Still disappointed.
Hey there folks, long time since I posted anything here. It’s a great site and i miss the forum. I just wanted to say that I am still disappointed with the way the show ended. At the end of the show I thought I was happy with how it all wrapped up but as time passes I feel cheated for all of us. It seems now that it was all made up as they went along. That in and off itself does not bother me. What bothers me is that there was some many ways they could have ended it but they still choose the crappiest one out there. It wasn’t like they had to go with that one to pull in the maximum amount of viewers on the night. There were many better theories and ways to wrap it up posted on this and other sites and they could have all been explained it a two part episode. That fans of that show got kicked in the teeth. As you rewatch the show over the years this becomes more and more evident. They just went for the lowest common denominator ending. Since then anytime I tune into a new show if I think that there is no plausible ending in sight or logic that can apply to an endgame season I will switch right off. We deserved better; we were the fans, the people who made people watch with us, the people who generated newspaper column inches with out theory and discussion forums. We did not get the ending we deserved. It would be nice to hear from some of the old gang again so please (you know who you are) reply to this. Even if only to say hello and let me know your viewing habits now.
Hey daddyx! Wow, it’s been a long time.. I surely miss the discussions on this site.. Well, in response to your aggravations with the end of the show.. I agree it was a huge disappointment. I have found my peace with it though.. I can honestly look at Lost in its entirety and have no regrets watching it, and still believe it’s the greatest show ever produced. Your suggestion that they were making it up as they went along I also believe to be true, not that they didn’t have a general direction of the show, but they had no commitment to stay within a rigid plot; that allowed for hugely creative ideas and scenes.. But they didn’t follow that same philosophy with the ending, they had to commit to an ending when Season 6 started.. and part of the reason (I believe) they went with that ending was they could keep us guessing until the very end, I don’t know about you but I didn’t have any idea until Jack and Kate pulled up to the church in Jack’s jeep.. after that, I knew it wasn’t going to be good.. I kind of look at Lost in two stages; before Season 6 and after. Before Season 6 everything was amazing (in my opinion), but Season 6 was the real beginning of frustrations with the show for me, knowing they only had so much time to answer questions.. and the answers they were giving were not at all what I envisioned.. Even the smoke monster I was hugely disappointed in.. It would have been much better if the monster was some inanimate object, somehow protecting the Island and enforcing rules of the game.. The monster actually being MIB didn’t satisfy me.. And the biggest disappointment of the show for me is that everything that was done on the Island had nothing to do with the afterlife.. think about it, they could have just landed in LA, somehow all got to know each other because they all worked in the same hospital.. then when they died they would see each other in the afterlife.. Jack’s death and killing Locke only saved the Island, it didn’t create the afterlife.. so what is the connection? I suppose by saving the Light, afterlife was possible.. but that is lame.. as you said, so many possible outcomes this show could have taken that would have been much better.. even if they landed in LAX in an alternate world and never spoke to each other again, that would have been an incredible ending!
Bob – good perpective, one thing though. The Smoke Monster was inanimate.
MIB was just an incarnation of the SM as my undertanding, there were probably a whole series of hosts. MIB and John Locke being the two we got to see.
T’was a great TV series.
Daddy x…hello!!!
Long time old friend…I hope I am in category of ‘knowing who I am’.
As you may remember, I am one of the people who not only didnt hate the ending or feel cheated…but actually really liked it.
I have watched it (the ending/finale and the show) several times, and always come to the same conclusion…I loved it.
The funny part is that as the show was wrapping up, as it led into the final 5 or 10 minutes…I remember looking at the clock and trying to figure out how in the hell they were going to squeeze any of a few of the theories (that still had a shot) into that amount of time.
How were they going to to bring the man in black back to the “alternate/parallel timeline” before the end to satisfy a few of the theories that I really liked that involved him.
How were they going to explain so many questions that we wanted answers for in the ginormous finale time span of…what 2 and a half hours…?
They could have run a 12 hour finale, answering literally every single question and every person on this site would have cancelled their day for it…and 90% would have still been disappointed. Which isnt necessarily a bad thing…well, maybe 90% is bad…but some people being disappointed isnt such a bad thing in my eye.
Pardon me being cliche for a moment, but being disappointed of this magnitude over something as trivial as a TV show is a great thing to me personally. It takes something like LOST or The Sopranos to do something so…terribly edgy by telling you that they were all dead (NOT THE WHOLE TIME)….or on the opposite end of the spectrum Sopranos dont tell you if they even got to have a Last Supper.
I know this seems unfair either way…..but its a perfect example of how no matter what a show that people care so much about does…some, if not many will draw the same conclusion as you and many others do about LOST.
I get the part about the answers…or lack thereof, and I get the part about a cop out ending…but was it really?
Would actually giving us an ending that people guessed/theorized the right way to go just because that was the plan? I cant agree with that. I cannot say that I as the writer, would not have contorted/adapted/evolved my show if it were guessed…and my bet is that Lost was guessed VERY early on by more intelligent theorists than myself. Consider this my last true theory on the show…
My theory on LOSTs theories is that the original story was going to be that they really were dead the whole time…yep…i truly believe that. This show began when the internet really became known for blogging/fan sites on many other shows, and obviously played a HUGE role in evolving and molding that particular area of the web. Although sixth sense type things played that card, this was a different game altogether.
