Harville Hendrix wrote, "Nature doesn't care that you are comfortable, only that you evolve."
LOST's creators continually stated that the show was more about character development than solving the myriad of mysteries the writers threw at viewers.
In a typical character development, a person is put into an unfamiliar, often dangerous situation. The person then has to reflect on what is happening around him. He must determine based upon internal conflicts (experience, dreams, goals, etc) on how to proceed. It begins a journey of discovery, enlightenment, change and growth. Throughout the journey, he is tested, choices made, doubts created, strengths pushed to the limit to reach a final realization of one's self.
Weaved in this journey are themes we call life lessons. They can be coupled with moral tones, vices, bad choices, blind spots, naive behavior or self-destructive tendencies. But in the end, the character has to change, for better or worse, of the journey itself was meaningless. And the reader is left with a bitter taste of wasting time investing in a story with no true end.
Did LOST's main character have great personal development?
That remains an open question.
If we start with Locke as a young boy, we find that his life was a journey of mistakes, bad choices, social awkwardness and inability to find his place in society.
He was a miracle premature baby who survived his mother's car collision in rural, 1950s America. He was abandoned by his birth parents to grow up in foster homes as an outsider. He was smart, but wanted to be a jock. But he was not good enough so he fit into neither group. He became a loner. The more he grew up, the more sullen he became since he was missing the one thing other kids had: a family. So he spent much of his time trying to find a family unit. He would bounce from entry level job to job trying to find a permanent connection. But his deep seeded fears of abandonment and mistrust sabotaged most of his relationships. His fears were realized when he re-connected with his parents only to have his father steal his kidney and cripple him for life by pushing him through a high rise window.
So Locke's past contained so much baggage that he was a prime candidate for a character's "hero journey" of evolution. But did he did a hero's ending?
Sadly, no. Locke's sad life turned into a sad death.
The island "magic" apparently "cured" Locke's paralysis when he crash landed with the other survivors. He took it personally as a sign, a "miracle," a chance to be the person he dreamed he was going to be as a boy. Locke wanted to be a respected, swashbuckling, Outback, adventure-loving leader of men and lover of women.
Everyone on the island had an opportunity to shed their past and create a new self image.
In Locke's case, he started strong as being a hunter-food provider. But when the majority of the castaways gravitated toward the charismatic doctor, Jack, for survival, Locke became upset. He retreated to become a gregarious loner. Sure, he got along with many of the characters but most merely tolerated his ramblings. He never received the respect or admiration he thought he deserved.
He had an opportunity to become the leader of the 815 survivors, but Jack and Sawyer were chosen over him. He had an opportunity to become the true leader of the Others, but he could not bring it upon himself to kill his own father.
Even when he "sacrificed" himself at ghost Shepherd's suggestion, only then did Sawyer give him faint praise after Locke turned the FDW to reset the island time skips.
When he returned to the States, Locke had several choices. He could have turned his back on the island and its harsh surreality. Or he could find himself back living a lonely existence in his new wheelchair. Instead, he was manipulated by Widmore like he had been manipulated by Ben to do someone's else's bidding. But Locke failed in his quest to get everyone back to the island.
In a seedy hotel room, Locke decided to commit suicide, a coward's not a hero's way out. Before he was about to do the deed, he was interrupted by Ben. Ben convinced him that his life still had value. That he was needed on the island. That he had to go back with him to make everything right. He had to go back to save his "friends." But after Locke slipped with the information on how he could get back to the island, through Mrs. Hawking, Ben strangled Locke whose last thoughts according to Flocke was "I don't understand."
Most viewers did not understand why MIB, the smoke monster, needed to inhabit Locke's corpse or assume his identity in order to overthrown Jacob. MIB did take Locke's memories to begin to manipulate the survivors, including those who let live after the Temple massacre. But if there was still a part of Locke in MIB's use of his memories, image or character - - - Locke failed to fight back or control MIB.
In the end, Locke winds up in the sideways church. He seems happy at the reunion, but how could he be? He sat in a pew alone. There was no one special present for him. Not his late girlfriend. Not his mother. No one. Throughout his life, Locke failed to make a special bond with any one person in order to "move on" in the after life. Locke's journey did not end in a hero's quest or salvation but as a sad footnote.
Friday, June 30, 2017
Monday, June 26, 2017
QUEEN OF MYSTERY
Recently, a Korean television mystery-drama did the unthinkable - - - it fooled its fans with a crazy bad ending.
Queen of Mystery was a standard 16-episode drama. It had typical elements of a standard police drama: an unhappy police officer trying to solve a personal mystery, a civilian wrought by the murders of her parents, power brokers who manipulate the system for their advantage and a spider web of connections between the parties.
SPOILERS ahead for those who want to watch the program.
The police officer was born into a rich and powerful family. However, he sheds his status to become a police officer in order to find the true killer of his girlfriend who was murdered 17 years earlier. The murder was pinned on man with a snake tattoo by a working class cab driver, but the police officer, Wan-seung does not believe the official reports.
Seol-ok, a housewife of a local prosecutor, has turned into a mystery solving sleuth. She uses her deductive skills like Angela Lansbury's character in Murder She Wrote. However, Seol-ok is really trying to track down the real killer of her parents. She was left an orphan who was taken in my a well-off family, eventually marrying their eldest son. His family does not treat her well, but Seol-ok is such a kind person she lets it all go.
