[US/IRL] 6x15 - "Across The Sea" [** SPOILERS WITHIN **]

homerun_homer

5

dudeitshurley wrote: »

:P just checked out some tsunami videos from the horrendous disaster in 2004. God is it really over 6 years ago?!!! anyway.... the sheer and utter destruction is beyond comprehension. tragic. point to note though nearly everything wooden swept inland by it wound up smashed to a million pieces.

In short i have no problem with a tsunami destroying the statue but the Black Rock ending up in 1 piece?! i think a simpler answer is the writers thought "how bout this for a random cool idea, a boat in the middle of the jungle!! (and we'll think of something eventually to explain that!). They had their chance with the island moving in time/space, would been a very cool solution to the problem if the Black Rock was marooned after a previous turn of the Donkey Wheel! but nope, magic tsunami that doesnt wreck wooden ships :P :P

Maybe the island fixed it like it fixed Locke.

Macca3000

3

I've watched this episode four times now. I think I've just given up hope of being fully satisfied with how it's going to end. But after 6 years I'm going to stick with it to the end. Sure it's only 2 episodes. It can't get much worse.

Mr Freeze

1

Macca3000 wrote: »

I've watched this episode four times now. I think I've just given up hope of being fully satisfied with how it's going to end. But after 6 years I'm going to stick with it to the end. Sure it's only 2 episodes. It can't get much worse.

It can't get much worse.

Famous last words possibly.

hightower1

Sad Professor wrote: »

and the fact that the dynamite didn't expode.

They dynamite at that stage was new, it would only become volitile if left for extended periods in tropical heat in which time it "sweats" Nitro.

jimbling

7

Lads, seriously... can you imagine if all series got the attention that Lost gets. Even the Sopranoes and The Wire will have continuity errors....things that don't add up... situations that are unrealistic.... unlikely reactions from characters that wouldnt happen in the real world.... etc etc etc

I'm watching Oz at the moment. It's a great show, but if I analyse it like everyone does to Lost then there are problems galore.

I know where ye're coming from....Lost obviously has more problems than other shows.... And they are easily visible due to the amount of loose ends created over the years and due to the constant analysis of those loose ends. But it's the nature of the show, and I think we just have to accept that there is and will be issues.


As I've said hundreds of times. Lost is not The Wire. It's not trying to be The Wire. It was trying to be something completely different. Whenever you try to do something completely different you will have issues. But look at all the other shows that have tried, and failed, to do what Lost has achieved.

No matter what happens with Lost. Even if 100% of the Audience feel left down, the show will still stand on it's own merit. Not because of it's production value or lack of continuity errors. Not because of the skilled writing and story telling, but because of what it created outside the show. The mass Lostmania...... the theories... the lost experience.... etc etc ... Lostisagame...lol...ffs, what show could have managed to get someone to put all that effort into theorising about it?

And no matter what happens, I know I've enjoyed theorising and reading the theories of others. I've enjoyed the pub conversations about lost. It's all part of the epic that is Lost.

Eoin

2

I think the difference is that you're not really supposed to analyse the loose ends in Oz or The Wire. They're generally a method to let the story happen. For many fans, Lost's story itself is based on these loose ends; they're not so mutually exclusive that they can be written off as just a device to tell the story. The story is all the loose ends.

jimbling

7

eoin wrote: »

I think the difference is that you're not really supposed to analyse the loose ends in Oz or The Wire. They're generally a method to let the story happen. For many fans, Lost's story itself is based on these loose ends; they're not so mutually exclusive that they can be written off as just a device to tell the story. The story is all the loose ends.

I see your point, and in a lot of cases that is the situation.

But majority of things people are pointing out are completely meaningless. Like the fact that the Black Rock survived the wave but the Statue didn't. I mean the writers just came up with a method to tell the viewer how the Black Rock came to be in the middle of the island, and at the same time show them the destruction of the Statue (which they have been crying out for) and all people can do is give out about it.

I defend lost because there's not many of us going to the trouble of doing so. I know there are lots of issues, but my expectations were no where near what some people seem to have.

jimbling

7

Another one, which has it's own thread at the moment, is the outrigger shoot out.
I mean that was just part of the story. As in, they travelled in time and some people shot at them.... there is no requirement for us ever to know who did. Really it was just a method to get someone shot.

