Anyone else missing LOST?

[theenglish]

This is bad, lazy writing - that's an objectcive fact. This doesn't change just because you like the ending, Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta.

I am sick and tired of people making statements like this. You are OBJECTIVELY incorrect in your statement.

You can say "i didn't like it" but the series was extremely well-written and very much internally coherent even if you didn't get the technobabble answers you were longing for.

I could go as far to say that people who think the Lost writing was lazy were simply lazy viewers themselves and should probably never read a post-modern literary novel either.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

At what point does the explanation become cheesy and destroy the mystery?

The reason explanations were not forthcoming was NOT ~'because the scenarists intended it in order to avoid Lost from being cheesy'.
If that were the case, establishing and detailing the mystery of the island/a lot of other mysteries - most unaddressed at the end - would NOT have been at the center of the plot, emphasized, during every Lost season.

The reason explanations were not forthcoming was that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and the only way out they saw was ignoring most questions and giving an ~'it's magic' solution to the rest.

This is bad, lazy writing - that's an objective fact. This doesn't change just because you like the ending, Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta.

Okay fine. Then describe a sixth season that would have satisfied your criteria for "good writing."

I could go as far to say that people who think the Lost writing was lazy were simply lazy viewers themselves and should probably never read a post-modern literary novel either.

Lost wasn't perfect but just look at the mindless crap that infests TV for comparison and you will immediately see its value. At least Lost tried to do something interesting.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

This is bad, lazy writing - that's an objectcive fact. This doesn't change just because you like the ending, Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta.

I am sick and tired of people making statements like this. You are OBJECTIVELY incorrect in your statement.

You can say "i didn't like it" but the series was extremely well-written and very much internally coherent even if you didn't get the technobabble answers you were longing for.

I could go as far to say that people who think the Lost writing was lazy were simply lazy viewers themselves and should probably never read a post-modern literary novel either.

I already gave the reasons the writing is substandard, OBJECTIVELY speaking - the plot focused on the mysteries for most of the series only to abandon most of them. This was caused by the scenarists writing themselvs into a corner due to lack of planning.
Read my previous posts for details.

You, on the other hand, failed to provide any argument to support your position beyond ~'because I say so/like the series'.
You can come with whatever affirmation you want; if you fail to support it, your affirmation has no value. And your ad personam attacks just make you look desperate, and consequently, pathetic, theenglish.

At what point does the explanation become cheesy and destroy the mystery?

The reason explanations were not forthcoming was NOT ~'because the scenarists intended it in order to avoid Lost from being cheesy'.
If that were the case, establishing and detailing the mystery of the island/a lot of other mysteries - most unaddressed at the end - would NOT have been at the center of the plot, emphasized, during every Lost season.

The reason explanations were not forthcoming was that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and the only way out they saw was ignoring most questions and giving an ~'it's magic' solution to the rest.

This is bad, lazy writing - that's an objective fact. This doesn't change just because you like the ending, Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta.

Okay fine. Then describe a sixth season that would have satisfied your criteria for "good writing."

A sixth season? That's FAR too late - the plot/narrative structure was too much of a clusterfuck by that point.

One would have to change the narrative structure (for example, focusing on the characters) much earlier during the course of the series; alternatively, one would have to actually plan resolutions for the mysteries that were focused upon extensively during Lost.

As it is, the writing WAS lazy - focusing entire seasons on this or that riddle and then pretending they didn't exist or that they were secondary elements of the plot.

 

[theenglish]

This is bad, lazy writing - that's an objectcive fact. This doesn't change just because you like the ending, Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta.

I am sick and tired of people making statements like this. You are OBJECTIVELY incorrect in your statement.

You can say "i didn't like it" but the series was extremely well-written and very much internally coherent even if you didn't get the technobabble answers you were longing for.

I could go as far to say that people who think the Lost writing was lazy were simply lazy viewers themselves and should probably never read a post-modern literary novel either.