And again, I know…I know there were some areas we all, and I mean ALL would have like to see more of, and many that we would have liked to see less of. I know that there may have been things (random lighthouse type things) and people (random ajira passengers) that could have been cut out more, and things (wells and lights) and people (Jacob/MIB//Mother) that could have made an appearance earlier on, thus not stripping us of an entire episode of main characters for a short island backstory.
I cannot say that with the same opportunity I would have done exactly what they did, but I cant say that if I didnt, someone wouldnt have guessed my story on a theory site 2 seasons prior.
Thats the question that many have to ask themselves…
Forget individual questions, because I can go tit for tat in an unanswered questions game forever about the show (although Im a little rusty now)…but that always leads into two things…
1) An argument and someone taking things that I say as insults…Which I am in no way doing. Please, anyone reading this understand that my feelings towards this subject are not directed at anyone or any group of people…even haters of the show…well…maybe a few, but no one that I have ever had an intelligent conversation with, even here…even in disagreement. Usually after 4 or 5 questions and explanations on many things that were “unanswered”, someone tells me that my answers Im giving are just theories…then I say something along the lines of they’re not theories, they are logical answers that they handed us because people like myself (and i have to imagine the writers themselves) feel like people are smart enough to figure certain things (that they want you to know) out on their own without actually having to come out and say it.
Right about there is where things start to fall apart. Right about there my comment of being “smart enough” is taken out of context and a shitstorm erupts.
The hardest/worst part of them not answering questions is figuring out what was left to be assumed (jacks son was not real, even though John actually said it), compared to the things that we were actually supposed to debate later on (what the sideways world actually is/was…although I know many things like this would have been preferred answered ‘cleanly’ by many, if not most.
Hard to imagine there is a second thing still…but Ill admit…the next part wrinkles my eye scar a bit…but I’ll give the disappointed their due…
2) The disappointed asks me one of three questions that makes me want to punch myself in the face…
1-If everyone was dead in the sideways world…what were Aaron and Ji Yun.
2-Who was shooting at the Losties on the boat who were left behind after they travelled through time and found the Ajira water bottle.
And the question that I bang my head off the wall the hardest to…drumroll please… … … … … … … …
3-Who or what was David…Jacks son.
In contrast to what I just said, pay close attention to how I start my explanation.
In my honest to goodness opinion, I believe that #s 1 and 3 were basically coping mechanisms. Kind of like why did everyone look as they did on the island when some died long ago and some died much later…this is each and every characters coping mechanism to understand the soul/character/true self of the other people, and in turn…themselves…LIKE LOOKING IN A MIRROR causes people to see themselves without static/interference from others. Most see themselves prettier or uglier, fatter or skinnier, etc…
David was to me, the closest thing to a figment of the imagination that a dead person could have. He was what Jack saw himself as when he was a child, but. His “Daddy Issues” dirtied his cowboy boots so much that he drug his muddy baggage into another life…brother…
As for #2…I really don’t know…and as hardheaded as this sounds…I really don’t care. It’s something that should have been answered or should have been cut…but it wasn’t and it wasn’t…so I’ll live with it. (I can actually hear keys typing “cop out”)
I’ve always viewed…perceived the show in that manner, even when writing angry pre-finale season letter/theories here on the site demanding answers. Read almost anything I wrote, I try to talk about perception and Lost as one…and I wasn’t alone…
Christ…everyone who ever debated something was fighting for their perception of the show…to take that away from me…from us…well…it just seems wrong considering much of the fan base thrived on sites meant to debate the show…hell, sites like this probably wouldn’t still exist if the show just ended “perfectly”…which I imagine was the point in many ways.
But I admit, and in a way they do to…it backfired.
Every time Lindelof gets questioned about it he debates many of the things people on the theory sites who liked the ending do…sometimes better than others…but his debating led him down a path of fighting for the perception people see of him, his colleagues, and the show itself…which as much as I really did like the ending…he dug his own grave…as I may very well be doing still fighting the good fight here and there.
I’m no dummy…I know there are a million and one other issues to what’s bothering people about the ending and lack of SOLID answers…and i know many of them didnt like ideas i had throughout the show and will say im just one of the few who liked Lost so much that i couldnt be disappointed.
But it just amazes me that it was that bothersome that people never really got over it. I honestly feel like LOST will be one off those rare things that is looked at 20 years from now and will be labeled ahead of its time, and appreciated for what it really was…a great and involving TV show that gave us 6 years of mashing science, religion, philosophy, mythology, past fiction, and great storytelling…and I imagine the ending would be more appreciated…of course everyone here knows I’ve been wrong before.
I know that we didnt get the answers that ABC promised us…and it was ABC making those promises, not Lost. ABC does the promos, commercials (some containing spoilers), and the final editing so get mad at the writers for shitty answers and loopholes, but not for broken promises.