But with lost it became a huge deal that the writers didn't tell us who shot at them.

EDIT: Just to say, I think they should have written it in somehow, but I also didn't get upset or hold it against the writers that they didn't. It's just not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Mr Freeze

1

eoin wrote: »

I think the difference is that you're not really supposed to analyse the loose ends in Oz or The Wire. They're generally a method to let the story happen. For many fans, Lost's story itself is based on these loose ends; they're not so mutually exclusive that they can be written off as just a device to tell the story. The story is all the loose ends.

Couldn't agree more.

I am a fan of lost, and have watched it from the start, it's no secret that its gone down hill big time in the last 3 years in some peoples eyes mine included hence the drop off in viewers over the years.

Its getting amusing now how some fans will go to extraordinary lengths to justify the mistakes & sloppy writing when some one mentions it.

Its just a show, we all still like it, even if its gone a bit mental, and completely lost its way, and obvious they were making it up as they went along, but its still entertaining.

/Que lynch mob

RolandIRL

8

jimbling wrote: »

I see your point, and in a lot of cases that is the situation.

But majority of things people are pointing out are completely meaningless. Like the fact that the Black Rock survived the wave but the Statue didn't. I mean the writers just came up with a method to tell the viewer how the Black Rock came to be in the middle of the island, and at the same time show them the destruction of the Statue (which they have been crying out for) and all people can do is give out about it.

I defend lost because there's not many of us going to the trouble of doing so. I know there are lots of issues, but my expectations were no where near what some people seem to have.

in the same boat as you, jimbling. some people think that one episode ruins the whole series (as you said in your other thread). okay, maybe Across The Sea could have been placed in a different order in the season, but that still doesn't take away from the epicness that is Lost.
Across The Sea was a great episode imo. it gave a good insight into MIB and Jacob. people who expect a lot are easily disappointed. just shows how good the writers are, that when one little mistake is made, almost everyone is bitching about it.

prinz

eoin wrote: »

I think the difference is that you're not really supposed to analyse the loose ends in Oz or The Wire. They're generally a method to let the story happen. For many fans, Lost's story itself is based on these loose ends; they're not so mutually exclusive that they can be written off as just a device to tell the story. The story is all the loose ends.

+1. Seemed to me like Lost was a bit of a jigsaw that they were putting together piece by piece, episode by episode. Each question it raised represented another piece that they would come back to and put in place.

I don't care so much about practicalities like the ship and the statue. That's irrelevant to the story line but I woud like that if they put incidents involving characters into it they would at least clear those up, refer to them in some manner such as the outrigger deal. That's just poor form from the writers.

jimbling

7

CKWPORT wrote: »

Couldn't agree more.

I am a fan of lost, and have watched it from the start, it's no secret that its gone down hill big time in the last 3 years in some peoples eyes mine included hence the drop off in viewers over the years.

Its getting amusing now how some fans will go to extraordinary lengths to justify the mistakes & sloppy writing when some one mentions it.

Its just a show, we all still like it, even if its gone a bit mental, and completely lost its way, and obvious they were making it up as they went along, but its still entertaining.

1) I don't go to extraordinary lengths to justify mistakes and sloppy writing. I'm just saying that they were always there and I never expected to suddenly get a nice coherent message from the writers.

2) Well, you're not the guy I'm talking about then. I'm mainly talking about the people that cant see past a few small errors or left loose ends to still enjoy the show in any way.

As I've said before, I am very annoyed with some aspects of the show. The Walt thing annoys me more than anything else I can think of. The numbers have been pretty unsatisfactorily answered so far as well.

But the fact I don't know who shot at the outrigger, or why Richard let Ben lie about meeting Jacob or any of the other 100 meaningless questions doesn't bother me in the least. (although I would like the writers to go to the trouble of maybe answering some questions post show).

hightower1

jimbling wrote: »

Lads, seriously... can you imagine if all series got the attention that Lost gets. Even the Sopranoes and The Wire will have continuity errors....things that don't add up... situations that are unrealistic.... unlikely reactions from characters that wouldnt happen in the real world.... etc etc etc.