I already gave the reasons the writing is substandard, OBJECTIVELY speaking - the plot focused on the mysteries for most of the series only to abandon most of them. This was caused by the scenarists writing themselvs into a corner due to lack of planning.
Read my previous posts for details.

You, on the other hand, failed to provide any argument to support your position beyond ~'because I say so/like the series'.
You can come with whatever affirmation you want; if you fail to support it, your affirmation has no value. And your ad personam attacks just make you look desperate, and consequently, pathetic, theenglish.

The reason explanations were not forthcoming was NOT ~'because the scenarists intended it in order to avoid Lost from being cheesy'.
If that were the case, establishing and detailing the mystery of the island/a lot of other mysteries - most unaddressed at the end - would NOT have been at the center of the plot, emphasized, during every Lost season.

The reason explanations were not forthcoming was that the writers wrote themselves into a corner and the only way out they saw was ignoring most questions and giving an ~'it's magic' solution to the rest.

This is bad, lazy writing - that's an objective fact. This doesn't change just because you like the ending, Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta.

Okay fine. Then describe a sixth season that would have satisfied your criteria for "good writing."

A sixth season? That's FAR too late - the plot/narrative structure was too much of a clusterfuck by that point.

One would have to change the narrative structure (for example, focusing on the characters) much earlier during the course of the series; alternatively, one would have to actually plan resolutions for the mysteries that were focused upon extensively during Lost.

As it is, the writing WAS lazy - focusing entire seasons on this or that riddle and then pretending they didn't exist or that they were secondary elements of the plot.

No, what you have done is set up a straw man and are attacking that version of Lost that you have in your head because it didn't live up to how you subjectively feel the show should have been. You can't even properly answer Temis' question.

 

[label]

You can't even properly answer Temis' question.

Can you take a shot at answering mine directed at you a page or so back please? I'd like to get your take on what I posted?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

theenglish

'straw man'?
Under what respect is it a straw-man? Failing to support your affirmations is, apparently, a trait of yours.

About Temis' question - it was more than adequately answered: "A sixth season? That's FAR too late - the plot/narrative structure was too much of a clusterfuck by that point. etc etc"

About Lost - I saw the first season, then the odd episode and most of season 6.
Lost never did rate high on my list of preferences.
I did see enough to recognoize directionless writing, though - that was very hard to miss.
You're the one blinded from the obvious by fan-boyism, theenglish.

 

[C_Miller]

theenglish

'straw man'?
Under what respect is it a straw-man? Failing to support your affirmations is, apparently, a trait of yours.

About Temis' question - it was more than adequately answered: "A sixth season? That's FAR too late - the plot/narrative structure was too much of a clusterfuck by that point. etc etc"

About Lost - I saw the first season, then the odd episode and most of season 6.
Lost never did rate high on my list of preferences.
I did see enough to recognoize directionless writing, though - that was very hard to miss.
You're the one blinded from the obvious by fan-boyism, theenglish.

You didn't even watch the whole series?

 

[Shurik]

I did see enough to recognoize directionless writing, though - that was very hard to miss.

Actually, seasons 3-5 had a direction and were amazing to follow at the time. I loved the levels of crazy the show achieved in those seasons, the characters - new and old - were great and it definitely looked like the most exciting thing on TV. Then came season 6 ...

 

[startrekwatcher]

I did see enough to recognoize directionless writing, though - that was very hard to miss.

Actually, seasons 3-5 had a direction and were amazing to follow at the time. I loved the levels of crazy the show achieved in those seasons, the characters - new and old - were great and it definitely looked like the most exciting thing on TV. Then came season 6 ...

Agreed. S3-5 were a fun thrill ride--fast paced with a narrative focus and urgency, great plot twists, things were being pulled together and cleverly connected. By the end of S5 the series seemed poised to follow that momentum and lead to an exciting final season that revealed the last of the pieces and explained everything and folding all the seeming disparate threads into one another until the show arrived at the Big moment and we could look back and be amazed by how everything came together--kinda like S1 of Heroes only the effect would be series spanning and not just one season.

