LOST - THE END - STICK A CORK IN IT

REVIEW
The sad news is that the ending to LOST was indeed Deus Ex Machina and was almost as bad as the Battlestar Galactica ending (but saved its crappiness for the final episode cluster rather than stretch it out for a whole season).

Note to LOST storytellers and Hollywood in general:
STOP BEING SUCH FUCKING LAZY WRITERS!

Every single fan idea about the mysteries of the island and the story and every bit of fan fiction about a proposed ending was better than what the high-powered, paid, professional writers of the show came up with. Egads.

The big island climax comes with Desmond descending into the Golden light cave since Jack had been badly stabbed by Smokey/Locke so couldn't be lowered by rope down into it. Desmond goes down but is not converted to smoke. And the golden light was less glowy - in fact, once Desmond got to the cave (which looked like leftovers from one of the Pirates' movies or a Laura Croft set) it looked more greenish-yellow and was much more muted. And then when Jack goes down into the cave - oh wait, our hero can descend by rope into a deep cave with a gaping stab wound! - and puts the drain-plug "cork" back into the hole the light is reddish. Weird how having the cork in let the water flow yet pulling it out dried up the flow (tampon companies are you watching?).

What was most distressing for me was how syrupy and sentimental it all was. I wanted answers and a final spectacular showdown between Smokey/MIB and Jack/whomever (not some cheesy Kirk on the sandstone rocks in Chatsworth and styrofoam boulders) and to find out what the island actually is. I got that queasy feeling I had when I watched the worst part of any Star Trek ever: the scene in Generations where Picard wakes up in the diffusion-filter pinky-out doily parlor with children and a Christmas tree.

First Ron Moore and David Eick give us a great show (2003's reboot of Battlestar Galactica) with so much promise only to basically abandon it to simplistic angels and god did it for their big deus ex machina ending, and now JJ Abrams, Cuse and Lindelof (and the rest of the writing team) decide they're too lazy to bother weaving together their vast and myraid collection of story elements they'd concocted and did their own version of god did it: it was all a dream - Jack's death fever-dream of his life as he ascends that tunnel of light to heaven.

On an entertainment scale I'd give the episode a 5 out 10 and I'd give a 3 out of 10 for living up to its potential.

This is what you gave us, LOST creatives: an unfinished masterpiece. Yes, the adage goes an artist never finishes his work, he merely abandons it, but at least with Michaelangelo we have a vast body of his works and thus the unfinished sculptures are understood on their own merits and technical brilliance. He said he didn't create the figure(s), he liberated them. You LOST guys were working on one series and just walked away from its complexities rather than face them. [Imagine Jersey accent]: Yo, it's lika a body - comin' outta da rocks deh - jus leave it, it's good enuf. You were never liberating a brilliant and complex story, you were just randomly chiseling and then quit.

The LOST-Untangled (with muppets) is now up and is much much better than the live-action slop we got.




ANALYSIS PRIOR TO AIRING OF THE END
[I gave the show's creator/writers way too much credit]
Ouroboros (the snake eating its tail - the endless cycle) ... time repeating. In Battlestar Galactica there was the constant refrain All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again and it looks like that's what we'll get with the finale of LOST. You can't fracture time, it will always re-set.

I see the main conflict as Eloise vs. Desmond. Eloise has carefully manipulated people and events to create a happy timeline - the Alt+B as I've been calling it, where her son Daniel is alive and pursuing music rather than science. Eloise killed her son by shooting him on the island when she was younger than he was and she was pregnant - possibly with Daniel - an ultimate time-paradox. Eloise was trapped after that with the knowledge of what would happen but she manipulated what events she could to destroy the island reality or at least the relevant peoples' knowledge of the place in Alt+B.

Her pendant at left is an open Ouroboros, telegraphing that she believes time is not a closed loop, so believes she can fracture it and proudly wears this sentiment as jewelry.She knows there are now two timelines and wears that knowledge as well.

Eloise can't control the discoveries nor the impact of her son's time experments in the timeline in which Desmond goes to see him at Oxford and I suspect that it is Faraday's time experiments which set this all in motion in the first place, he is the Ouroboros - time loops again and again because of him. Eloise helped explode the bomb to undo her murder of her son, which allowed her to see the alternate timelines.


