Desipio Message Board

Quote from: Dr. Nguyen Van Falk on May 24, 2010, 01:33:16 PMThe more I think about it, though, (and it has provoked a lot of questions) the more satisfying I find the finale to have been. But that instinct to expect a crazy, gob-smacking twist ANY MINUTE NOW that Lost has conditioned me to have was hard to shake in the moment.

So, anyways: as it turns out, the sideways world wasn't the magic key to everything. What it was, though, was a narrative coda, a postscript to the island story.

It was a means of bringing the stories of these characters' lives to a close for us, a storytelling device akin to the flashbacks and flashforwards of past seasons, but this time with an eye towards resolution.

So very much of THIS.  I think they definitely did lead us along a bit too much into believing the events in this alternate world did actually have some consequence, and it's a little confusing that while, as Christian said, "There is no 'now' in this place," they all were experiencing this existence simultaneously, despite dying at different times.  But I think it was an unbelievable sendoff for all of these characters, and it didn't end on the unbelievably miserable tone that it could have if we only saw the events on the island, where nearly everybody was dead.

It seems that the main theories for the alt-world all revolved around it being another timeline for the same characters, and they were either going to do something in that world to help their other halves in the real world, or that whatever they did in the real world was going to lead to them leading their alternate lives.  I think both of those would have been a huge letdown for the show, because then we would either realize that they're all completely different people than we've known over the years, or their very existence would have been nothing more than a plot device to "fix" something on the island.  What we got was another world that further developed the same group of characters we've been following all this time, and let them finally get a peaceful end after suffering through so much on the island and in their lives before it.

I just crossed the border to Mexico.  For some reason, I needed an Irish guy to lead me across, despite the fact that I could have pretty much swam across the river and just continued on as if nothing happened.  Regardless, it's incredible.  So far I've killed that dude that eats people, been mauled to death by a giant cougar, and watched as a guy hogtied some woman in front of the Armadillo saloon.  Before I realized I was supposed to save her, he shot her in the back of the head.  It was fantastic.  My only complaint with the game is that with the Dead Aim and auto lock-on, the shooting is a bit too easy.  The weakest gun kills people in two shots, so even without using Dead Aim a lot, it's easy to take out large groups.  Otherwise, the game is unbelievable in pretty much every way.

Quote from: Kermit IV on May 24, 2010, 11:34:53 AM
I'm going to go ahead and go the other way and say it fucking sucked.  All this time, the writers had me convinced that it WASN'T going to be a "they're just dead" finale.  And they were.  And that was a cheap and easy way to go.  And now I don't really believe that the writers had ANY clue how this show was going to end.  And I'm mad.  Boo.

I would agree with THIS if they were actually dead on the island.  That's what they said they would never do.  But they were dead in the alt-universe.  That's fair.

Quote from: R-V on May 24, 2010, 09:10:01 AM

Quote from: Weebs on May 24, 2010, 09:04:52 AM

Quote from: R-V on May 24, 2010, 08:56:04 AM
So how awesome was the clifftop showdown with Jack leaping down to tackle Locke? Also, thi:

QuoteYou could argue that the Flash Sideways was entirely unnecessary. You know what? You would be right. On a plot level, you did not need it at all. It had no direct bearing on what happened on the Island. It turned out that, unlike what some of us thought (including maybe Island Desmond), Sideways Desmond's efforts to "awaken" his friends had no bearing on saving the Island or defeating Locke. You could have simply picked up season six in 2007, had everyone realize that Juliet's smacking the bomb did not undo the Oceanic crash, and ended the series with Jack dying and a few of his friends escaping.

You could, but you would have given up an emotionally powerful ending whose spirituality--though it may rankle some as Battlestar Galactica's ending did--bothered this big fat secular agnostic not one bit. To me, the closing of Lost was not telling me that I do or do not have an immortal soul; it was telling me what these characters lives meant. And that meaning, like all our lives' meaning, derived from the interactions they had with, and the memories they shared with, other people.

You could take that literally, as in: this is a picture of what happens when you die. Or you could take it metaphorically, as in: this is a story using spiritual imagery to depict the lasting legacy of human contact. (I personally see it that way, in the same way that I believe that religious scriptures are not literally true and yet are some of our most powerful and important stories regardless. Your mileage may vary, as they say on the Internet.)

My only problem I had with the finale wasn't that the reveal of the Sideways world was unnecessary, but that all of the events leading up to it were.  I'm guessing if we go back and re-watch season 6, knowing what we know, that some of the Sideways events will start to make sense in the context of some kind of "afterlife," but right now they all just seem like a way to confuse the viewers until we finally figured out what was going on.  Why did Jack have a kid in this life? Why did we have to see Sun get kidnapped and Sayid shoot some guys?  Why did we have to watch Sawyer's date with Charlotte?  I'm sure there's an interpretation of the world where it all makes perfect sense, but right now it just seems like all of the Sideways events were unnecessary distractions to string us along until we realized everybody was dead.

Obviously there was an element of stringing people along with a mystery. That's what Lost is, a mystery show. But the "why" is pretty simple - setting off the bomb worked. They got to experience what their lives would've been like if 815 had never crashed, if Ben & Juliet would've never gone to the island.

The only catch is that they didn't get to play out this version of reality until they were dead.

