Austin Improv

the_reverend wrote:yeah, i really didn't need to see a montage of things going awry in the real world...i took them at the word that if the light goes out and the Island sinks, badness ensues. the fact that that was averted is, to my mind, a good thing. i didn't need to see the effects to believe that anymore than i'd need to see the initial stages of radioactive fallout to know that a character defusing a bomb is a GOOD thing.

That's because everybody is familiar with what happens when a bomb goes off. Things go boom, people die, shit gets fucked up. And if we care about the character defusing (or near) the bomb, yay, tension. (Contrast with a generic robot drone defusing a bomb out in the middle of nowhere. Who cares?) This is also why the Locke/Desmond/Rose/Bernard thing was a great moment; we've seen Smokey kill with his bare hands and slit throats, and we like R/B a lot, so, yay, tension. (Except we probably already knew that Desmond was going to be like, yeah, sure, whatever, but...)

With the light, we have no idea, except that someone who is thoroughly unreliable (a character? or the writers?) has said that "Bad Things happen" if it goes out. How? What? Just give us a tiny taste, bring us on board just a little. But, we've got nothing but the word of someone that may or may not know what they're talking about, with nothing to show us one way or the other. Like, take what happened to Sayid, say explicitly that's what happens when you lose the Light, you get all zombied out and casually evil, and let us extrapolate. It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to have some kind of internal logic and effect on characters that we like to make us care. Maybe I just lack faith, but so many things felt so arbitrary throughout that you just kind of throw your hands up and go, okay, whatever, guys. Let us know when you're done shuffling all the pieces around randomly and decide to give us a story.

the_reverend wrote:yeah, i really didn't need to see a montage of things going awry in the real world...i took them at the word that if the light goes out and the Island sinks, badness ensues. the fact that that was averted is, to my mind, a good thing. i didn't need to see the effects to believe that anymore than i'd need to see the initial stages of radioactive fallout to know that a character defusing a bomb is a GOOD thing.

Actually, I'm not sure that I'm on board with that. I know defusing a bomb is a good thing, because I have a frame of reference for the effects of a bomb. I do not have a frame of reference of the island starting to shake and all, especially when:

a) There has been a litany of things where people are still not sure of whether they were good or bad actions or good or bad consequences. Jack has been involved with most of them. We didn't know whether the list was a good or bad thing. I guess we now know it is good. Do we know that the island sinking is a good or bad thing? No, we don't, especially when:

b) The island is sunk in the sideways world and they seem to all be doing okay. Maybe the island should be sunk. Instead, the island is saved with Hurley now being the man in protection of the light, except that:

c) MiB/Smokey is dead. Who is he protecting the light from? Is there someone else who is going to take the place of MiB, the way someone took Jacob's place?

This is one of many questions that are the fabric of everything the mythology was built on that in a way tarnishes it for me. The island was so important, now I am not sure why.

Whatever the case with the Afterlife-ish universe, I prefer to think that Locke's dad is trapped indefinitely in that vegetative state. That guy sucks and totally deserves it.

The season finale felt like a cola that you open, drink half and set in the fridge and come back for later....it's cold and sugary and
a little flat...not fully flat...just half-way flat.

I agree with a lot that Marc has posted. We still needed something big to happen. I mean c-mon. How much terror did sSmokey bring
this season? His death really fell flat. Also, I admit that I teared up a little during a couple of the CONNECTIONS, but the overall effect
was schmaltzy too me. And honestly, why the hell did the plane need to leave...that felt half-baked. In fact a lot
the finale felt rushed to me. I LOVE this show, but it all sorta peetered out for me at the end.

BUT..I plan to watch it again soon...and maybe some things will feel a little better to me. The idea that Claire might take a bath...for instance....

Jeff wrote:

the_reverend wrote: one lingering question that i hope to never have answered because i want to ponder it for eternity...if everyone in the Sideways world were the souls of the dead in OUR world, then who or what was David?

If you keep with that faulty premise, you will surely ponder that question for all time. I don't believe it's so that everyone in Sideways are souls of our world's dead.
I think one of the things that makes the entire mythology of LOST interesting is that the Sideways world, like the Island, is a puzzle of sorts. The Sideways world is a puzzle because it's a fabrication created by the souls of our world. The purpose of that fabrication is to give souls the set pieces and the resources they need to come to terms with their lives and let go. David wasn't anybody. I mean, maybe he was some real kid who needed to find a father who would open up to him, but it's just as likely that he was a mental creation of Jack's just to help him come to terms with his own relationship with his father. ("Christian Shepard? Seriously?")
Remember, Side-Locke flat-out told Side-Jack, "You don't have a son."