Wan-seung was studying to be an actor. He was in a theater troupe where he met Hyun-soo. He fell in love with her. They planned to spend the rest of their lives together. But Wan-seung's powerful lawyer father did not approve. He wanted his son to join and run the family law firm. But Wan-seung does not care about power or privilege, just Hyn-soo. Then one night, she is abducted and killed. Wan-seung never believes that she is dead - - - that she was forced to leave Korea because she found out something bad about someone in power. Even though the police and prosecutors have closed the case file, Wan-seung is convinced that she is alive (her body was not found).
Wan-seung and Seol-ok cross paths to begin an uneasy partnership in solving other crimes. In one respect, they are both outsiders in both their professional and personal lives.
Throughout the series, their mysteries begin to intertwine. Seok-ok's father was the one who reported the man who killed Wan-seung's girlfriend. As the key witness, he and his wife were killed and their case was never solved. Seok-ok's husband had told her that he would look into it, but he never did. We would learn later that he may be part of a cover-up, orchestrated by Wan-seung's own father.
Whenever they get close to solving it, something blocks them. When Wan-seung finally tracks down the tattoo killer, who asks to meet him to tell all, he finds the perp already dead on the ground. Then Wan-seung is quickly arrested by Detective Go for murdering him. It was a classic trap. In order to get his freedom, Wan-seung has to surrender to his father's will to leave the police force and take over the family law practice. He leaves to study abroad then returns to Korea to begin what it seems to be a new life.
But in reality, he is still trying to track down all those responsible for Hyun-soo's death. His little band of detectives, including Seol-ok, have an off-the-grid command post to try to connect the dots.
Near the end, we see the diligence of the sleuths working together to unravel the conspiracy. Finally, they smoke out another police detective as Hyun-soo's murderer. Detective Go knows he is in trouble when the great "fixer," Mr. Kim contacts him asking to see her body. Go claims that he buried her with his own two hands. But Kim's benefactor wants DNA evidence (not available at the time of the crime) to confirm that Hyun-soo is dead. The benefactor is Wan-seung's father. They all met in the forest where Go has uncovered a shallow grave of human bones. As they take samples, the forest bursts of police officers. They arrest everyone for conspiracy.
Wan-seung goes to the grave to see the engagement ring still on the finger of the victim. He breaks down and cries while Seol-ok watches from the ridge.
It would seem that the two mysteries were wrapped up by the arrest of Wan-seung's father and his associates for the cover up of several murders.
But in the last moments of the last episode, the mysterious Mr. Kim is walking down a hallway when a young woman passes him then stops to ask him if he was looking for her. Kim is confused. Then the woman smirks that she is Hyun-soo. Bam. End of series.
Viewers were stunned by the twist. So much so, that they were angry. Several days later, the producers had to make a statement about the show. They claim they did the ending in such a manner because they were planning on a second season.
Reviewers were quick to point out that K-dramas rarely have second seasons. They are usually 16-20 episodic features (and long run series can go up to 52 episodes). And in the case of Queen of Mystery, the network had not ordered or committed to having a second season.
Viewers felt betrayed by the writers. How can you do a complete 180 degree turn of the story line at the end of the series. Wan-seung found the remains of his long, lost love. (DNA would prove the identity of the body - - - but it was clear that the ring was enough for Wan-seung). Who is this new mystery woman claiming to be the dead Hyun-soo? No one knows why she was killed in the first place. Wan-seung's powerful father is in jail but it appears that he was merely a fixer like Mr. Kim. And why did this mystery woman come after Mr. Kim? Who is he working for?
It was a mean trick to play on the viewers. If writers give us mystery plot lines and clues, it is their responsibility to provide conclusive answers to those mysteries. Queen of Mystery's ending was actually worse than LOST's. LOST may have not answered all the burning fan questions about the island, its powers, the afterlife, etc. But Queen of Mystery threw the entire series in chaos with a massive new mystery in the last seconds of the show.
Queen of Mystery was a standard 16-episode drama. It had typical elements of a standard police drama: an unhappy police officer trying to solve a personal mystery, a civilian wrought by the murders of her parents, power brokers who manipulate the system for their advantage and a spider web of connections between the parties.
SPOILERS ahead for those who want to watch the program.
The police officer was born into a rich and powerful family. However, he sheds his status to become a police officer in order to find the true killer of his girlfriend who was murdered 17 years earlier. The murder was pinned on man with a snake tattoo by a working class cab driver, but the police officer, Wan-seung does not believe the official reports.
Seol-ok, a housewife of a local prosecutor, has turned into a mystery solving sleuth. She uses her deductive skills like Angela Lansbury's character in Murder She Wrote. However, Seol-ok is really trying to track down the real killer of her parents. She was left an orphan who was taken in my a well-off family, eventually marrying their eldest son. His family does not treat her well, but Seol-ok is such a kind person she lets it all go.
Wan-seung was studying to be an actor. He was in a theater troupe where he met Hyun-soo. He fell in love with her. They planned to spend the rest of their lives together. But Wan-seung's powerful lawyer father did not approve. He wanted his son to join and run the family law firm. But Wan-seung does not care about power or privilege, just Hyn-soo. Then one night, she is abducted and killed. Wan-seung never believes that she is dead - - - that she was forced to leave Korea because she found out something bad about someone in power. Even though the police and prosecutors have closed the case file, Wan-seung is convinced that she is alive (her body was not found).
Wan-seung and Seol-ok cross paths to begin an uneasy partnership in solving other crimes. In one respect, they are both outsiders in both their professional and personal lives.