Eloise's husband, Charles Widmore, in the island reality has blasted Desmond with electromagnetism but never really explained why. I suspect that Widmore had reason to believe that Desmond would be able to see both (or all) timelines through this exposure since the island had displayed unusual magnetic properties and other phenomena. So island Widmore activated Desmond's quest in the Alt+B timeline that is fracturing all of Eloise's hard work. There should be a showdown between Desmond and Eloise. If the show it true to form I expect some rich irony in the outcome. Desmond may think he's doing all of our characters a favor in Alt+B but he is probably provoking time (and the island) to re-set.

There seems to be a balanced scale effect happening - most evidenced through Ben: as he grows more sweet and principled in Alt+B he becomes more evil on the island. Desmond is active in Alt+B but passive on the island.

The concert in Alt+B seems to be where it is all set to manifest (kinda cheesy). Desmond is assembling the principals there while Smokey/Locke is still trying to assemble who he has left on the island. Smokey want them to die - but they must kill each other (even if by accident) and now he has his instrument - Ben will do it.

The ending could have gone many different ways but the show's creators and writers had to narrow it down somehow and I'm okay with a Desmond-Eloise face-off. She is the Controller, so carefully trying to shape one reality to give her and the others happiness (the price is their ignorance), and most importantly have her son's life back. Desmond is the destroyer - but perhaps unwittingly. It would be most helpful to find out Widmore's motivation for putting Desmond in the magnetic field and see a shot of Desmond's POV in that magentic field, and if we don't get that information the writer's have been lazy or sloppy.

I see the island as a living thing - although not sentient - that exists outside of space and time. It can't be found unless it or its agents find you. It is a time-space well, drawing to it those people also outside of spacetime. Again, a paradox: people the island seeks have to have been to the island to acquire such properties. I'm sure hoping Abrams, Lindelof, et al are not going the Battlestar Galactica route and we end up with another deus ex machina god explanation ... I'm worried because of Allison Janney/Earth Mother Hippy's comment about the golden light in the cave, "a little exist inside all men."

Now, Smokey/MIB/Locke has one motivation - to destroy the island - MIB shattering the wine bottle after Jacob gave it to him is his way of telegraphing that he will not even try to remove the cork to get free (remember, Jacob told Ricardo/Richard that the island is the cork holding the evil on the island?) ... no, MIB/Smokey will break the bottle - attempt to destroy the island itself ... the only way this seems possible is for him to let the light out of the cave

LOST - WHAT THEY DIED FOR - REVIEW

[updated]
Much better episode than last week's Across the Sea, but again some puzzle pieces felt hammered into place and not carefully inserted where they would naturally fit (Widmore's sudden death, Anna-Lucia pops up, Ben's turn to evil)

Jacob Explains It All For You worked okay - yet his driving force was to atone for some guilt about throwing his brother ManInBlack into the Golden Cave - yet he seemed to have no problem with spending 30 years with some crazy Earth Mother Hippie who killed his real mom and forced him to take on the horrible responsibility of guarding the reverse Pandora's Cave: goodness, but also an evil wind (to contrast with Pandora's Box: all the world's ills, but also hope)


Yin and Yang, baby, that's where it's at with LOST ... black & white ... loose and tight ...


As Ben is humanized in the Alt+B parallel timeline (fighting on behalf of Locke, warm-hearted feelings for Delenn, oops, I mean Rousseau, and her daughter) he becomes more
d e l i c i o u s l y evil "I want to watch" in the island reality [clearly, what goes up in one reality must come down in the other] and even viciously shoots Widmore dead. Yea !, bad Ben is back! And Billie Jean King was Jason-ized, shut-the-hell-up with a teen-slasher-film slash [nod to Potiphar, you called it ... or you know things].

Sawyer shows a little puppy-dog I fucked up face to Jack since he got the sub blown up and people killed but Jack lets him off the hook - he [Locke] did it, Jack growls. So deathlist for this ep includes: Widmore, annoying glasses lady (BJK), and maybe Richard. I'll bet Claire and Miles (and Pivotal Penny) get to join the list in the finale, and SmokeMonster may thrash Kate, Sawyer and Hurley just for fun.

All those names written on Lighthouse light-base (I guess that's how Jacob found his lost souls to bring to the island) and on the cave ceiling, not so mysterious after all. Kate, you can be the one, if you want, but since you're an adoptive mommy now, I crossed you off.

