|
06-19-2010, 05:01 PM | #6076 | |
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Casino cash: $8071398
|
Quote:
But, yes, Reaper. I would agree with your post 100%. Spot on. |
|
Posts: 3,833
|
06-19-2010, 05:03 PM | #6077 | |
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Casino cash: $8071398
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 3,833
|
06-19-2010, 05:07 PM | #6078 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Aug 2000
Casino cash: $6838598
|
Quote:
GA has had it's share of soapy-ness and ridiculous plot developments as it aged, but I'll stand firm that, especially in its early days, and on occasion going forward, it was the gold standard in creating dramatic situations and selling it with winning, real, performances. I've said it before, and I'll admit it again, GA holds the record for episodes in a row that made me tear up somewhere in the episode. It could just be a look, or a pause, or just the perfect facial expression that encapsulated the raw emotions presently playing out, it could range from two strangers become friends implaled on the same pole realizing that extraction and life for one would mean exanguination and death for the other, or Christina realizing in the middle of an emergency surgery that her boyfriend doesn't trust her skills to be his lead assistant, or a brief flash of how much her crumbling marriage is killing Miranda, or a John Doe drug by a bus, mangled beyond recognition and nearing certain death scratching a message into a doctor's hand notifying that he was one of their own, or Meredith blithely mentioning that she has just miscarried to her assistant as she's performing triage on her best friend's boyfriend who was just shot by a grieving widow. Those may sound telanovela as written on the page, but as I said, it's how they PERFORM these plot beats that sells it. Sells the emotional toll of people in high stress, high skill positions trying to hold together high professional standards and expectations along with their personal life. And it's purchased hard earned tears on many occasions, and that's something Lost, for all it's excellence NEVER did for me. Maybe that's my failure to connect with Lost, I was so damned interested in the stringing together of all the fantastical mythologies that I never had an ounce to devote to loving what happened to the characters. What happened in their 'personal lives' was an interesting part of the show, but I was never on tenterhooks concerning how their fates would play out, Kate or Jack, Kate or Sawyer, will Locke walk, will Sun and Jin be reunited, Penny and Desmond apart or reunited, . . blah, blah, blah, how the **** are they travelling through time, and what do all these coincidences and replayed themes and murky undertakings tie together.
__________________
We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics - E.W. |
|
Posts: 95,642
|
06-19-2010, 05:09 PM | #6079 | |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 33,369
|
06-19-2010, 05:10 PM | #6080 | |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
Quote:
|
|
Posts: 33,369
|
06-19-2010, 05:11 PM | #6081 |
Supporter
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Hollywood, CA
Casino cash: $10053648
|
How so?
Nothing that happened there really happened. Jack and Juliet were never married and divorced. Jack didn't have a son. John didn't receive surgery that enabled him to walk, Ben wasn't Alex's teacher and so on. So, none of if was relevant to Jack's journey (or anyone else's journey). |
Posts: 88,960
|
06-19-2010, 05:17 PM | #6082 |
Supporter
Join Date: Aug 2000
Casino cash: $6838598
|
I think I'm starting to sense where Dane's coming from. It doesn't help me with understanding his stance, but I think he's provided some insight into his rationale.
Like me, he's frustrated that the creators built up this vast mythology, only to end the show saying none of what intrigued us matter and would never be explained. In response he has created a hypothesis that it was all in Jack's head in a nano-second, and sought out beats and glimpses that back up said hypothesis. Sharing the same frustration, I have chosen to take the writers [in the voice of Christian Shepard] at his word, particularly in light of the aforementioned stories that did not even peripherally reference Jack as involved or observing or relevant, that 'everything happened' and take it to mean 'sorry for the bait and switch, but we felt we needed a fantastical and gripping setting to draw you into our ecumenical message.' Basically the most polished and gripping, if utterly irrelevant, Jehovah's Witness preamble ever, in a sense an inversion of the 'fantastical tale of Zenu' the SuperAdventureClub gives you at the END of their ecumenical message.
__________________
We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics - E.W. |
Posts: 95,642
|
06-19-2010, 05:19 PM | #6083 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Hollywood, CA
Casino cash: $10053648
|
Quote:
The outcome would have been the same (Jack's enlightenment) regardless of whether it had been on air for two seasons, six seasons or ten seasons. The producers and writers had mentioned on several occasions that they had lost their way (the Bai Ling episode being as a perfect example) and that they needed an "End Date" to wrap it up. Otherwise, they could have just gone on forever, building up backstories, which weren't relevant to Jack's journey. The backstories only tell us what happened before the plane crash. They don't tell us what happened the second the plane crashed and they all died. The Flash Sides never existed. Nothing that happened there ever happened. So once again, all we're left with is the present - what happened since the plane crash and Jack's journey. In the grand scheme, Jack's past and Jack's side didn't help him find enlightenment. It was his time on the "Island" that he found it. Without this "neat and tidy" explanation that I've come up, the entire show is a mess of plot holes and unexplained phenomena that clearly borders on the nonsensical. |
|
Posts: 88,960
|
06-19-2010, 05:22 PM | #6084 |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
I'm pretty sure that once it is over I will be arguing that, yes, the show is a mess of plot holes an unexplained phenomena.
|
Posts: 33,369
|
06-19-2010, 05:23 PM | #6085 | ||
Veteran
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Casino cash: $8071398
|
Quote:
Quote:
All the events of the FSW happened, they just happened in "after life" time and space. The world was a lie, but the events still took place. Or rather, the lessons learned and the relevance to the journey was real. |
||
Posts: 3,833
|
06-19-2010, 05:24 PM | #6086 |
Feelin' Alright
Join Date: Aug 2004
Casino cash: $10004900
|
We whole heartedly agree on it. Now, we disagree on how much it impacts the seasons when taken as a series.
__________________
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Then remember that half the people in the world are stupider than that." --George Carlin |
Posts: 16,887
|
06-19-2010, 05:26 PM | #6087 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Aug 2000
Casino cash: $6838598
|
Quote:
Basically, your rationale is 'they can't have left all these tantalizing plots unresolved,' and our response is 'they damn well have, and they hope given the overall experience we'll forgive them.'
__________________
We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics - E.W. |
|
Posts: 95,642
|
06-19-2010, 05:28 PM | #6088 | ||
Feelin' Alright
Join Date: Aug 2004
Casino cash: $10004900
|
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Then remember that half the people in the world are stupider than that." --George Carlin |
||
Posts: 16,887
|
06-19-2010, 05:28 PM | #6089 |
Eat/Sleep/Procrastinate/Repeat
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dystopia
Casino cash: $10017397
|
My biggest beef with Dane's interpretation is that, if so, it would render all of Lost's artistic weight meaningless. Utterly meaningless. The audience walks away from Dane's Lost no better, no more learned, no more informed than when they started watching. Nearly all of the themes played out over the course of six seasons are rendered moot.
|
Posts: 33,369
|
06-19-2010, 05:29 PM | #6090 | |
Supporter
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Hollywood, CA
Casino cash: $10053648
|
Quote:
We're shown Jack as a divorced father who's still a doctor but was previously married to Juliet. That means nothing to his journey of spiritual enlightenment. [quote=Red Brooklyn;6832164]All the events of the FSW happened, they just happened in "after life" time and space./quote] Occam's Razor. |
|
Posts: 88,960
|
|
|