http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/exclusive-interview-lost-producers-damon-lindelof-and-carlton-cuse-talk-across-the-sea
Apparently we're not gonna get the answer/scene to who gets shot on the outrigger. They knew it was gonna be somebody we know, but just decided not to go there anymore. So much for a plan, hey. I'm pretty pissed about that, with all the gratuitous deaths, it couldn't have killed them to have a scene where Frank/Ilana died on that boat. It's not like they're pressed for time, the pace they've been walking back and forth around the Island for dumb reasons.

What. The. Hot. Place.

Seriously. "But you can't get everything done and keeping the narrative going in a straight line"? I could come up with a dozen opportunities to add in that scene in the episodes we've seen thus far. Seriously. What. The. Hot. Place.

Yeah, pretty cheap copout.

Tell you what, if you didn't think you could fit it in later, don't put it in in the first place!

I mean, that's not too much to ask, is it? I would've gladly had one less episode where they're standing around at the temple, or even at the campsite.

I would've even accepted a redshirt with Locke, Jack and Sayid's boat. And it's not like this is season 2-3 stuff they had to deal with.

It's just time to divest yourselves from the show. They can't or won't answer questions they themselves posed, in favour of "character". They say that they have the answer to who it was in the outrigger, but they don't need to show it as it doesn't fit into their scheme of the show.

This whole thing really is similar to a magician going through the Pledge and the Turn, and then saying that the Prestige is not necessary, cause everyone knows it'll work.

Or a novelist who's been paid for his next novel. He says he's finished, and so is asked to produce it. He taps his noggin and says "Don't worry, it's all up here."

Stop throwing good money after bad. Long cons? That's what we're caught up in now.

It's just time to de-invest yourselves from the show. They can't or won't answer questions they themselves posed, in favour of "character". They say that they have the answer to who it was in the outrigger, but they don't need to show it as it doesn't fit into their scheme of the show.

This whole thing really is similar to a magician going through the Pledge and the Turn, and then saying that the Prestige is not necessary, cause everyone knows it'll work.

Or a novelist who's been paid for his next novel. He says he's finished, and so is asked to produce it. He taps his noggin and says "Don't worry, it's all up here."

Stop throwing good money after bad. Long cons? That's what we're caught up in now.

Very, very true.

If it was S1-3 I would be mildly annoyed but ok with it. But it was just last season, and set up to be an obviously important moment... So I don't really get how they weren't able to fit it in.

At least after the show is done, tell us what the original idea was.

I just get annoyed at their interviews where they seem surprised that their fanbase wants answers to things like:

"specialness" of Walt and Aaron
The Egyptian artifacts around the Island
pregnancy issues

when many of these things were a recurrent theme for not only several episodes, but for entire seasons of the show...

meh :(

That sucks. The small contradictions from earlier seasons I can forgive, but to add stuff so late in the series and not bother to follow it up is just sloppy. Then TPTB say how it's unimportant to the story as a whole - why put in in then? They are in serious risk of harming any legacy LOST may have created if the answers (or lack of) continue in this vain.

The whole point of that scene was "OH MY GOD, they're in a future episode! I can't wait to see the other side of this!"

It's just incredibly incredibly sloppy that they're not going to bother. You could understand it if this last season was just so tightly paced and crammed with stuff that they couldn't fit it in, but come on. How many episodes were people sitting around at the Temple doing nothing. How many episodes have people been walking back and forth in the jungle doing nothing. How many characters have been tagging along with other characters for no reason?

I think the reason people, including me, are so pissed off about this outrigger thing is that is indicative of Damon and Carlton's approach to this entire final season. "Would we have to put the slightest bit of thought into an answer beyond someone saying "it's magic!!"? Well, nevermind then."

I've heard that the other end of the outrigger scene was scripted for either the Lighthouse or one of the episodes around it. Anyone know who was boating in those episode with Sawyer?

I've heard that the other end of the outrigger scene was scripted for either the Lighthouse or one of the episodes around it. Anyone know who was boating in those episode with Sawyer?

No one. Remember what Damon and Carlton always say; "We want the show to stand for itself."

I'm interested how they expect the show to stand for itself when they keep kicking its legs out from under it, but that's my problem obviously, not theirs.

Actually, I'm not too upset about this since I didn't think anyone was shot in that scene to begin with, and never thought it was too important. For me there's plenty of other things to gripe about.;)

Wouldn't fit with the narrative my butt. I could easily make it fit with the narrative:

In Dr. Linus, Ilana is walking back to the beach camp from her confrontation with Ben in the Jungle. She glimpses Locke getting in to an outrigger and taking off (he does this along with Sawyer, Jules, Miles, Faraday, Charlotte, but she doesn't know who half those people are anyways and she doesnt get a clear look at them).

Not thinking (as she's been shown to do), she runs after them, gets in her own outrigger and follows them. She doesn't realize that it's actually the real Locke timetraveling, and of course thinks it's the MIB and some of his recruited Others. So she starts shooting at them. Juliette then fires back, hitting Ilana and killing her. Then the Lefties flash out of time like they did in the Little Prince. End scene.

Maybe not the most perfect thing ever, but it fits with the almighty "narrative," manages to kill off Ilana which they wanted to do for some reason anyways, and as a bonus, we get to avoid that horribly contrived dynamite scene that made no sense.

It took me less than five minutes to come up with that, and I'm not the one who supposedly planned out the entire show. You're telling me that over the course of 2/3rds of season 5 and all of season 6, Darlton didn't have five freaking minutes to work that in?
They act as though answering that would of had to take up an entire episode. Not so. They could of easily only spent 10 minutes of an episode on it.

Even easier?
Just have the other outrigger be some of Widmore's nerd squad redshirts. They start shooting because Locke is on the outrigger, and Juliette shoots back and kills one of the redshirts. Not as prolific, but it lets them keep their dumbass dynamite bit if they want.

Frankly, it was never even presented as a mystery. It's just over-obsessed fans assuming everything that happens needs an explanation. Was it originally to be addressed in a future episode? Obviously, according to their comments. But watch the episode where it happens and note that they don't go through any great lengths to introduce it as a mystery.

They didn't promise an answer when they presented it, they just showed that there was another boat, so I'm okay with it.

Frankly, MagicActor, it HAS been shown to be a fairly popular mystery...In the show itself, as they chose specifically to obscure those in the pursuing canoe and could have written it off with one line of dialogue. It's been considered a mystery by the press. It's been considered a mystery by us...And proven to be a mystery by Moe and Curley too....as they see fit to comment on it in an interview, going so far as to say they had the answer planned but felt that the mystery that they themselves chose to add, was too difficult to pay off (presumably because they had alot of walking around doing nothing scenes planned). Gotta say, with all respect, I disagree with your point of view. And I have evidence to support my stance.

why is everything in this interview spoiler except this?

Another scene was Ben grabbing some kind of box from a vent in the hotel last season. Why show that scene.

Anyone? Has someone explained the theory behind calling an interview about this ep a spoiler. It deals, to my mind, solely with issues of an ep we've already seen. Anyone say anything about it?

i don't understand what everyone's deal with the outrigger chase is. if it doesn't show up, then it means its nobody important who died. why are all of you clamouring to see a redshirt get shot. seriously???:confused:

i could fully understand if it was someone major getting killed but its a freakin redshift. this is a perfect example of people complaining over every little thing. this mystery is not important to the show overall, its not important to ANY of the charecters of the show and its not important to the fans, except for those fans who either want a reason to complain or really wanted to see a re shirt die.

for all those who say, "oh my gosh, but we saw someone die, so we have to know who did bit the dust". all i have to say is, why does it matter if its a charecter we have never met before and has no real involvement in the show. are you really hard up for every single tiny thing to be solved? or is this just complain central. a red shirt people, a red shirt died and your all freakin out over not seeing him/her die.

Anyone? Has someone explained the theory behind calling an interview about this ep a spoiler. It deals, to my mind, solely with issues of an ep we've already seen. Anyone say anything about it?

I had posts deleted because of the no naming smoke monster big deal some people are making. How is an interview about past things a spoiler? How is that revealing something int he future that will never be shown?

i don't understand what everyone's deal with the outrigger chase is. if it doesn't show up, then it means its nobody important who died. why are all of you clamouring to see a redshirt get shot. seriously???:confused:

i could fully understand if it was someone major getting killed but its a freakin redshift. this is a perfect example of people complaining over every little thing. this mystery is not important to the show overall, its not important to ANY of the charecters of the show and its not important to the fans, except for those fans who either want a reason to complain or really wanted to see a re shirt die.

for all those who say, "oh my gosh, but we saw someone die, so we have to know who did bit the dust". all i have to say is, why does it matter if its a charecter we have never met before and has no real involvement in the show. are you really hard up for every single tiny thing to be solved? or is this just complain central. a red shirt people, a red shirt died and your all freakin out over not seeing him/her die.