Many other shows and stories, especially older stories didnt answer…well anything and they’re labeled classics, while something newer gets killed for leaving things up in the air…
One example being Inception. If you live in 1995 and have not seen Inception, skip the rest of this paragraph or you WILL be spoiled…
In the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland…which obviously carry weight in the Lost universe with men behind curtains and rabbit holes and such. At the end of both stories, we are left knowing that we just spent many hours going through fantasy type worlds helping people and stopping evil witches and queens who all look and remind them remarkably of people in towns where there from, and after the story is concluded, our heroines awake in their original universes only to wonder…was it real…and we label them some of the greatest pieces of fiction/literature of all time… In turn, Inception, which broke molds with cinematography and unique storytelling cuts the final scene before the top falls…or doesn’t and stupid people around the world rejoice in a loud chant of “I don’t understand, was it real or not”? (Again please don’t be offended…I don’t really think anyone is stupid, I know most people understood everything and just plain didnt like it). It was about a poor finish, and mainly not getting answers…although…
THAT IS THE POINT!!!
If anyone ever listened to a Lost podcast on ABC with Lindelof and Cuse (and yes, im aware everyone didnt listen to them or should have to listen to them to get the show…which you dont…its just extras) would surely have to know that they didnt actually want to answer EVERYTHING. They told us before the final season premiere aired, they told us before the final season finale aired, and they have repeatedly told us after…which I think is why many feel they copped out…because they actually said it. Some things they have tried to answer and other things they simply said that the point was specifically to NOT answer certain question to keep the mystery going long after the show was gone.
And does anyone want to know why?
BECAUSE EVERYONE WHO WRITES SOME LONG ANTHOLOGY DOES THE SAME THING!!!
And does anyone want to know why people write shows, books, movies, stories, etc without actually answering every little stupid question?
Read reviews for the episode “Across the Sea”. People hated it not just because it lacked our usual Losties, but because it gave real solid answers that coincided with the direction the show was going in their own heads…the same way I felt when the credits rolled and I realized Locke was actually dead…when I realized everyone was dead.
And that, in my humble, humble opinion is what not only makes me not feel cheated, but truly appreciate the ending to the show and the lack of solid answers.
They tricked me/us…and bad.
Half of us expected the island to fly off into the sky as a spaceship, while the other half were waiting for all the sideways Losties to return…and in the end, they did what everyone does…they died. There was no question at the end if they were dead or not, Jack asked, Christian answered. The only gripe was when it came up, and still for whatever reason comes up…and I swear, take offense…don’t…I don’t care…but if anyone honestly questions or disputes whether they were dead the whole show I am just not commenting or taking questions on it at all…If you didnt get it at first, understandable…if you dont get it now, you either dont want to get it…or you really are stupid. The writers said they weren’t dead the whole time after the show, on several occasions. Christian actually told Jack that everything that happened was real, not to mention we actually saw Jack die at the end. Yes…if they were dead the whole time it would be pretty damn stupid…everything would be meaningless and I would join you in throwing tomatoes without hesitation…but they weren’t.
They experienced everything from crashing, to time traveling, to leaving the island to crashing again, and to some…actually leaving again.
But one concrete fact was evident about Lost that continues to make me believe that it was a great show…they told us they were dead. Who the F writes every main…no every single character dead…and with concrete as heavy as their balls…solidifies it with the main character finding out from his father, who may i add had been dead from the beginning, and chased around the island by his son, only to find out it was the monster from the first episode the whole time, then actually shows him die as the story concludes after the fact.
Ther was no beating around the burning bush…Jack and Christian flat out told us in one of the final moments, and that to me was one of the bravest things that a television show has ever done. The writers are not stupid, they knew this was coming and I’m sure welcomed most of it with open arms. Publicity is publicity, and it seems the two main writers love it (especially Lindelof).
And yes, they have to change the story…they have to evolve what they have when literally thousands of people are screaming and hurtling guess after ridiculous guess at you on a daily, sometimes hourly or minute basis. They should be given medals for a) keeping it a secret and b) writing something that not only was kept secret, but made a lot of sense and tied into the entire story.
One of the first theories of Lost was the “they’re all dead” theory…and it was close…sooooo…pretend for one second that the end game to the show when it was originally written was to have them all be dead on the island the whole time…and before anyone says it would have been terrible, think about if they would have all been dead the whole time in 2004, when early writing was wrapping up, much earlier before there were theory sites of this magnitude. Many people wouldn’t have figured it out, we wouldn’t have the evolution of the Internet to fan blogging and such to lead us to Lostpedia for answers, and the Losties being dead the whole time would have shocked the non-HDTV watching world and changed television.
As for a crap ending…I don’t think it was…I thought they sidetracked a bit to it, leaving us thinking about cabins and such, but I didn’t ever think “crap”. In fact…I thought they did a nice job BACKTRACKING to an earlier time when a certain book came up…
And in usually A.E.S. fashion…I will now do some classless self promotion…
My theory “Occurrence at Our Parallel Bridge”… If you don’t know the story wiki it…you could even google search it and find it most likely free…and it’s a short story.
In short, man gets hung from bridge…rope breaks, he swims and fights his way back to his family enduring a strange feeling of awareness and memory…and eventual pain only to get grabbed by guards moments after arriving to his wife along with a shooting pain in his neck. Only to awaken at the last moment of his life realizing the rope didnt break and he was dying…and very shortly after, dead. Although this almost seems to coincide with the gut wrenching thought that our Losties were dead the whole time…it does not. It’s quite the opposite actually. My thought is that the story was literally the EXACT reference or allusion they were following/purposefully referencing. If any of this is bothering you daddy…maybe this will help you know that I feel your pain, at least in a different way…
Four episodes into the final season with no death, heaven, or in between in sight… I literally wrote a theory on what I believe was the basis for LOSTs ending with Jack and his cuts and finally the scar that actually caused his death…and I was so dumb and stuck on my own hard headed thoughts that I turned a story about death into a theory about parallel universes/timelines and completely missed what they were handing us on a silver platter.