Throughout the series, their mysteries begin to intertwine. Seok-ok's father was the one who reported the man who killed Wan-seung's girlfriend. As the key witness, he and his wife were killed and their case was never solved. Seok-ok's husband had told her that he would look into it, but he never did. We would learn later that he may be part of a cover-up, orchestrated by Wan-seung's own father.
Whenever they get close to solving it, something blocks them. When Wan-seung finally tracks down the tattoo killer, who asks to meet him to tell all, he finds the perp already dead on the ground. Then Wan-seung is quickly arrested by Detective Go for murdering him. It was a classic trap. In order to get his freedom, Wan-seung has to surrender to his father's will to leave the police force and take over the family law practice. He leaves to study abroad then returns to Korea to begin what it seems to be a new life.
But in reality, he is still trying to track down all those responsible for Hyun-soo's death. His little band of detectives, including Seol-ok, have an off-the-grid command post to try to connect the dots.
Near the end, we see the diligence of the sleuths working together to unravel the conspiracy. Finally, they smoke out another police detective as Hyun-soo's murderer. Detective Go knows he is in trouble when the great "fixer," Mr. Kim contacts him asking to see her body. Go claims that he buried her with his own two hands. But Kim's benefactor wants DNA evidence (not available at the time of the crime) to confirm that Hyun-soo is dead. The benefactor is Wan-seung's father. They all met in the forest where Go has uncovered a shallow grave of human bones. As they take samples, the forest bursts of police officers. They arrest everyone for conspiracy.
Wan-seung goes to the grave to see the engagement ring still on the finger of the victim. He breaks down and cries while Seol-ok watches from the ridge.
It would seem that the two mysteries were wrapped up by the arrest of Wan-seung's father and his associates for the cover up of several murders.
But in the last moments of the last episode, the mysterious Mr. Kim is walking down a hallway when a young woman passes him then stops to ask him if he was looking for her. Kim is confused. Then the woman smirks that she is Hyun-soo. Bam. End of series.
Viewers were stunned by the twist. So much so, that they were angry. Several days later, the producers had to make a statement about the show. They claim they did the ending in such a manner because they were planning on a second season.
Reviewers were quick to point out that K-dramas rarely have second seasons. They are usually 16-20 episodic features (and long run series can go up to 52 episodes). And in the case of Queen of Mystery, the network had not ordered or committed to having a second season.
Viewers felt betrayed by the writers. How can you do a complete 180 degree turn of the story line at the end of the series. Wan-seung found the remains of his long, lost love. (DNA would prove the identity of the body - - - but it was clear that the ring was enough for Wan-seung). Who is this new mystery woman claiming to be the dead Hyun-soo? No one knows why she was killed in the first place. Wan-seung's powerful father is in jail but it appears that he was merely a fixer like Mr. Kim. And why did this mystery woman come after Mr. Kim? Who is he working for?
It was a mean trick to play on the viewers. If writers give us mystery plot lines and clues, it is their responsibility to provide conclusive answers to those mysteries. Queen of Mystery's ending was actually worse than LOST's. LOST may have not answered all the burning fan questions about the island, its powers, the afterlife, etc. But Queen of Mystery threw the entire series in chaos with a massive new mystery in the last seconds of the show.
Monday, June 19, 2017
THE UNDEAD
The first attempts to bring people back from the dead are slated to start this year.
This controversial plan was thwarted last year in India.
Bioquark, a Philadelphia-based company, announced in late 2016 that they believe brain death is not 'irreversible'. According to the Daily Mail, CEO Ira Pastor has revealed they will soon be testing an
unprecedented stem cell method on patients in an unidentified country in
Latin America, confirming the details in the next few months.
To
be declared officially dead in the majority of countries, you have to
experience complete and irreversible loss of brain function, or 'brain
death'. According to Pastor, Bioquark
has developed a series of injections that can reboot the brain - and
they plan to try it out on humans this year.
They have no plans to test on animals first.
Medical science has tight protocols before experimentation can begin on humans. There must be peer review on research, animal trials, then clinical trials. At each stage of the process, the results are published and reviewed by authorities before permission can be granted to proceed. Here, the company is going straight to the end game without any factual foundation.
There is no precedent for what researchers plan to do. It may be a very expensive (the article did not say) method with no chance of success (but some families will pay anything in the hope of getting their loved ones back). So critics and cynics have raised concerns that the company is not going through normal protocols to test their theories before using human beings as test dummies. That is the reason why the medical boards in India stopped the company from doing work in that country.
The ramifications of re-booting a brain dead patient can be severe. What if it only partially works and the patient only has minimum brain activity (such as in a deep coma state with no communication skills). Is that really a quality life? What if it does not activate brain memories, speech, eyesight or senses but merely pain? Then what happens to the patient? What are the unintended consequences of playing god?
It seems LOST also played fast and loose with medical ethics on the island. It used mind control and chemical weapons experimentation which hit its evil zenith after Ben's coup. The concept of immortality by regular brain reanimations is in the realm of science fiction. But there appears to be some researchers who dare to try it in real life.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
THE CURSE OF THE PHARAOHS
The curse of the pharaohs refers to an ancient alleged curse believed by some to be cast upon any person who disturbs the tomb of an Egyptian person, especially a pharaoh or king. This curse, which does not differentiate between thieves and
archaeologists, allegedly can cause bad luck, illness or death. Since
the mid-20th century, many authors and documentaries have argued that
the curse is real in the sense of being caused by scientifically
explicable causes such as bacteria or radiation.