I think you're trying a little too hard to not understand this, but whatever

People's deal with the outrigger scene being dropped into the growing pile of loose ends is that it sets a worrying precedent of laziness and disrespect for their audience from Damon and Carlton. Now there doesn't need to be a reason for any number of mysteries to be dropped. Mysteries that people have been wondering about for years and that D&C have promised to address (yes, they did promise to show the other side of that outrigger scene, listen to their podcast) are being shrugged off left and right in this final season of probably the most famous mystery show of our time. You can't understand people being annoyed with that?

The culture of theorizing, of "everything happens for a reason", of close scrutiny, of "this is all part of the plan" has been fostered by Damon and Carlton over the years, and now they're completely shrugging off any and all responsibility to that. I think people have every right to call "bullcrap". And it's not just here. There isn't a Lost site online that's sunshine and roses right now.

Frankly, MagicActor, it HAS been shown to be a fairly popular mystery...In the show itself, as they chose specifically to obscure those in the pursuing canoe and could have written it off with one line of dialogue. It's been considered a mystery by the press. It's been considered a mystery by us...And proven to be a mystery by Moe and Curley too....as they see fit to comment on it in an interview, going so far as to say they had the answer planned but felt that the mystery that they themselves chose to add, was too difficult to pay off (presumably because they had alot of walking around doing nothing scenes planned). Gotta say, with all respect, I disagree with your point of view. And I have evidence to support my stance.
No, you don't. In the SHOW ITSELF, the only thing that can be considered 100% pure canon, there was no mystery to it. Someone was shot. Want the answer to the mystery? Fine. The person shot was Johnny McNoName.

Other people making a big deal out of something does NOT make it a mystery. The press making a big deal of something does NOT make it a mystery. What makes it a mystery is the presentation within the show, itself, and this scene is not dwelled upon. Therefore, it's only a mystery to people who want it to be.

Are you a fan of Harry Potter? I hope so, because I'm about to use an example, here. Prior to the last book, fans had been clamoring to know what Harry's parents did for a living. The fans considered it a mystery. JK Rowling said that it would be important to the last book. In the last book, she changed her mind and didn't address it. But do you know why it wasn't a big deal? Because nowhere in the rest of the series was it addressed as an issue! Standalone, the question was merely one of interest rather than importance. Just like our outrigger friends.

I had posts deleted because of the no naming smoke monster big deal some people are making. How is an interview about past things a spoiler? How is that revealing something int he future that will never be shown?

There you go again spoiling in your questions about spoiling. OK, I understand that so many of you feel like your girlfriend just broke up with you, but some of us still want to watch the show spoiler free. MIB's name is a HUGE mystery. If they aren't going to name him (I have no idea one way or the other), then I will let TPTB make that decision and watch the rest seeing whether they reveal it or not.

Have they not revealed his name in the show yet? Only when it is done can you say whether they did that or not so it is a spoiler! So is saying what is brought up in this thread. Mods, there are a bunch of these threads and posts out there right now. Does that imply that they are not spoilers?

I don't want to know exactly what TPTB are going to answer and what they won't answer, as that leaves all possibilities open going forward and makes for the most exciting experience. If you all want to save yourselves from being disappointed by knowing exactly what answers you are going to get, go read the spoilers and save the rest of us.

It seems what is a spoiler has been thrown out the window and everybody is now using their own discretion on it. What happened to the strict spoiler rules? Did they get killed by the majority's dislike of the last episode? If it hasn't been shown on the show it is a spoiler.

PLEASE put it in the spoiler thread. (Mods, it seems like you are moving a lot of them, but you can still see them and as is the case with the Hurley spoiler, you can see everything you need to know in the header).

Come On!!!! (In Gob voice)

I think you're trying a little too hard to not understand this, but whatever

People's deal with the outrigger scene being dropped into the growing pile of loose ends is that it sets a worrying precedent of laziness and disrespect for their audience from Damon and Carlton. Now there doesn't need to be a reason for any number of mysteries to be dropped. Mysteries that people have been wondering about for years and that D&C have promised to address (yes, they did promise to show the other side of that outrigger scene, listen to their podcast) are being shrugged off left and right in this final season of probably the most famous mystery show of our time. You can't understand people being annoyed with that?

The culture of theorizing, of "everything happens for a reason", of close scrutiny, of "this is all part of the plan" has been fostered by Damon and Carlton over the years, and now they're completely shrugging off any and all responsibility to that. I think people have every right to call "bullcrap". And it's not just here. There isn't a Lost site online that's sunshine and roses right now.


what i can't understand is why a very tiny plot element has got people so annoyed. be annoyed about the food drops. be annoyed about jacob's cabin. be annoyed about the light from the cave. being annoyed about a major plot element not being answered is fine. being annoyed about a very tiny unimportant plotline is going overboard. the outrigger chase was so small and as shown now insigifigant, that its stupid people are this upset about it. on a list of unsolved mysteries this is almost at the bottom. this mystery is so unimportant because its a red shirt dying.

what i can't understand is why a very tiny plot element has got people so annoyed. be annoyed about the food drops. be annoyed about jacob's cabin. be annoyed about the light from the cave. being annoyed about a major plot element not being answered is fine. being annoyed about a very tiny unimportant plotline is going overboard. the outrigger chase was so small and as shown now insigifigant, that its stupid people are this upset about it. on a list of unsolved mysteries this is almost at the bottom. this mystery is so unimportant because its a red shirt dying.

no, it isn't a redshirt dying. it's nobody dying because the other side of that scene doesn't exist. it was going to be someone we know dying, the producers have said this, and it was presented as a mystery. the time-travelling Losties arrive at their beach-camp, find two outriggers with ajira bottles in them, take one and then are pursued by the other (being used by people who are intentionally obscured) and then are engaged in a gun battle before luckily time-skipping away. the producers have said they planned on showing the other side (they promised this in their podcast, as well as elsewhere) but simply decided not to.

i agree that it isn't the most pressing mystery left unanswered, but it is the first that the producers have come out so brazenly and admitted that they couldn't be bothered to work in. and it isn't even a mystery from years ago before they worked out their final plan, it's from last season.

no, it isn't a redshirt dying. it's nobody dying because the other side of that scene doesn't exist. it was going to be someone we know dying, the producers have said this, and it was presented as a mystery. the time-travelling Losties arrive at their beach-camp, find two outriggers with ajira bottles in them, take one and then are pursued by the other (being used by people who are intentionally obscured) and then are engaged in a gun battle before luckily time-skipping away. the producers have said they planned on showing the other side (they promised this in their podcast, as well as elsewhere) but simply decided not to.

i agree that it isn't the most pressing mystery left unanswered, but it is the first that the producers have come out so brazenly and admitted that they couldn't be bothered to work in. and it isn't even a mystery from years ago before they worked out their final plan, it's from last season.


as someone said above, its only a mystery because of fans not because the show made it a msytery. it's total on screen time dealing with the issue is less than a minute. fans blew this up and made this into a must have mystery. it was never such a thing in show. it was a simple scene in the show. fans made it more than it is.

as someone said above, its only a mystery because of fans not because the show made it a msytery. it's total on screen time dealing with the issue is less than a minute. fans blew this up and made this into a must have mystery. it was never such a thing in show. it was a simple scene in the show. fans made it more than it is.

Wow. While you're looking up pseudo-science, take a gander at 'mystery' too.

Showing a scene, setting it up with certain details and then withholding crucial elements of the resulting action is a mystery. It's pretty much the definition of a 'whodunnit'.

Don't be a troll, man.

Wow. While you're looking up pseudo-science, take a gander at 'mystery' too.

Showing a scene, setting it up with certain details and then withholding crucial elements of the resulting action is a mystery. It's pretty much the definition of a 'whodunnit'.

Don't be a troll, man.

It's as much of a mystery as the backstory of the man Locke killed that was third from the right. Stop turning non-mysteries into mysteries.

no, it isn't a redshirt dying. it's nobody dying because the other side of that scene doesn't exist. it was going to be someone we know dying, the producers have said this, and it was presented as a mystery. the time-travelling Losties arrive at their beach-camp, find two outriggers with ajira bottles in them, take one and then are pursued by the other (being used by people who are intentionally obscured) and then are engaged in a gun battle before luckily time-skipping away. the producers have said they planned on showing the other side (they promised this in their podcast, as well as elsewhere) but simply decided not to.


