Lost One Last Time

[shipperx]

Color me highly skeptical of this guy. I remember Fury talking about not knowing and back in Season 1 he was a fairly large chunk of Lost's writing team. Now, i always suspected that the reason Fury left had more to do with his not being on the inner circle/cool team in JJ's world (as he had been in Joss') and far less to do with Lost supposedly flying by the seats of their pants. For one thing, Fury left to go write 24 and if you want to talk a show pulling plot out of their asses 24 is poster-child for that, and they admit it! (which BTW how did its series finale go? I gave up on the show some point last season. Tried again with this season's premiere and went -- nah. Shark's been jumped)... And it wasn't like BtVS was the tightest plotted show either. Joss tended to have a few planned nodes and rarely seemed to have much of an idea how in the hell he was going to link them. I tend to think that trutly Lost was somewhat in the same mode. There were certain points they always intended to reach. There were certain motifs that were planned. And the connective tissue? That varied.

Anyway, for all of those reasons, I have a high degree of skepticism for this poster and his claim to have been on the writing team. That said, I like his theories of Lost and what it all meant. Anyway, link and look for the poster tgreg99.

Comments

[sp23.livejournal.com]

I'll read that link tomorrow because I can hardly keep my eyes open right now. But I just wanted to say that I rewatched the 2-part pilot episode this evening, and it really struck me when Locke was explaining Backgammon to Walt and he held up the two pieces - one light; one dark. :-)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I rewatched too. And, yeah, it's kinda almost creepy with Locke talking about backgammon and then ending with "you want to know a secret"... and I don't think we ever saw what that secret was (unless it was in "Walkabout" but I haven't seen that in years.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

Walkabout is one of my all-time favorite episodes. I still remember how shocked I was to learn that Locke had been paralyzed before the crash. I'm going to be watching it tomorrow or Friday.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I do, too, like the theories and analyses he provides -- it makes sense in a very real way (especially the "whenever they died; maybe centuries later" for Hurley part, in light of the last scene he had with Ben). However, I can't buy a professional writer who puts an apostrophe in "writers." (My English major is showing.)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh! I never underestimate typos. (Goodness knows my own typing is riddled with them. I do it a lot and it's not because I don't know better. It just... happens).

That said, I remain highly skeptical that he was one of the writers of LOST.

Still like his explanation though.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

I think I'll re-read his analysis, though. I really liked it; it settles well with my own thoughts, and helps me deal with those who weren't in the church at the end (like Miles).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, Miles has Pierre Chang. One of his regrets was not knowing his father. And, Miles got to live after the island so he may have a different set of people to deal with.

It's sort of the same with Ben. Ben isn't left alone. Ben had to make amends with John Locke, and I think he did. But he also has his father, Alex, and Rousseau. Ben can't move on until those people are ready. Rousseau is allowed to raise her daughter, Alex gets a life, and Ben is allowed to care for the father he murdered and this time his father demonstrably loves him. So I'm left feeling that Ben will be okay. He'll transcend when it's his/their time.

Same with Farraday, Charlotte, Eloise, and possibly Widmore. Eloise, who killed Farraday, now has her son. Farraday is finding Charlotte. That family will work things out as well.

So I think we can assume that the Sideways is expansive. The missing will find their ways in their own time.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Yes...

There's so much depth here, it'll leave me thinking for a long time.

Benjamin Linus's story was one of the most gripping and satisfying of the whole, I think; for anyone who feels that they can't make a complex character who is downright evil on one hand and yet somehow good on the other into a compelling, SYMPATHETIC character needs to watch this series. Somehow a guy who kills his own father, murders dozens of people, and is thoroughly out for no one but himself comes out in the end... a pretty decent guy. Amazing writing.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think they ultimately paid off Ben in a lovely, generous manner.

(And I've read that there is a bonus scene with Hurley/Ben post-Finale as a DVD extra. I'm curious to see it).

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Oh, if I hadn't already planned on getting it, now for sure I would!

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

His exegesis of the finale is brilliant, but he claims to be one of the writers (or on the writing staff, as in "hey, you, go get the writers a latte!")? And what does this have to do with David Fury again? I've been loving your Lost thoughts, and am very tired and confused right now. But I liked his analysis and explanations, too. I may link them to various people on facebook who called me immediately after the finale aired wondering what just happened.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

