute because there are clearly other views and they know that. It is why I read that ABC and Lindelof/Cuse are loving the fan sites and are said to be very happy by what they see. Like I said before, only when/if Cuse/Lindelof make an OFFICIAL statement AFTER the show ended will it be true of the show. Which of course does not rule out it will mean different things to different people which is how I see they want it to be in the end.


Now, about your last statement, I find that rather petty and all too telling. I could fill an epic book answering your question "then how can you truly believe anything in life?" but I will just say that I hope you find your way and wish you the best.

 

[Jeffery_H]

Originally Posted by Joseph Young What's the final word on those images of the crashed plane over the end credits? "...the photographs were really just a nostalgic, transitional touch added by ABC executives — and not executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse."

Well, that sure does help some with what Cuse/Lindelof may have intended and said in past interviews about the ISLAND not being purgatory, but ABC sure did mess with some images and bad timing for sure. I still am not convinced that until Cuse/Lindelof make new statements at some point after the show ended that some of this was not planned. Even if they do say that, it still can be open to ones view point just as others have different meaning for other movies and how they ended. No matter what or how you want to view the entire show or just the sideways flashes being purgatory, it was still one of the best and most religious endings I have seen in a very long time and I love it.

 

[mattCR]

I realized only later that this post referenced things that happened 3 years ago. This of course, was long before they had ditched so many plotlines that went nowhere. What they thought at that point (Season 3) and how it ended up don't necessarily have to mean anything


Writers can easily change their mind in 3 years.

 

[NeilO]

I just skimmed through the finale again, fast forwarding through some and pausing at other things. Somehow I misremembered when Miles discovered Richard's grey hair. I had been thinking it was after Jack pulled the plug, but it was before that. I guess he just started aging once Jack took over from Jacob. Those who watched it with closed captioning will have noted that the flashing/realization scene sounds in the Sideways limbo were captioned as "magnetic zap" or something like that. That music really makes you weepy. The Sayid/Shannon combo rings false to me, but then it has been a long time since I saw those early episodes. It was a great series and I hope that they will answer a few more questions later on, especially about things they had planned that were overcome by events.

 

[PaulDA]

I get annoyed when people (frequently art or literary critics) try to tell you what an author/artist/etc. "really meant", especially when that author/artist/etc. has EXPLICITLY stated what they meant by their work. It is arrogant presumption of the worst sort.

That said, when a work of art (film, painting, musical composition, etc.) is put out to the public, each person who experiences that art is free to define what it means for himself. That is different from defining what it means to its creator. So if some wish to interpret the show as having been entirely "in purgatory", that is up to each individual who chooses to do so. However, if the creators of the show explicitly state that that was NOT their intention, in the absence of prior evidence to the contrary, we are compelled to take them at their word--it is their creation, after all.


I not only take them at their word, I agree with their meaning (specifically that, except for the sideways stuff in season 6, it was "real"). I respect mattCR's take, even if I disagree with it. Where I would adamantly argue with mattCR, if he were to assert as much (which, as far as I can tell, he hasn't), would be if he claimed that he knows better than the creators what they meant. I've had professors who have done that with literature and, frankly, I found them intellectually suspect. People are free to take whatever meaning they wish from any work of art--they are NOT free to claim they know the creators' intentions better than the creators themselves.

 

[Joe_H]

Eh, I still don't see any room for interpretation, myself. Finally listened to Bill Simmons' wrapup podcast and he was on with a friend of his, with journalist Chuck Klosterman, and with critic Alan Sepinwall, and the general sentiment was something I agree with. The biggest problem with the last 15 minutes, despite the fact that I thought it was fitting, was that it wasn't open-ended enough. In other words, I'd have absolutely loved an ending with room for many interpretations. I just don't think what they gave us was it. Honestly I think while well-intentioned, Matt is clutching at straws a bit.


But hey, if it makes you enjoy the finale more, then whatever.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

More proof that they did not all die in the plane crash

 

[mattCR]

I think I'll check out of the thread. I recognize others have their opinions. I have come to realize, as I have said, that should I accept the alternate opinion, at least to me, this entire series falls into one of the most laughable disasters of a series ever thrown on TV. I simply would have to admit that I had wasted time with what was an unwatchable mess of vague happenings that all meant nothing, absolutely nothing. That the writers had managed to pull one of the longest cons ever to air, and that while they feinted and hinted, things just randomly happened Deus Ex Machina, in order to ramp up the potential drama that was, in fact, no real drama at all.

I recognize this may be the writers intent. I recognize to some it's imperative to prove this is the intent. To me, that intent just absolutely destroys every season of the show since the first one as almost meaningless. So, I either consider the show having an open ended mystery that can be the source of great (fun) debate, or, I accept that those who view such will be seen as "fools" (despite the numerous references in the show) and that the only way to look at this is that everything is as simple as it seems.


This seems a big leap from those in the beginning of this thread ready and willing to endow Jacob with biblical angelic abilities at the beginning of the season. In the end, he has no abilities, and the only reason he couldn't kill his brother so much earlier was that he was either afraid to pass on guardianship to someone else who could do it (as MiB did) or he was rock stupid and just held onto his own power.

Argh. Anyway, regardless. I recognize that despite numerous thoughts on this in numerous other places I visit, HTF has pretty much become an arbiter of "this is the correct view" and alternate theories seem to be viewed as a thorn in the side


I'm reminded of a scene from Harold & Maude,





I will always enjoy seeing things maybe differently. Not necessarily wrong, just differently In the end, as I've repeatedly said, many of us enjoyed the show. How we enjoy it, and why we enjoy it is up to us.


I wish all the fellow LOSTies a great time as the BD comes to release! The acting and the scripts in this, as well as the performances, especially of Terry O'Quinn in my mind rank amongst the best ever on television.

 

[Holadem]

I've watched the finale about 3 times by now. Perhaps it is because I know what is coming, but now even the Island stuff seems rather bleak. The mostly overcast sky contributes to much of it, but also the unprecedented absence of a large group of people on the Island in the finale makes it feel really desolate.


Overall, pretty heavy stuff. Unlike There is no Place like Home, or the Incident, both of which I basically know by heart, this one will not get a lot of play with me. A bit too heavy.


--

H

 

[Joe_H]

While on the subject, "There's No Place Like Home" is a good episode, but in retrospect, it also contains the most-anticlimactic / disappointing part of the show in many ways to me.


The part where the Oceanic 6 actually arrive in LA safely was just absolutely ruined by the flashforwards. You knew it was going to happen, and pretty much all the drama in the moment was gone. I realize that they 'weren't supposed to leave' so it's not going to be completely celebratory, but still, that remains the one case to me where the narrative structure ruined what should've been a great scene.

 

[NeilO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronald Epstein

And Kristin confirmed at least one answer that will appear on the DVDs.


We'll find out what happened to Walt.


I just hope they attend to some of the other loose ends.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Joe_H
The part where the Oceanic 6 actually arrive in LA safely was just absolutely ruined by the flashforwards.

I think that scene is less about the reveal of who the Oceanic 6 were and more about the emotion of Jack meeting up with his mom, Hurley seeing his parents and Kate having no one but Aaron, etc.