If you're referring to the 'hitfix" interview where they discuss the outrigger scene, neither Damon or Carlton say someone was shot, they do say "shot at" and "shooting at them" but never "who Juliet shot". What they said was they knew who were shooting at the Losties and they would have liked to have closed the time loop if they had the opportunity. Again, they didn't say someone was shot.

It's as much of a mystery as the backstory of the man Locke killed that was third from the right. Stop turning non-mysteries into mysteries.

Sigh. No. No it isn't.

The "third from the right" guy wasn't obscurred. And if he was, we weren't narratively placed in an unfamiliar time in a place where characters we know were likely to be.

If you're referring to the 'hitfix" interview where they discuss the outrigger scene, neither Damon or Carlton say someone was shot, they do say "shot at" and "shooting at them" but never "who Juliet shot". What they said was they knew who were shooting at the Losties and they would have liked to have closed the time loop if they had the opportunity. Again, they didn't say someone was shot.


better watch out, next he'll claim your wrong and he's leaving.:rolleyes:

If you're referring to the 'hitfix" interview where they discuss the outrigger scene, neither Damon or Carlton say someone was shot, they do say "shot at" and "shooting at them" but never "who Juliet shot". What they said was they knew who were shooting at the Losties and they would have liked to have closed the time loop if they had the opportunity. Again, they didn't say someone was shot.

You're right. That wasn't what I was arguing, but you're right.

better watch out, next he'll claim your wrong and he's leaving.:rolleyes:

Haha, what? I'm not claiming your wrong, buddy. You can keep it. I don't want your wrong.

The mystery for me on this scene was always, who are these people and what motivated them to start shooting at the Losties unprovoked?

Somebody unknown starts shooting at the main characters for an unknown reason... that's a mystery.

I also don't understand how the interview is spoiler. Everything in it is about THIS episode, or things past.

The show may stand by its actual edited footage, but witer-execs who do PR, say they will reveal something, and then say they aren't the least apologetic about not doing so, should expect a few lumps. A promise is still a promise; it shouldn't be necessary for them to pop into the middle of an epi and say "no worries" you will see this later from the time period they jumped to." Pretty sure no one would want that.

Creative team - fan interaction as been a large part of the LOST experience. It fed the show in a lot of ways. It's not meaningless. Personally I'm relieved that I never wasted my time on the podcasts, precisely because they seem to have been quite the long con.

The mystery for me on this scene was always, who are these people and what motivated them to start shooting at the Losties unprovoked?

Somebody unknown starts shooting at the main characters for an unknown reason... that's a mystery.

I also don't understand how the interview is spoiler. Everything in it is about THIS episode, or things past.


its a spoiler because its an answer to the outrigger chase. its saying it will for sure not be answered. telling us if a mystery that has yet to be solved is not going to be solved is a spoiler.
100%
You're right. That wasn't what I was arguing, but you're right.



Haha, what? I'm not claiming your wrong, buddy. You can keep it. I don't want your wrong.


:rolleyes: typical fan who complains non stop about the show yet when given factual evidence about how their wrong, they ignore said evidence.

its a spoiler because its an answer to the outrigger chase. its saying it will for sure not be answered. telling us if a mystery that has yet to be solved is not going to be solved is a spoiler.
100%



:rolleyes: typical fan who complains non stop about the show yet when given factual evidence about how their wrong, they ignore said evidence.

OK, seriously? You've been arguing that it's not a mystery, trolling me for saying otherwise, and now you're saying that it's a spoiler to talk about it because it's a mystery?

And I've been given evidence? Where? This is becoming hilarious...

MagicActor, as we see fit, in our discussion to exclude statments related to the moment by the creators of the moment themselves, I believe I'll draw an arbitrary line at including anecdotes from unrelated media.....

Kidding. It would be ridiculous to draw those kinds of distinctions...Please, let's continue.

Okay. Let's use this new device you've introduced to draw comparisons to the outrigger moment. I'll go to my beloved show, Starsky and Hutch. S&H are driving around in the Red Tohmatah, when suddenly they get into a car chase with a ND sedan behind them. Their case is about a husband who killed his wife over art, but they've got a group hanging out of an ND sedan, all shooting at them. Starsky is driving, and doing his usual bang up job. Losing seven hubcaps on sharpturns. Hutch is shooting calmly back at the pursuing sedan, and finally wings one of the people in the sedan. This development makes the sedan unexpectedly veer into a Dumpster(So far, all real Starsky and Hutch stuff)...Then, Starsky and Hutch put their guns away and continue on to their meeting with the husband, where they will sweat him for info....Eventually they will crack the husband, he got his female assistant to ice his wife while he took a vacay in Vegas. Case closed.

What is missing? Honestly. How long can one fool themselves? It's a dangling plot point. A plot point, it should be said, that got a LOT of leeway, as we are used to waiting around for answers. The argument, now, has become...."yeah. BUT...that was a while ago, so forget about it."

Hey! Let's go to some comparable examples!!! Dave knocks you over in December and steals your wallet. You note that it's Dave by a tattoo on his neck. It;s dark but the tattoo is clear.

The next may, you run into Dave. You say "Hey, I know you stole my wallet! I saw your tattoo! I I.D. ed you man!"

Dave says "Yeah, but that was last May. Why are you still trippin' brah?"

Is that a legitimate stance? I would have to say no.

Dramatically, to have non descript people chase a canoe for no reason and then not payoff is incorrect. Any film school student will tell you that. Heckle and Jeckle are trying to have it both ways. Credit for the mystery and absolution for the payoff. One who allows them to play this game is basically allowing them to throw out the rules of storytelling.

So, truthfully, I have to consider the argument you propose of little value in the discussion. I consider it of limited merit.

OK, seriously? You've been arguing that it's not a mystery, trolling me for saying otherwise, and now you're saying that it's a spoiler to talk about it because it's a mystery?

And I've been given evidence? Where? This is becoming hilarious...


you obviously have no idea what trolling means since you once again use the term incorrectly./

i never said it wasn't a mystery. i said it was one of the least important mysteries of the show. big difference.

its a spoiler because never once in the show did it say the mystery woudl not be solved. by telling somoene about the interview your telling them for sure what won't be in the last 2 episodes. thats a spoiler.
100%
MagicActor, as we see fit, in our discussion to exclude statments related to the moment by the creators of the moment themselves, I believe I'll draw an arbitrary line at including anecdotes from unrelated media.....

Kidding. It would be ridiculous to draw those kinds of distinctions...Please, let's continue.

Okay. Let's use this new device you've introduced to draw comparisons to the outrigger moment. I'll go to my beloved show, Starsky and Hutch. S&H are driving around in the Red Tohmatah, when suddenly they get into a car chase with a ND sedan behind them. Their case is about a husband who killed his wife over art, but they've got a group hanging out of an ND sedan, all shooting at them. Starsky is driving, and doing his usual bang up job. Losing seven hubcaps on sharpturns. Hutch is shooting calmly back at the pursuing sedan, and finally wings one of the people in the sedan. This development makes the sedan unexpectedly veer into a Dumpster(So far, all real Starsky and Hutch stuff)...Then, Starsky and Hutch put their guns away and continue on to their meeting with the husband, where they will sweat him for info....Eventually they will crack the husband, he got his female assistant to ice his wife while he took a vacay in Vegas. Case closed.

What is missing? Honestly. How long can one fool themselves? It's a dangling plot point. A plot point, it should be said, that got a LOT of leeway, as we are used to waiting around for answers. The argument, now, has become...."yeah. BUT...that was a while ago, so forget about it."

Hey! Let's go to some comparable examples!!! Dave knocks you over in December and steals your wallet. You note that it's Dave by a tattoo on his neck. It;s dark but the tattoo is clear.

The next may, you run into Dave. You say "Hey, I know you stole my wallet! I saw your tattoo! I I.D. ed you man!"

Dave says "Yeah, but that was last May. Why are you still trippin' brah?"

Is that a legitimate stance? I would have to say no.

Dramatically, to have non descript people chase a canoe for no reason and then not payoff is incorrect. Any film school student will tell you that. Heckle and Jeckle are trying to have it both ways. Credit for the mystery and absolution for the payoff. One who allows them to play this game is basically allowing
them to throw out the rules of storytelling.

So, truthfully, I have to consider the argument you propose of little value in the discussion. I consider it illinformed.


the rules of storytelling were thrown out the window the first time a story ended open ended. which was many years before lost.

Hello Havok...What was the point there in including my post? I'd like to comment, but need to be clear on your intent. I'm trying to define your idea of "storytelling" specifically.

