I Was LOST, but Now I’m Found
by Wynn Marlow***SPOLIERS, for those of you who haven’t seen the LOST finale yet…
…And—dare I say—thank God.
It seemed we were being led down a directionless path for a season or two. Every time we tried to get our bearings (much like the Losties themselves), the writers would introduce a couple of new characters, alter time frames and throw the whole scenario out of whack.
We continued to watch, frustrated and grumbling, threatening to give up on the show. But we hung in, relentlessly intrigued by the premise, the mystery, all the while wondering “what the hell is going on with these people and this supposed Island?”
Maybe Cuse and Lindelof did lose the thread for awhile, throwing proverbial stuff against the wall. Maybe not.
But, in “The End,” they delivered. And the end is all that matters on LOST. The end is what it is all about.
There were no survivors of the crash of Oceanic 815. There were the lives they had lived, lives they might have lived, and something mystical that happens in the final moment between life and death, when so much passes through human consciousness – knowledge and memory beyond rational understanding.
Everything that happened on “The Island” was a possibility implied by the intricately woven backstories of the characters on the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. For each passenger, the Island was a “near death experience” and a portal to the resolution of classic conflicts in their lives. Passing through the Island–however many times and in however many time periods–enables them to finally “leave.”
They become free to leave not only The Island, but their very earthly existence.
Speaking as a practitioner and lover of acting and storytelling, I found the final episode eminently comprehensible and deeply moving. Not ambiguous. Not dissatisfying. Not suspicious at all. Quite the contrary. LOST has proven to be a show of epic proportions: intellectually challenging, profoundly spiritual, and deeply human.
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"There were no survivors of the crash of Oceanic 815. There were the lives they had lived, lives they might have lived, and something mystical that happens in the final moment between life and death, when so much passes through human consciousness – knowledge and memory beyond rational understanding."
———-
That is not how I understood it at all. They did survive the crash and everything on the Island (and then off the Island and then back on the Island) happened. The only thing that did not actually happen was the "Sideways Reality", which was a sort of 'purgatory' or meeting area where the survivors of the crash would meet in the afterlife before moving on to Heaven.
Is the fact that there were no survivors really agreed upon by those who watched the finale? I read somewhere (Maclean's, I think) that the crash footage shown with the end credits was a flub on the network's part, and not intended by the writers.
I watched a couple episodes of Lost years ago and though it seemed interesting, it was also confusing and I didn't feel like getting caught up. I'm content with that decision!
i never watched Lost. But I'm glad it had a summary conclusion for the fans that did.
I hate it when shows don't: 4400, Surface, Sarah Conner Chronicles, etc. I'd almost put Firefly here, but Serenity did help.
I just hope they don't cancel Fringe with out tying up some of the unexplained.
Overall I enjoyed the ending. A couple months ago I told my wife I thought it would end along the lines of another movie with plane crash victims, 1970's "Sole Survivor". They're dead, they just don't know it. I was pretty close.
…intellectually challenging, profoundly spiritual,…
I do not concur.
Spirituality was reduced to essentially picking your favorite flavor of candy.
Intellectually…..sorry I just don't see the intellectual challenge.
"There were no survivors of the crash of Oceanic 815. "
Then why the line from Christian to Jack… "some of them died before you, others LONG AFTER you"
This would mean to me that everything on the Island was "real." They all died at different times and met up in the afterlife (Church) . "TIME" is an invention of the living. As soon as we are born we are on the clock. The deaths that we witnessed on the Island and off were the real physical deaths of each character. Some would live full lives (We just don't have 30 seasons to watch it on tv) or die later in our "time line" ie. Sawyer, Kate, Ben, Huley, ect.
The afterlife scene at the end of Lost was not 2004. It was a manifestation of 2004. It could of been 2200, or any other random year in the time line of the living. Say I die in 2057, but my Grandfather died in 2002. In the after life would I manifest 2057 to meet him, or would I find common ground and create a period before 2002? Something familiar to us both?
After 6 seasons, the ending was satisfying for me….My take on this was that their lives on the island were
actually lived…Jack's dad, Christian, confirmed that, at the end, when asked if it was all real. Otherwise, no one would have had any reason to want to spend 'eternity' together with people they simply shared a flight with.