When a tomb is opened after hundreds of years, it contains dust and bacteria that have not seen the light of day. Those bacteria or dust can contain pathogens that modern man has no immunity form.
The Book of the Dead contained passages to ward off people from disturbing the tombs. Religious beliefs stated that those possessions in the deceased chambers were needed in the afterlife. Grave robbers knew that the rich were buried with vast treasures of gold, silver and gems.
The curse legend grew in the 1920s and 1930s when Howard Carter's archeology team uncovered the best tomb of all time, King Tut's. After excavating the tomb, several members of the team died mysterious deaths, one from a mosquito bite and one from blood poisoning.
For those who still seek a unified theory to LOST's mythology, the curse theory may be the one.
The island was filled with Egyptian references, including columns of hieroglyphs in the Temple to Jacob's textiles. And if you review LOST's elements as an allegory to ancient Egyptian rituals and practices, you can weave a good theory.
In order to protect a pharaoah's afterlife, he would have gathered loyal subjects, his priests, to make continuous offerings and to protect his tomb from raiders. These priests were powerful men in society. Many were viewed to have magical properties and direct contact with the gods.
When people do not understand what they see, they call it magic or supernatural. The magicians can use unknown science, illusion or slight of hand to deceive, manipulate or shock people. Some people know that one way to control people is to create chaos, fear or expectation of death.
We have Jacob as the island guardian. He is the high priest of the island. The island contains a temple - - - and temples were created for the specific purpose of burial of powerful people.
The smoke monster could be viewed as the deadly dust that is the manifestation of the curse for those foreigners who came to the island to disturb the temple rites.
Why did Jacob allow people to come to his island? Just as in ancient times, a pharaoh, dead or alive, needed subjects to protect him and his remains. The Flight 815 survivors could be unwittingly recruits for the pharaoh's subjects. They were placed in the way of raiders such as Widmore's men who wanted to take control (and plunder) the island.
One can see that the smoke monster's deaths were not indiscriminate. It killed people like Eko because he did not believe in the island's religion. He was wrapped up in his brother's religion out of guilt. As such, Eko had no role in protecting the temple or the island. Eko was then expendable.
Likewise, converts like Locke were used to try to recruit loyal subjects to return to the island. When he failed, he was killed because he had no value to the island high priest.
The one concept that stood the test of the series was that the island had to be protected (from the unknown). That was the reason and excuse for all the conflicting behaviors and story lines.
Just as in Egyptian mythology, the smoke monster may have evolved to rival the high priest - - - to overthrow him to create his new cult. That is why Flocke did not kill Widmore's men in mass; he used the alleged conflict between the sides in order to oust Jacob from his position of power. Flocke's background was one of science (MIB was into Roman culture and technology as a young man) while Jacob was schooled in the metaphysics of religious beliefs tied to the island's mysterious past. The theme of science vs. religion was common in the series. It seems that it was tested at various stages in time, from the military coming to the island to challenge the inhabitants to Dharma's uneasy truce with the natives. There were two different views of the island. One was to keep the religious tenets in place (Jacob). The other was to abandon the old ways (MIB) and abandon the island.
In some ways, the latter prevailed just like it did in Egypt. Egyptian cult religion or worship its pharaohs died off to be replaced with modern religions in a secular government structure (with intermittent civil wars and political upheaval.)
Just as modern archeology triumphed over the safeguards of tomb construction, LOST's major change was the loss of the island's long standing structure and purpose.
When it was said that the characters had to "let go" in order to be free, it could mean that they had to let go their own past personal principle structures (which commonly is called religious beliefs) in order to embrace their own free will and their thoughts on morality and mortality.
When a tomb is opened after hundreds of years, it contains dust and bacteria that have not seen the light of day. Those bacteria or dust can contain pathogens that modern man has no immunity form.
The Book of the Dead contained passages to ward off people from disturbing the tombs. Religious beliefs stated that those possessions in the deceased chambers were needed in the afterlife. Grave robbers knew that the rich were buried with vast treasures of gold, silver and gems.
The curse legend grew in the 1920s and 1930s when Howard Carter's archeology team uncovered the best tomb of all time, King Tut's. After excavating the tomb, several members of the team died mysterious deaths, one from a mosquito bite and one from blood poisoning.
For those who still seek a unified theory to LOST's mythology, the curse theory may be the one.
The island was filled with Egyptian references, including columns of hieroglyphs in the Temple to Jacob's textiles. And if you review LOST's elements as an allegory to ancient Egyptian rituals and practices, you can weave a good theory.
In order to protect a pharaoah's afterlife, he would have gathered loyal subjects, his priests, to make continuous offerings and to protect his tomb from raiders. These priests were powerful men in society. Many were viewed to have magical properties and direct contact with the gods.
When people do not understand what they see, they call it magic or supernatural. The magicians can use unknown science, illusion or slight of hand to deceive, manipulate or shock people. Some people know that one way to control people is to create chaos, fear or expectation of death.
We have Jacob as the island guardian. He is the high priest of the island. The island contains a temple - - - and temples were created for the specific purpose of burial of powerful people.
The smoke monster could be viewed as the deadly dust that is the manifestation of the curse for those foreigners who came to the island to disturb the temple rites.
Why did Jacob allow people to come to his island? Just as in ancient times, a pharaoh, dead or alive, needed subjects to protect him and his remains. The Flight 815 survivors could be unwittingly recruits for the pharaoh's subjects. They were placed in the way of raiders such as Widmore's men who wanted to take control (and plunder) the island.
