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Post by Captain Hygiene on May 31, 2010 16:16:02 GMT -5
I finally got a chance to watch it, somehow without having anything spoiled beforehand, which was incredible. I'm on the Mr. Atari/Robomod side - I really can't think of anything more fitting for the ending. The more I think about it, the more I like it. Upon rewatching, the last few minutes of the episode are among my favorite in the series, and the final scene recalling the very opening of the series is incredible. It's like Roger Waters wrote an epic TV series.
A while back, I think I would have been more disappointed with how the show ended, content-wise. I thought for a long time that the end of the show would be a revelation of the source of all the mysteries, exactly what the Island was about. Over recent episodes, I came to the conclusion that pretty much everything that needed to be explained was explained - the Island's power itself, or the source of what the characters have faith in, isn't really the point. It's just the motivation for the characters and their actions. Any more detailed or scientific explanation of what's at the heart of the Island would really just be asking to disappoint much of the audience, in my opinion. There were a few things I would have liked to see explained in more detail, but by and large, I really can't think of too many things that can't be explained just by assuming that the Island has some weird type of power at its heart, and that fate has an overall plan connecting everybody. Trying to explain those in any more detail would just risk going off into meaningless, nerdy technobabble. I've concluded that I don't need to know why the Island works, I just care that it does, and I care about the people that it affected. I was able to accept the seeming change in focus from the early days of the show, where I thought everything would be explained and grounded in reality, to the more broad, philosophical direction it took (which was there to some extent from the start, but I think became more dominant in the last couple seasons).
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Post by mummifiedstalin on May 31, 2010 17:13:15 GMT -5
So were the only options "total crap midichlorian pseudo-scientific explanation" and "just mystery"?
It seems like the people who defend the ending say it was. But my argument is that there's a middle ground they could have come to, but didn't.
I guess my problem is that without ever really addressing what the Island is, I don't really understand the premise of the show anymore. If it's all about the characters and their journey, why did it have to be on a mysterious island? Why introduce the sci-fi/fantasy aspects at all? Couldn't we have come to the same conclusion just by watching people trying to survive on a desert island after a non-magical plane crash and still understood why their back stories were important to the decisions they were making now?
If, in the end, what the Island is isn't important, then wasn't the whole mystery just a detour? And, if so, then I totally don't understand this show.
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Post by mccloud on May 31, 2010 17:42:50 GMT -5
If I had known what the ending of this biggest-red-herring-EVAH show was going to be, I could have read the bible, or any other faith-based piece of fiction. I tells ya, we was had!
And to those of you who think I "didn't get it," I did indeed "get it." I didn't like it, or agree that it was wonderful. I am not frustrated by what was left unexplained. I was disappointed in how trite and manipulative the explanations they did give were. Ok, back to mummi's more rational arguments.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on May 31, 2010 19:34:26 GMT -5
I'll put my disappointment in terms MiSTies can understand:
SUDDENLY, THERE WAS NO MONSTER MEANING TO THE ISLAND'S MYSTERY!
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Post by mccloud on May 31, 2010 20:17:42 GMT -5
And they would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those darn kids in that psychedelic van with a talking dog!
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Jun 1, 2010 16:18:25 GMT -5
So were the only options "total crap midichlorian pseudo-scientific explanation" and "just mystery"? Probably not, but once it became generally accepted that there was a persistently supernatural element to the show (e.g., things like the ghosts turning out to actually be ghosts), I think it became much more difficult to create a believably grounded explanation. For years, I thought there would be some giant reveal that everything could actually be explained through TECHNOLOGY (or something), but I think this became nearly impossible once the writers allowed the supernatural to plainly exist on the show. Granted, I'm about as creative of a writer as a block of granite, but from that point, I can't see a good science-y explanation for half the show's mysteries, when the other half can just be explained by ghosts/fate/wizards. It seems like the show made a turn into exploring the meaning more than the how of what happened. I liked the way it turned out, but I can see how it would turn a lot of people off.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jun 1, 2010 16:41:03 GMT -5
But, see, I didn't want a scientific explanation of any kind. I just wanted the Island to have some kind of actual character or meaning other than "it's just weird." All we can really say about it is that it's "magic." But is it "holy" magic? Is it magic with some kind of potentially theological or religious significance? We don't know enough about to know whether it's something worth protecting or whether it's just some random anomaly.