The plane crash shown at the end had no tell tale markings, so it could have been the plane that had just left with some of the survivors on it, or even another plane, with other people. Also, Hurley thanked Ben for having been a great 'Number two', If they had not continued to be the 'guardians of the island' that exchange would make no sense. Altho many questions remained unanswered, that's ok with me, as the finale was so emotionally satisfying.
I still have a ton of questions, but I'm good with the way it ended. The alternate endings on the Jimmy Kimmel show were hilarious.
"That's Bob f*ckin Newhart!!!"
I don't like ambiguous endings left up to everybody's interpretation. That tells me the story tellers don't really have something to say. And I don't mean that in a deep philosophical sort of way, I mean that in a simple, classic story-telling sort of way. I was onto them after season 2, which is when I checked out. I'm glad I did.
That's absolutely correct. Jack's Dad says that the "afterlife" was the place that they all created in order to find each other, because they had such strong connections when they were alive. If they died in the plane crash, then they never developed those connections. Also, at the end, Hurley says to Ben "You were a great Number Two", meaning that they lived for a long time on the Island with Ben as his assistant. Everything that happened on the Island was real. Sideways Reality was the afterlife.I wonder why so many people didn't get that.
- I loved watching LOST and I think the writers had a lot of interesting ideas, but viewers figured it out during the first season. For some reason the writer’s strike resulted in three short seasons in a row and the LOST creators, knowing viewers figured it out, had to send us into several plot dead-ends to keep our interest and in the end the best they could conjure up was a cliché filled finale that turned the entire series into one long M. Night Shyamalan rip-off…
Everything that happened on the island was real. If it was supposedly the people who died in the crash resolving conflicts in their lifes, how do you explain Desmond and Benjamin? They weren't on the plane when it crashed…
That's what I thought too, although I admit there could be several different interpretations.
I liked the "Survivor" version with Sayid none too pleased about being voted off the island.
I'm a LOST fan, although I can't say I always understood what was going on. I liked that the creators tried to address some big issues like faith, belief, and redemption, something that's very rare on network tv.
Yeah and then Michael shows up behind Sayid, "Where the hell have YOU been??"
"I have no idea man…."
Gotta love a cast that can laugh at themselves.
There's no interpretation necessary on this count. The writers have made it abundantly clear that the island was *not* an afterlife, and that the survivors of Oceanic 815 lived through the crash. It's only the flash-sideways world that was the afterlife.
They didn't die in the plane crash. Jack died in the bamboo field at the end. Jin and his wife died in the sub, along with Sayid. Charlie drowned a few seasons back. Locke was murdered by Ben. Sawyer, Kate, Claire, and later Desmond all got off the Island and presumably lived normal lives until they died of old age. Hurley and Ben stayed on the Island, maybe for centuries before they died. Then they were placed in the "Sideways Reality" to find one another so they could "move on" together.
Hey! That Michelle Rodriguez! Boy, she was something, wasn't she? Wow! On the island and all.
Sincerely,
David Letterman
All I know is that my enthusiasm for "Lost" died somewhere in season 4.
LOL… There really was nothing new about Lost, it was just a reworking of Dallas, when JR got shot. It was all a dream. Comon guys, try some originality.
Yeah, I'm in agreement with you. Everything on the island happened. Some died before Jack (Jin & Sun etc), and other died after (Hurley, Ben, Kate…etc). The sideways was the only element of an "in between"…the whole rest of the show happened.
I think the Island really existed (in the show), and was a metaphor for the world – every answered question just leads to another question, and in the end, the mysteries of the world are impenetrable.
Another reason for the indecipherable mysteries was so that one couldn't get an ironclad grip on who was good and evil, and what actions were right and wrong. Just as in the world such questions are difficult to answer, in the end all we have to go on is the faith in god, ourselves and others, and that there is a plan or purpose involved.
The ending – the sidewasy flashes, the "preliminary afterlife" scenes – showed that what was really important in life isn't solving the mysteries of the world, but the love in our hearts for others; our capacity for forgiveness and redemption. In the afterlife scenes, nobody asked about, or even cared about what the smoke monster was, what the light was, etc., because "it doesn't really matter, brotha". What is truly important are how we have grown our own heart, and those we reach out to and connect with, because that is all we will carry with us forward.
I found the ending incredibly moving and satisfying.