The mystery for me on this scene was always, who are these people and what motivated them to start shooting at the Losties unprovoked?

Somebody unknown starts shooting at the main characters for an unknown reason... that's a mystery.

You took the words right out of my mouth!

As much as I might have had a beef with the whole time-travel hoopla, it did offer a chance for us to take a 4-dimensional "tour", get to see different time periods on the Island, and all of those time periods were integral to the story. The 50's, the 70's, the 2004 re-visit, even the ten seconds they spent in "statue still intact" time was important. (Well, I guess.)

So of course this time period which appeared to be at some point in the future, you'd think that would be important too. Especially when we're shown that there is danger in the future, well call me crazy but I'd kind of want to be watching out for that.

I guess it's safe enough to put two and two together and say that Widmore and co. are the aforementioned danger. I don't know.

I, too, was disappointed that we won't be seeing the other side of the confrontation. But after reading the explanation I was fine with it, I don't see why this is so divisive.

The facts are plain. They intended to show the other side. In the end they realized it didn't seem worthwhile to spend an entire episode building to that follow-through. That explanation made a whole lot of sense.

They've probably built a similar dynamic into the confrontations between the same people that would've been revealed in that scene through more organic means. I understand that these follow-throughs can seem quite satisfying at the moment, but there's simply too many of them to catch up on (and its particularly frustrating when its one so recent and so obviously intended for a follow-through), and in the end the overarching story is what's been deemed most important - its hard to argue with that.

Now I rarely agree with the nay-sayers and the people who hate this season but this is a glaring mistake. We have our time-skippers in 2007/2008, There are 2 outriggers at the beach camp, our folks take one, just a little bit later they are shot at by the folks in the other one. There are Ajira water bottles in the outriggers. We can only assume, now, that these are Widmore's folks or FLocke's people. This is not a "tiny" mystery. This is a big deal! Who was shooting at them in the "present" and why? This isn't a question of who was shot. This is a question of who was chasing them. This isn't a small mystery like backgammon or Hurley's bird or Adam & Eve. This is a big question that even the most casual fan would want an answer to.

geez, they were jumping through time, what are the odds they would end up exactly in the same time with our losties? it was just a moment created for some tension and dramatism, the outriggers could have been there for ages (and the shooting might have taken place in 2020 for all we know), it could've been anyone in that outrigger, why look for connections were there don't have to be any? i mean, i know it's lost, but not everything that happens has to be some strange coincidence. some complaints about sloppy writing are justified, but some of you seem to be searching stuff to complain about just for the sake of complaining (yes, i've been watching this forum closely for years, but never posted before)

geez, they were jumping through time, what are the odds they would end up exactly in the same time with our losties? it was just a moment created for some tension and dramatism, the outriggers could have been there for ages (and the shooting might have taken place in 2020 for all we know), it could've been anyone in that outrigger, why look for connections were there don't have to be any? i mean, i know it's lost, but not everything that happens has to be some strange coincidence. some complaints about sloppy writing are justified, but some of you seem to be searching stuff to complain about just for the sake of complaining (yes, i've been watching this forum closely for years, but never posted before)

Well then, why would outriggers at the beach camp be there with fresh looking Ajira water bottles if it was 2020? It doesn't matter what time it was, it matters who was in the other outrigger and why they were shooting at Sawyer, Juliet, et al.

My problem with this being left out now is not so much that it's a 'mystery' (though I have no problem calling it that), but more that it's an actual plot point. It's clear -- to me at least -- from the way the scene is set up that it's not just some random people in an outrigger shooting at them, in some undefined time in the future. The Ajira bottles are placed in those outriggers to clue the audience in that the people shooting at them came on Ajira 316. Now, we can retcon this all we want, and in the end the only way to make the timeline jive is to retcon it (very unsatisfactorily, imo). But that doesn't change the fact that the scene was dramatically set up for us to see the other side of the outrigger shoot out, and for someone we know to have been shot in that scene.

My gut feeling from the interview is that it was meant to be Juliet that got shot, but since they had Juliet snuff it during the Incident, I guess they couldn't be bothered to work out a different scenario.

The mystery for me on this scene was always, who are these people and what motivated them to start shooting at the Losties unprovoked?

Somebody unknown starts shooting at the main characters for an unknown reason... that's a mystery.

I also don't understand how the interview is spoiler. Everything in it is about THIS episode, or things past.


I am with you Beema. The big Mystery was why they were being attacked and by whom. I truly don't care if the person who Juliet shot was a named character or a red shirt, but show me who the attackers were so that it makes sense.

Lost has shown completed time loops before, Locke sending Ben to talk to himself is a good example. I also remember showing the scene where Jack and company first met Tom, then showing the scene from a different angle in season 3 when showing Michaels motives. This was when the show had some thought put into it though. If you are not going to show some completion, then for gosh sakes don't show the outrigger scene intitially.

My real problem with it is we keep getting the explaination of there is not enough time to expalin some of the mysteries we spent the past seasons intricately setting up, then why was there such a dire need to set an end date so soon? Why build up this amazing carefully crafted story only to go out with a whimper?

But I guess the bottom line is that it is not my story to tell it is theirs, and whatever happens in the last two episodes will not take away the enjoyment I had watching it all unfold, it just may not be as rewarding as I had hoped.

I sometimes feel like we are in The Pearl, when the show started we were told that it would be based on Science or Pseudo-Science(which is really a better description for Fringe, as LOST has become more mythology based) and that props were hand picked and all had a particular meaning to the overall story. This led to the internet sensation that LOST has become, with websites, message boards, podcasts, screen cap analysis and so on. At the end of the day none of that mattered as clues and mysteries were pushed aside as continuity errors or lost to time constraints, and here we are with our years of theories neatly piled in The Fuselage just like notebook filled tubes in jungle. Again, I love the show and even if our efforts to figure it all out were fruitless (really who saw mysterious light cave that creates a smoke monster coming) it was still a great ride and one of the greatest entertainment experiences I've encountered.

Well then, why would outriggers at the beach camp be there with fresh looking Ajira water bottles if it was 2020? It doesn't matter what time it was, it matters who was in the other outrigger and why they were shooting at Sawyer, Juliet, et al.

ok, so it wasn't exactly 2020, but it could've been a few years later, or at least a few months/weeks. the camped looked pretty decent the last time we saw it in 2007, yet when sawyer, locke, juliet etc arrived at it and took the outrigger, it looked almost destroyed. and what's to say the water was fresh, it could've been there for ages, you wouldn't know if it's fresh or not just by looking at it through a dirty bottle and without smelling and tasting it. so it's very possible that the shooting took place somewhere after the events we are seeing right now. of course it matters what time it was, we won't see it from the other side if the other side hasn't experienced it yet.

I am with you Beema. The big Mystery was why they were being attacked and by whom. I truly don't care if the person who Juliet shot was a named character or a red shirt, but show me who the attackers were so that it makes sense.I agree. This island isn't exactly teeming with people who would be on an outrigger along that beach at that particular point in time, shooting at strangers. How anyone could call the intentional concealment of their attackers' identity a non-intended mystery is beyond me. Something in the Kool-Aid?

Also, why wouldn't TPTB just tell us in the interview who it was supposed to be, particularly if it was so unimportant? They've written off abandoned plot points like that before ("The 'sheriff' who played a major role earlier in the season? Oh, she was just killed during the beach raid! Why would we ever bother mentioning her again?")...

please correct me if I'm wrong but....

sawyer saw claire giving birth to aaron and when they were on the outrigger he told Juliet , then she said "that was 2 months ago". So that would mean it couldnt be illana or flockes camp since those story lines were 3 years later. Am I wrong , maybe I missed a flash between the sawyer seeing the birth of aaron and everyone getting on the outrigger.

Man... I had something I thought would have been a "bittersweet" ending.

Sawyer (IN ONE OF THE MANY OUTRIGGER RIDES THIS SEASON).... sees the outrigger in front of him and knows he has the opportunity to stop Juliette from detonating jughead and starting the events that lead to her death and the deaths of many of the lostees at the hands of MIB.

So he tries to get to the boat... and which point juliette shoots (and kills) James.

Sawyer fans wouldn't like it too much... but if James needs to die... this would be an interesting way to do it.

Plus... maybe Juliette "knew" it had to happen because present James and past james couldn't meet up and occupy the same space and time.

please correct me if I'm wrong but....

sawyer saw claire giving birth to aaron and when they were on the outrigger he told Juliet , then she said "that was 2 months ago". So that would mean it couldnt be illana or flockes camp since those story lines were 3 years later. Am I wrong , maybe I missed a flash between the sawyer seeing the birth of aaron and everyone getting on the outrigger.