 

[Lt. Trull]

You didn't even watch the whole series?

Of course not.... it didn't seem like real science fiction when it started and after 4 or 5 years of not seeing it, I figured why.... then I saw the last ten minutes of the show and learned (at least in the last season as told by somebody earlier) that they were just earth bound spirits....
interesting premise for a show....

 

[C_Miller]

You didn't even watch the whole series?

Of course not.... it didn't seem like real science fiction when it started and after 4 or 5 years of not seeing it, I figured why.... then I saw the last ten minutes of the show and learned (at least in the last season as told by somebody earlier) that they were just earth bound spirits....
interesting premise for a show....

That's not quite the ending, but you seem to get it more than some people did. I was, however, talking to ProtoAvatar who was criticizing the laziness of the writers after only watching Seasons 1 and 6 all the way through.

 

[sidious618]

About Lost - I saw the first season, then the odd episode and most of season 6.

So in other words there's no real reason to take you seriously? Cool.

 

[stj]

None of the mysteries have anything to do with the character development. But the show was structured as a series of suprises in the plot which turned out to have nothing to do with any theme or with the characters. They were marvelously inventive surprises, which is exactly what the series was selling. Why the characters need to find themselves, what they're doing with each other, is all meaningless jabber. Shoving in a religious theme when the characters have no religious opinions is bait and switch.

Man of faith, man of science. In the Christmas spirit, I can only say, humbug. No one knows what Locke had faith in but he lost it and killed himself. Jack was supposedly a man of science but never investigated a damn thing, never even questioned a damn thing and acted in faith. The characters turned into opposites. This isn't character devlopment, it's babble for boobies. Pretending to take this shit seriously is pathetic.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I'm done with this thread. It has less answers than the series finale.

Yep, and with a couple of posters it's going to start getting unneccesarily mean.

 

[Trent Roman]

Not at all.
Maybe sometime, when I'm bored, I'll rewatch the first 5 seasons, forgetting that the sixth ever happened.

My thoughts exactly. The ending ruined the entire series for me.

Although I woulnd't go quite that far--Lost's finale wasn't as bad as BSG's finale, which did ruin the entire series for me--the complete lack of resolution and all the facile, lazy spirituality that characterized the finale makes it hard to look back at the series--even the really good parts of it--without a jaundiced eye. Do I miss LOST? Yes, and no. I miss the ending of the story, which fizzled away into non-existence. But if that's all there ever was to it, then it's for the best that it went away. Certainly my enthusiasm for it is deader than a dodo. Much as with BSG, whose additional content and spin-off(s) I've disregarded after the steaming pile of "Daybreak", I suspect I would disregard anything else the LOST people put out, even if it purported to finally answer all the mysteries they apparently had no resolution for.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[theenglish]

You can't even properly answer Temis' question.

Can you take a shot at answering mine directed at you a page or so back please? I'd like to get your take on what I posted?

Are you referring to this:

I just wanted to know what the nature of the smoke monster was, why he seemed to be able to be "called" by Ben when his daughter was killed and why it acted the way it did. Why did he want off the island, what would have really happened if he made it? While I don't expect an exhaustive history of the island, it would be nice if I even knew what the stakes actually even were and if the actions of the "smoke monster" were consistent with what we were told in the sixth season because they certainly didn't appear to be.

?

Whatever is supposed to happen when the MiB escapes is left up to the imagination, but I imagine that it is the same as a number of other such stories when the apocalypse happens. Do we really need a religious apocalypse spelled out for us.

Now one thing that I think personally, is that the MiB and the smoke monster are from Egyptian mythology because the whole origin of the island seems to be related to Egyptian mythology somehow. I don't really know very much about that topic though.

Ben could summon the monster through the drain in his secret room. So the monster is controlled by some rules.

 

[theenglish]

About Lost - I saw the first season, then the odd episode and most of season 6.