And when the moment came for the Candidates they didn't even try a To Tell the Truth fake step-forward - no one besides Jack even expressed the slightest interest in the job. So, as completely expected, Jack took the job (and took the drink of the stank river water - or maybe it tastes of golden light?)

Was Richard killed? Just like that, an unceremonious quick Smoke-Monster-tendril thrash ... almost off-camera? Laaaaaaame ... if that's really the end for him. They give his character one of the best episodes of the whole series Ab Aeterno - almost cinematic in its beauty - and this is his end?

Desmond is a busy little bee over in Alt+B, lining up all the kiddies to fracture island reality (jail breakout - well transport van, actually) ... it seems Widmore's little magnet experiment let him see the view to the other side as I said a few eps ago [note: re; 'Beautiful View' image of window at left - I had it in my huge image folder and lost track that I had saved it from a wonderful Greek photographer's site called toomanytribbles - apologies for lack of credit and here is the photo link]

We finally catch up with Miles, Richard and Ben and we end up at the condos - Miles feels all twitchy because he's standing on the ground where Richard thoughtfully buried Ben's daughter (pound in another puzzle piece), then Miles decides he'll race around the jungle alone rather than hide from Smokey/Locke. Ben shows his special place in the closet and then says howdy to Smokey/Locke and leads him to where Widmore and BJK were hiding and gleefully watches/participates in their murders. He is desperate to know what was whispered about Desmond.

Back in Alt+B wheelchair Locke goes to see Dr. Jack and is ready to "let go" and be operated on to perhaps restore some leg function ... after good Ben tells him that Desmond didn't want to kill him really but for him to let go. In the Yin-Yang what-goes-up-must-come-down equation of the two time-streams if Locke does this in Alt+B, then Smokey/Locke will lose power on the island.

And at The End, when the show creators re-set the story, who else will join the intrepid cast on their journey on Oceanic 815 for the movie version?

Even if all was obliterated but the Alt+B timeline by the end of the tv show, the same scenario would manifest again albeit a bit differently for the film version because you can't really change things.

Epilogue: It seems there has been a long cycle of humans who were brought or somehow made it to the island and always one that figures out the golden light needs protecting and this mission overrides all sense of morality and other human and social imperatives in order to uphold the mission.

LOST - my alternate ending

Here is most of my alternative to Across the Sea and here is my alternative (some of it) to tonight's What They Died For

LOST FINALE SNEAK

Final promo trailer is pretty terrific and is promising a lot:

LOST, my ALT+B version

I've added a Hurley scene to my ALT+B version of Across the Sea (click for that post) ... I've kept the aborted plane scene but that's all. I'll add my version of What They Died For before Tuesday night's ep. Spoilers (major) have leaked out online - the events in the final The End episode, but I'll ignore all that. You can find it on io9 and I believe Dark UFO also if you want to read it. It doesn't seem terribly interesting to me if it's accurate and not some fake-out. Like Battlestar Galactica's ignominious end, they LOST creatives seem content to just gloss over or ignore a lot of the mystery they've created.

[Synopsis - highlight]
Alt+B - Desmond is interrogated by the Police for the hit-and-run on Locke and for being at the hospital. Widmore pulls strings and bails him out - they have a talk in Widmore's car: he has indulged Eloise's craziness (as he sees it) for a long time, but her seemingly prescient knowledge made him very rich. Desmond ...

Island - we finish the Desmond rescue by Sayid and Desmond convinces Sayid that he feels dead on the island because he is, and tells him his life in Alt+B is what counts and says he can show him a glimpse of it - Sayid allows Desmond to choke him and Sayid sees flashes of the Alt+B timestream and his life with his lady love. Sayid takes the gun, sits on the edge with his back above the well and shoots himself - his body falling into the well. Desmond is horrified at the violence, but understands and runs off into the thicket ...