This book was actually shown on Lost…season 2 I believe…they had thought of this ending earlier than they, all depending own how you look at it, may or may not like to say.
I have to believe that there had always been the same end game in mind…and when the show began…they had clever thoughts of pulling the curtain back with a surprise of some mind blowing magnitude tricking everyone and probably wrapping it up with a scene of flashbacks of how we all should have seen it the whole time…
Instead, today you have idiots such as yours truly watching episodes repeatedly, scouring the internet for screenshots of teddy bears and fn black splotches trying to figure out if Teddy Ruxpin was working with Widmore, or if the smoke monster who probably wasnt even a sperm in the sac that is a writers brain. We…and I mean WE were the ones dumping theory after theory onto sites, half trying to be the one that solves Lost, and half wanting to make friends and write something interesting themselves…some more than others…but we all created this monster…and in the back of our heads…we knew early on everyone was NOT going to be happy by the end…he’ll some people even jumped ship at the site of smoke monsters or religious references…all depending on their poison.
I know, I know…rambling and talking to the masses instead of just addressing the topics…it’s November in election year…what can I say…
Honestly daddy, I know you mean more along the lines of Kate saving Locke a bullet, which would have been much cooler if it referenced the beginning of the season one finale instead of the beginning of the current/final series finale. I know your talking more about the plane actually flying…I know a chief that was/is disappointed. I know your talking more about the way it wrapped up…but I think it was more the final season that caused the finale to take more heat than it deserved. They should have addressed things and ironed out more earlier on in the season, and cut more than anything…the sideways worlds time…everyone probably thinks that…but misdirection was DESPERATLY needed…
I think about all of these things, and even after that the math still adds up to a great, yes in my opinion great finale that was heartfelt, funny, delivered at least some answers, and tied back to earlier references. When you watch the final season again, it’s hard to believe that everyone scouring Abc and Lostpedia never caught and sideways=dead jabs…especially heading into the homestretch. We were caught up in time travel and alternate timelines, aliens and other lives…so it was understandable.
Honestly daddy…I know I’m not going to change hearts or minds, and I know there will always be people that absolutely despise “what they did to us”…but that’s the nice thing you see…every once in a great while it will allow myself, and anyone out there that chooses to debate not only if the show/end was or was not crap…but what some of the “unanswered questions” answers really were. And I know that you, daddy, weren’t griping about unanswered questions, but many do…just covering all the bases.
I don’t spend all of my short Lost-talk time debating the good/bad of the ending…there are still a few people out thee who enjoyed the whole show, beginning, middle, AND the end. We talk/argue/debate things such as what the purgatory-LIKE device really was. What jacks son really was. What happened to the children. What the hell did Hurley talk to at the mental hospital that time…time traveling Charlie, dead Charlie, or imaginary Charlie…or was it actually even Charlie…maybe the man in bla…I digress….
Either way…maybe I just miss the purple page, maybe I miss talking to you and everyone, or maybe I just wanted to pick a fight for old times sake…but I’m glad to hear from you daddy…and I hope someone does for you, what you…lol…no I won’t do it…slipping random Lost quotes into theories is overdone, childish, and something Ive evolved from since the show has ended…he’ll it doesn’t even make sense here…I’m just excited and glad to see people here and although you don’t like it daddy…what happened happened happened…and you have to let go.
🙂
Keep in touch, good to see you here!
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Hey daddy…i posted an A.E.S. special, long, extended, directors cut comment but it only shows when im logged in…i may have sworn
…sorry been a while since posting and i forgot some rules…if it doesnt show by tonight, ill edit and repost
Hello A.E.S. – good to see your alter.
I got the same problem over at the The Walking Dead site. Not sure what gives.
Woah..AES..reading through your post sure does bring back memories.. many things still unresolved with me, like picking a wound that still hasn’t healed.. not a wound from any disagreement about show, but the wound I received watching the End .. I remember the moment clearly, like a punch to the gut by a best friend..my breath was taken out of me when i saw Christian..I wanted to believe it was going to end on a good note, meaning everyone still alive and reunited somehow, someway.. they were reunited of course, but in death, which means the ending I was hoping for, what the writers were steering us towards, that the characters who died (Jin, Sayid, Juliet etc) were actually miraculously alive AGAIN in another world didn’t happen.. it was the exact opposite; those who didn’t die eventually did and were reunited in this “world they created”…
I have rewatched Season 6 twice, once with viewers who were watching the show for the first time and once by myself.. Each time, I purposely had to set my mind in believing they were still alive in a real alternate timeline.. I knew I was setting myself up for disappointment, I knew they were dead, but I had to pretend, the story made better sense in that way and my mind could actually understand..
So, I admit, I liked the Ending episode, but not in the way I liked the rest of the entire show of Lost..it stung me hard realizing they were all dead.. If that’s what the writers were trying to do, than bravo they accomplished that feat by making a lot of us sorely disappointed..
Back to your list of unresolved answers, I’ll copy and paste to make sure I quote you correctly:
1-If everyone was dead in the sideways world…what were Aaron and Ji Yun.
