The other thing that that little anecdote has is that it's raising a question from the beginning. And that's the other thing you want. You want bait. You want to constantly be raising questions. So in that little story the bait is that the house is very quiet and so the question hanging in the air is why? It's implied that any question you raise you're going to answer.Lost is like the Shepard tone of story telling. A Shepard/Risset tone is a series of overlapping rising tones, that give the impression of constantly rising. Lost was kind of written the same way. In any given episode, there were at least 3-4 stories working in parallel in various levels of resolution. Every episode had new questions being asked and old questions answered, giving the impression of constantly being on the cusp of something important -- almost like a movie with a 120 hour long 3rd act.
And so again that's another thing you want to manipulate. You want to be constantly raising questions and answering them from the beginning of the story and that the whole shape of a story is that you're throwing out questions to keep people watching or listening and then answering them along the way.
OK. So you have the building block which is the actual sequence of actions, the anecdote part of it. This thing happened and then this thing and then this thing. That's one building block. And the other big building block, your other tool, is that you have a moment of reflection. And by that I mean at some point somebody's got to say here's why the hell you're listening to this story. Like here's the point of this story. Here's the bigger something that we're driving at. Here's why I'm wasting your time with all this.
Also, Kate told Jack "I've missed you for a very long time". That was in reference to him dying as they flew off the island and her living for a very long time after.posted by WCityMike at 10:44 PM on May 23, 2010 [15 favorites]
"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"Really, IMO, that's what the show is about. People focusing on small stuff like where the food drops came from are missing the point. The show is about Faith, Purpose and Meaning. And I don't mean 'faith' in the kind of trite sense of believing in god, but in the sense of trusting that things are under control -- the idea from the Disiderata that 'things are unfolding as they should'.
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?"
MILES: Has it occurred to any of you that your buddy's actually gonna cause the thing he says he's trying to prevent? Perhaps that little nuke is the incident? So maybe the best thing to do... is nothing?Which would confirm Faraday's earlier theory that "what happened, happened," and nothing you do can change the past.
How did the Black Rock come to be located so far inland?posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:43 AM on May 26, 2010 [1 favorite]
THE BLACK ROCK, A 19th CENTURY TRADING SHIP, WAS SOMEHOW MAROONED RATHER FAR INTO THE INTERIOR OF THE ISLAND, RATHER THAN NEAR THE SHORE AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT A SHIP TO BE.
This was supposedly explained in “Ab Aeterno” when a large storm at sea swept the vessel inland, but I find that explanation unsatisfactory. Furthermore:
although I watched the entire season for free on the internet from a WiFi signal that I steal from my neighbor’s apartment, I still feel a tremendous amount of indignation and believe that I am owed more than the dozens and dozens of hours of extremely high production value entertainment that I have been provided.
All I’m asking for is that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse reshoot the entire series with me as one of the head writers as well as acting in the role of one of the principal characters. I’d even settle for being one of the secondary characters. Thank you.
What’s the deal with the numbers?Also interesting, and relevant to the discussion we've been having here, is his attempt to address this question: "Why didn’t the finale answer everything?"
This was answered in large part in The Lost Experience, concerning the DHARMA Initiative and the Valenzetti Equation. The fact that these mythological bits never appeared in the show should have been a clear indication that the producers were serious about what they frequently said: if the characters don’t care about a mystery, it won’t be dealt with on the show.
In short, the numbers are constants in an equation that predicts the end of the world. DHARMA came to the island to do research on various areas (electromagnetism, time travel, polar bears), hoping to change the numbers and delay the apocalypse. How does this fit with Hurley’s luck? Why does this correlate with Jacob’s numbers for the candidates? I don’t know – but I’ll chalk it up to a broadly permeating and inexplicable power tied to the numbers. I do think that any actual answers for this mythology would be disappointing, so I can live with it as simply inexplicable.
What's Hurley Time? It's drinking The Water from a crappy plastic bottle, not an ornamental chalice, because that kind of pretense is meaningless now. It's seeing the water for what it is: not some sparkley Fern Gully nectar bullshit, but real, grey water scooped from the creek bed. It's not about invoking references to Shiva's blinking eye; it's about quoting Star Wars. It's about asking Ben (help me Obi-Wan!), the character who embodies so many dark sides of human nature, as well as the fallibility that comes with devotion to an uncertain divinity, to work with him, so that Hurley can learn from him and account for these shortcomings. "It would be my honor," says Ben, and Hurley just replies "Cool."(Frankly, I think the "Hurley Time" essay is a good enough contemplation to be FPP-worthy, but my guess is that the mods want to keep the Lost stuff consolidated here.)
If you thought the story's surface reading was happy, consider the rise of Hurley. He's Damon and Carlton's hope for a new philosophy in a new age. Perhaps more than any other character, Hurley has the unique ability to see his own flaws. The early onset of his ability to talk to the dead allowed him to question his own sanity, and with it he became self-alienated, able to view both his internal and external human psyches as they wreak their own forms of havoc. Consider the show's ensemble cast: by including a blisteringly wide array of philosophies, it invited more tailored opportunities for identification and ultimately self-reflection for more viewers than practically any other show. In short, the cast allowed viewers to examine the externalities of their own philosophies and hopefully even recognize the shortcomings.
Hurley is unabashedly Dude-like. He's practically a modern Buddhist who doesn't get hung up on the edifices.
- scoring an intense action sequenceSpeaking of the music from the final scene, I noticed that it is not an original piece, but actually dates all the way back to the Season 2 episode "Everybody Hates Hugo." Interestingly, the piece (a much more laid-back version called "Hurley's Handouts") plays during a scene that strongly echoes the events of the finale: Jack hands authority over the rationing of the Island's food supplies to Hurley, who instead uses it to make a modest one-time feast for everyone on the Island ("You put me in charge, this is what we're doing"). Evidence that the afterlife church, like the feast, is something Hurley provided everyone with his Island powers, because it's what he thought they needed?
- joking with the orchestra while playing through several themes, including one from Up
- practicing the (gorgeous) music for the final scene. (omg 1:45-2:25 you guys)
"I thought it was my destiny to get into this... place. And somebody died -- a kid -- because he was stupid enough to believe that I knew what I was talking about. And on the night that he died... for nothing... I was sitting right up there, all alone, beating my hand bloody against that stupid door, screaming to the heavens asking what I should do. And then a light went on. I thought it was a sign."And of course, Not-Locke's death via rib-kick in that second clip nicely echoes Jacob's death from the Season 5 finale.
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posted by empath at 12:47 PM on May 23, 2010 [7 favorites]