Thursday, May 15, 2014

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN

I wondered what LOST would have been like if it had been set in a steampunk location rather than a tropical island. Wondering if anyone else had this crazy notion, I web searched lost and steampunk and found reference to a 1995 film called "The City of Lost Children."

Set in surrealist society, a scientist kidnaps children to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow his aging process.

What a nice, simple and easily understood premise to the movie. Very unLOST.

But this does follow up nicely on the last post about the island, as a living being, needing younger human blood in order to extend its own life force. What if the island being was needed new human beings brought to it in order to steal their dreams - - - as a means of extending the island's life span?

We know that the island, especially the smoke monster(s), can read people's minds and dreams in order to create the visions the characters had during the show.  And what better source of "dream material" than the mixed up cast of characters that were on the island. You have people who think they are crazy (Hurley) to those who really are crazy (Ben) to emotional newborn mothers (Claire, Rousseau) to freaked out drug addicts (Charlie) to romantic dreamers (Desmond) to hardened nightmares of war veterans (Sayid) to the storytelling con men (Sawyer, Cooper) to the desperate fathers (Michael). The cast has a library full of anxiety, emotions, experiences and personal demons that could keep a dream stealer nourished for years.

Re-worked LOST premise:

Set on an unchartered tropical Pacific island, an alien life force kidnaps human beings to steal their dreams, hoping that they slow its aging process.