David Fury was one of the writers in Season 1 of Lost. Fury actually wrote the episode "Walkabout" (Drew Goddard, also of BtVS, wrote for Lost for several years. In fact he may have been there to the end. I'm not sure). Anyway, at the end of Season 1 Lost, Fury left and became one of the executive producers/writers of 24. After he left, at some BtVS convention, Fury claimed that the writers of Lost had no big plan, but were just making it up (and he actually didn't like some of the things they did. He appeared to think that everyone else wrote Locke badly.) I've seen it said here and there that Fury left Lost because Lost was pulling plot out of their asses. I've always been skeptical that this was the reason (as opposed to an excuse). Primarily because Fury left Lost for 24 and he's been at 24 for the last five or six years...and if there is a show that more openly pulls plot out of their asses at the last minute and damn any sense of logic in doing so -- it's 24. I suspect that fly-by-their-pants plotting wasn't the reason he left. I think it was that Fury was an executive producer at BtVS and AtS and that on LOST, he wasn't JJ Abrams 2nd in command. He was pushed further down the totem pole with Carlton, Lindelhof, and Orci all three ending up higher in the chain of command than Fury and as of fairly early on, Abrams stepping back and leaving Team Darton in charge. So Fury left for 24 where he was much further up the chain of command. Most writers really don't like to be pushed down the pecking order, so I tend to suspect the primary reason Fury left Lost for 24 was for a promotion (and who could blame him for that?)

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

Wow. Interesting. The story and the link both, even if there is no connection. Thanks!

[calturner.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link - it looks interesting!

I loved the finale myself. I found it immensely satisfying and didn't feel cheated (as some people seem to) at all. I think I would have felt cheated if the island had turned out not to be real, but I was happy with the story we were given, and loved what they did with the sideways verse. I think Ashes to Ashes probably did it better, but Lost more than made up for it with all the wonderful character moments. I have to admit that I cried more than once!

The final image of Jack's eye closing was the perfect way to end the show. I said to my husband a few days before the finale that I thought they would come full circle and end on a shot of Jack's eye - and I was right. :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen ashes to ashes. I was a bit ambivalent with Life on Mars so I never really looked up Ashes to Ashes.

And, yeah, I think the finale was lovely.

[sp23.livejournal.com]

So, I finally got to read that post. Very interesting, and I think, whether or not he really was involved with Lost, that it makes a certain amount of sense. I especially like the aspect that so much of what happened was because Jacob was trying to find a way to control/contain/kill Smokey. I do think that the metaphysics are seriously messed up. Not that I'm an expert on metaphysics or anything (although I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a copy of The Search for Bridey Murphy once) ;-P But the great thing about fiction is that you can take a concept and twist it around to your own needs, whether it be sparkly vampires or a group of souls in a holding pattern waiting for others to join them before going through the light.

Huh, I may just have to post a long, boring treatise on this that only I'll read just to get all the thoughts out of my head. LOL

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Well, Lindenoff and Carlton actually admitted in five or six different EW interviews that they really had no idea what they were doing with the series until Season 4, when they got ABC to let them end it on their own terms.

The first season had initially, again according to EW interviews with the writers, been set up as anthology series. They'd intended to kill Jack in the first episode, but the network talked them out of it - stating that they should make Jack Shepard the protagonist since the audience needed a central focal point.

The second season dropped dramatically in ratings, and they realized they had to come up with a new game plan.

Season 3- jumped the shark - according to the writers (I think it was 3, may have been 4) and they struggled to get it back on course.

So yeah, I'd have to say that Fury wasn't lying on that point. Granted, I thought 24 was even worse than LOST, and unwatchable after Fury joined. But that does not mean he wasn't right about LOST. TV is not the most tightly plotted medium on the planet. Can't be - they never know when/if they are going to be cancelled.

Will state - the unplanned finales are actually better plotted than the planned ones, and a lot less smulchy and self-indulgent. This is going back 20 years. Which is interesting.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I don't think Fury was lying. I just don't necessarily buy that he left LOST due to it having loose, improvisational plotting. If that were the case, then he would have long since left 24, because it stopped even pretending it made sense about the time Jack'd daughter was stalked by a cougar.

And, I don't think that LOST was by any means had any grand master plan insofar as plot goes. They also readily admit that Ben was only hired for three episodes, but once they saw how good Michael Emmerson was, they chose to keep him.

And, I knew the "Jack was supposed to die" story about the pilot (which actually could have been neat). But I do think that they quite possibly started with same game rules about the island drawing people in, the connections between characters being more than serendipidous, and that the series would come full circle at the end, up to an possibly including 'and they all die...' I think it quite possible that they had some themes. How they expressed said themes was, I believe, rather improvisational. Which, as you say, all television is by necessity. I just have a difficult time thinkint LOST any less improvisational than 24 (or Buffy, or Angel). So I don't think that Fury left because of that. I think he left because of opportunity and a promotion... and there's not a darn thing wrong with that.

(Though I wish that 24 had hung it up a couple of seasons ago. It once was fun, but it ran out of narrative steam a while ago. Like Sex and the City II, I'm not at all sure that the point is in a follow-up movie.