Well, Juliet meant it was 2 months ago in their lives, not from the point in time they had arrived at. She had no way of knowing when exactly they were.

I can't believe this isn't going to be wrapped up.

I agree with others, this could of been easily added in on many of the season 6 episodes.

The thing that's not being said is that if they we so confident that they had the story nailed down all this time, then that moment couldn't be left out. They say that they never took a false step. They asked for, and received, the end date they wanted, I don't believe they had the story worked out from the beginning, and I am okay with the lie, but they had the end date, and had to have decided what to do to make a complete story from there. So it has to be either that they continued without bothering to create an all encompassing plan, That they had a story that they screwed the pooch on budgeting time for, they just added the moment in for action and cynically never planned to pay it off, or that they were continually regearing the end, and it changed drastically in a comparatively short time. Any of those options has to lead one to conclude that they lie pretty much every time they comment on their show. They have gone so far as to tell a reporter that this moment and question they asked and created was the reporter's "obsession". Furthermore, they admit to putting it in, having an idea and then not being able to get to it, yet talk like that is completely acceptable as a narrative device. The only style that would work in is surrealism, right?

It's a mistake, a big mistake, and one they don't take ownership of. This is not an unusual trait in producers, but they've broken new ground in being multimedia lying ***, smug, self-congratulatory producers.

But there's nowhere left to go in this discussion, other than expressing your distaste for it. It is done. They won't answer it, and can't explain what they intended without muddying aleady muddy waters. to apply more thought to what it might have been is to actually expend more energy to it than Ike & Tina actually did.

i don't understand what everyone's deal with the outrigger chase is. if it doesn't show up, then it means its nobody important who died. why are all of you clamouring to see a redshirt get shot. seriously???:confused:

i could fully understand if it was someone major getting killed but its a freakin redshift.

If it had just been a boat full of red shirts, they would have shown them, not obscured them from view.



what i can't understand is why a very tiny plot element has got people so annoyed. be annoyed about the food drops. be annoyed about jacob's cabin. be annoyed about the light from the cave.

I have long ago resolved to give them a pass for not answering every mystery from season 1 through 3. They didn't know when they would be ending and the show was different back then. After season three, they knew exactly when they would end, so they could plan precisely what they wanted to happen. No pass, especially no pass for something that happened just last season. They set it up last season, they should have made time for it this season, unless as I think, they decided to make a big change in plans. And the person they shot would have been a fairly well loved lostie.

My problem with this being left out now is not so much that it's a 'mystery' (though I have no problem calling it that), but more that it's an actual plot point. It's clear -- to me at least -- from the way the scene is set up that it's not just some random people in an outrigger shooting at them, in some undefined time in the future. The Ajira bottles are placed in those outriggers to clue the audience in that the people shooting at them came on Ajira 316. Now, we can retcon this all we want, and in the end the only way to make the timeline jive is to retcon it (very unsatisfactorily, imo). But that doesn't change the fact that the scene was dramatically set up for us to see the other side of the outrigger shoot out, and for someone we know to have been shot in that scene.

My gut feeling from the interview is that it was meant to be Juliet that got shot, but since they had Juliet snuff it during the Incident, I guess they couldn't be bothered to work out a different scenario.

My gut feeling says it was Sawyer who was shot. Juliet looks back and shoots the man she would later grow to love. Both would then end up in the alt together. But something changed Darlton's plans for that.

My real problem with it is we keep getting the explaination of there is not enough time to expalin some of the mysteries we spent the past seasons intricately setting up, then why was there such a dire need to set an end date so soon? Why build up this amazing carefully crafted story only to go out with a whimper?...

But I guess the bottom line is that it is not my story to tell it is theirs, and whatever happens in the last two episodes will not take away the enjoyment I had watching it all unfold, it just may not be as rewarding as I had hoped.

I sometimes feel like we are in The Pearl,...

Since Ji Yeon I have felt the writers have been manipulating and experimenting with what they could get away with doing. Now it feels like they just don't care. Go buy the DVD; we'll explain it all there is what they say. But they won't. They just want to see how far they can string us along. Just call me John Locke/Jeremy Bentham and put me in the panopticon.

Man... I had something I thought would have been a "bittersweet" ending.

Sawyer (IN ONE OF THE MANY OUTRIGGER RIDES THIS SEASON).... sees the outrigger in front of him and knows he has the opportunity to stop Juliette from detonating jughead and starting the events that lead to her death and the deaths of many of the lostees at the hands of MIB.

So he tries to get to the boat... and which point juliette shoots (and kills) James.

Sawyer fans wouldn't like it too much... but if James needs to die... this would be an interesting way to do it.

Plus... maybe Juliette "knew" it had to happen because present James and past james couldn't meet up and occupy the same space and time.

I totally agree with this assessment.

So it has to be either that they continued without bothering to create an all encompassing plan, That they had a story that they screwed the pooch on budgeting time for, they just added the moment in for action and cynically never planned to pay it off, or that they were continually regearing the end, and it changed drastically in a comparatively short time. Any of those options has to lead one to conclude that they lie pretty much every time they comment on their show.

I also think they added it in for plot device. The Losties flashed through time and were at their abandoned beach camp, and they needed the Losties to get to the area where Danielle's camp was because the writers needed them to meet up with Jin. To do this they needed a boat, so they thought well, we can make an outrigger appear by placing them in the same time period as the Ajira people, and then we can also have a cool shoot out scene, between the Losties and a group of unknown people. And voila, another mystery is born!

They probably thought at the time they could explain away the outriggers being there by having Widmore's people on Ajira 316 make Sun/Lapidus got to their beach camp or by having Locke suggest that they go to their beach camp to find Jin, while Widmore's people follow them. However, by the time Dead is Dead was written they decided to go a different route. At the time, they might have thought, well we have a season and a half to explain that outrigger shoot out scene, so we'll come back to it later. Then, they ran out of time. Oops!

I've been very annoyed with the show for quite some time now, but I never thought the outrigger scene was an important mystery and I also never expected the writers to tell us who the people in the other boat were. There are at least 100 more important mysteries on the show that need to be addressed but for which we'll never get any answers to either.

Hamburg, as it happens, I agree with you. I consider the outrigger mystery indicative of their unwillingness to complete their own work. I would have been happy, on the day, if they inserted a line, even in ADR, that said something like "Those Other Others sure are unfriendly." by Sawyer. Done is done...But they left it unexplained. They strung it along. You can't take credit for an interesting mystery and then later say it was not important. I don't consider myself irrational about implausibility. I am okay, for instance, with Our Gang finding a medical hatch and never once bringing their Doctor to it, or even exploring it fully. But this was a question the producers themselves posed. What's done is done. But it's an obvious misstep and I ain't gonna wear it. Moe and Curly are.

I wanted to see this one too but I can live without it. Most of us are too old for action figures but apparently we can write whatever the hot place we're thinking so why not write our own outrigger conclusion? Mine woulda been done already if I'da just shut up an' wrote it.

Wouldn't fit with the narrative my butt. I could easily make it fit with the narrative:

In Dr. Linus, Ilana is walking back to the beach camp from her confrontation with Ben in the Jungle. She glimpses Locke getting in to an outrigger and taking off (he does this along with Sawyer, Jules, Miles, Faraday, Charlotte, but she doesn't know who half those people are anyways and she doesnt get a clear look at them).

Not thinking (as she's been shown to do), she runs after them, gets in her own outrigger and follows them. She doesn't realize that it's actually the real Locke timetraveling, and of course thinks it's the MIB and some of his recruited Others. So she starts shooting at them. Juliette then fires back, hitting Ilana and killing her. Then the Lefties flash out of time like they did in the Little Prince. End scene.

Maybe not the most perfect thing ever, but it fits with the almighty "narrative," manages to kill off Ilana which they wanted to do for some reason anyways, and as a bonus, we get to avoid that horribly contrived dynamite scene that made no sense.
....
Even easier?
Just have the other outrigger be some of Widmore's nerd squad redshirts. They start shooting because Locke is on the outrigger, and Juliette shoots back and kills one of the redshirts. Not as prolific, but it lets them keep their dumbass dynamite bit if they want.

An even easier way would be to address it off-camera. If you had Widmore's people, show up with someone shot. We were heading to the main Island and saw Locke and unknowns, and opened fire, they returned fire and here we are."

or

At the end of The Last Recruit have Widmore say, "Split them up, I want Ford and Reyes brought to the main Island, take Austin with you to keep Ford in line."

At the beginning of The Candidate they show up back to Hydra with James shot,
"Who shot you?", inquires Zoe.
"The woman I was gonna marry."