One can see that the smoke monster's deaths were not indiscriminate. It killed people like Eko because he did not believe in the island's religion. He was wrapped up in his brother's religion out of guilt. As such, Eko had no role in protecting the temple or the island. Eko was then expendable.
Likewise, converts like Locke were used to try to recruit loyal subjects to return to the island. When he failed, he was killed because he had no value to the island high priest.
The one concept that stood the test of the series was that the island had to be protected (from the unknown). That was the reason and excuse for all the conflicting behaviors and story lines.
Just as in Egyptian mythology, the smoke monster may have evolved to rival the high priest - - - to overthrow him to create his new cult. That is why Flocke did not kill Widmore's men in mass; he used the alleged conflict between the sides in order to oust Jacob from his position of power. Flocke's background was one of science (MIB was into Roman culture and technology as a young man) while Jacob was schooled in the metaphysics of religious beliefs tied to the island's mysterious past. The theme of science vs. religion was common in the series. It seems that it was tested at various stages in time, from the military coming to the island to challenge the inhabitants to Dharma's uneasy truce with the natives. There were two different views of the island. One was to keep the religious tenets in place (Jacob). The other was to abandon the old ways (MIB) and abandon the island.
In some ways, the latter prevailed just like it did in Egypt. Egyptian cult religion or worship its pharaohs died off to be replaced with modern religions in a secular government structure (with intermittent civil wars and political upheaval.)
Just as modern archeology triumphed over the safeguards of tomb construction, LOST's major change was the loss of the island's long standing structure and purpose.
When it was said that the characters had to "let go" in order to be free, it could mean that they had to let go their own past personal principle structures (which commonly is called religious beliefs) in order to embrace their own free will and their thoughts on morality and mortality.
Saturday, June 3, 2017
DOORS
"There are things that are known and things that are unknown; in between are doors." - - - Jim Morrison.
A good mystery is like a door.
The clues to what lies behind the door (the answers) can be found:
1) by the location of the door;
2) by the type of door;
3) the construction of the door;
4) the kind of latches or knobs;
5) whether it is locked or unlocked;
6) whether it has signage;
7) whether you can hear noises from inside.
Applied to the Island in LOST:
1) it was located in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere north of Australia and west of Fiji.
2) it was a tropical island
3) it contained ruins from past occupants
4) it was very hard to enter the island
5) it was hidden from searcher's view
6) it was so remote that it screamed danger to survivors that washed up on its shore
7) the noises of the smoke monster were loud and horrible.
So what was behind all the island mysteries?
Did we get a clear peak behind the door?
We know the island by its unique physics properties defies both time and space. But we do not know whether it exists in our current earth space-time, or phases in and out, or is another dimension (including but not limited to the afterlife).
We know that throughout the centuries, various people came to the island and built their own structures such as the Egyptian temple to the Dharma laboratories. But we do not know whether these civilizations were necessary to the development of the island or the saving of mankind.
We were told that no one entered the island without the permission of the island guardian. But it is unclear why Jacob would have allowed the US military to come place an atomic bomb on the island then leave it in the hands of power-mad people like Widmore. And if a guardian "needed" people on the island, why were those people's lives so meaningless and subject to frivolous deaths?
We think that the island's defense was the smoke monster and/or the guardian. We are not sure whether the guardian like Jacob was a smoke monster himself, or he had the power to create one. But since Jacob appeared to be immortal (until an unclear change made him give up the guardianship to Jack; perhaps the uncorking of the island), one could presume he was a supernatural being.
We also saw that when Rousseau's crew washed upon the island, the smoke monster was like an attack guard dog - - - killing and possessing them from the moment of landing. However, when the Flight 815 castaways landed on the island, the smoke monster's wrath was tempered to isolated incidents to Ben's "summoning" of the smoke monster by the water device to kill Widmore's men.
Even when the writers opened the door to the island, the interior is still quite dark. Even the answers are shrouded in mystery.
A good mystery is like a door.
The clues to what lies behind the door (the answers) can be found:
1) by the location of the door;
2) by the type of door;
3) the construction of the door;
4) the kind of latches or knobs;
5) whether it is locked or unlocked;
6) whether it has signage;
7) whether you can hear noises from inside.
Applied to the Island in LOST:
1) it was located in the Pacific Ocean, somewhere north of Australia and west of Fiji.
2) it was a tropical island
3) it contained ruins from past occupants
4) it was very hard to enter the island
5) it was hidden from searcher's view
6) it was so remote that it screamed danger to survivors that washed up on its shore
7) the noises of the smoke monster were loud and horrible.
So what was behind all the island mysteries?
Did we get a clear peak behind the door?
We know the island by its unique physics properties defies both time and space. But we do not know whether it exists in our current earth space-time, or phases in and out, or is another dimension (including but not limited to the afterlife).
We know that throughout the centuries, various people came to the island and built their own structures such as the Egyptian temple to the Dharma laboratories. But we do not know whether these civilizations were necessary to the development of the island or the saving of mankind.
We were told that no one entered the island without the permission of the island guardian. But it is unclear why Jacob would have allowed the US military to come place an atomic bomb on the island then leave it in the hands of power-mad people like Widmore. And if a guardian "needed" people on the island, why were those people's lives so meaningless and subject to frivolous deaths?
We think that the island's defense was the smoke monster and/or the guardian. We are not sure whether the guardian like Jacob was a smoke monster himself, or he had the power to create one. But since Jacob appeared to be immortal (until an unclear change made him give up the guardianship to Jack; perhaps the uncorking of the island), one could presume he was a supernatural being.
