Vraptor7 on 15/2/2008 at 18:21
"Both"? We're up to ep 3 now, remember. 2 is a flashback and 3 is a flashforw. I really like the WTF moments in the latest ep, like the time dilation thing, that was a nice mindfuck. Hopefully all these threads they insist on opening will be frickin' explained because they're great only if they have a good payoff, dammit.
Renault on 19/2/2008 at 16:01
Quote Posted by Vraptor7
Hopefully all these threads they insist on opening will be frickin' explained because they're great only if they have a good payoff, dammit.
Totally agree with that. I think sometimes writers bite off more than they can chew, they just make up things for the "wow" factor, but don't figure out where they're going first. There's quite a few things in Lost that have fallen by the wayside, and I don't think they have enough episodes left to explain it all.
That said, this season is pretty interesting with the new people. One thing I'm leery of is that they're starting to paint this picture of some underground, global battle between two factions, and that really takes away from the specific mysteries of the island.
Gingerbread Man on 19/2/2008 at 18:06
Honestly, I'm starting to think that J J Abrams has collected a group of writers around him who all share his obvious inability to stay the fuck focused. Without dragging my wretched carcass down the "hurrr lost jumped the shark right guys" road, I seriously do think that Abrams and his closest writing team are psychologically incapable of finishing one idea before starting another. And that's also precisely what happened to X-Files, Millenium, and nearly every soap opera you can think of.
Most storytelling is masterful because it relies on brevity and / or a certain compactness... This is especially true in film and television, but the cliffhanger has gone haywire, sequels are now assumed rather than won, and spin-offs are the second-favourite way to avoid coming up with any new ideas (remakes are the first).
Hitchcock. Twilight Zone. Unforgiven. Reservoir Dogs. Small scale, start to finish, no delusions or arrogance. Even Babylon 5 had a solid, coherent arc. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, too -- except (and here's the pudding's proof) the last two years were unanticipated, tacked on, and shit.
The Matrix was / is an utterly awesome stand-alone sci-fi. We all know exactly what happened after that.
Um.
I think what I'm trying to say is that Abrams seems to creatively exist in a constant state of indecisiveness, desperately tenuous coherence, and a nearly-pathological tendency to overcomplicate, mistaking intricacy for sophistication and believing that Lost's ability to interest its fans is maintained by heaping half-developed riddles on top of each other.
I will happily argue that Abrams has done an awful lot of fresh, innovative stuff from a technical and theoretical perspective. I think his peculiar inability to sit still has resulted in some daring and sharply-fresh approaches to traditional storytelling, and for the most part these innovations have worked very well.
Closest I can come to the right words is something like "Dennis Miller at the height of his in-joking, reference-stringing, self-congratulatory highbrow wankery is hypnotised to believe he is a very nervous little rat-creature who writes screenplays, and he randomly darts and sniffs and scribbles disjointed scraps of the seeds of possibly good ideas if they're treated properly and oh god well you get the idea
Rug Burn Junky on 19/2/2008 at 18:23
I think the whole argument that "JJ knows exactly where the story is going and isn't just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks" can be thrown out the fucking window, given that at least 2 of the characters now key to the story as survivors in the "Oceanic 6," Jack and Hurley, were originally slated to be be offed during season 1.
Thirith on 19/2/2008 at 18:32
I think they had the rough outline of what is going on on the island written at the beginning. The characters don't really figure into that plot to any large extent, so when they come to a major event, they figure out, "Okay, we've got this or that character who could do it for reason X, Y or Z." Which is probably how most series do it.
bukary on 19/2/2008 at 18:42
They DID NOT have everything planned from the beginning. I read in some interview that it was last year when Abrams and other writers finally decided what's really going on and how the story will unfold. That's why the concept of flashforwards was introduced. Now we can say they have everything planned.
And I really do like new episodes.
Shoshin on 19/2/2008 at 19:01
As I understand it, JJ Abrams doesn't have much to do with Lost. He's creator and executive producer, but he has only three writer credits and two director credits.
The show's being run by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse these days.
Which is only to say that the criticism should be leveled at those two, rather than Abrams. Or maybe at all three.
Fafhrd on 20/2/2008 at 08:08
It should also be noted that up until about halfway through last season, the writers had every reason to believe that the network would make them drag the show out for the rest of eternity, so they were forced to keep piling on mysteries so they could keep plot threads going indefinitely. Now that they have a definite end date for the series (Season 6) they can tie everything off without having to worry.
bukary on 2/3/2008 at 23:05
The 5th episode was really good. Now everything (Desmond lying naked in the jungle and seeing the future, the numbers, Daniel crying in the 2nd episode) makes a little more sense... ;)
This is definitely a great season. Time warps... :sly:
Yakoob on 3/3/2008 at 03:11
Indeed the episode was cool, but the whole thing about constants and how all equations need to be stabilized was pure bullshit :D