2-Who was shooting at the Losties on the boat who were left behind after they travelled through time and found the Ajira water bottle.
3-Who or what was David…Jacks son.
Man I couldn’t agree with you more, #2 unresolved answer was perfect where it left off; a mystery we can answer for ourselves with our own creativity, it’s best left unanswered.. The very opposite was true for mysteries they tried to explain: the Whispers being a huge let down! They should have left that one unexplained too.. OK, quickly losing my train of thought.. back to #1 and #3, those were the complicated details of the sideways world that made it extra difficult for me believing it really was an afterlife and not a deliberate misleading by the writers for us to keep believing they were alive! You gave a really good explanation of what David’s son could represent (Jack’s coping mechanism).. but couldn’t it have been easier for them to create an ending with all of them still alive? That would have saved me the pain of both holding on to a show I love and the pain of letting them go (oh man, this post is getting sappy). OK well, good to hear from you AES..
Bobt, Wolfx, A.E.S Good to hear from you all again. Nice post A.E.S i thouroghly enjoyed it. I still think the ending proves to me that the writers wrapped it up that was easiest for every one to understand. Like you said in your post -we are clever enough to figure out complicated things. I just feel that the did not provide us (the real fans) with the ending that we deserved.) A lot of the people on this site had better end theories than anything that the writers of the show came up with. Anyway it is good to hear from you. What tv sites are you using now. I love the walking dead. What fan site do you post on.
Hmmm. Why is everyone posting such short replies? I hate one liners, you guys are too lazy.
I’ll add this. I guess with the passing of time, you can call me a convert. Just the other day, like less than a week ago, I was driving home from work and realized how much I appreciated Lost.
I was extremely disappointed initially with the ending. I too thought they left too many things unanswered.
But then, I thought, what if they had answered everything? Since I was so wrapped up in the time travel and how they did it, did I truly want an answer?
If I had received an answer that tidied it all up, would I even have given that aspect another thought? My personal answer is no. Now, I still get to think about things. My theories, ideas, may not be right, but without answers and resolution, they aren’t wrong either. I can still form new ideas or concepts because I don’t have answers.
Let’s use the movie The Sixth Sense as an example. Perhaps your experience with it will be different from mine. Pretty good movie, an ending like that, at least for me, hadn’t been done before. I was shocked, it was for sure a “holy poop” moment for me.
But then it’s over. All done. You walk out of the theater or turn off the movie simply knowing. You will never be surprised by it again, yeah it’s still okay but the only excitement you get from it now is when you watch with other people who haven’t seen it, you wait for their reactions cause that’s all you have left.
With Lost, we never got that “aha” or “oh I see” moment, it never fully ended. We can continue to theorize and postulate and discuss.
Dammit I had something else I wanted to add but got distracted. Flipping work.
Oh yes.
I remembered.
Christmas Eve. You are 10 years old. This is the prime Christmas age. You can barely sleep, that feeling inside you is nervewracking but it sure feels good though, that anticipation. It feels good but you also hate it. Right? That unparalleled excitement.
Christmas comes, you open your presents, eat, play. But that excitement is gone, you have to wait a whole year to build that feeling up again. Not in a rude, or unappreciative way but it kind of felt like a “that’s it?” sort of thing.
Since the show ended, our anticipation doesn’t build up anymore but it was also never fully killed off, we didn’t get to open all the presents. We still can take guesses as to what’s inside.
Nice to hear from you the apostle. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that i was looking for everything to be tied up in a nice little bow, or that i wanted no further thinking to be required. I just think that the ending was to neat and too much for the general public -not us guys. It’s a type of ending that they used in Greek plays when the plot got too complicated for the writer to figure out a satisfactory ending. Deus ex Machina it’ called. I think if means god in the machine or something close to that. My main gripe is that there were a lot of other ways that it could have ended; more complicated, more open ended and more in line with the kind of people who visit these sites. It did’nt have to be neat or complete. Just more in line with the mythololgy that they built up around it, quantum physics, ancient history, theolgy, time travel, tabla rosa. Instead it was just homogenous. A corporate ending if ever there was one.
Oh yeah daddyx, I fully agree with you. My comment wasn’t aimed at you in any way. It was more a broad statement to everyone that I have become I guess a semi-convert.
As time has passed, after disliking the finale, I have come to like it more. That’s it.
Reflecting back I think I would have been more upset in the long run had they tidied it all up. I probably would have still bitched because their answers were too neat, easy, or convenient.
They definitely tried to cater the finale to the widest audience and not us diehards, that’s for sure.
I didn’t even understand the finale really the first time through. I did have the wait, were they dead the whole time thought.
What other shows are you guys watching and what sites are you posting on about them.
Wow,
I haven’t been on this site since the finale, i guess that alone is a testament to how much i was disappointed.
Hello by the way.
I think the main reason big fans of the show were disappointed was because we expected some big end game, and that ‘Oh of course!’ moment that has been mentioned (I did anyway), and what we got was pretty anti-climactic after 6 seasons of teasing, and after a whole season of fooling us with an ‘alternate timeline’.
I have since come to accept the finale, and the more i think about everything in the show, the more it makes sense in the context of the story.