See the issue is Lost was created with the intent of it being a jigsaw puzzle style show where you will see things in one ep that wont make immediate sense but if you continue to watch later they will all fall into place... means the show gets a continious fan base and fans are rewarded with that time invested with answers to questions..... problems fans have with sloppy writing, errors or plain and simple cop outs are as follows....


sloppy writing - question (a) is posed, you watch and learn from the past way questions are answered you best guess til the time its answered, its ahlf the fun of lost but when a question is sloppiy tied up with a crap answer its a slap in the face in the time invested from the point the question was posed to the point where it was answered... case in point adam and eve, question posed in serise 1 and answered in the final serise in a very sloppy answer - slap in the face.


errors - As I said lost is a jig saw puzzle, how you you feel attempting a massive puzzle for 6 years to find half the pieces are missing? Have you ever bought flat pack from Argos, spent an entire afternoon building it to find its missing parts.... very fustrating indeed.


simple cop outs - Cop outs are similar to sloppy writing but differ in the sense that there was NO attempt made to resolve or explain in any way e.g "the light cave" is apparently the source of the islands power? We always knew it would be "mysterious" but saying its a "light cave" doesnt give any answer at all. Look at the words ... "Mysterious" = dont know what it is in relation to origin and use of power..... "light cave" = dont know what it is in relation to origin and use of power. They simply attached a name to what we already knew and expected this to be an answer.... cop out.

jimbling

7

hightower1 wrote: »

See the issue is Lost was created with the intent of it being a jigsaw puzzle style show where you will see things in one ep that wont make immediate sense but if you continue to watch later they will all fall into place... means the show gets a continious fan base and fans are rewarded with that time invested with answers to questions..... problems fans have with sloppy writing, errors or plain and simple cop outs are as follows....


sloppy writing - question (a) is posed, you watch and learn from the past way questions are answered you best guess til the time its answered, its ahlf the fun of lost but when a question is sloppiy tied up with a crap answer its a slap in the face in the time invested from the point the question was posed to the point where it was answered... case in point adam and eve, question posed in serise 1 and answered in the final serise in a very sloppy answer - slap in the face.


errors - As I said lost is a jig saw puzzle, how you you feel attempting a massive puzzle for 6 years to find half the pieces are missing? Have you ever bought flat pack from Argos, spent an entire afternoon building it to find its missing parts.... very fustrating indeed.


simple cop outs - Cop outs are similar to sloppy writing but differ in the sense that there was NO attempt made to resolve or explain in any way e.g "the light cave" is apparently the source of the islands power? We always knew it would be "mysterious" but saying its a "light cave" doesnt give any answer at all. Look at the words ... "Mysterious" = dont know what it is in relation to origin and use of power..... "light cave" = dont know what it is in relation to origin and use of power. They simply attached a name to what we already knew and expected this to be an answer.... cop out.

Yes, Lost is a jigsaw. But People seem to only remember the bits of the jigsaw that dont get filled in. Honestly there has been thousands of questions brought up and answered within lost. THOUSANDS. But people freak out at the ones that dont get answered.

Even with the core mysteries. I've seen people point to that page to show us all the mysteries that are unsanswered. But every time I look at it I am impressed by the amount of them that have been answered. Okay, lots of them also only have partial answers... some of which were probably cop outs or require assumptions to be made by the viewer. But that has to be expected in a show like this.

You cant have a magical island and have answers that make any real sense. Magical light (I think we might find out a little more on this though) is better than God did it. Basically you are expected to accept that the Island has power.

hightower1

jimbling wrote: »

Yes, Lost is a jigsaw. But People seem to only remember the bits of the jigsaw that dont get filled in. Honestly there has been thousands of questions brought up and answered within lost. THOUSANDS. But people freak out at the ones that dont get answered..