Well I get that, but why did the bomb put everything into effect?  Detonating it was supposed to actually put them back in LAX, alive.  It was supposed to be a reset switch for everything.  I guess we're supposed to interpret it as more of a symbolic act, where the bomb explosion was the point at which everyone decided to have their class reunion in the afterlife?  I have no problem with them stringing us along for the mystery with all the flash-sideways events, but I'd just like to know what was going on there actually had some purpose, and that there was a reason why nobody would remember their other lives until something triggered them.

Quote from: R-V on May 24, 2010, 08:56:04 AM
So how awesome was the clifftop showdown with Jack leaping down to tackle Locke? Also, thi:

QuoteYou could argue that the Flash Sideways was entirely unnecessary. You know what? You would be right. On a plot level, you did not need it at all. It had no direct bearing on what happened on the Island. It turned out that, unlike what some of us thought (including maybe Island Desmond), Sideways Desmond's efforts to "awaken" his friends had no bearing on saving the Island or defeating Locke. You could have simply picked up season six in 2007, had everyone realize that Juliet's smacking the bomb did not undo the Oceanic crash, and ended the series with Jack dying and a few of his friends escaping.

You could, but you would have given up an emotionally powerful ending whose spirituality--though it may rankle some as Battlestar Galactica's ending did--bothered this big fat secular agnostic not one bit. To me, the closing of Lost was not telling me that I do or do not have an immortal soul; it was telling me what these characters lives meant. And that meaning, like all our lives' meaning, derived from the interactions they had with, and the memories they shared with, other people.

You could take that literally, as in: this is a picture of what happens when you die. Or you could take it metaphorically, as in: this is a story using spiritual imagery to depict the lasting legacy of human contact. (I personally see it that way, in the same way that I believe that religious scriptures are not literally true and yet are some of our most powerful and important stories regardless. Your mileage may vary, as they say on the Internet.)

My only problem I had with the finale wasn't that the reveal of the Sideways world was unnecessary, but that all of the events leading up to it were.  I'm guessing if we go back and re-watch season 6, knowing what we know, that some of the Sideways events will start to make sense in the context of some kind of "afterlife," but right now they all just seem like a way to confuse the viewers until we finally figured out what was going on.  Why did Jack have a kid in this life? Why did we have to see Sun get kidnapped and Sayid shoot some guys?  Why did we have to watch Sawyer's date with Charlotte?  I'm sure there's an interpretation of the world where it all makes perfect sense, but right now it just seems like all of the Sideways events were unnecessary distractions to string us along until we realized everybody was dead.

He shoots and he scores!

Well EvilLocke has sort of lost. And I'm starting to think more and more that all of these people are dead. The flash sideways world is what they all see when they die, their ideal lives, and now they have to move on. "See ya in another life, brotha."  

Quote from: Dr. Nguyen Van Falk on May 23, 2010, 09:08:47 PM

Quote from: Weebs on May 23, 2010, 08:46:33 PM

Quote from: Dr. Nguyen Van Falk on May 23, 2010, 08:37:36 PM
Lapidus!

This finale is the balls so far.  Can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Awesome piled on awesome.

So... Is the alt-timeline Jacob's backup plan/winning move?

I don't think so.  I think everybody on the island is dead.  The flash-sideways world is actually some kind of "purgatory," and Desmond is helping everybody cross over.

Or, maybe, they've always been dead.  The key point here is that everybody on the island winds up dead in the end.  I think these flashes they have in the sideways world are actually them realizing they've died.  Now they're doing...something...maybe their whole purpose is to help Rose, Bernard and Vincent live!

Quote from: Dr. Nguyen Van Falk on May 23, 2010, 08:37:36 PM
Lapidus!

This finale is the balls so far.  Can't wait to see how it all plays out.

Quote from: Dr. Nguyen Van Falk on May 23, 2010, 06:31:06 PM
T minus 4 hours from Chuck, Pen and Weebs bitching about how it all ended.

I don't know if anyone else is watching the pre-End Lost special on ABC right now, but listening to Daniel Dae Kim talk is a trip. I already knew the guy was raised in the States, but he sounds nothing at all like Jin.

Naveen Andrews sounds like a big British homo.

I thought it was awesome that they managed to bring back pretty much every supporting character that was in this season, including the Daily Show Brit. And I agree that Troy consistently brought the most laughs. His breakdown to Pierce about making him look like the Cookie Crunch wizard, despite not even getting the reference, was one of the highlights of the show.

Quote from: Kermit IV on May 21, 2010, 09:06:37 AM
"You are not a photographer."

I'm going to miss IT Guy.

"Ryan, you have a Woof on line 1."

I hope this show never ends.

Quote from: Kermit IV on May 19, 2010, 12:16:53 PM

Quote from: Weebs on May 19, 2010, 12:13:28 PM
I've played three or four missions, and it's pretty awesome so far.  It definitely has that "Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West" feeling to it, but there are plenty of things that make it really unique.  I also like that there seem to be a few RPG elements, like how your horse can become more loyal, which then increases it's stamina.

Does your guy still control like a tank, a la GTAIV?

The controls really aren't much different when on-foot.  It's REALISTIC, but does make for some annoying moments.  I'd say the horseback controls might even be a bit worse than the driving from GTA IV.  Not that there's any way for a horse to turn on a dime, but the third mission of the game is a race that I died at several times in the exact same spot because my horse decided to jump off a cliff.

I've played three or four missions, and it's pretty awesome so far.  It definitely has that "Grand Theft Auto in the Wild West" feeling to it, but there are plenty of things that make it really unique.  I also like that there seem to be a few RPG elements, like how your horse can become more loyal, which then increases it's stamina.