We also saw that when Rousseau's crew washed upon the island, the smoke monster was like an attack guard dog - - - killing and possessing them from the moment of landing. However, when the Flight 815 castaways landed on the island, the smoke monster's wrath was tempered to isolated incidents to Ben's "summoning" of the smoke monster by the water device to kill Widmore's men.
Even when the writers opened the door to the island, the interior is still quite dark. Even the answers are shrouded in mystery.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
VOLCANO
The ending of Lost was almost much bigger than what audiences saw. Nothing was that
different. The characters and island were always going to be what they
ended up being. But, one big addition would have changed things
significantly: a volcano.
Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse told the story to Entertainment Weekly. The summary is that Lindelof and Cuse wanted some kind of visual identifier to bring together the idea that this island was like a cork on a bottle of evil. The symbol was going to be a volcano, and it would have been set up in the third to last episode. In that episode, where we learned the backstory of Jacob and the Man in Black, Jacob was going to throw the Man in Black into the volcano, turning him into the smoke monster that debuted in season one.
Then, in the series finale, Locke and Jack were going to fight on the volcano as it got ready to erupt—kind of a natural-disaster ticking clock, with tremors, lava, and, eventually, good triumphing over evil. Lost even set up the idea of the volcano being on the island some time prior, in a third season episode that featured a Dharma classroom. And yet, it ended up getting scrapped.
The
reason is simple: money. Producers and executives realized that all the
volcano effects and potential location filming were going to be way too
expensive for them to handle, especially when another final season set,
the temple, ended up being more pricey than expected. So, in the end,
the very literal interpretation of the island as evil was cut out and
things were left a little more ambiguous. Same ending, Jack vs. Locke
fighting on a rocky area, but just no volcano.
Money woes and writing by the seat of their pants.
Jeff Jensen, the waterboy for the series theorists, writes:
Carlton Cuse, Lost’s longtime co-showrunner, got the idea for the volcano in the early years of the show after visiting Hawaii’s Big Island with his family, taking a volcano tour and marveling at the landscape. He thought it would be cool if The Island had a volcano of its own. “We were always looking to cannibalize anything on Hawaii to aid in the visual storytelling of the show,” says Cuse. “We also thought of the island as a character on the show, so we were always looking for things that would give it more personality.” He didn’t have an idea of how the volcano could be used, “but it was something we banked and thought we could use downstream.”
The volcano stayed in the back pocket until the producers started developing Lost’s concluding seasons. The premise that developed over time was that the volcano was a mysterious place that forged the ticking, shape-shifting monster, the billowing black mass known as Smokey. By season 6, the writers had settled on the concept that the island was like a cork that bottled up all sorts of bad stuff, some volatile stew of spiritual dark matter stuff that would rob life of meaning and goodness if unleashed. “The question was always, how do you basically visualize and dramatize the idea that the island itself is all that separates the world from hellfire and damnation?” says Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. “And the answer was the volcano.”
Lindelof and Cuse initially envisioned a finale in which Jack (Matthew Fox) and Smokey incarnate (Terry O’Quinn) would brawl over the fate of the island at Lost’s proverbial Mount Doom. “The volcano had been dormant for the duration of the series,” explains Lindelof, “but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt. We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which ended up in the series manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. Magma spewing everywhere!”
And so it went that Cuse and Lindelof decided to end Lost by reigniting an actual volcano and spraying their cast with actual skin-searing magma. Just kidding. But they were determined to fake it the best they could. “It would be visually stunning and really exciting for the audience,” says Lindelof. “After six years and around 121 hours of the show, we had shot literally every part of Oahu that we could for island scenes and flashbacks. So the idea that, for the finale, we could go to this new locale that’s going to look new and different and unique, primal and ancient and end-of-the-world-ish, that would be great.”
The volcano wouldn’t have come out of the blue. The producers planned to take us there in Lost’s third-to-last episode, “Across The Sea,” a major mythological outing that revealed the origin story of The Island’s long-lived protector, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), and his unnamed brother, The Man in Black (Titus Welliver), and dramatized the latter’s transformation into Smokey. You would have seen Jacob drag his mother-killing sibling up the slopes of the volcano and toss him into its smoldering, monster-making crater.
And this is where the people who wrote the checks for Lost put a stopper in Operation: Magma Spew. At some point in all the plotting, planning, and prepping for season 6, ABC calculated that it couldn’t afford the transportation cost. Not helping the cause: The set for the temple, a refuge for Jacob’s chosen ones and a key location in the first half of season 6, turned out to be very expensive. Says Lindelof: “ABC was like, ‘Guys, we love you, and we’re letting you end the show; we can’t let you bankrupt the network in the process.’” And that’s how Smokey’s crucible — Lost’s version of Buffy’s Hellmouth — was re-imagined as a cave of light and the fight between Jack and the monster was filmed on the cliffs of Oahu.
Cuse says The Volcano That Never Really Was speaks to how practical factors, models of production, and s— happens variables affect the execution and finale form of big saga serials. Lost was marked by several such stories. Perhaps the most well-known involved Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, whose Mr. Eko was a season 2 breakout. The producers loved writing for Mr. Eko (his showcase episode in season 2, “The 23rd Psalm,” written by Cuse and Lindelof, is one of Lost’s best) and envisioned a prolonged conflict with John Locke (O’Quinn) that would have made the middle seasons of the series quite different. When the actor abruptly ankled Lost the second season, the producers had to create a new story for Locke and other characters impacted by his sudden departure. (Akinnuoye-Agbaje stuck around for a few episodes to shoot Mr. Eko’s death-by-Smokey exit episode.)