Exactly. I know a lot of people understood it differently, but I didn't see it that way for a second. We were specifically told that the Island world was real, and that it was the Sideways world that was purgatory. For the record, I think this misunderstanding–which I believe it is–is at least partly due to the scene above the closing credits, with shots of the abandoned Oceanic wreckage on the silent beach. A lot of people took this to mean that no one had survived the crash, but ABC came out yesterday and said that that scene had nothing to do with the episode, they had just thrown them in as filler at the end.
The actor who played Michael is hysterical. Years ago, he appeared in an SNL parody of "OZ" that was also very funny. After watching the season 1 outtakes of "Lost", I kind of wish he'd get cast in a comedy.
"Jeff #@%& Probst!"
Fringe is going pretty strong right now, and at this rate they're explaining things faster than Lost ever did. I don't think you have too much to worry about.
They say that Michael Emerson (Ben) is also a very funny guy. If that's true he's a great actor….
Good choice. I hung in there for all six seasons and feel like an idiot.
As far as I'm concerned, the writers wrote themselves into a corner and the final season was just a lazy cop-out.
Without a decent resolution, Lost was just a Sci-Fi melodrama with a dose of spirituality thrown-in for good measure.
Yeah, that's what happened. Which I understand from the network's point of view, if they wanted to provide a brief transition or pay homage to the cast and crew somehow, but at the same time, they should have known that the die-hard Lost fans were going to be picking that scene apart for meaning too. I've already heard a lot of people suggesting that now the Oceanic wreckage will become a part of Island lore, like the Dharma Initiative or the Black Rock, for future visitors to the Island to puzzle over. Which would be cool, but again, I don't think ABC ever meant to say anything related to the story with that shot.
Sorry, but the Dallas "dream" was not when JR was shot … it was when Bobby died. JR was shot by Bing Crosby's daughter.
Sorry, Ms. Marlow, but I believe that you are incorrect. They DID survive the crash and lived all the experiences that we saw during the show's run. Season six was about the final confrontation with Locke/Jacob's brother and the reconciliation of the Lostaways. It showed everyone's "Letting Go" moment. Jack's was just the last.
They showed the plane wreckage on the beach WITH NO BODIES. It became just another artifact of those who came before like the Black Rock, the statue, the temple and the Dharma Initiative village. I have no idea how Hugo ran things as the Island's Protector, but I'm sure he had to deal with wayward visitors who left behind their artifacts too.
Hugo said to Ben that he was a "Great Number Two" and Ben said that Hugo was a "Great Number One". If Hugo had died in the plane crash how the hell could that conversation have ever taken place?
After reading the comments I must say a few things.
1. I agree with most that the things that happened on the Island where real. Only the Side flashes where Limbo.
2. One post mentioned that the final picture of the plane crash gave us no clues, But it did. Right after the crash the survivors piled up all the close in a pile. That pile is in the shot.
3. It is clear that many of them lived longer then others. Not only is it said but Hurley says to Ben, "you where a great number 2" and Ben says "you where a great number 1" if they had not survived this would not have been said. Also Ben waits and does not go with them. He is not part of this group. He is waiting for his group.
All in all it was great. I did not watch the show on T.V. I always watch it on the net and I watched the last 3 episodes one right after the other. I am a former Marine, and played football for 20 years but when Jin and his wife got their memories back in the hospital I wept like a baby. Same for Charlie and Claire. Very touch the way the characters reunited. I felt like I was watching some special.
My Bad. Thanks for the clarification.
I confess to still having questions, but was pleasantly surprised by how many were answered in the finale (and with Christian overtones, at that.) The "Christian Shepherd" came to help his LOST son transition to the Afterlife, souls reunited who had hate and hurt one another with new awareness, compassion, and forgiveness, and the mystery of Death remains for those of us left behind as those whose time has come walk into The Light.
Jack's revealing and prophetic line in Season One "If we don't learn to live together, we're all going to die alone" became manifest as we watched the characters struggle through their individual life lessons, both literally and in the "What If?" universe. I was touched by Ben's refusal to join the others in the church (feeling he was not yet ready) and his apology to Locke; to me, it was evidence that in the darkest heart, a kernel of Goodness can still flicker and be set on the path to Redemption. And despite our most terrible trials, deeds, and fears, a place of Peace and Loving Hearts may yet await us.
I finally shed a tear when Vincent the dog ran over to lay beside Jack as he finally surrendered and died. A beautiful and fitting end to his life and the series. My grade for the overall show: an unequivocal "A."