Alot of people disliked it because they believe the whole ‘they eventually all live (sort of) happily ever after in heaven’ thing had nothing to do with the rest of the show, but i think it did.
My personal view is that the island, the light, and the afterlife is all linked and everything our heroes did on that island was to keep that afterlife going.
Thats what it was all about.
I agree I would’ve preferred a more sci-fi
ending as thats what i was expecting,
but its the story they wanted to tell.
The signs were there, although there was alot of misleading and other elements thrown in to keep it interesting.
The producers said in a podcast pre-empting the final season that it was going to have a very spiritual theme, which most of us kind of ignored.
I, like many other fans, felt cheated at the end because we waited patiently for the a-ha ending that would shed light on everything else and make all the pieces fit together to make a coherent big picture.
The truth is, the pieces were all from different puzzles.
The show was made up of various crazy, imaginative ideas that were pretty out there, and even less likely to take place in the same story.
But thats what made the island so special,
Its a place where anything could happen.
The writers took full advantage of that.
Alot of people complain that the show left too many unanswered questions, but i actually think by the end of the episode ‘Across the sea’, at least 90% had been answered in the series, although alot indirectly.
Now, i wouldn’t say i was happy with all those answers, but i will say they are there.
Am i disappointed? I haven’t rewatched the show since the finale, and have shyed away from becoming so obsessive about a show since, so i will say i still am somewhat.
But the show was beautiful for what it was. I still can’t hear that sad piano music without welling up and thinking about my ‘friends’ on that wonderful island, so its definitely left a lasting impression.
I’m looking forward to the day, years from now, when i can watch it all over again and introduce my as yet unborn kids to it.
It will be interesting to see if the show will fade into forgotten obscurity or hold a cult legendary status like Twin Peaks.
We shall see.
See you on the other side.
Well said Shepards Flocke. I still think that they let down though. But there is a lot to think over in what you are saying.
Fill me in on what shows you watch now and what fan sites you use to chat about them.
Lost kinda killed network TV for me in a way, and all the ambitious shows since rarely make it past the first season before being axed.
The Walking Dead has been pretty cool this season.
I’m sure you watch Fringe, but if you don’t from what you’ve said you’d like it alot (personally i’m not digging this final season so much.)
Generally I haven’t been fanatical about any shows since lost (or before for that matter).
I’ve been watching Breaking Bad, and thoroughly enjoying The Shield, which i never watched when it was on as i pegged it as just another cop show.
Love Fringe, the guy who plays Walther is one of the best actors I have ever seen.
The same with Breaking Bad. I think it is the best written show ever and Bryan Cranston what an incredible actor!
Never watched the shield. Might give it a try.
Are there any good fan sites like this for Fringe or Breaking Bad?
greetings Shephards_flocke! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Not much time to comment since spending holiday with extended family.. but thoroughly enjoyed reading shephards flocke’s new post, it’s been refreshing reading new posts to what’s been a fading site lately.. good to see everyone still thinks about the show.. I’ve really enjoyed The Last Resort, but heard it’s being cancelled even though it’s an incredible show, way different than Lost but having the same setting on a tropical Island..I’m kinda discouraged about network shows (like shephards flocke said).. I really enjoyed The River, but it got axed.. Ok gotta go, hopefully comment again soon!
!!! Can’t believe that we still have visitors and contributors on this forum. What with LOST ending so long ago and leaving us all with so many frustrations, I’d have expected this forum to be deserted. Glad that it’s not though (btw) as for so long it gave us so many good times discussing over what on earth was cracking off LOL!!!
Not sure why I have found my way back here really. I was going through my old emails and found a few that related to my threads on this site and I just thought I’d see if it were still active. Apparently it still is 🙂
I’ve not really thought about LOST too much since the finale (which I’ve only watched once). I have series 1-5 sat on my bookcase at home but since the end I’ve never been motivated to watch LOST again because I just feel that I, along with so many others, put in so much effort trying to understand and untangle the mysteries only to discover the producers weren’t putting in the same amount of effort to tie most things together.
I understand it’s difficult to please everyone and after 5 seasons of sending the viewers on a twisty, turny journey, bringing everything back together is almost impossible. I still think though more effort should have been put in to explaining a few more mysteries and I expect that this would have been more interesting than many of the dull events that took place in season 6.
I think LOST is probably one of the only series that I’ve not wanted to watch again after seeing the finale. I know other programmes are quite a lot different from LOST but still, if something’s good you’ll watch it again. I love FRIENDS and still feel a bit sad when watching the ending. The same goes with Star Trek: TNG and I know I’ll still be watching these in years to come.
LOST though is different. It has the feeling of a relationship where the other person has been using you just so they can reap their own rewards. LOST pretended to be interested in you, it pretended to love you and showed you mystery to keep you interested. When the time came though, LOST admitted it was only using you so that you’d keep watching and it had never really been interested in you at all. Maybe that’s a little strong but that’s my analogy on the whole show.
Anyway, good to see that people are still on here talking about it. It’s just a shame we can’t go back in time to when we were all bubbling with anticipation, hoping we were going to be given the next piece in the puzzle only for LOST to throw us a dozen more ‘WTF moments’.
I AM JACOB you have hit the nail on the head for me when you said it was like we were being used by the producers.
I feel cheated. I feel used. We invested in this show and they did not invest in us.