So yeah, it's a game. LOST has been about games all along, from backgammon to golf to table tennis to I Never to Senet to the game of the Island. Sideways world was just another game with different rules than real-world rules or Island rules.

well, like i said, i DO want to ponder it for a long time. if it's just THEIR private purgatory, then who was "real" there? was Helen just a construct to help Locke? was Arzt close enough to anyone to actually be gathered there? were Keamy and Omar really there, and if you're an evil dick in Purgatory how fucked are you when you get killed there?

like i said...i like that there were no definitive answers about that. the ambiguity and ability to interpret and think about it are one of the treasures of this show for me.

and if you ever call one of my premises faulty again, i'll cut you!

acrouch wrote:If that's Boone's ideal community in the afterlife, he must not have had much else going on.

dude was running his mom's wedding company and pining for his step sister. i think it was pretty clear he didn't have much else going on before.

majcher wrote:

the_reverend wrote:yeah, i really didn't need to see a montage of things going awry in the real world...i took them at the word that if the light goes out and the Island sinks, badness ensues. the fact that that was averted is, to my mind, a good thing. i didn't need to see the effects to believe that anymore than i'd need to see the initial stages of radioactive fallout to know that a character defusing a bomb is a GOOD thing.

That's because everybody is familiar with what happens when a bomb goes off. Things go boom, people die, shit gets fucked up. And if we care about the character defusing (or near) the bomb, yay, tension. (Contrast with a generic robot drone defusing a bomb out in the middle of nowhere. Who cares?) This is also why the Locke/Desmond/Rose/Bernard thing was a great moment; we've seen Smokey kill with his bare hands and slit throats, and we like R/B a lot, so, yay, tension. (Except we probably already knew that Desmond was going to be like, yeah, sure, whatever, but...)

With the light, we have no idea, except that someone who is thoroughly unreliable (a character? or the writers?) has said that "Bad Things happen" if it goes out. How? What? Just give us a tiny taste, bring us on board just a little. But, we've got nothing but the word of someone that may or may not know what they're talking about, with nothing to show us one way or the other. Like, take what happened to Sayid, say explicitly that's what happens when you lose the Light, you get all zombied out and casually evil, and let us extrapolate. It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to have some kind of internal logic and effect on characters that we like to make us care. Maybe I just lack faith, but so many things felt so arbitrary throughout that you just kind of throw your hands up and go, okay, whatever, guys. Let us know when you're done shuffling all the pieces around randomly and decide to give us a story.

i guess some of it does come down to faith, whether you choose to believe in the consequences or not. i like the ambiguity of what happens when the light goes out (reality unravels? everyone drops dead? your soul dies and you just give in and start watching Two and a Half Men because nothing else is on? all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body blowing apart?), and i believe the characters who say "it would be bad." so i don't need to see the end result to believe it needs stopping. though personally i drew the conclusion you did, their souls die and they become zombified like Sayid (or like Sayid believed he was because everyone kept telling him he was).

in the short term, if you don't believe there was some cosmic catastrophe tied to it, then just think of it as Jack saving Desmond, Hurley, Ben, Rose, Bernard, any remaining Others and most importantly Vincent from being crushed and/or drowned.

Asaf wrote:

the_reverend wrote:yeah, i really didn't need to see a montage of things going awry in the real world...i took them at the word that if the light goes out and the Island sinks, badness ensues. the fact that that was averted is, to my mind, a good thing. i didn't need to see the effects to believe that anymore than i'd need to see the initial stages of radioactive fallout to know that a character defusing a bomb is a GOOD thing.

Actually, I'm not sure that I'm on board with that. I know defusing a bomb is a good thing, because I have a frame of reference for the effects of a bomb. I do not have a frame of reference of the island starting to shake and all, especially when:

a) There has been a litany of things where people are still not sure of whether they were good or bad actions or good or bad consequences. Jack has been involved with most of them. We didn't know whether the list was a good or bad thing. I guess we now know it is good. Do we know that the island sinking is a good or bad thing? No, we don't, especially when:

b) The island is sunk in the sideways world and they seem to all be doing okay. Maybe the island should be sunk. Instead, the island is saved with Hurley now being the man in protection of the light, except that:

c) MiB/Smokey is dead. Who is he protecting the light from? Is there someone else who is going to take the place of MiB, the way someone took Jacob's place?

This is one of many questions that are the fabric of everything the mythology was built on that in a way tarnishes it for me. The island was so important, now I am not sure why.

well, we saw that the Source had a protector before MIB became Smokey, so while i think he was the most immediate threat at that time, his being dead doesn't remove the need for its protection. like the Mother said, men come and try to take more of it and that poses the risk of putting it out for good. so...

a) we saw that Jack was wrong about sending Desmond down there, but it was a necessary wrong to make Smokey vulnerable enough to take him out. we've seen this as a running theme, that wrong action taken can still lead to positive and even necessary results. Locke stops pushing the button, but it leads to having to use the failsafe thus stabilizing the energy. the Ajira flight allows Smokey to take Locke's form and finish off Jacob, but it also brings the Candidates back together to stop him. i think this follows along that path as well.

b) the Sideways world is a purgatory-like construct, so the same rules don't apply. the Island being sunk there isn't the same as it being sunk in the real world. my theory is that it's there because they know, subconsciously, that it SHOULD be there (which is why familiar landmarks still exist...foot of the statue, the barracks, etc.). but it lies beneath the waves because it's not an active part of that realm. at least that's my read on it.

c) ...um, i guess i already covered this at the beginning. lol!

another thought on the David dilemma...rather than being a mere construct of that reality or some displaced soul we either never met or has taken this form instead (i had a weird passing notion that he might be either Jacob or the Man in Black...or both? twin soul fusion?...given new form in this new world, finally given loving parents and a healthy upbringing...a redemption trap, of sorts. lol).