It appears that those who are not fans of LOST tend to lean toward more "simple" shows – Dancing with the Stars and such.
No, they DID survive. The island HAPPENED. It was the sideways world that didn't, that was the "limbo" area that they lived until they became aware they were dead.
I recommended (if you haven't yet) looking at Jimmy Kimmel's "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship: Lost Edition"
I cannot view hulu or YouTube at work but a quick google search gave me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di3w1yV4Ehg
I nearly cried at the last one.
I know you are trying to be insulting but you have to admit that LOST could be a frustrating show to watch at times. Sometimes it's just nice to be entertained without the headache of trying to put pieces together to figure out what's going on.
Poor Vincent! No wonder he was MIA for most of the show.
I also hung in there for all six seasons and clung to the chance that the writers would elaborately weave everything back together. Wrong. The writers were making it up as they went along. Polar bears! A hatch! A button! Dharma! The Others! They're off the island! They're back on the island! Time Travel! A nuclear bomb! A temple! A Japanese priest! A lighthouse! A cave! About the only thing the writers resolved was "Adam and Eve", and even that was lame.
I also feel like an idiot.
"the creators tried to address some big issues like faith, belief, and redemption…"
Uh, how? Having all the losties gather in an ecumenical church before moving into the afterlife? Postmodern fluff, IMO.
Once you get past the emotion, you will realize that what a mess the writers made of the story, and how this season was a white-wash.
you forgot to say – and post their negative comments about shows they did not watch or like. That's what really baffles me.
Jeez. Talk about lost. How about all the millions of manhours 'lost' trying to figure this out. Quite simply, the point of Lost comes down to this…$900,000/minute for advertisements on the finale.
It was a television show. It was not a groundbraking metaphor for anything at all. If it had not caught on when it started it would have been just another little minor blip. A show some people liked and most ignored…off into the dustbin of electron history.
This was nothing but a very long-form Twilight Zone episode, which can be taken and understood any which way the viewer wants to take it or understand it.
My personal thought, due to the symmetry of the ending vis-a-vis the beginning is that the entire dealio was nothing more than Jack's brain dying and having to rationalize a purpose for his existance. Nothing more.
Either way, we have all been released from the hideous chore that was watching Lost in the sad hope that it might bring some meaning to our own lives, or at least make some sort of sense eventually. In my interpretation, perfect sense is acheived…in a dying dream, ANYTHING…ANYTHING AT ALL…is possible.
Okay, everyone here disagrees with you about the "island reality" being an afterlife experience. I'm right there with them. Only the flash sideways world was post-death.
Otherwise, the thematic problems are huge. Even though their lives were all intertwined, none of them really knew each other before the crash. The show seemed to say that their experience on the island was THE most significant event of their lives. The characters became the most important people to each other.
If they all died in the original crash, those themes are basically destroyed. It renders earthly life meaningless, essentially, by saying that we don't really meet anyone or experience anything significant until AFTER we die.
But I'm very happy to see you write this:
"I found the final episode eminently comprehensible and deeply moving. Not ambiguous. Not dissatisfying. Not suspicious at all. "
The ending made absolute perfect sense to me too, and I found it very brave on the part of the creators of the show to stick with their religious/spiritual statement (a show ending in a church! How radical in this day & age!). I'm finding that there are fans who are very dogmatic about secularism and found the spiritual/religious overtones of the show "offensive"….or something, so much so that they are determined not to understand the ending out of sheer will alone. But for those looking for meaning in life (religious and non-religious, btw), the show served up an absolutely beautiful metaphor that concluded in a very satisfactory way. I think some project their own ideology so strong, that they have a hard time even understanding something that doesn't fit into it (again, I don't think one need be religious to recognize the theme here). It's like living in a bubble (as if the whole science/faith themes were never there to begin with!). To me, the show sided with faith, but not against science either, as many are portraying it. Again, I think that's just ideological projection on their part.
How little you know. I never watched LOST beyond the first season because it felt to me like the narrative was, well, LOST (not deep or intellectually stimulating, just LOST). My hsuband and I like to watch an intellectually stimulating show and not be able to find all sorts of storyline trouble with it later. If it makes us think, it ought to be plausible in some context at least.
FYI: Michael Emerson (Ben) revealed that the DVD release will in fact include a prologue featuring Ben and Hurley on the island. Should be interesting!