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Jun 1, 2010 16:49:59 GMT -5
Ah, I misunderstood. I thought you were arguing for some type of quasi-realistic explanation as opposed to anything else. I guess I just don't feel like there's much difference in the end between explaining it as some random anomaly versus something God made happen (or whatever). Without a scientific explanation, I feel like the ultimate difference between other explanations doesn't really matter in the end. It just happens. I know that's just me, though, but that's why I misunderstood what you were arguing for.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jun 1, 2010 21:21:09 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm probably just grumpy. But I probably would have preferred an answer like "The Island is where parallel universes intersect" or something rather than the jumbled mix of: It can time travel! AND it's the source of "life, death, rebirth"! AND it's all electromagnetic-y! AND It can move around with no reason!
I mean, the fact that all that stuff is just part of it in a big inconsistent jumble kills the magic for me. Instead of being *interesting* or *meaningful* magic, it's just something that does whatever the writers felt like with no Big Picture.
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Post by crowschmo on Jun 3, 2010 14:20:19 GMT -5
They never did explain the statue with four toes, either, did they? Or did I miss that?
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Post by Captain Hygiene on Jun 3, 2010 17:09:25 GMT -5
That was left to the viewer to fill in the blanks; it pretty much makes sense what with all the Egyptian influences/general hieroglyphs on the Island and in the Source chamber. Except for the four toes, of course.
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Post by GizmonicGirl92 on Jun 3, 2010 21:44:09 GMT -5
I liked the way it turned out, but I can see how it would turn a lot of people off. Okay, no intelligent review here, but that's exactly how I feel about it. Without a doubt, as soon as season 6 comes out on DVD I'm buying it and watching every episode from beginning to end. I'll need tissues and chocolate, but I'll be loving it!
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Post by Mr. Atari on Jun 4, 2010 2:02:40 GMT -5
They never did explain the statue with four toes, either, did they? Or did I miss that? I thought that one was pretty well explained. They never mentioned it by name, but it was a statue of Tawaret, an Egyptian goddess of fertility (who was sometimes depicted with 4 toes). They showed the statue from all sides, and showed how it got destroyed. The viewer was left to speculate who built it and perhaps go to wikipedia (or any number of fan sites) to find out its name. But everything else about it was revealed in the show.
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Post by crowschmo on Jun 5, 2010 10:56:49 GMT -5
Oh, okay. I guess I did miss it. I didn't realize she was sometimes depicted with four toes, I thought it had some other meaning for the show itself. But, like everything else, they just tossed it in there for the hell of it.
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Post by braindeadzombie on Jun 8, 2010 11:16:30 GMT -5
(I didn't want a "scientific" explanation, but some kind of explanation that made the whole Jacob vs. MIB conflict would have been nice. I mean, they're brothers who hate each other. One's good, one's bad. Nice. Archetypes, cool. But...who cares? It doesn't connect or add up to anything. Why does the Island need a protector? Why should anyone bother protecting it? Other than the fact that "weird stuff happens there," we still don't have any reason to see it as significant -- it's magic, but magic-without-any-discernible-importance.) I'm late but whatever, I don't care. I liked Lost, the end finale that was unironically called The End. I guess The Conclusion was too definite and The End of the Whole Mess was too long? Lost could be seen as mysticism versus secular or science versus faith but nevermind that, I'll just cover good versus evil {for now, cue evil laughter} and use this paragraph I quoted is a starting point. Don't you just love the fact that it was Jacob who declared the Man in Black was evil? Of course, Jacob never told the Losties why he was evil or how, only that he could never leave the Island. He neglected to tell them that he was Jacob's dead brother, killed by Jacob himself over some petty concept called Justice since Stepmom was crazy and all. No, since that would Jacob the bad guy. Or at the very least, put him in a bad light. So, in the end, who's the good guy? Is it really the one who says "You can trust me. I don't manipulate people to get them to do what I want, I just rig the game so they think it's their choice"? Or is the the guy who seemingly orcastrated the whole affair to commit suicide? Oh, I mean, leave the Island? I loved the way his Master Plan kept changing. Get recruits and go to war, kill the candidates to free himself from Jacob, throw Desmond in a well to prevent others from using him, use Desmond to sink the Island, leave by plane or by sub or by boat. Swim, maybe? And maybe Use Desmond to turn the inhuman back to human just so he could finally die and leave the Island but make it Jack's idea because the MiB was in the same state as Richard. It's just a thought... Sure, I know the MiB is not nice. But it is funny that the guy is more trustworthy then Ben. Who also said he was one of the "good guys". Oh, and whatever meaning there is to Lost and it's findings is whatever you want. It's either a moving character drama that is ultimately meaningless in philosophical terms or it's, well, not. Like some other creative works I could mention, there ares some things lurking beneath the superficial surface that places it above standard escapist fare. But you have to look. {Shortcomings are in the eye of the beholder? I guess it's true of everything but it's how I feel}
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