I know its a poor metaphore but if you bought a flat pack book case, spent a long time piecing it together to only find some pieces were missing, when you went to argos to complain and their response is "yeah there are some missing ... but you have lots more that ARE there!" ????

wtf, you expect ALL the bloody pieces to be there if thats what you invested in and thats what was advertised as being a complete piece.

jimbling

7

hightower1 wrote: »

I know its a poor metaphore but if you bought a flat pack book case, spent a long time piecing it together to only find some pieces were missing, when you went to argos to complain and their response is "yeah there are some missing ... but you have lots more that ARE there!" ????

wtf, you expect ALL the bloody pieces to be there if thats what you invested in and thats what was advertised as being a complete piece.

lol, that's funny.... but it is a poor metaphor


I'll run with it though....... wait for it


It's actually a very intricate arty flat pack with fancy bits sticking up and out all over the place. It comes with thousands of pieces... some large, many small.
Now lets say you're putting it together and as you go you notice that you can't find a piece here or there. You carry on regardless, hoping that they will turn up as you get through the thousands of them.

You finish the job, sit back and take a look. Damn, that's awesome..... look at all these nice intricate bits fitting together....man, I didn't even think that one could possibly work out. :cool:

hmmmm, now, looking at it closely, you notice the small little bits missing all right. It's a beautiful piece of furniture, but it could definitely look nicer if everything was in it's proper place.

Off you go to the store to give out like fck and demand your missing pieces.

Unfortunately the store man tells you that that was the last one of it's kind. They dont have any in stock and it's now out of production. They do offer you a refund though..... What do you do? You still really love the piece, looks fantastic in your living room..... you don't want to dismantle this work of art and bring it back for the sake of a few bits that don't take away too much from the overall piece.




You really should have stuck with the Jigsaw metaphor

Mr Freeze

1

jimbling wrote: »

1) I don't go to extraordinary lengths to justify mistakes and sloppy writing. I'm just saying that they were always there and I never expected to suddenly get a nice coherent message from the writers.

2) Well, you're not the guy I'm talking about then. I'm mainly talking about the people that cant see past a few small errors or left loose ends to still enjoy the show in any way.

As I've said before, I am very annoyed with some aspects of the show. The Walt thing annoys me more than anything else I can think of. The numbers have been pretty unsatisfactorily answered so far as well.

But the fact I don't know who shot at the outrigger, or why Richard let Ben lie about meeting Jacob or any of the other 100 meaningless questions doesn't bother me in the least. (although I would like the writers to go to the trouble of maybe answering some questions post show).

Jimbling, i didn't single out anybody, certainly not you. Mine was a general comment.

I don't care about any of the loose end at this stage, they are not going to get answered...

I just hope the show ends on a high.

Mr.Nice Guy

1

jimbling wrote: »

Yes, Lost is a jigsaw. But People seem to only remember the bits of the jigsaw that dont get filled in.

I don't know anybody that would be satisfied with a jigsaw that didn't have the pieces to fill in.

jimbling wrote:

lol, that's funny.... but it is a poor metaphor :P

There was nothing wrong with his metaphor. When you watch a show, or read a book, you are entitled to expect that questions raised in the story will have some sort of logical conclusion. We have a situation in this show where the writers were clearly making it up as they went along and were unable to sort out the mess they made. They tied themselves up in knots.

Your metaphor was the one that was poor...

jimbling wrote:

It's actually a very intricate arty flat pack with fancy bits sticking up and out all over the place. It comes with thousands of pieces... some large, many small.
Now lets say you're putting it together and as you go you notice that you can't find a piece here or there. You carry on regardless, hoping that they will turn up as you get through the thousands of them.

So it's a very intricate arty flat pack and yet you can't find pieces for it. Well that would set off alarm bells for most people surely.

jimbling wrote:

You finish the job, sit back and take a look. Damn, that's awesome..... look at all these nice intricate bits fitting together....man, I didn't even think that one could possibly work out. :cool:

The intricate bits fit together?! I think not. You just said there were some missing. The very problem is that the bits are not fitting together. :pac:

To take things further, imagine returning to the makers the item in question, which is missing the necessary pieces, and being told by them that they weren't concerned with making everything fit. Would you shop with such a firm in future? I wouldn't!

I don't know why you are making excuses for lazy, sloppy writing. Call a spade a spade.