In my opinion Desmond was included because he was needed to show the Losties that they were ready to move on and get them all connecting with each other again. Ben was included because one of the things holding him up was needing forgivness for Locke.
Not entirely. There was a large "fanboy" or geek base to this show that have been furious over the lack of "scientific" explanation for things like the glowy cave, the numbers, the smoke monster, the time travel, etc. Amazing, I know, but I've debated a few of these folks online. It's incredible.
Considering the themes of the show regarding nothing less than the Meaning of Life (!), I always warned people to not expect everything to be explained. How arrogant would it be for the writers to claim to have an exact answer to such questions?
Cuse/Lindelof have been saying for years now that they would avoid the "midichlorian" angle (that's how George Lucas explained the Force in Star Wars Episode I). They rightly felt that doing that would add needless, endless exposition and most importantly sap the show's mystical allure.
One more thing: People have very hostile attitudes towards religion, in general, obviously. It would be very interesting to see how the disappointment in the finale splits among religious/secular people.
Some in the media have reflected as much. In a otherwise fairly decent article from the Chicatgo Tribune online, Maureen Ryan actually apologizes for even bringing the subject of religion up! "Sorry to get all religious on you…", she says, only to quote the perfectly non-denominational and benign "Amazing Grace!"
Then, she says this, "Maybe the final scenes in the church were too religious for some. But if you looked closely, you saw a Buddha statue and a menorah in the room in which Jack and Christian talked."
What does that mean, anyway? Wouldn't a Buddha and menorah in addition to the crosses make it even more religious and not less? I think what she means to say is that it is "too Christian", not "too religious." It's complete bigotry. If the final scene was exclusively Hindu, for instance, I'm sure she would not be saying it's "too religious" but instead "praiseworthy for its brave diversity." But that's just a guess on my part.
Try some originality??? You have GOT to be joking?!?! Lost is undoubtedly the most original TV show in history! Time-Travel, smoke monsters, alternate universes, electromagnetic energy, mysterious disappearing tropical island w/ polar bears, etc etc… If that is not original I would love to hear YOUR original ideas for a TV show. Secondly, it was NOT a dream. The writers said early on that it would not be a dream, and it wasnt, have you ever even seen this show you are criticizing??
Right On billymac!
So in reality, none of us has the ultimate answers to the mysteries of life, yet people get pissed off when TV writers dont tell us the exact same thing. The whole point of the sideways ( I think)was to drive home the point that life isnt all about the mysteries, its more about the people in your life that you love and care about.
Wow. You are SO OFF BASE! Did you not understand that the stuff on the island happened, and it was only the people killed who met in the afterlife? Kate and Sawyer, for example, get off the island and live… and it's at the end of their lives, whatever happened later, that they rejoined their friends in the sideways world.
All of the writers' religiosity is fine and dandy if picking a religion is like picking a flavor of ice cream.
But, if picking a religion has more meaningful consequences then…it's quite insulting.
Yes, the finale was loaded with emotion but intellectually about as deep as an oil slick.
The emotionality is expected but the only thing worse than ignoring religion entirely is trying to cram them all in and saying, "Meh…they're all the same."
I dont like ambiguous endings either, and is why I LOVE LOST, the ending was pretty clear. All the major points were reconciled. Maybe since you checked out after season 2 is why you couldnt understand it.
Seems like some of the other commenters fall into the category of "impossible to satisfy." The same people screaming about not getting enough answers are the same ones that would be complaining about how cheesy and predictable the "answers" to all the mytholgical questions were, if they had chosen to try to answer every little thing.
Michael you are correct. The author CLEARLY missed a huge part of the ending there. Not sure how, I thought it was pretty clear.
Exactly. I totally agree. And keeping that focus was what made the ending such a powerfully emotional, life-affirming thing. Yet, there are some that were expecting the exact chemical make-up of the smoke monster to be revealed? I don't get what that has to do with the message of the story. That kind of stuff only tends to distract from it. Even if we were given that information, these type of critics still wouldn't be satisfied. Time travel doesn't exist. Therefore, no TV show explanation would EVER satisfy it. Believing otherwise only sets up unrealistic expectation (the mother of all unhappiness, btw!).
And even in light of all that, I can't think of much in the way of explanation that I wasn't satisfied with in terms of the reality they created on the show, can you?
