J & B
This is sort of funny, but I don't think I like the creators of Lost making fun of how silly their final season was. That's the fans' job.
Speaking of which, here's an interesting comment from a fan at Ain't It Cool News who just watched the video:
I guess my problem with the show's ending and BSG's ending are similar
by iamnicksaicnsn
BSG ended on a HUGE deus ex machina explanation that was a severe divergence from the themes established at the beginning of the show (other than 6 showing up to Baltar), but ultimately they had convoluted the plot for a while before that. It was pretty genius for the first two seasons, and I was a huge apologist for the 3rd and most of the 4th, but to me they went nowhere with the different 6's, made Starbuck an angel, abused Baltar as a character, and moved away from using the show to comment on current events in a heavy sci-fi way. I guess I wish they had explained things with more heavy scientific reasonings than all of the prophecy and "god" manipulations.
Lost didn't end with such hardcore deus ex-ing, but they did split off from more scientific explanations for the things that happened. The flash-side-ways could have followed the established sci-fi feel that the show had used all show long, but I really felt like they wasted all of the potential by making their state-side comings and goings an elaborate purgatory.
Here are some things that (based on the limited knowledge of remembering all of this information a year later) I thought could have saved the last season:
- Having it all be part of an actual alternate universe
- Establishing just how much of a threat Smokey was to the outside world like:
- Having the smoke monster be connected to all of the alternate universes and his leaving the island unleashing his full power
- Or having the smoke monster be connected and the only way to keep them from collapsing was either keeping him on the island or disconnecting the link by killing him
- If not an alternate universe, have it be a sort of catch-22 ideal construct (similar to ST:Generation's Nexus or that TNG episode where Riker is captured by Romulans and has a son, or the creature that made Superman think he was in his ideal life back on Krypton) created by the Smoke Monster to keep Jack from unleashing the power needed to stop him, and having Smokey use Jack's son as a conduit to keep tabs on Jack (if not him being the Smoke Monster the whole time)
- Finding a way to reunite Locke with his body, either from the alternate universe or something else, so that Locke could have been Locke at the end
- Making Widmore and Walt matter more than the one being a fan-service afterthought
- Having the cork be a gateway, or connecting thread to other alternate universes
- Having Daniel Farraday be more of a presence in the final season, if not for his actual self helping in some way, but at least the idea that he didn't die in vain and that his scientific theories had actually meant something to the show
I could probably think of more if the show was more fresh in my mind, but having been a year I can't remember all the details.
Ultimately, to me, both BSG and LOST were two genius shows that forgot what they were about and had forked off the road way too much in a panicked effort to wrap up the stories. I seriously hope though, they aren't the last genre shows that attempt to reach such heights of quality, even if they can't maintain them.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:09 AM
3 Comments:
A friend just started watching Lost for the first time, so I rewatched a few episodes with him. I'm thinking that it holds up even less well than I feared.
Last episode of S1: Jack, Locke, Arzt, Kate, Hurley, and Rousseau walk through the jungle, then through the "Dark Territory" (where they are threatened by the smoke monster), then to the Black Rock, get dynamite, and return via the Dark Territory (where the smoke monster pulls Locke into a hole), then back to camp.
All the while, I am vividly aware that the smoke monster is Esau. And therefore I am trying to make sense of it. There is absolutely no suggestion in season six that Esau has any interest in "testing" our heroes, nor in scaring them. His only interest in them is using some as tools to destroy Jacob. So why is he playing this cat-and-mouse game? Surely he isn't really confined to the Dark Territory (unless we postulate another ring of ash that was later removed by persons unknown). He clearly is powerful enough to kill Locke if he wanted to, or the entire party for that matter -- recall how easily he wiped out the residents of the Temple! Yet his attack on Locke doesn't seem to be a trick, because if Jack hadn't had a stick of dynamite handy, Locke would have died. And then I remember the monster killing Eko a year later. Back when we thought the smoke monster was the Island "testing" people, we might think it made sense... but now we know that the Island speaks through Jacob, not Esau.
This isn't something subtle, based on obscure Lost-fanatic trivia. The identification of the smoke monster with Esau will be clearly remembered by anyone who watched Season Six. And I think they will all have the same problem I did. Once you know that the smoke monster is an intelligent person with a plan, his random activities in seasons one, two, and three are horribly inconsistent with Season Six. And I'm not even mentioning Season Four, in which Ben controls him with a toilet plunger.
The guy you quoted mentioned:
... the creature that made Superman think he was in his ideal life back on Krypton ...
He's referring to Alan Moore's Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything". It's one of the two best Superman stories I've ever read, the other being Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" (the final pre-Crisis Superman story). Both of them have been reprinted here and here.
I rewatched much of Lost while Lost was still on, but I haven't watched it now that we know the ultimate secrets (or as ultimate as they'll let on).
While they vaguely knew where they were going (black versus white in the pilot), they obviously didn't work out a lot and had to keep things interesting as they were going along. So there's no doubt seams were showing. And not just cul de sacs--I'd guess it's almost impossible for certain things to make sense.
But, just remembering the episode you described, I'm not sure if I have the same problems you do. First, Esau, in fact, can't kill the main characters--that's part of the deal. Second, we can assume (even if it's hard to explain) that absolutely everything he does (not that he does everything--perhaps "the Island" wanted Arzt dead, but I'm not sure if Esau had anything to do with it--maybe not Jacob either) is part of his wider plan, his long con. He's testing the Lostaways, poking for weaknesses, to figure out how he can work it so that one of them will be led into the Temple (along with Esau) and kill Jacob. It's a tricky, complex plan, but Esau has been trying for a long time, and this is his last shot. Part of that plan, I guess, is getting the devotion of John Locke, along with the resentment of Ben.
That said, clearly the writers were trying to create tension and excitement with the smoke monster along the way, little thinking of how any of its actions fit into the overall picture.
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