David IS Jack! just as we saw on the Island, Jacob (post death) took the form of both his adult and younger selves. similarly, Jack has taken on both the form of himself when he died and his younger self before he was "scarred" by his own father. in this way, he is dealing with his complicated father issues from both sides, both as father and son (furthering also the metaphor of Jack as Christ figure). perhaps this is also why after leaving the hospital, we don't see David again...Jack is verging on enlightenment, Locke has told him he doesn't have a son. the illusion is fading, Jack is starting to let go, his soul self is coming back together with the shared experiences and lessons of that world and the last in preparation to move on to the next.

Okay, just a few more questions.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

Seriously. Shannon?

majcher wrote:Okay, just a few more questions.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

Seriously. Shannon?

Saw that too. It's not just the unresolved details, it's the sheer quantity of them that should reflect some sort of fundamental understanding of what the point is instead of just lots of miscellaneous curiosity-for-ratings-inspiring-bunk

that's the mountain science fiction serials have to climb, though. I think Twilight Zone got away with alot because of its one-shot nature, but Star Trek and its spawn rose to the occasion in a way Lost never could. I personally prefer the low-stakes (sci-fi-wise) 100% character development-driven series like Six Feet Under to get me off.

I just think Lost wrote too many checks it couldn't cash. There were enough big checks that it did cash, and, from a marketing/(free market/lowest common denominator) standpoint, that's all that matters....
but
as art?
as something that changes the zeitgeist?
as something remembered 25 years from now?
50 years?

no thanks.
I'm just saying, I'm more apt to remember Six Feet Under and Twin Peaks when I'm 80 than friggin' Lost.

Lants wrote:Lost was the best Network television drama.

Yay!

majcher wrote:Okay, just a few more questions.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291

C'mon... this is ridiculous. A lot of the questions on this video could be figured out, you just have to do a little assuming.

Almost all the rest don't fucking matter... at all.

There will always be loose ends in a show like this. Especially with something that's alive and changing like Lost. Some things they set up aren't going to be able to be resolved, so lets focus on the stuff that matters a little more. (not that it was all gold)

arthursimone wrote: I'm just saying, I'm more apt to remember Six Feet Under and Twin Peaks when I'm 80 than friggin' Lost.

Let's look at Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks started brilliantly and dropped in quality almost immediately. It was unsuccessful and won us over by picking up the game toward the end. Yes, it was brilliant, but it still counts as a failure. One of the important parts of Network TV is that it has to understand it's Network TV or it gets taken away from us.

Six Feet Under was HBO... it had WAY more freedom and money. It doesn't really count... HOWEVER, the first season was amazing then the comparative quality took a nose dive and didn't pick back up until the last couple seasons.

Lost had its drops in quality in the middle, but for the most part, it was consistent in making me want to see the next episode.

C'mon... this is ridiculous. A lot of the questions on this video could be figured out, you just have to do a little assuming.

Relevant link is relevant.



--
peter rogers @ work | http://hujhax.livejournal.com

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
      -- Samuel Johnson

yeah, i saw some people posting that video on Facebook yesterday...it really just seemed like an audio-visual version of that whiny io9 list. right down to the "not being funny" part. as opposed to...

hujhax wrote:

C'mon... this is ridiculous. A lot of the questions on this video could be figured out, you just have to do a little assuming.

Relevant link is relevant.



--
peter rogers @ work | http://hujhax.livejournal.com

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
-- Samuel Johnson

ha! at last, snark is used for GOOD!

i would also add that, one question unanswered in that column about the food drop...there are enough clues given, i feel, that no one off Island knows about the Purge. Mikhail being stationed at the Flame, the girls down in the Looking Glass, Eloise taking control of the Lamp Post...maintaining "protocol" as it were, so whatever systems were in place to resupply the Dharma Initiative are still in place.

an answer, at least, for those who were confused by the final shots of the 815 wreckage.

http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/05/26/lost- ... -wreckage/

the_reverend wrote:it really just seemed like an audio-visual version of that whiny io9 list. right down to the "not being funny" part.

yes!!

The Adorable Adventures of Hurley & Ben



--
peter rogers @ home | http://hujhax.livejournal.com

Sometimes, exhausted
  with toil and endeavor,
I wish I could sleep
  for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
  my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
  one of these days.
      -- Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)