Lost "The End"

[Toad_Passenger]

This... The Dharma Initiative and all the websites in the first season to hunt for clues etc. The kids, their special abilities and children not being born on the island. These things got me hooked on the show. The characters were great and the mystery was great until the last season. They lived up to both expectations throughout the entire show, but let those who were hooked on mystery down in the end. I did not want to be spoon fed answers, but have the mysteries that seem so important addressed even if in a vague manner. For goodness sakes we all know why the polar bears were there....

I would have liked it better if they all realized who each other were, had acceptance and peace and then decided as a group to go back to the island as protectors and live like the Others or Rose and Bernard. For some of us the island and it's mysteries were and extremely important part of the show. The island did not have closure for me even though MIB died.

Oh well I'm beggining to accept it, but I did go to bed angry Sunday night.

I guess I have a hard time figuring out what questions weren't answered? I was a HUGE Island-mythos guy. I played through every Alternate Reality Game they had in between seasons, researched screencaps for clues, and participated in a ton of online investigations and research. The whole mystery is what pulled me in, too. But it really wasn't what the show was about.

I felt everything was answered adequately, at least the stuff that mattered in the grand scheme of the show. We know all about the Dharma Initiative's reasons for being there (through the first ARG), and we saw how they became corrupted and part of the struggle on the island (through the show).

Knowing why the Hurley-bird was there, wasn't important. Knowing how "Mother" came to the island wasn't important either, because it wasn't part of this story.

You need to see the series as a chapter in the Island's existence. "Mother" never had to deal with a true evil counterpart trying to escape the Island to wreak havoc, so her backstory is irrelevant. She only had to protect the light source from humans. The story of MIB's existence was the (only?) time that humanity was truly threatened, and thus the reason this part of the story was told. It was the story of Jacob, MIB, and all of the people who came to the Island during that time to discover it's secrets and be part of MIB's little game of trying to escape the Island.

I guess I just don't see what questions remain that would have been pertinent to the story being presented?

 

[brerrabbit]

As I posted in one of the other threads on the subject, I loved the ending, and I loved the overall series. It was as the producers always said a story about the characters. To many of those who did not like it seemed to have focused more on the "answers" to many of the questions than the characters stories.

Someone mentioned that Locke was a good person and that all the bad deeds were done by the fake Locke. I disagree. Almost all of the "heros" or survivors that the show focused on were not good people to start with. Locke had issues caused by his childhood, his crazy Mother, his manipulative Father etc. But remember in his mind and in others minds he sacrificed Boone in his quest. He also killed the girl that parachuted to the island in cold blood. The rest of the gang had some killers to. Kate killed her step Father, Sawyer killed the man he thought he was looking for in Australia. Shannon was on and off with her step brother Boone, Sayid was a torturer, Hurley was in a mental hospital thinking he had killed all those people when the deck collapsed, and Jack had Daddy issues as well as other issues. Jacob put it best when at the campfire he told them he brought them to the island because they were broke, and the island was a chance for them to be fixed. The idea of them becomming better by saving the island was the reason for being there.

Dharma was important because they were another in a long line of people or groups of people that Jacob had brought to the island to help protect it and possibly kill or at least deal with Samuel (MIB whose name was never revealed even thought the writers named him in the script). Dharma was stopped or eliminated in the purge with the help of Ben. Ben was driven by what he thought was Jacob but in reality was Samuel pretending to be Jacob. The statement "it only ends once" made during the conversation between Jacob and Samuel did not refer to the island as much as it did to the fact that each were looking for a way to kill the other. They were looking for around the "rule" their Mother had established that they could not kill each other.

The idea of the afterlife the writers presented is similar to the story's of the Wizard of Oz and the Chronicles of Narnia. Carlton and Damon revealed in a very early interview that those were their favorite stories and over the years of Lost many tried to relate the story to other works like Stephen King, Watership Downs and others, but in the end it came back to those original ones. The concept is that in this life and in the next lifes to come we progress to better places. Once we have raised or consiousness and our awareness and found happiness we acsend to the next level. The island was one level. Now these people who were so significant to one another at the most critical time on the island all meet up together at the church. Where is important, but as Christian told Jack when is not important because there is no when. From the church they were going together to another, better place by walking through the doors of the church into the light. The same concept is in Narnia in that each time they return it's a bigger better place. It has it's problems that they must overcome, but it's a better place in the end. The multi religious symbles in the church put the process above any one religion and say that the idea of moving on weather it is heaven or nirvana is a cross belief idea that the writers use.

In the end many other questions were merely plot devices to move the story and keep it interesting but the real idea was Desmond's catch phrase, "see ya in another life Brotha" qhich is exactly what happened.

Finally I find it very interesting that I have read that the ending of the shaow is something that was written back when Lost started. Supposedly from the scene where Jack touches the coffin on his Father at the church to the point where he shuts his eye in the bamboo forest was already written and was shown virtually unchanged Sunday night. They always said they knew the end and apparently they did.

 

[Jennasis]

This sums it up for me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-DShnvNNv0

 

[The Orchid]

The only thing I may have changed is to introduce the concept of the flash sideways much much earlier than a few months ago The audience could have begun to figure it out rather than christian shephard just flat out telling us (hey, this is whats going on) For example, as I was rewatching the Sawyer/Juliet scene for the 5000th time (I'm starting to believe the only reason I downloaded it was for that ) I was thinking how interesting it could have been to see their life off-island flash. For example, it would have been interesting to see a quick glimpse of Kate and Claire with Aaron as he aged through life...than the audience would have most likely figured it out which would have given a greater satisfaction than them just being like "soooo this is whats going on right now."

But after 48 hours has passed, I want from being really angry and disappointed at the finale, to accepting it, to liking it after re watching it. Reading the blogs and putting it together really helped. I think I'm going through the 5 stages of grief

I've been doing the same thing! I love, love, love that scene. I have been waiting impatiently for Juliet's return all season. Those two are fantastic together. I loved all the scenes where the characters remembered, but that was by far my favorite! I've seen that scene at least 50 times now I still get teary when I watch it. How pathetic is that?

 

[JenM]

I've been doing the same thing! I love, love, love that scene. I have been waiting impatiently for Juliet's return all season. Those two are fantastic together. I loved all the scenes where the characters remembered, but that was by far my favorite! I've seen that scene at least 50 times now I still get teary when I watch it. How pathetic is that?

Not at all! I watched the whole show again last night - started crying when Jin and Sun "remembered", and pretty much didn't stop for the rest of the episode. (now that's pathetic!)

As far as the Juliet/Sawyer reunion - remember the last thing she said to him at the beginning of the season before she died was "it worked." That's what she said to him at the candy machine in the last episode. She was already there with him in the sideways world as she was dying in his arms.