How would you have written the finale? (SPOILERRRRS)

[Brent]

Me, I liked the finale for the most part. I loved the character aspect of it all, the reuinion in the church, all of it was fantastic. I do wish they had given more info about the Island. Other than that, I wouldn't change it.

However, I know emotions run deep, and people feel the ending should have been different. So if you could have done the finale, how would you have ended Lost?

I'm interested in hearing what everyone's alternate finale ending would be for this series and how'd they wrap the show up.

 

[Fist McStrongpunch]

The problem with the finale is that the whole story of the castaways and Others and Widmore's folk and Jacob and MiB didn't actually lead in to the whole flash-sideways limbo thing. The flash-sideways were a completely different story that just happened to have the same characters. It was utterly divorced from the rest of the story of Lost; the same thing could have been done on Dallas, or Roseanne, or Battlestar Galactica.

So, how would I have done it? Maybe they sorta fail, Locke escapes the island, throws the world into hellish darkness, and the candidates have to use the power of the island to recreate reality, leading to the flash-sideways world. I dunno, it's far from perfect, but I think it's better and actually leads on from what came before.

 

[DeafPoet]

The only criticism I've read that I sort of understand is that it's a little murky what would have happened if The Man in Black had succeeded. The stakes weren't spelled out.

Now, I've sort of been tumbling things around in my mind and I have a few ideas about why they would have left a plot point like that ambiguous.

If the light at the church is tied to the heart of the island somehow then all of a sudden it becomes pretty important that they keep it going. It also brings new meaning to the talk of "everyone you love" dying if MiB succeeds. If the sideways ceases to exist then in a way, there's no way for everyone to continue on and they really will be dead. Gives new significance to Isabella's warning about everyone going to hell, too.

Basically, if I think about this more and it holds together for me I wouldn't change a single thing about the finale. If I decide that it's probably not the case then I would have spent a scene or two making it clear why MiB needed to be stopped.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

yea in a way it did seem kind of tacked on. But maybe it seemed like that, because possibly this was Jack's world. Who knows. Now we'll never know. It's all open to interpretation. Initially I had some mixed feelings on it, but I've come to terms and I'm fine with how it ended. It was about the characters and their journey and their impending fate towards their final destination of letting go and "moving on", just wish there was more of a clear indication leading up to it. Because it did feel disjointed from the rest of the theme of the show they set up like about the island and destiny (well that somewhat panned out) and catastrophic ramifications about the light source and what if it went out. Never any real sense of a the world in peril, just the island having a hissy fit.

I need to rewatch and I'll come back and give my take on how i would have ended it.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

I would have used the sideverse as an actual alternate universe to explore the consequences of the Island being destroyed and Smokey having free reign of the world since 1977. He wouldn't be able to unleash the evil the Island was holding back because the stone buttplug was still corking up the Island's magical anus, so he would have to find more subtle ways to destroy the world of men, whom he sees as selfish and evil.

As such, I would have him working with the modern remnants of the Dharma Initiative to carry out his plans. This would allow us to get some followup on Dharma (why they were still doing air drops, what happened to the people on the mainland, etc.) and would give him the resources to carry out a worldwide campaign to find alternate methods of destroying the world using ideas and technology gleaned from the Island.

In the end, the Losties of the sideverse would have to make a choice whether to live out their lives knowing what MiB would eventually do some point in the future, or to possibly sacrifice themselves to stop him and save the world (having seen through the memory flashes that the life in the Island universe doesn't turn out to well for most of them). It would address the earlier hints that the Losties would "have to make a choice" between the two worlds, and would allow good-guy Locke a chance to fight Smokey as well. I would probably have the people who survived in one universe be the ones who died in the other, for a sense of balance.

Obviously this would require some set-up and couldn't just be dropped purely in the finale though without it being sort of crowded plotwise. But I think it would give some closure to some of the concerns people have like not being able to see what the potential consequences of Smokey getting out might have been and what happened to the rest of the Dharma Initiative (plus it would be a nice callback to earlier seasons).

 

[zengoth]

I was hoping there would be a conscious choice as well - that once the sideways clan got their island memories back, they would be informed that the only way to save humanity from Smokey is if they chose the island existance. Up until major cast members were killed, this seemed the most plausible. Jack, for instance, knowingly having to give up his son to save the island would have been poignant. Perhaps not everyone would have made the same choice.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I loved the finale. I figured that once you factor out all the emotionally unsatisfying explanations for the flash sideways - negating either of the timelines, or having the sideways characters be doubles and not the "real" characters - and taking into consideration the fact that nobody recognizes the "famous" survivors of 815 - the writers were locked into an explanation that was in the future of the regular timeline, but not in the real world.

So it had to be either the afterlife or some kind of virtual reality/mass hallucination, possibly as a test related to the conflict between Smokey and Jack. I would have gone for the mass hallucination so that it would be better tied in with the mythology, but the way they did it was fine.

I certainly wouldn't have had Kate kill Smokey! That's Ben's job. I also wouldn't have snubbed Michael in the final scene.

I was also expecting the conflict to be handled more sensibly. Why did it come down to moving around some rock we never heard of before? Why was Smokey suddenly and conveniently trapped in human form?

And I wanted more of an apocalyptic finale. I really was counting on the island going kaboom and sinking. Though I also like the idea of Hurley and Ben living there presumably for decades and taking care of the place. Maybe it could sink and then re-surface!

 

[Mallet]

I mentioned this in an other thread but it fits here as well.

Once the plug was removed and the earthquakes started I would have added cut scenes to shows bad stuff happening around the planet.

Stuff like Eloise in the Lamppost station with the earth shaking and the pendulum going out of control and then crashing down. Penny in England with young Charlie hiding as the earth shakes and glass windows shatter.

Stuff like that to show us that what happens on the Island is effecting everywhere around the world.

That would make re-plugging the hole all that more important and dramatic.

I would also have added a scene where Desmond secretly tells Jack that when he removes the plug it will turn off the light (until it's "re-plugged") and during that time NotLocke would loose all of his powers. And this would be the only time to kill him.

That would make what Desmond does have more resonance. Then I would have Desmond injured by the unplugging and Jack realizing that (after Locke is dead, but the earthquakes still continue) so that is when he goes back down and saves Desmond and re-plugs the hole.

Also I would have Sawyer kill NotLocke, thus saving Jack, the person he has been fighting with for all these years.

Or I would have Jack kill NotLocke by himself. Kate shooting him in the back was kind of lame.