Still, Cuse and Lindelof do think scratching the volcano was for the best. Lindelof says the producers came to believe during the writing of season 6 that it would be better if some ideas about The Island remained metaphorical or mysterious, things to be interpreted, not explained.
>>>> I have to disagree with the notion that Budget Killed the Volcano. You can use stock film footage of an eruption with close up footage of characters panicked reactions; and waves of ash clouds as they flee from the jungle.
The "monster making" volcano would explain how one is made but not WHAT it is. We got some circumstantial evidence of monster creation in Light Cave when Jack "rebooted" the island cork. But that was placed in the context of rebalancing good and evil not creating a monster. (Even though some say that the body of Jacob's brother was washed into the cave, knocking over the cork and thus creating the Man in Black.)
But if the volcano was supposed to be the climatic star of the Series 6 final episodes, why did the production crew spend so much time and money on the Egyptian symbols and the temple if the temple concepts were immaterial to the resolution of the story?
This story shows that the show runners and writers were struggling to find a way to end the series. There were too many ideas but not enough continuity to resolve the series story lines. Instead, it was decided not to answer the questions but create a final "character study" of the cast as they passed into the afterlife.
Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse told the story to Entertainment Weekly. The summary is that Lindelof and Cuse wanted some kind of visual identifier to bring together the idea that this island was like a cork on a bottle of evil. The symbol was going to be a volcano, and it would have been set up in the third to last episode. In that episode, where we learned the backstory of Jacob and the Man in Black, Jacob was going to throw the Man in Black into the volcano, turning him into the smoke monster that debuted in season one.
Then, in the series finale, Locke and Jack were going to fight on the volcano as it got ready to erupt—kind of a natural-disaster ticking clock, with tremors, lava, and, eventually, good triumphing over evil. Lost even set up the idea of the volcano being on the island some time prior, in a third season episode that featured a Dharma classroom. And yet, it ended up getting scrapped.
Money woes and writing by the seat of their pants.
Jeff Jensen, the waterboy for the series theorists, writes:
Carlton Cuse, Lost’s longtime co-showrunner, got the idea for the volcano in the early years of the show after visiting Hawaii’s Big Island with his family, taking a volcano tour and marveling at the landscape. He thought it would be cool if The Island had a volcano of its own. “We were always looking to cannibalize anything on Hawaii to aid in the visual storytelling of the show,” says Cuse. “We also thought of the island as a character on the show, so we were always looking for things that would give it more personality.” He didn’t have an idea of how the volcano could be used, “but it was something we banked and thought we could use downstream.”
The volcano stayed in the back pocket until the producers started developing Lost’s concluding seasons. The premise that developed over time was that the volcano was a mysterious place that forged the ticking, shape-shifting monster, the billowing black mass known as Smokey. By season 6, the writers had settled on the concept that the island was like a cork that bottled up all sorts of bad stuff, some volatile stew of spiritual dark matter stuff that would rob life of meaning and goodness if unleashed. “The question was always, how do you basically visualize and dramatize the idea that the island itself is all that separates the world from hellfire and damnation?” says Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. “And the answer was the volcano.”
Lindelof and Cuse initially envisioned a finale in which Jack (Matthew Fox) and Smokey incarnate (Terry O’Quinn) would brawl over the fate of the island at Lost’s proverbial Mount Doom. “The volcano had been dormant for the duration of the series,” explains Lindelof, “but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt. We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which ended up in the series manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. Magma spewing everywhere!”
And so it went that Cuse and Lindelof decided to end Lost by reigniting an actual volcano and spraying their cast with actual skin-searing magma. Just kidding. But they were determined to fake it the best they could. “It would be visually stunning and really exciting for the audience,” says Lindelof. “After six years and around 121 hours of the show, we had shot literally every part of Oahu that we could for island scenes and flashbacks. So the idea that, for the finale, we could go to this new locale that’s going to look new and different and unique, primal and ancient and end-of-the-world-ish, that would be great.”
The volcano wouldn’t have come out of the blue. The producers planned to take us there in Lost’s third-to-last episode, “Across The Sea,” a major mythological outing that revealed the origin story of The Island’s long-lived protector, Jacob (Mark Pellegrino), and his unnamed brother, The Man in Black (Titus Welliver), and dramatized the latter’s transformation into Smokey. You would have seen Jacob drag his mother-killing sibling up the slopes of the volcano and toss him into its smoldering, monster-making crater.
And this is where the people who wrote the checks for Lost put a stopper in Operation: Magma Spew. At some point in all the plotting, planning, and prepping for season 6, ABC calculated that it couldn’t afford the transportation cost. Not helping the cause: The set for the temple, a refuge for Jacob’s chosen ones and a key location in the first half of season 6, turned out to be very expensive. Says Lindelof: “ABC was like, ‘Guys, we love you, and we’re letting you end the show; we can’t let you bankrupt the network in the process.’” And that’s how Smokey’s crucible — Lost’s version of Buffy’s Hellmouth — was re-imagined as a cave of light and the fight between Jack and the monster was filmed on the cliffs of Oahu.