Hurley is seething, angry at himself for getting his group in SmokeMonster/Locke's clutches. He has caught up the group as they head toward the coast and the sub. Hurley has a rock, he works his way close to Locke and finds his opportunity and smashes his head with it - Locke transforms into SmokeMonster before their eyes and wraps its tendrils around Hurley and lifts him, choking him. Hurley is determined and stares into it. Smokey puts him down and Hurley spits the words, "You need me, and until you don't you won't kill me." Smokey transforms back into Locke. Hurley addresses the stunned group, "Until Jacob picks which of us is to replace him he won't kill the candidates - you (Jack), you (Sawyer), and me." Locke, also seething, trasforms his arm into Smokey and grabs Claire and dashes her against a tree - killing her.

more coming

LOST - KLUNK ... rattle ... rattle

Hmmm. Where to begin and how many words to waste on Across the Sea? We sadly got the Battlestar Galactica No Exit episode info-dump, albeit a bit more cleverly shown than told to us - but entirely unnecessary. There was no need for this episode of Jacob's and MIB's backstory at all. It served to diminish those two characters and make their former mystery mundane. And the Allison Janney Mother Earth woman - oh no you dint, and don't get me started!

Several LOST puzzle pieces were crudely hammered into place (the "Adam and Eve" skeletons, the dagger [and where did this finely-crafted piece of metal come from?], the origin of the Smoke Monster cave-sausage, the donkey-wheel) but so what? Again, the mystery of those elements were rendered mundane. The black rock and white rock have no deeper meaning other than they were play-pieces to a game MIB found as a child and Jacob was always white and MIB always black.

When you tell a story that has mystery, if you are going to reveal the mystery to your audience you want to wow them - give them goosebumps, not insult them or bore them.

We're supposed to believe that Jacob stayed loyal to this woman who murdered his real mother all those years yet never went over to the people where his brother MIB was living once he got old enough to find out about sex? So for 30 years he just helped Earth Mommie with her weaving? Dumb. Er, what about when Jacob was globe-trotting and lining up our LOST crash survivors for their big journey in all those sideways timelines? I guess time-travel to cover that will be explained in a future ep? Who was Earth Mommie? She got there "by accident" too, but seemed to have answers - who gave them to her? I like Allison Janney. I've met Allison Janney. But she is no Jack Kennedy and she was woefully miscast.

If they were going to commit to a character like this they needed someone who could convey a more sinister side.

This ep was a real let-down - just short of ridiculous I'm afraid. The mystery of the island turns out to be a surreal golden light that lies hidden deep inside ... kind of silly. Visually, we've seen it before

My version is way better (what I have so far is in the next post)

HOW LOST SHOULD END

Tonight's ep - Across the Sea [review to come]

... I think they've made a huge mistake giving us the backstory of Jacob and the Man In Black - we'll see them as boys and Allison Janney plays some kind of know-it-all Earth Mother. It's always lame to introduce new characters late in the 3rd Act. I think they should have left who and what they are exactly a mystery to be resolved later (in movies or tv movies).

My version: Highlight for Cliff's notes (pun intended)Alt+B Charlie jumps to his death in front of Desmond. Island Desmond talks Sayid into getting him out of the well. Alt+B Eloise shows up to stop Desmond from killing Locke at the hospital. Island Hurley sees Michael and Libby again and guess who he will listen to.
We are in the Alt+B timeline and Desmond has tracked down Charlie again. Charlie is standing on the edge of a very high, very steep cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean - his eyes closed, the wind sweeping through his hair, the sun on his face.

"Charlie," Desmond intones, "don't do it." Charlie opens his eyes. "You again?!" "How did you find me?" Charlie demands. Desmond replies, "It took some doing. You don't have to do this. I've seen what you've seen, and I know what it means." Charlie laughs a contemptuous laugh, "It doesn't mean anything." Charlie inches forward and Desmond stops his approach. "That's where you're wrong. This reality, Charlie - this one - is the one that matters." "This reality is Bollocks -" Charlie snaps back. "Charlie, something happened to me in that other place you've been seeing - where we've had, have lives. I saw things, I know things. If you die here, you'll live there." "She's there," Charlie replies. "But it is a prison there - a hellish place with no peace." Charlie ponders his words and looks into the setting sun, "and I have no peace here." Charlie falls forward, down and down and crashes into the sea below.

Back on the island, we see Sayid approach the well from Desmond's POV and and lean over. Sayid points his gun at Desmond's head. "You don't seem afraid," Sayid says. "I'm not - of you, Locke, the island, or any of this." Sayid ponders this for a moment, "Why not?" Desmond stares at Sayid intently, and the rudeness of the pointed gun fills the space between them and Sayid puts it away. "Because, none of this matters, Sayid." Sayid cocks his head at Desmond's conviction, "I'll be back." Desmond patiently waits and then some strong vines are thrown down and Sayid leans over, "Climb up, and tell me more."