Psychedelic

9

Sea Sharp

4

This thread makes me want to buy a jigsaw

Sad Professor

8

Thank god the new episode is almost here because this thread really needs to be put out of its misery. I mean it has now turned into a metaphoric debate about what a proper jigsaw or flatpack should be like. :pac:

It would only happen over Lost.

All the same, I'm going to miss these threads.

jimbling

7

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I don't know anybody that would be satisfied with a jigsaw that didn't have the pieces to fill in.

That's why I said he should have stuck with the metaphor of a Jigsaw, not sure why he changed to a Flat Pack

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Your metaphor was the one that was poor...

Bah... I was using a version of his and twisted it to suit my side of the debate and lost...still his metaphor. And I was pretty much joking anyway....

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

We have a situation in this show where the writers were clearly making it up as they went along and were unable to sort out the mess they made. They tied themselves up in knots.

I would say at least 90% of writers make it up as they go along.
Yes, they did. Stephan King did that in pretty much every single book he wrote. Lost writers are MASSIVE stephan king fans and lost has been related and based on his ideas since the very start. It's not a surprise that this has happened

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I don't know why you are making excuses for lazy, sloppy writing. Call a spade a spade.

For the last time. I am not making excuses. I am giving reasons for it and saying that it was completely expected.
I have said all along that lost writers are inventive, but pretty sloppy.

jimbling

7

Also Mr. Nice Guy.... I also love the way you take apart my fun and purposefully ridiculous metaphor and analyse every bit but ignore the ONLY bit that was important and the actual point of the post. :rolleyes:

RolandIRL

8

jimbling wrote: »

Stephan King did that in pretty much every single book he wrote. Lost writers are MASSIVE stephan king fans and lost has been related and based on his ideas since the very start. It's not a surprise that this has happened

completely agree that Lost is very stephen king-esque. if you've read his books especially the Dark Tower, you'd know that having a parallel universe is soo stephen king. Time travel - stephen king. so many other elements of SK as well. JJ Abrahms is a big fan. his other series Fringe is also king-esque.

someone above mentioned that it's all about the journey. i don't care if Lost ends badly (hope it doesn't though ), because while i didn't like the way Dark Tower ended (some people loved it though), it still didn't take away from the epicness of the series. the same with Lost.
It's all about the journey. who cares about the destination




I don't know if you can tell, but i'm a huge Stephen King fan

jimbling

7

Sad Professor wrote: »

Thank god the new episode is almost here because this thread really needs to be put out of its misery. I mean it has now turned into a metaphoric debate about what a proper jigsaw or flatpack should be like. :pac:

It would only happen over Lost.

All the same, I'm going to miss these threads.

lol, I know. But that's one of my points. These threads have been amazing. It's all part of the epic that is Lost. Very few shows have managed to get an online response like lost. No matter how disappointing the ending, or even the entire last series, has been to someone, it will still have been an impressive show overall.

dudeitshurley

jimbling wrote: »

I would say at least 90% of writers make it up as they go along.
Yes, they did. Stephan King did that in pretty much every single book he wrote. Lost writers are MASSIVE stephan king fans and lost has been related and based on his ideas since the very start. It's not a surprise that this has happened

2 points on this:

1. In a serialised tv show, of course there has to be scope to make it up as you go-along. To improvise, to change, to adapt. Actors, writers, directors are all human - they can get sick, die, get arrested, walk out on the show etc. The character of Ben was written as a 3-episode arc originally, Nikki & Paulo were killed off purely due to negative fan reaction to them. The ability to adapt and change the course of the show has never been in question.

Where this falls down for me specifically is May 7th, 2007. Whatever about previously, When the writers secured an end-date for the show that HAD TO BE a watershed moment where they said:

'ok we have a point A right now that's the Losties, The Island, The Others, Dharma, Ben/Widmore etc, we now NEED to have a specific point B to get to, and we need to have a firm idea of how to get there'.

Even in saying that it allows massive scope for changes, introducing different concepts and storyline but all the time in which they know when the show is ending and they needed to know what that end would be. If the end, as looks like now, is prevalently a Jacob v MIB age old conflict over protecting the Island, where does Time Travel, Dharma, etc fit into this context? I don't think it does.