Cuse says The Volcano That Never Really Was speaks to how practical factors, models of production, and s— happens variables affect the execution and finale form of big saga serials. Lost was marked by several such stories. Perhaps the most well-known involved Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, whose Mr. Eko was a season 2 breakout. The producers loved writing for Mr. Eko (his showcase episode in season 2, “The 23rd Psalm,” written by Cuse and Lindelof, is one of Lost’s best) and envisioned a prolonged conflict with John Locke (O’Quinn) that would have made the middle seasons of the series quite different. When the actor abruptly ankled Lost the second season, the producers had to create a new story for Locke and other characters impacted by his sudden departure. (Akinnuoye-Agbaje stuck around for a few episodes to shoot Mr. Eko’s death-by-Smokey exit episode.)
Still, Cuse and Lindelof do think scratching the volcano was for the best. Lindelof says the producers came to believe during the writing of season 6 that it would be better if some ideas about The Island remained metaphorical or mysterious, things to be interpreted, not explained.
>>>> I have to disagree with the notion that Budget Killed the Volcano. You can use stock film footage of an eruption with close up footage of characters panicked reactions; and waves of ash clouds as they flee from the jungle.
The "monster making" volcano would explain how one is made but not WHAT it is. We got some circumstantial evidence of monster creation in Light Cave when Jack "rebooted" the island cork. But that was placed in the context of rebalancing good and evil not creating a monster. (Even though some say that the body of Jacob's brother was washed into the cave, knocking over the cork and thus creating the Man in Black.)
But if the volcano was supposed to be the climatic star of the Series 6 final episodes, why did the production crew spend so much time and money on the Egyptian symbols and the temple if the temple concepts were immaterial to the resolution of the story?
This story shows that the show runners and writers were struggling to find a way to end the series. There were too many ideas but not enough continuity to resolve the series story lines. Instead, it was decided not to answer the questions but create a final "character study" of the cast as they passed into the afterlife.
Monday, May 1, 2017
AUTHENTIC
Janet Louise Stevenson wrote, "Authenticity requires vulnerability, transparency and integrity."
In the fan autopsy of LOST series, there were conflicting results of whether the show runners captured the essence of the LOST experience and mythology to the end. To be authentic means being genuine; made or done in the traditional or original way, or in a way that faithfully resembles an original.
LOST started off gang busters as a media and audience favorite. The idea of combining the terror of a commercial plan crash and a mysterious island filled with characters with secrets captivated us. The quick pace of the pilot made us comfortable with the large ensemble cast. The foundation of the series was set: every character has a back story, but there are situations where one can erase their past to create a their new future.
In the quest to find a new future, the characters were set against various villains, dangers and unbelievable science bending physics. But we stuck with the characters as the plot lines began to weave, zig, zag and stumble like a 3 a.m. drunk. We felt empathy for the characters because we had glimpses of their vulnerability. We understood most of the them through the flashbacks of events that changed (or hindered) their lives. Many had been on emotional roller coasters, only to wind up on a wilder island ride.
But the writers were not as transparent as most wanted them to be. When you create a mystery, viewers expected an answer. (Note: even if the answer did not make sense.) When a character betrays another, you expect a complete explanation. When a character changes sides, we would like to know the reason why.
Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction. The 6th season lost most viewers because the show runners had not been fully honest when they boasted from the beginning that they had the story fully worked out to the end. The hard dead lines and tangential plot lines that added confusion instead of Easter eggs led to a vocal minority saying "they are making it up as they go." That complaint stings when you network has positioned the series as one of the greatest television events of all time.
The fast forward, sideways world still bothers most people. It does not have any unification, pairing or sound construction to the original story line. If you would have eliminated it in its entirety, it would not have had a great impact on the resolution of the island story lines. Instead, it caused more problems than solutions.
LOST was an original series that lost its way about halfway through its run. If the writers had kept to the original story principles instead of shooting for dramatic filler and strange plot twists, it could have been a more authentic classic.
In the fan autopsy of LOST series, there were conflicting results of whether the show runners captured the essence of the LOST experience and mythology to the end. To be authentic means being genuine; made or done in the traditional or original way, or in a way that faithfully resembles an original.
LOST started off gang busters as a media and audience favorite. The idea of combining the terror of a commercial plan crash and a mysterious island filled with characters with secrets captivated us. The quick pace of the pilot made us comfortable with the large ensemble cast. The foundation of the series was set: every character has a back story, but there are situations where one can erase their past to create a their new future.
In the quest to find a new future, the characters were set against various villains, dangers and unbelievable science bending physics. But we stuck with the characters as the plot lines began to weave, zig, zag and stumble like a 3 a.m. drunk. We felt empathy for the characters because we had glimpses of their vulnerability. We understood most of the them through the flashbacks of events that changed (or hindered) their lives. Many had been on emotional roller coasters, only to wind up on a wilder island ride.
But the writers were not as transparent as most wanted them to be. When you create a mystery, viewers expected an answer. (Note: even if the answer did not make sense.) When a character betrays another, you expect a complete explanation. When a character changes sides, we would like to know the reason why.
Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; the condition of being unified, unimpaired, or sound in construction. The 6th season lost most viewers because the show runners had not been fully honest when they boasted from the beginning that they had the story fully worked out to the end. The hard dead lines and tangential plot lines that added confusion instead of Easter eggs led to a vocal minority saying "they are making it up as they go." That complaint stings when you network has positioned the series as one of the greatest television events of all time.
The fast forward, sideways world still bothers most people. It does not have any unification, pairing or sound construction to the original story line. If you would have eliminated it in its entirety, it would not have had a great impact on the resolution of the island story lines. Instead, it caused more problems than solutions.
LOST was an original series that lost its way about halfway through its run. If the writers had kept to the original story principles instead of shooting for dramatic filler and strange plot twists, it could have been a more authentic classic.
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