Anyway, thanks for the validation. I spent some time on a fanboy message board and couldn't get a single person to agree with me….on anything!
I see what you're saying, and there is a lot of new-agey religious equivalence prevalent in Hollywood. But I got a bit more out of this show. I was happy to see it seriously explore common issues of faith; even in a general sense that's refreshing on TV, which is usually dismissive/derogatory towards the topic entirely.
I never saw the program, but I have one question about the finale. They didn't play "Don't Stop Believing" at the end, did they?
Nothing major. Overall, going into the finale, I just didnt want to be disappointed. This was a story they could have easily ruined. I was overwhelmingly pleasantly surprised by how great it was. They did a masterful job of tying everything together.
That said, if I wanted to nitpick ( and I really don't but since you asked), I would not have minded more explanation about Elouise, and how she knew everything she knew. It seems she was self-aware even in the sideways. Was she also dead in the sideways? I asked a friend of mind who is a LOSt uber-geek, and he said that the most likely explanation would have been that she found Faraday's journal when he flashed back to the 70's, read it, and had a pretty good idea of what would be coming in the future from what it said, and thats how she seemingly knew everything. And sounds pretty logical to me (or logical for LOST anyway.)
I would also have to assume that everyone in the sideways (from the concert goers to the nurse in the hospital), not just our main characters, were also dead. Two reasons, Elouise asked Desmond if he would be taking Daniel w/ him. Which he couldnt do if Daniel wasn't also dead. Same for Ana Lucia when Des told Hurley that she wasn't ready yet.
But as far as mythological explanations that weren't given, I'm fine w/ everything. As I said above, how people can be mad at a TV show for not devulging the secrets of good/evil, and life/death is beyond me. Im just thankful for such an awesome show that was even brave enough to broach these subjects.
Actually, it was "Islands in the Stream" by Kenny and Dolly.
omg! duh! "Christian Shepherd"!! I just got that!
Yeah, the Hawking thing isn't entirely clear, but I don't know how major it is to the overall. it's one of those things that make it fun to fill in the blanks. Like, who was Jack's "son?" Was that a dead kid he had met at some point, was he angel, or what? And no, we never found out why the statue had four toes, but we certainly found out a lot of things about it. I'm not upset that I don't know more. I imagine it was built by one of the islands many ancient visitors.
There's a lot of explanation to these things embedded in the fabric of the story. That was what made it so much fun on the mythological level. Another BH writer was saying the other day, essentially, "well, I guess they'll never tell us why there were freakin' polar bears on a tropical island!!"
But, of course they told us. The Dharma Initiative brought them there to use in their various experiments. No character ever stops the show and says, "hey folks, just so we're clear, these cages were built by us for our polar bears, which we actually shipped from the arctic on a steamer directly to the island in 1968. We were messing with teleportation and one of them wound up in the tunisian desert."
Instead, the writers put those answers in the action of the show. So, how hard was that to figure out? They always say that it's usually better to show than to tell, right?
I'm with you.
Very well stated. My thoughts exactly. It is what I took out of the show as well.
I am curious as to the demographics of the people who 'hated' the show/ending and those who enjoyed the show and found the ending satisfying (as I did). The comments I am reading from some people on this site as well as on others strike me as the same type of smug, arrogant angry comments in the atheist vs believer debates that occur on many blogs. I wonder if the majority of people who disliked the show/ending are mainly atheists/non-religious and most of the people who enjoyed the show and found the ending moving and satisfying were religious.
I read a few comments on a previous LOST review here where they were actually proud of their hatred for the show and its obvious (to them) ending and their condescension towards those who enjoyed the show. Comments along the lines of "I find it pathetic and hilarious that people spent so much time discussing and trying to figure out all the mysteries only to have it end and the mysteries were never explained or solved. They just wasted their time. Suckers!" What these arrogant, smug jerks fail to understand is that the discussion of the mysteries was the point. Life is not a destination, it is a journey. Discussion of the mysteries of the show helped people to discuss life in general and faith and love and relationships. In the end, sure, the mysteries may not have been resolved completely. But the point was the journey and the growth along the way by discussing everything.
As such, it was an allegory for our lives in general. We are always in search of the 'meaning of life' ("Why are we here?") While we will probably never know, it helps us grow as people to discuss it and find a deeper meaning to life than our own individual existence… maybe a higher calling for which to strive. In the end "it doesn't really matter, brotha", but it's the journey that makes us better people.