2. Lastly, Darlton may have been making it up as they go along, but they certainly never gave that impression. I've read most of their interviews and there appears to be a consistent overtone of 'we know what the ending to be and are happy with how we are getting there'. They have creative freedom to choose a certain way of getting to the ending they envisage , obviously, but for me as soon as the End Date was announced it loses all credibility to say they were STILL making it up as they go along. with no coherent structure. Frankly s4/s5/s6 don't make any coherent sense taken as a whole.

Mr.Nice Guy

1

jimbling wrote: »

I would say at least 90% of writers make it up as they go along.
Yes, they did. Stephan King did that in pretty much every single book he wrote. Lost writers are MASSIVE stephan king fans and lost has been related and based on his ideas since the very start. It's not a surprise that this has happened

I'm aware of that. I actually made that very point in April during the thread which asked whether Season 6 was a letdown:

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

I hope I change my mind on this but I get the feeling the writers were making the story up as they went along (something Stephen King advocates in his On Writing book and he's a guy they are a fan of) and that they just made it into something so grandiose and epic that they ultimately couldn't make sense of the tale they had weaved.

From what I recall of the book On Writing however, I'm pretty sure Stephen King doesn't think it's acceptable to leave huge holes in the plot.

jimbling wrote:

For the last time. I am not making excuses. I am giving reasons for it and saying that it was completely expected.
I have said all along that lost writers are inventive, but pretty sloppy.

With respect you are making excuses for it as your analogies are saying that the points people are complaining about are minor - they aren't! The explanations given have been (in my opinion ) rushed and unsatisfying, and there are events that have not had a resolution.

A show like FF, which has just been cancelled, has an excuse for not tying up some mysteries. Lost has known its end date for a long time and has not managed to tie up the mysteries. I think many fans expected that there would be sensible resolutions to the mysteries provided, and when there haven't been many if any (thus far of course), I think fans are justified in feeling let down. It seems to me Lost fans at the minute are in 3 camps:

1) Those whose faith in the writers will never waver and who feel compelled to defend the show.

2) Those whose faith has been shaken. They respect the work of the writers but are worried the show is in danger of falling apart at the end.

3) Those who have lost all faith.

I would say I'm in the second camp at present. I did give the episode before last week a 9 before Across The Sea came along.

Ultimately I just hope the next episode is a return to form. What I think has been exposed though by the recent episode and interviews, and I think even those in the first camp would accept this, is that they have written themselves into corners in several areas and that the ending is not going to be as polished as we all hoped it was going to be.

RolandIRL

8

i'm CAMP 1

stephen king's getting a good mention in this thread.
king mentioned in one of the forewords in dark tower that he had a general outline for the series, but lost it and had to think about the story again.
maybe the Lost writers love SK so much, they did the same explains EVERYTHING :P

tok9

8

Maybe this discussion should be taken to another thread. There has been very little mention of the episode itself in the last few pages

jimbling

7

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

With respect you are making excuses for it as your analogies are saying that the points people are complaining about are minor - they aren't! The explanations given have been (in my opinion ) rushed and unsatisfying, and there are events that have not had a resolution.

I was making two points really.
1) Majority of the "answers" people are giving out about not getting are indeed minor and really unimportant to the overall arc of the story.

I do however have problems with the major mysteries not getting more time and satisfactory answers, like Walt and The Numbers.

And I have said numerous times that I have been let down bys some of the rushed answers etc.

2) Even though some things are being ignored and there is some sloppy writing, it is no more than I expected and I am still managing to enjoy the show. This is my main point. The show is still enjoyable..... IMO.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

It seems to me Lost fans at the minute are in 3 camps:

1) Those whose faith in the writers will never waver and who feel compelled to defend the show.

2) Those whose faith has been shaken. They respect the work of the writers but are worried the show is in danger of falling apart at the end.

3) Those who have lost all faith.

I think I'm probably in camp two as well to be honest, but as I said, I still managed to enjoy majority of episodes this season. I hope the show doesnt fall apart in the finale (we'll soon find out), but so far I've been disappointed by some aspects, but not surprised by that or willing to discount the entire show due to those disappointments.