Another scene was Ben grabbing some kind of box from a vent in the hotel last season. Why show that scene.
I'm pretty sure that was the gun he shot Desmond with.

I wanted to see this one too but I can live without it. Most of us are too old for action figures but apparently we can write whatever the hot place we're thinking so why not write our own outrigger conclusion? Mine woulda been done already if I'da just shut up an' wrote it.
Yeah, that's the point I think.
Not specifically with the outrigger deal, I do agree leaving a purposefully set up mystery from one season before completely unanswered, is a bit of a cop out, or will be if indeed they don't service it at all.

But as for the grand scheme of things, this is what all the philosopher references were about.

The show itself is a metaphor for the big mysteries of life. They don't want to be didactic, and just say this is this is this. They want us to be able to continue the debate, analysis, discussion, etc. after the show is done.

I have mixed emotions about this and the last 2.5 hours (I ain't counting commercials) will surely mix them more, since there is only so much they can answer.

What is funny, is that TPTB have said the show will stand alone, and that there will be no need for a sequel or any other continued media.

Yet, the closer we get to the end, the more it seems to me that there is/will still be a wealth of material to pull from. The currently revealed cycles of pregnant women washing ashore, two camps on the Island, protectors and investigators going back for centuries, perhaps millennia . Not to mention the story of Dharma, what Jacob did for the years prior to Richard, etc.

A quick add on for those who still think the food drop is STILL a mystery; Faraday's rocket explained that. The rocket came in 20 some odd minutes late, the food drop came in on the wrong bearing and landed 20 some years later.

Check off one unsolved mystery.:33:

ok, seriously? You've been arguing that it's not a mystery, trolling me for saying otherwise, and now you're saying that it's a spoiler to talk about it because it's a mystery?
lmfao ahahahahah

This is Darlton we're talking about

We've forgotten about the time distortion

The supply drop was the MIB taking the form of inanimate objects to poison the losties with his exotic dark matter materials. This is why Hurley had visions of Dave.

I considered this a mystery simply because of what time travel is generally used for in fiction - it sets up a situation in which actions have unintended but important consequences on the story. In this case, it would be that our heroes killed someone in their future. It might have been an enemy; it would have had more story impact if it were a friend. But usually, in time travel stories, this kind of thing turns out to be important. Damon and Carlton are well versed enough in story-telling to realize that; the fact that they planned a resolution for the matter shows they meant for us to wonder in the first place.

We've had two or three different outrigger scenes to which the resolution of this scene could have been attached. I'd have rather watched the back end of the outrigger chase than Sun's aphasia for three episodes (though I have a feeling that is going to tie into Locke and MIB).

I think this scene is just indicative of, to me, how this show's "feel" has changed this season.

For 5 seasons, the show created mysteries, showed some connections, and kept us guessing. Yes, the show was held together by some good characters, but the intrigue of the island and the WAY the writing intertwined the characters with the mythology was fantastic. Yes, we want to know what happens to the characters. BUT, we also want to know what is going on with the island.

The question then becomes that if this was a character show, why introduce such a web of mysteries and connections that only get halfway and haphazardly answered? Just as important as the characters has been the intrigue of the show's mysteries, and how those were experienced or not experienced by the characters and the audience.

I think we, as an audience, are feeling disrespected because this season seems as if, all of a sudden, the authors realized they didn't have much time left to finish the story arc. Why not have agreed to go 7 seasons, then? This is especially true when you know that sometimes things happen unpredictably. The revelation in the NY Times interview with Darlton about how Eko was to be a much more integral part of the story, and Ben's character was made larger than it was intended both go to show that no matter how much control the writers have, they also have to acquiesce to the actors wishes and, in some ways, how the audience reacts to a particular plot point or character.

We all bought into this show because we knew that, even though each answer brought new questions, we were addicted to the mystery, the satisfaction of the mystery, and the new questions that they posited. Where are the revelations this season that are true to the spirit of the show? I mean, making a BRAND new character be "Eve" isn't in the spirit of the prior 5 seasons. In fact, maybe it is good they didn't answer the question of this thread. Maybe it would have meant introducing new characters to shoot at them.

Why was Dogen at Jack's son's recital? Isn't this something that, as watchers of the show, we just would "feel" would have a cool payoff later in the season--just like the outrigger. I think that the execs are making a big mistake if they think that we DON'T care as much about the hints of mystery as we do the characters.

Did we ever really get the sense that we KNOW what Locke saw as the eye of the island, and it was beautiful? Was it the light? Was it a manifestation of smokey? Was it something we haven't or will never see? THAT is a mystery that should be answered. It could have taken 1-3 scenes in 1 episode to answer the outrigger mystery. Honestly, it's way more of a pay off to see those connections later on that to just say, hey, it's not that important. Of COURSE it is important.

Of course, there are things that COULD or CAN go without answering that we would have been okay with. Like they don't need to tell me exactly what makes the smoke monster, or what the cellular makeup of the monster is, or whether it's representative of a dark soul, etc. I am okay with not knowing. But how/why could Ben call it up? Why does it reside in the temple? What is with the Egyptian stuff. Who was shooting at them? Why was Walt special? And on, and on, and on, and on...these things should have been tied up, or at least MENTIONED again so that if they didn't give us a definitive answer, we could at least realize that what was brilliantly laid out early on actually had SOMETHING to do with everything. We got an entire episode early on about how Walt had powers...then...NOTHING. What?

These guys better have a whopper lined up for the final 3.5 hours, or this brilliantly interesting, innovative, and literary-like show is going to go out with a confusing whimper at 11:30pm next Sunday.

Just my opinion, however. But answer the damn mysteries!

The supply drop was the MIB taking the form of inanimate objects to poison the losties with his exotic dark matter materials. This is why Hurley had visions of Dave.

Are they going to not explain that as well?

I read on another site that they answered this in some Lost experience thing that i never heard of. Apparently the information in that is cannon. So as far as I know there could be a lot of answers out there.
This is yet another thing that really bothers me. Either show it on the show, or it's not considered answered. Period.
If I wanted to write the show myself I would have. There is nothing they can do to save this now. Which is a huge shame.

I read on another site that they answered this in some Lost experience thing that i never heard of. Apparently the information in that is cannon. So as far as I know there could be a lot of answers out there.
This is yet another thing that really bothers me. Either show it on the show, or it's not considered answered. Period.

I had a problem with that as well. Apparantly the unpronouncable equation (Valenzetti?) was explained there. Even more ridiculous is the Darlton commentary on episodes. Makes you wonder what TV show they're watching.

I had a problem with that as well. Apparantly the unpronouncable equation (Valenzetti?) was explained there. Even more ridiculous is the Darlton commentary on episodes. Makes you wonder what TV show they're watching.

Sometimes they just suggest things, and I think a lot of you haters are just missing things because it wasn't spoon fed.

i.e: if you need to literally see a scene to consider something answered, you will think very few things were answered, but if you're willing to put two and two together and think about it for a while, many things have been revealed indirectly.

I'm not terribly upset about the outrigger thing. It's easy enough to think of a million scenarios of how that happened, not one being important to the resolution of the plot.

Sometimes they just suggest things, and I think a lot of you haters are just missing things because it wasn't spoon fed.
This tired cliche borders on trolling.
Is it that hard to understand that as stated above (and in numerous other places)
that there have been mysteries and semi-major plotlines that have been dropped or
that seem to contradict other plotlines and it disappoints many true Lost fans?
Is it necessary to answer the outrigger question with the self-important "I don't care about that and anyone not sharing my opinion is a hater and a dummy that can't figure things out!"?

As for the outrigger, I think the chase will be in the finale and the person who gets
shot is Mikhail. He's been swimming around for years and finally caught an outrigger
run astray.

This tired cliche borders on trolling.
So does endlessly complaining about the same things that you're just not going to accept. You obviously no longer like the show, nor their style of storytelling. When will you recover?

Is it that hard to understand that as stated above (and in numerous other places)
that there have been mysteries and semi-major plotlines that have been dropped or
that seem to contradict other plotlines and it disappoints many true Lost fans?
Is it necessary to answer the outrigger question with the self-important "I don't care about that and anyone not sharing my opinion is a hater and a dummy that can't figure things out!"?


Is it hard to understand that some fans are being unnaturally critical of this show, to such a degree that no piece of entertainment could possibly stand up to it?

Can you name one story that you like that answered everything? I'll wait while you name this Holy Grail. If not, I submit people defending the show against unreasonable criticism are not the trolls here.

Can you name one story that you like that answered everything? I'll wait while you name this Holy Grail. If not, I submit people defending the show against unreasonable criticism are not the trolls here.