I actually feel sorry for the people who are mocking those of us who enjoyed the show and found it moving and satisfying and felt that the last 6 years were 'wasted'. It reminds me of atheists who mock Christians and other believers for giving meaning to their lives and relying on faith for things they can't quite understand and solve and coming to peace with their lives in order to live their lives to the fullest. The mockers seem to want to remain smug in their insistence that LOST had no meaning (and that Life has no meaning, and thus religions are meaningless and a 'waste'), when, in fact, it is they whom I feel are missing the deeper meaning in LOST… which is what you expressed so well in your comment:
***The ending – the sidewasy flashes, the "preliminary afterlife" scenes – showed that what was really important in life isn't solving the mysteries of the world, but the love in our hearts for others; our capacity for forgiveness and redemption. In the afterlife scenes, nobody asked about, or even cared about what the smoke monster was, what the light was, etc., because "it doesn't really matter, brotha". What is truly important are how we have grown our own heart, and those we reach out to and connect with, because that is all we will carry with us forward.***
Some people spend their whole lives in misery, because they can't figure out the meaning of Life. While it would be nice to find out, not at the expense of missing out on enjoying and cherishing actually living Life and our relationships we develop along the way. Same thing with LOST. While it would be nice to have things all come together in a nice tidy explanation and make complete sense, the fact that it doesn't does not take away from the wonderfulness of the show overall.
Anyway, Wintyre, you expressed everything much better than I. Kudos.
Lost is a great metaphor for the mysteries of Life. All kinds of questions presented, some answers given, and in the end – YOU – have to decide what it means to – you.
And the problem in the life we are sharing, is that our viewpoints of what Lost/Life means don't exactly line up. So we have conflict, we try to get "the others" to understand what we're talking about. Who can we trust to align ourselves with to create a life that is bearable? Who are the evil ones that we talk to and have to deal with every day?
I have no problem with the way Lost ended. There are lots of questions that won't be answered. Kudos to Cuse and Lindleof in finding their way to the end of the road named "Lost".
[...] great comment left by “Wintyre” in reply to this article at Big Hollywood. He summarizes how I felt about the show much better than I did in this entire post: I think the [...]
Don't forget the underground wheel that moves the island.
At some point you have to wonder if they laughing at the audience. The show just became increasingly absurd.
I beg to differ. http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1936291
Short review, but since I agree with everything you said, that's okay! ;-D Well, except for your statements about the Losties not surviving the crash, but others have already taken are of that part.
It was all those things and so much more. But it's still a matter of taste and I know that it wasn't everybody's bag.
I guess that's all I wish for things like this – that we agree to disagree and hopefully nobody here is bashing those of us who loved LOST (EDIT: I did see one – shame shame). I've seen it for too many other things – Harry Potter and Twilight are two of the most recent where fans were bashed just for liking it.
Disagree all you want, it's fine. We are all entitled to our opinions. But those of you who didn't like the show are no smarter or dumber than those that did like the show. It's not a sign of intelligence, just a difference of taste.
Wintyre – excellent post and I concur. It's about the journey and the people that go on that journey with us.
Watching Jack hug Christian like that, it was so cathartic. It reminds me of my dad who passed away 4 years ago. Not because we had a strained relationship – we didn't – but because I can't wait for that day when I see him again and I can give him a big hug!
Aw, geez, now I'm cryin' again!
Yeah, sorry. They survived the plane crash. Everything on-island really happened. Only the flashsidesways of season 6 were post-mortem.
The wreckage shown at the end of the show was not part of the finale episode. The show producers had no knowledge of this footage being shown. It was shown by the network to provide a transition from the Lost episode into the evening news, for whatever reason. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/...
LOST alternate ending: http://i.imgur.com/wtzBE.gif
The series finale of Lost was an EPIC FAIL. And a betrayal.
The purgatory ending was well and good, no problem there, no problem with the "sideways universe" being the realm they all created to find each other at death. But the failures of the finale were massive and erased any satisfaction I could have taken away from it's ending.