There were a dozen ways to explain it and they choose the dumbest of them all. Spiritual my arse! Even the theology that was used to wrap it all up had not thought to it. It was just a Universal catch all so that no religion could feel discriminated against or slighted.
The ending could have been tied up with a unifying theory of physics and quantum physics. That would have been brave.
Instead we got the weakest ending possible. It was like the took the show to the brink of some brilliant brave ideas and at the last second they let the money men take over and write the final scenes. Anyone half assed wannabe writer could have written that ending. They threw out all the originality and fresh ideas that they spent six seasons developing.
Why?
greetings I Am Jacob! Wow this is a theoriesonlost reunion of sorts.. again not a lot of time to write for me..thought it was neat this article came up on Yahoo news tonight, kind of cool.. http://news.yahoo.com/lost-island-maps-made-103222703–abc-news-topstories.html
oh and it was already posted on DarkUFO’s site:
http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2012/11/one-for-lost-fans-south-pacific-island.html
Shows I’m watching now:
Fringe – since the start
Last Resort – being an ex-submariner I couldn’t let the differences (wrong things they did) go. They bugged me. But I am disappointed a submarine show got cancelled. Not enough of them!
I was into Flashforward.
I was into Alcatraz.
I like Arrow.
Lost did ruin TV for me as well. I want something that sparks thought and mystery. I look for connections in Fringe. I am not quite enjoying this last season as much either.
Remember that show Dark Angel? With Jessica Alba? It started off so well but then by the end it was completely off track and different. I think you guys call it jumping the shark? I don’t think Fringe has quite done that yet but it is getting close.
As for discussion boards or forums – none. This was it for me.
One thought – wouldn’t it be cool if they were setting up other shows like Fringe or Flashforward to eventually tie into Lost?
Unrelated – right now I am reading a book called Radical Evolution and I meant to bring it with me to work tonight so I could post here about a quote I read in there. It very much reminded me of Lost.
It was a quote in this book cited from another work, Good Omens, I think.
I think these two people were discussing the forbidden fruit. And one of them asked the other, why would he put it there if he didn’t want us to eat it? Basically to tempt us? To see if what He created was ideal?
Actually I found it, damn, the internet is wonderful.
“If you sit down and think about it *sensibly*, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying ‘THIS IS IT!’? … I mean, why do that if you really don’t *want* them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it *can’t* be a great cosmic game of chess, it *has* to be just very complicated Solitaire.”
Anyone else see a connection to Lost?
People were constantly struggling to protect that light or to prevent MIB from leaving, but why? Was it merely a test to see if someone would protect the light without knowing why? Like sitting in the hatch pressing a button every 108 minutes without knowing really why?
I will say I now do this sort of thing with everything. I analyze and analyze, probably looking for some meaning that isn’t even there.
Thought it was an interesting quote and it made me think of our show.
daddyx, I agree about the theology aspect. In fact, I was really hoping that there was going to be a decent(ish) explanation regarding this but there just wasn’t. I mean why include it all in the first place…? Oh yeah, to keep us watching 😉
About the unifying theory idea, I was expecting something like this to happen to be honest. It didn’t have to be based on solid physics either. Physics is a blur of unproven theories and guesswork anyway so the writers could have made up their own theory and used that. I suspect it wouldn’t have been any more / less plausible than many real-world ideas that are knocking around anyway. A theory by the writers wouldn’t have offended anybody – it would have just been their interpretation of the cosmos, that’s all.
bobt, hello! You know what, i read that story last week about the island that isn’t actually there. Not once did my brain think ‘You know what – that sounds just like LOST!” That probably shows you how much I’ve tried to forget about LOST over the past few years… However, it is a strange and slightly mysterious story though. It makes you wonder if a Google programmer decided, as a joke, to create the island in question around the time LOST was just beginning. Seems like too much of a coincidence for it to have been accidentally included in Google maps. It’s weird, whatever the cause or reason.
The one liners that are being posted.
I don’t think it’s not their fault they post 1 liners. and I don’t think they suffer from ADD but I do think it is a generational affliction. The TV generation you know. So we’re toast no matter how viewed because TV is here to stay (for a while) in one form or another. To speak of toast ; does toast not usually come in pairs? Is toast a singular or plural term? Does anyone ever had 1 toast? .questions without answers..I think i was trying to make a point but lost focus… but i digress (as usual).
But seriously, take my wife…please (Talk about classic one liners..anyone remember Henny Youngman?), who did not watch LOST (not Henny), and who had heard the ranting (wrt the last season and show and by the way being the basis for this entry) had her own comment; Knowing a little about LOST from others, said “How the F* could the writers ever hope to answer all the mysteries given this show’s supposed fundamental complexity?. With mystery after mystery compounding unanswered for five plus years, it would take another five plus years to effectively attempt to answer them”. Alright I am paraphrasing, she didn’t say that exactly but i like this version better. Don’t you? Please don’t answer that as you don’t want to encourage non sequitur discussion. Again I try to make a point!
On the other hand wolfx’s one liner rhetorical questions in response to the question at hand would be “Why the F* did the show have to end anyway?” (I’ve said this before). We could have still been debating the mystery instead of nonetheless a fascinating subject matter, debating something as depressing as the end. Whatever the intention of the participants, the topic has/had resulted in an encyclopedia of controversy in these circles, a good thing. Therefore as the folks mentioned, Lost does live in an afterlife. And perhaps here is the true sideways world. Those Lost guys are F* good aren’t they?