I quite liked Watchmen. Both the comic and the movie. Didn't answer "everything", but all the main mysteries were sufficiently answered.

At this point, Lost reminds me of the relaunched Spider-Man titles under John Byrne and Howard Mackie about ten years ago. Particularly the "Mary Jane's stalker" plotline in Mackie's book. Ultimately the whole plot was just a device to get Mary Jane out of the book so Peter could be "single" again, and when fans didn't like that and demanded MJ back, Mackie wrapped up his run on the title with a resolution to the "stalker" character's identity that contradicted half the hints about him dropped earlier.

I quite liked Watchmen. Both the comic and the movie. Didn't answer "everything", but all the main mysteries were sufficiently answered.

At this point, Lost reminds me of the relaunched Spider-Man titles under John Byrne and Howard Mackie about ten years ago. Particularly the "Mary Jane's stalker" plotline in Mackie's book. Ultimately the whole plot was just a device to get Mary Jane out of the book so Peter could be "single" again, and when fans didn't like that and demanded MJ back, Mackie wrapped up his run on the title with a resolution to the "stalker" character's identity that contradicted half the hints about him dropped earlier.

That's the thing, though. You feel the 'main mysteries' were answered, but someone else, like the people who are upset with the last episode would probably disagree with you. They'd want *everything* resolved, and will seize on any inconsistency in the plot to support their claim that the entire endeavor was a waste of time.

I probably would have said that the clues don't lead to the solution and that all those dead ends prove that someone made a giant sharp turn away from what they intended, rather than actually sticking to the conclusion they had. In Mackie's case, he changed to try to appease the fans who paid the money and bought the book and was willing to take the short term lumps for the long term satisfaction of the fans.

Muppet, saying something is a answer, when not supported by the evidence that led to the answer is will cause a certain kind of fan to balk. For instance, if at the end of this show, the producers say that the Smoke Monster is actually Big Bird (muppet! get it!) It is technically an answer, just not a satisfying or believable answer, and definitely not supported by evidence. Would you be happy with that answer, my lightsabre wielding friend? It is, after all, an answer.

Muppet, saying something is a answer, when not supported by the evidence that led to the answer is will cause a certain kind of fan to balk. For instance, if at the end of this show, the producers say that the Smoke Monster is actually Big Bird (muppet! get it!) It is technically an answer, just not a satisfying or believable answer, and definitely not supported by evidence. Would you be happy with that answer, my lightsabre wielding friend? It is, after all, an answer.

I'm not even sure what to say about this. I expect a little more clarification on Smokey, but I think that was the main bit we just saw, and I'm content to accept him as a quasi mystical island being with a pseudo scientific/mystical origin story ala a comic book.

To need more is the same (to me) as asking *HOW* gamma rays made the Hulk.

Also, many of the things you're complaining about are things that you feel they dropped. The insistence that everything that happens be fully explained, and only things that can be fully explained are allowed to happen is unrealistic in a serial tv show.

But what about Big Bird, FuzzyAnakin? What do you think?

The Smoke comes out after a guy goes in...That's no answer that the show gave. Some are saying it's Brother's evil lifeforce, some are saying that he was transformed into the Protector. Some are saying it's not Brother, but a separate entity....Know why there are different theories? Because the question hasn't been answered. And we were given evidence to suggest that the Smoke monster predates the Brother Incident like two scenes before.

Suggested? Perhaps. Answered? Negatory SamTheDog

But what about Big Bird, FuzzyAnakin? What do you think?

And to think i was trying to take you seriously.

Don't fret, TieFighter. I wasn't trying to take you seriously either. I thought we were fooling around here. But, to be fair, I added more to that post, but you were on it too fast.

Don't fret, TieFighter. I wasn't trying to take you seriously either. I thought we were fooling around here. But, to be fair, I added more to that post, but you were on it too fast.

I'd be quick to make fun if I was only understanding half of my supposedly favorite show.

So does endlessly complaining about the same things that you're just not going to accept. You obviously no longer like the show, nor their style of storytelling. When will you recover?

Is it hard to understand that some fans are being unnaturally critical of this show, to such a degree that no piece of entertainment could possibly stand up to it?

Can you name one story that you like that answered everything? I'll wait while you name this Holy Grail. If not, I submit people defending the show against unreasonable criticism are not the trolls here.


I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "unnatuarally critical", however I think alot of the criticism stems from the feeling some fans have that they were misled. I am not referring to being misled in a classic curveball/twist fashion, but that we were given the impression that questions would be answered and mysteries would be solved(I believe that may even be verbatim from the promos). Fans were forgiving when the end date was announced and we were told some of the previous mysteries/questions would have to be let go(Walt, Numbers, Annie, Mikhail, blast door map etc), but why create new mysteries and questions that you would not answer? They told us things like the show would be based in Science or Pseudo-Science and that details were important, only to have a show based on mythology and the supernatural where details and continuity errors were thrown aside. Sure, this happens in many stories, The Dark Knight was so full of holes it could have been called The Swiss Knight, but I think that fans thought this show would be different, it appeared to be so carefully crafted, intricately built and worthy of the attention to detail fans were giving it. Now the end is nearing and the consesus seems to be get over it fanboys, and I think that has led to some frustration.

Now I love the show, and it has been a blast of an experience, but to say that we can not be critical of it is absurd, people have been critical of theatre, literature, movies and television since they were created, the producers of LOST are not dieties, they are not and should not be immune to that even by their biggest fans.

As for the example you look for, I don't know if I can give you that, but I did think of 12 Monkeys. I bring it up because I found the ending to be open ended as the LOST producers have stated the ending will be. In 12 Monkeys there are mysteries presented in the presentation given by Dr. Railly at the begining of the film. Throughout the film we see Cole time-travel and gives explaination to some of the mysteries she addressed, we are also given payoff to the haunting dreams Cole has throughout the movie as well as the origin of the army of the 12 Monkeys and so on. The final scene of the film we see Jones one of the people of power in the future, when asked what she does her answer is "insurance". Now this can be interpeted in at least two ways, is she insuring that the virus is stopped and the futire is changed? Or is she insuring the virus gets released and she will reamain in power in the future, although with a cure that will only increase her power? Even though I saw it is open ended, which other may have not, I still felt the movie had payoff, it is also intricately crafted and has new reveals with repeated viewings, which brings me to my last point.

In the earlier seaons of LOST I thought this will be the ultimate TV on DVD collection, when the entire story is told it wil be like a giant 100 hr+ movie with a with more to find on repeat viewings and knowing what to look for after seeing the finale play out. However now when I catch episodes in syndication I know how much of the plot is meaningless to the overall story and I find myself not even close to as intrigued as I was on original viewings, I'm not even sure if I will buy the DVDs now.

As I was writing this I thought of a movie that answered everything and gave me a better payoff than I could of imagined, The Usual Suspects.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "unnatuarally critical", however I think alot of the criticism stems from the feeling some fans have that they were misled. I am not referring to being misled in a classic curveball/twist fashion, but that we were given the impression that questions would be answered and mysteries would be solved(I believe that may even be verbatim from the promos). Fans were forgiving when the end date was announced and we were told some of the previous mysteries/questions would have to be let go(Walt, Numbers, Annie, Mikhail, blast door map etc), but why create new mysteries and questions that you would not answer? They told us things like the show would be based in Science or Pseudo-Science and that details were important, only to have a show based on mythology and the supernatural where details and continuity errors were thrown aside. Sure, this happens in many stories, The Dark Knight was so full of holes it could have been called The Swiss Knight, but I think that fans thought this show would be different, it appeared to be so carefully crafted, intricately built and worthy of the attention to detail fans were giving it. Now the end is nearing and the consesus seems to be get over it fanboys, and I think that has led to some frustration.

Now I love the show, and it has been a blast of an experience, but to say that we can not be critical of it is absurd, people have been critical of theatre, literature, movies and television since they were created, the producers of LOST are not dieties, they are not and should not be immune to that even by their biggest fans.

As for the example you look for, I don't know if I can give you that, but I did think of 12 Monkeys. I bring it up because I found the ending to be open ended as the LOST producers have stated the ending will be. In 12 Monkeys there are mysteries presented in the presentation given by Dr. Railly at the begining of the film. Throughout the film we see Cole time-travel and gives explaination to some of the mysteries she addressed, we are also given payoff to the haunting dreams Cole has throughout the movie as well as the origin of the army of the 12 Monkeys and so on. The final scene of the film we see Jones one of the people of power in the future, when asked what she does her answer is "insurance". Now this can be interpeted in at least two ways, is she insuring that the virus is stopped and the futire is changed? Or is she insuring the virus gets released and she will reamain in power in the future, although with a cure that will only increase her power? Even though I saw it is open ended, which other may have not, I still felt the movie had payoff, it is also intricately crafted and has new reveals with repeated viewings, which brings me to my last point.