The most crucial questions that pulled everyone along the entire series were never answered. We know the island was "real" But WTF was it!!!??? Was it "lil purgatory" on earth? What gave it it's "magic"? Science? Sorcery? Supernatural? Connected to purgatory? WTF? Who built the ancient ruins? How does that culture relate to the rest of the word? Who set in motion a series of guardians for the island? For six years we are given hints of some massive mythology behind the island and we know nothing more now than we did years ago, really. We learned NOTHING except that Jacob was just a normal person until he was "chosen." We were given huge mysteries that were never solved, and that means the whole damn series was a betrayal.
"Lost" became like a mysterious travelogue to me. Seemed like a nice enough island except for the bad guys and smoke monsters. Plenty of woman, plenty of food, plenty of shelter. Lovely tropical breezes…..gentle ocean waves, coconuts….all you needed was a playful chimpanzee and some island princesses to take care of your needs and pour you some fruit juice.
"Down where the trade winds play….Down where they lose a day…."
I loved 4400! I stoped watching LOST when Boone died. He was the only person I could relate to.
So if it was an NDE… what about all the people that "died" on the island. Did 'dying' send them to hell?
There was another one with Lloyd Bridges called "Haunts of the Very Rich". A bunch of wealthy people take a vacation at a tropic island resort only to slowly discover that they all died and were in Hell. The first couple seasons of Lost sort of reminded me of that film.
My favorite part was the Target ad for the smoke detector flashed after a moment of video of the "Smoke Monster" searching an empty camp… THAT was HILARIOUS!
I tto think this article author missed key dialog and totally missed the point.
I liked the show, I wish they had answered more of the REALITY of the island questions, but C'est la vie…
The final episode only resolved the final season. Just about everything else about the series was resolved in the second to the last episode.
I bet you're a real blast at parties.
The reason why the Church scene at the end fails for me as a deep meaningful religious observation is illustrated by Matthew 22:23-32 (NIV), where a group of Sadducees who didn't believe in resurrection or Heaven try to trip Jesus up by asking him about marriage in the afterlife:
And one of my biggest problems with the ending can be summarized by this single picture from earlier in the series:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090213153...
i got a downcheck for that post??? lol
also when its showing the plane wreckage in the background you can see some of the remains of the shelters they built after the wreck, with the roofs and sides made of clothes
What is an NDE? of all the main lostie cast the only one who did not make it to the side-verse or i prefer to call it the waiting room was Michael and he was stuck on the island as one of the whispers for the sins he committed on the island. All the others Charlie, Boone, Shannon, Alex, etc all made it out
I wish I could comment on the meaning of the Lost conclusion, but I fell asleep during the first hour. Deadly dull and drawn out.
The plane crashed. No one survived the crash. The island was purgatory as the church was. Ben, Desmond other characters that were not 'on the plane' died somewhere else and the 'island' is a 'collective' purgatory. Ben either died at childbirth with his mother or in the car crash whatever. Desmond died at sea which explains the comment by Jack's Dad "some before you some long after" Why is that not clear to anyone? They didn't explain the island and all the wacky stuff because it didn't happen. It was fantasy to them in the world they created. Jack asked "why"? (why did they all go to the island collectively) His Dad answered "to remember, and to let go" The sideways was the awareness that they all came to together to "move on". It's hard for most people to accept that the island wasn't real to the characters. They all died in the plane crash. The characters on the island were not ready to 'move on' and that was the world they created to work out their problems etc. DONE.
What about the NUMBERS! They never answered the freak'n riddle about the NUMBERS!
And Walt didn't make it to the afterlife …
My other big questions:
Were there not two factions of Others? The Jacob Others and the Smoke Monster Others?
And if there were two factions of others, which batch did Linus fall into? If he was one of the Smoke Monster Others, why did Richard hang out with him? Did Richard use the Smoke Monster to heal Linus?
Which batch of others was Sahid killing off (Jacob others or Smoke Monster others)?
Whose temple was it? First it's Linus and the Smoke Monster's temple, then it is run by the Japanese Samurai Dude? Why is the Japanese Dude in charge when Richard is Jacob's number 2? Or is Richard the permanent number 3? What is the point in sending anyone to kill a smoke monster with a dagger? The Japanese Dude deserved to be offed if he is going to send anyone to kill a smoke monster with a dagger.
Why even try to use bullets to kill a Smoke Monster? Why not a giant fan? Why not use a weapon that emitted from the big electronic barrier?
If you have enough money to buy a submarine, couldn't you spend a little extra cash to bring a New Generator to keep the Electronic Barrier going?
The ending was interesting, but it raised far more questions than it answered.
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