Alt+B finds Desmond searching through the hospital for Locke. He rounds a corridor and there stands Eloise. "Leave him alone, Desmond." "You!" Desmond is startled. Eloise stands her ground in the empty corridor, "You don't know what you're doing." Desmond narrows his gaze at her, "I know exactly what I'm doing." Desmond starts to walk toward her to go past, she pulls a gun from her purse, "You're bringing chaos to order Desmond!" "Precisely." Desmond pushed past, she fires the gun as he goes for it and a shot rings out into the hallway - in the distance can be heard screams and sound of running as people peer around corners to see what is going on. "You'll destroy everything!" Eloise is stern but choking back sobs. Desmond has control of the gun and takes if from her hand and drops it, holding her - more for control than an embrace. "Do you think you're the only one who sees?" she demands. "I saw during that explosion - all of our lives, all of the timelines - that place didn't let me die and I've tried to create one version of life with some peace and happiness ever since and I won't let you destroy it!" Desmond senses the approach of people and security and takes Eloise and they duck into an exit stairwell - he takes her up a couple of flights and then corners her against the wall. "Now, listen! I have seen very recently - and what I saw says the timelines are closing in - there is only this reality and the island. He has killed the man who lived in the foot of the temple -" "Jacob," Eloise interjects. "... and he has taken over John Locke and he's trying to get free of the island. I see bits and pieces but it's as if I'm there and here." Eloise grows soft, "What about my husband - over there?" "He put me a machine - magnetism - and somehow that brought me here." Eloise puts her hands over her face, "Oh no, he doesn't know what he's done." "Maybe he does." Eloise ponders this and grows hard again, "No, we are happy here - the horrors of that place forgotten and never to be known by any of them!" "You only care about your own happiness!? What about their lives? You'd trap them in hell, knowing what you know?" Eloise stares at Desmond intently, a floor down security can be heard opening the door and talking. Desmond looks away toward the commotion and Eloise pulls out a stun gun from her purse and zaps Desmond - who falls unconscious and she makes her getaway, but not before shouting down to the floor below, "He's up here!"

[New Addition 5/16]
Back on the island, Hurley is lagging behind as Smoke Monster/Locke leads the group (Kate, Sawyer, Jack, Claire and Frank) toward the submarine. It is nighttime, and they are back on the main island after their failed attempt to use the plane on the little island (they realized that with no runway and sand in the engines and the C4 Widmore put on there it was a no-go). It is now night and Hurley is hearing the whispering in the jungle. "You're lagging behind, Hurley," Locke confronts him. "Yeah man, I not so sure I think this is a good idea." Locke just stares at him, "Pick up the pace." "Yeah, well I've gotta pee." Hurley peels off into the jungle and Locke just stares after him, disgusted, "Well, don't listen to anybody." Hurley tromps off and shoots back a disdainful look. In the thickness of leaves he whips it out and starts peeing and up walks Michael. "You couldn't wait until I'm through?" Hurley asks. "It doesn't matter. Just get to that submarine. It's your only way home." Hurley has finished, wiped off and starts to head back, ignoring Michael. "Listen to Locke, Hurley." Hurley bites his lip and turns abruptly. "I think that listening to you has put us all in danger and that the last thing I should do is listen to Locke." A voice comes from the darkness, "Listen to your heart, Hurley." It is Libby, stepping forward. Michael is taken aback. Libby stares him down, "Go away Michael." Michael reluctantly complies - walking off into the darkened jungle. "It's great to see you." Libby smiles. "He's coming, you have to go. Listen to your heart, Hurley, it's a good one. You'll know what to do when the time comes." Rustling alerts Hurley to Locke's presence. "Are you done? we need to go." Hurley looks back to where Libby had been standing, but she's gone.

HOLLYWOOD SET TO RUIN GODZILLA ... AGAIN

io9 is reporting that Legendary Pictures' reboot of Godzilla is considering this concept for their version of the Godzilla monster.

Stupid stupid stupid. Didn't they learn the first time? Robot Chicken makes the point perfectly in this hilarious spoof clip [located lower right on linked page]

There is only one Godzilla - the Japanese version - which means putting a man in a rubber suit! It means that iconic roar. It means radioactive blue-plasma breath.