Now to discuss the last episode, I find it both easy and difficult to rate it on a scale of 1 to 4 (pls dont laugh at my scale). If one chooses the easy route, I would say it deserves two stars. It was actioned packed but not great action relative to anything. It was predictable but in a round about way (everyone was dead for example). The love stories ended happily. The good guys went to heaven and the bad guys…what happened to the bad guys again? Many of the mysteries were addressed. Many others weren’t. All the Losties were united (similar to the group hug you see in many series endings. Sometimes I see these kind of happenings in certain parts of town – Then again these events may not be what they seem) and so on.
If this same defined supposition is to be rated the hard way, I would give it no rating. What on earth can it be rated against or what can it be compared to..itself? In this case we can rate it – I give it 2 stars. Lets rate it anyway against other series finales (check previous paragraph) – thats it play it safe, give it 2 stars. There you go…2 plus 2 plus 2 equals 4…hmmmm. So there you have it, one of the best endings ever. Granted with a little help which is the least you can do for an old friend. Just call it Lost Math.
One last 1 liner (stop me if you’ve ever heard it before). A guy goes to the doctor and asks “whats wrong with me?”. Doctor says “you’re stupid”. The guy says I want a second opinion. Doctor says “OK…you’re also ugly”. Not sure what the moral is here but my interpretation leans toward..be careful what you ask for. Or the guy thinks he’s got a serious ailment because he’s a hypochondriac and his doctor is fed up with him. Or was this simply about just getting laughs? If we can ..I would like to apply this same methodology to our favorite show. I know I’m trying to make a point here but I appear (my fault) to be confusing with this other point I’m trying to make. Sorry folks…the result was unintentional. It may not have been a point in the making at all as I did not start out with this comment end in mind because..because..just because, I wont pursue this and just say I made it up as I went along. That does it I have totally lost direction and focus. Good grief Charlie Brown i think I get it now 🙂
admin – apologies for the gramatical, inverse tenses, syntax and various other errors, in previous. Blame it on sloth.
For the record, i do believe some of what I was trying to say however the comment intensity will normally (NOT always) be exaggerated.
They had us wonder for several years and in the end it turned out that they didn’t have an answer to even the most fundamental question (i.e. what is the Island?).
Instead they spent the last season on something completely irrelevant for the show (i.e. what happens when we die?).
Yes, I’m still very disappointed.
ilie! good to hear from you…I think most of us expressed our final grievances with Lost before the world ends tonight 🙂 See ya in anutha life, brutha
Haha, I actually partied that night like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately there was. 😉
ilieintheshadowofthestatue – Tis the season 🙂
Hey All! I figured this would be a good spot to post this to reach as many of you as possible.. DarkUFO recently posted a link to a “Misfit Kids and Total Outcasts” video starring Malcom David Kelley (aka Walt!). Tons of Lost Easter eggs inside to discover! Most obvious one: Harold Perrineau (aka Michael, his Lost dad!) passes him on the street, Walt looks back at him, confused like he might have know him in another life.. Here’s the link:
http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2013/01/harold-perrineau-cameo-in-malcolm-david.html#disqus_thread
I’ll go ahead and copy all the Easter Eggs found by Scott Lawrence Jenkins:
At 10 seconds: The shelf on the right has a picture frame with Vincent the Dog and Walt Lloyd’s Gameboy. Under the Xbox 360 controller, there is what appears to be the Spanish comic book that Walt read back in season 1.
At 20 seconds: Next to the tv, a polar bear figurine can be spotted.
At 42 seconds: The chalkboard to the furthest right side of the class reads, “Welcome, Faraday physics”, “If anything happens, Desmond Hume is my constant”, “Dailyword Problem: A plane leaves Australia at ??? and crashes 1,000 miles ??? in the South Pacific, did Jacob cause it all?”
At 43 seconds: The the right side of the chalkboard to the front of the class reads, “AP Euro [I believe Ben’s class in the Flashsideways] Room 23 Homework: Deus Ex Machina [Title of Season 1, Episode 17], read: Tom Sawyer, analyze Jack and the Beanstalk”. The teacher’s desk also holds the same red phone from the Kahana that Desmond used to call Penny in “The Constant”.
At 45 seconds: A blurry Dharma Initiative logo can be made out on the chalkboard to the right.
At 51 seconds: To the furthest right of the first chalkboard (Mr. Graham’s health class) to the right, (Right next to MDK) a blurry Blast Door Map can be made out.
At 52 seconds: Returning to the physics board (the one on the furthest right) written in small print at the very bottom, “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”
At 56 seconds: Most of the aforementioned references can be made out clearly on the AP Euro and Health boards. A box in the bottom-left of the health board appears to say something about a meeting or club with “Mr. Linus” (Right under the notice for cheerleaders).
At 1:02: MDK sprays the teacher with a can of black spray-paint. The spray-paint looks eerily similar to the Smoke Monster.
Throughout the scene, the boards have The Numbers written in Roman Numerals: IV, VIII, XV, XVI, XXIII, and XXXXII
bobt, thanks for sharing the Walt video. At least we know now in what way Walt was going to be important, I guess. 😉