Aaand we're done.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

theenglish

'straw man'?
Under what respect is it a straw-man? Failing to support your affirmations is, apparently, a trait of yours.

About Temis' question - it was more than adequately answered: "A sixth season? That's FAR too late - the plot/narrative structure was too much of a clusterfuck by that point. etc etc"

About Lost - I saw the first season, then the odd episode and most of season 6.
Lost never did rate high on my list of preferences.
I did see enough to recognoize directionless writing, though - that was very hard to miss.
You're the one blinded from the obvious by fan-boyism, theenglish.

You didn't even watch the whole series?

Of course not.
What I saw was more than enough to recognise directionless writing. It was THAT OBVIOUS.

So in other words there's no real reason to take you seriously? Cool.

Already answered. The reasons for my position are more than adequately explained.
Yours are only fan-boyism.

About Lost - I saw the first season, then the odd episode and most of season 6.

Aaand we're done.

As usual, theenglish, your post has no value - that's what happens when you fail to support any of your affirmations.

 

[Forbin]

I think of Lost the same way I felt about The Sopranos (and, I guess, BSG too) - it started out great and interesting, and it became addictive - so no matter how crappy the shows became as they went on, I was addicted to watching it, even though I wasn't liking it - I HAD to find out what happens next. When it was over, it was actually a big relief that I didn't have to watch it ever again.

 

[label]

Are you referring to this:

I just wanted to know what the nature of the smoke monster was, why he seemed to be able to be "called" by Ben when his daughter was killed and why it acted the way it did. Why did he want off the island, what would have really happened if he made it? While I don't expect an exhaustive history of the island, it would be nice if I even knew what the stakes actually even were and if the actions of the "smoke monster" were consistent with what we were told in the sixth season because they certainly didn't appear to be.

?

Not just that, but some earlier stuff too. However, we'll start here. On to your reply.........

Whatever is supposed to happen when the MiB escapes is left up to the imagination, but I imagine that it is the same as a number of other such stories when the apocalypse happens. Do we really need a religious apocalypse spelled out for us.

I don't need details, but since the characters are literally dying to stop the MIB from leaving the island it'd be nice to know what the stakes actually are. We don't really know for sure if anything would happen, and if something did happen, what that would mean. We were lead to assume that there would be negative consequences of some sort, but we don't even know the scope of those.......it's just this vague "don't the let the bad guy do what he wants to do because he wants to do it and he's bad" type of storyline which struck me as a missed opportunity for such a smart show.

Now one thing that I think personally, is that the MiB and the smoke monster are from Egyptian mythology because the whole origin of the island seems to be related to Egyptian mythology somehow. I don't really know very much about that topic though.

I agree that there appears to be links to Egyptian mythology......problem is, there's never any mention of what that link might be, why the writers introduced those elements into the storyline, what they meant or how they shaped the story we saw at all. It was just a random element that ended up being meaningless because they never took the time to connect any of the dots, much less all of them.

Ben could summon the monster through the drain in his secret room. So the monster is controlled by some rules.

I guess......but we don't have any of the sense or logic behind what those rules may or may not be or why they exist or who put them there or really anything that governs his actions. It's not that I needed to see the Official Rule Book for Smoke Monsters or anything like that........but in order to understand the main narrative of the story, it'd be nice if we understood even a little bit about why the characters are even acting the way they are. To this point, we're just left to guess and call that good enough.

That's my main problem with the ending of Lost....while we got awesome closure with the characters they didn't finish the telling the story itself........or at least, they skipped important parts of the story and just expected us to not care about it either claiming that "answering questions will lead to more questions" or "it was always about the characters". That's all well and good, but to understand why the characters are acting the way they are and whether they are justified in their actions, we need to have context and we are missing alot of context when it comes to the island, the "rules", what motivates either side, what will happen if the "bad" side wins, etc, etc,.........

I love Lost and I'll always enjoy the countless hours I've spent watching, talking ,reading about it but they really did drop the ball in a few places where we really needed to get a little more information so we could even understand the story within the context it was being told.