In the earlier seaons of LOST I thought this will be the ultimate TV on DVD collection, when the entire story is told it wil be like a giant 100 hr+ movie with a with more to find on repeat viewings and knowing what to look for after seeing the finale play out. However now when I catch episodes in syndication I know how much of the plot is meaningless to the overall story and I find myself not even close to as intrigued as I was on original viewings, I'm not even sure if I will buy the DVDs now.

As I was writing this I thought of a movie that answered everything and gave me a better payoff than I could of imagined, The Usual Suspects.

Usual suspects was quite good.

I guess if these people were angry since season 3, I'd understand. But they're angry since last week, and now they're angry about things like Walt, and it's everyone at once. It's like some sort of email went around and it became cool to not like the show.

It's not that I don't see the plot holes, but they've been there for a long time, and it's a good show anyway. Why start picking them apart now at the very end? It's just too much, and there's a total bandwagon feel about it.

On top of that, many of the things people are complaining about not knowing have been dealt with already. There're various levels of perception at play here, and some of the people who think something wasn't answered simply missed it.

Well said, Forever Rex. I only understood half of it though.:ohwell:

The Usual Suspects was a well well crafted movie, I agree.

As for answers, I think it's less a case of people missing the answers, than it is a case of some viewers disliking that the answers don't add up, or are incomplete. A case of "Why Is The Sky Blue?" "Because God Is Everywhere." All great and Zen and everything, but not a real answer.

"What is the Black Smoke?"

"Brother fell, unconscious, into the Magic Glowing Cave." That answer is a non sequitur from where I'm standing.

I apologize, everyone, for leading the trail off topic of the completely unanswered, and never to be answered, Outrigger chase

"What is the Black Smoke?"

"Brother fell, unconscious, into the Magic Glowing Cave." That answer is a non sequitur from where I'm standing.


If you think that it was simply a 'glowing' cave and apply none of the information we've learned in the past five seasons, then you really are missing half the information, if not more.

I guess if these people were angry since season 3, I'd understand. But they're angry since last week, and now they're angry about things like Walt, and it's everyone at once. It's like some sort of email went around and it became cool to not like the show.

Didn't you get that email?

Seriously though, it doesn't matter when people got upset. I've personally been upset since mid season 5, but I don't see how that's relevant?

FuzzyBritches, I'd be happy to continue this discussion in a thread where it's on topic. Shall we adjourn to the All The Big Questions have been avoided thread?

No, you don't. In the SHOW ITSELF, the only thing that can be considered 100% pure canon, there was no mystery to it. Someone was shot. Want the answer to the mystery? Fine. The person shot was Johnny McNoName.

You're contradicting yourself. 100% no mystery and then "You want the answer to the mystery? Fine" clearly refers to it as a mystery.

In an episode in season 5 all of our main on island characters got into boat for a reason i can't remember and are suddenly getting shot at by people in another boat.
The identities of these people was purposely hidden from the audience. Therefore it automatically becomes a mystery. If it was "Jimmy McNoName then why bother hiding there faces.

I, personally, wasn't interested in the mystery because i thought a major character was shot. If it was a major character death they'd have had no choice but to include it but they're leaving it out so obviously there was no main character.
However, a random moment in season people are shooting at them for no reason on an island that is supposed to be (relatively) deserted with only relevant people on it. Ie) Others, survivors, dharma etc so i expect from what is supposed to be an intelligently written show there be some reason.

But i'm not bothered anymor because that mystery represents this season. A load of loud bangs for absolutely no reason but to try and arouse some excitement from the audience that they aren't already feeling from the sixth year of triangle crap, daddy issues and a load of "It's not time yet", "Because you have to", "Follow me" stuff followed by "It's magic". Sorry Darlton time's up people won't settle for pathetic non answers anymore.

No wonder they don't want to talk about the show after the finale. They won't have the no spoilers excuse to avoid questions when the shows has ended and they don't want to hold their hands up and say "We lied".

Sometimes they just suggest things, and I think a lot of you haters are just missing things because it wasn't spoon fed.

i.e: if you need to literally see a scene to consider something answered, you will think very few things were answered, but if you're willing to put two and two together and think about it for a while, many things have been revealed indirectly.

You are correct in some respects. I hate movies where the cop gets shot then he gets up and rips his shirt open, and then as if that wasn't enough he says "VEST". Yes we get it. Kevlar stops bullets.

But, returning to that same example, if the cop gets shot, falls down, then the show goes on without ever explaining his circumstances, or alluding to his survival or death, then that's poor writing. That has nothing to do with a desire to be spoon fed.

Back to the original point. The valenzetti equation was never explained IN SERIES. The explanation they gave, somewhere else, was that it predicted the end of the world. That is beyond absurdity. On the other hand, my comments about Darlton not having a clue, watch their commentary, it's unbelievable. Either the actors suck and can't portray the characters, or, more likely, the writing is so terrible that the actors the best with what they can
100%
Didn't you get that email?

Seriously though, it doesn't matter when people got upset. I've personally been upset since mid season 5, but I don't see how that's relevant?
The fabois put all their eggs in one basket, and after Across the Sea, their world came crumbling down

You are correct in some respects. I hate movies where the cop gets shot then he gets up and rips his shirt open, and then as if that wasn't enough he says "VEST". Yes we get it. Kevlar stops bullets.

But, returning to that same example, if the cop gets shot, falls down, then the show goes on without ever explaining his circumstances, or alluding to his survival or death, then that's poor writing. That has nothing to do with a desire to be spoon fed.

Back to the original point. The valenzetti equation was never explained IN SERIES. The explanation they gave, somewhere else, was that it predicted the end of the world. That is beyond absurdity. On the other hand, my comments about Darlton not having a clue, watch their commentary, it's unbelievable. Either the actors suck and can't portray the characters, or, more likely, the writing is so terrible that the actors the best with what they can

Look my point isn't that I wouldn't have liked to see the outrigger chase. i always liked the idea they were shooting at themselves, but we won't see it because of the timing issue. I thought about it and decided it wouldn't ruin the show for me.. It's that simple.

So, I accept this world of Lost with lots of crazy things happening, only some of which we get the full dl on. There will be many quasi magical things we just won't know, but it's going to be one of my favorite shows, regardless.

I believe, fundamentally, that what we need is a resolution of the story that ties a bow around our characters. I don't need a blow by blow of how the light (basically a small star) in the cave turned MIB into Smokey; I just accept it. I'm a little curious about if MIB got absorbed or if MIB is the original Smokey, but given the circumstantial evidence that Mother was also Smokey, I can put two and two together.

Above all, I will not judge the episode until the finale airs, because I'm a true fan of the show, and judging it before the inevitable twist at the end is just stupid.
100%

The fabois put all their eggs in one basket, and after Across the Sea, their world came crumbling down

No those of us who don't jump to conclusions aren't going to hate on a show when it's only got three hours left. If you made it this far, it seems downright silly to start hating on it now.

How did you get past season three, FFS?

There is obviously going to be a big final twist, and like someone else said, it would be like judging 6th sense before you learned the thing at the end.

But what if the twist, Statler, is that there is no twist? Hmmmm......

You can like a show and still hate it's direction. You can discuss what you think is wrong with a show and still be fan. You can complain when an ep didn't live up to it's promise and not be stupid....You can call yourself a muppet and not be silly. I think you're taking things far too personally, jedimuppet.

But what if the twist, Statler, is that there is no twist? Hmmmm......

You can like a show and still hate it's direction. You can discuss what you think is wrong with a show and still be fan. You can complain when an ep didn't live up to it's promise and not be stupid....You can call yourself a muppet and not be silly. I think you're taking things far too personally, jedimuppet.

Why don't you just wait and watch the damn show, and then you can mutter all you want. That way you don't have to predicate your arguments on 'what if it doesn't happen'.

I'm not taking things too personally, but I do think it's funny that the one who manages to work stupid nicknames into every post is the one who's concerned.

Frankly, I knew everything I needed to know about you when you were willing to judge the show without waiting til the end.

Okay. Fair enough. Now, do we want to go over to the other thread to discuss the Smokey issue?

By the way, others. Sam And Dave mentioned in their podcast that they were willing to take their lumps for leaving the answer out on the outrigger chase, that's pretty close to an apology. I guess we just have to decide it's disgruntled Dogenites.