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My problem isn't with how they tied up the show, but everything leading up to that ending. I LOVED the finale. It was beautiful, emotional, and caught all the themes of the show in a great way. I absolutely HATED the 6th season though. I feel that the 6th Season was a production sleight-of-hand where the producers basically threw in a new plot that asked a bunch of new questions and then answered THOSE questions in a detailed manner all the while hoping to distract the viewers from the inconsistency of the show. Did they answer what the Smoke Monster was? Yes. But does that answer make sense with the creature's motivations early in the show? Not really. This is a problem for me, because when I discuss this show with other people we always get bogged down arguing about the stupid stuff from Season 6, and almost feel like I need to ignore that season to talk about the themes of the show. Allow me to give an example: The theme of faith vs. science was supposed to carry over the entire series with every mystery having an answer that lies on both sides. The Smoke Monster was originally "The Cerberus System" (made by Dharma), but it was also related to Anubis and might also be older than Dharma. It could be stopped by a sonic fence (science), and by ash (magic). Whether the monster was an out control Dharma security system, or an ancient guardian of the island would be left to our own interpretations. The Others were either mystical people connected to the island, or the remainder of Dharma. We were originally never going to be given answer to that. The Swan Hatch had Egyptian writing on the countdown...but "The Temple" was also a Dharma site. Two groups seemed really closely intertwined in the original concepts. Richard is a time traveler who used the island's nature to skip through time. Or Richard is immortal due to some weird magic of the island. We didn't need this explained, because it could be either. The whispers were a way for the Others to watch the survivors, or a result of Dharma running experiments with fields on the island. (sidebar: The whispers were originally the Others. They were only changed into the shite explanation we received when S6 was written). The "secret" of the island was a source of exotic energy, or it was a secret magical light. Thankfully they actually kept this vague. My problem was that they went and explained some of these things waaaaaaaaay to far onto one side (almost entirely magic) while spending no time at all on several old parts of the mythos. It was just really unbalanced.
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May 26, 2010 20:01
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My point is that I realize that they answered some of the questions, but a lot of those answers lacked the elegance and complexity of the early parts of the show.
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May 26, 2010 20:03
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Teek posted:Guys, I think we need to operate in this thread as if the writers knew what they were doing the whole time. Meaning in this thread we're trying to come up with answers within the context of the show, even if X wasn't originally written with later question Y in mind. Y could have been written though based on how X played out or with X in mind. So even if they didn't know why MiB killed the pilot in the first episode, we can use the later info given about him to come up with reasons he might have done so. Goddammit no. I loved this show, but I am not going to sit and pretend that all of this stuff was planned out from the start, when clearly there were a lot of things that were not. Jacob vs. MiB was the biggest red herring the producers ever made and it was used as a means to quickly explain away the inconsistent behavior of a lot of the island's mysteries.
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May 26, 2010 21:53
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To clarify my previous statement. I believe that a lot of the themes were planned out from the start. Science vs. faith. White vs. Black. Self vs. Other. I do not believe that the character's of MiB or Jacob as they appeared in season 6 were ever in the show's "bible" when the first 3 seasons were being written. EDIT: And ultimately that's the answer to a lot of these questions. They made Season 6 up.
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May 26, 2010 21:56
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Fast Luck posted:I agree with that line of thought. I believe that "Jacob" was the name for the leader of the Others. When the producers decided to merge Henry Gale/Ben with that role they were left with a problem of having said the name "Jacob" a number of times and had to come up with someone else above Ben. At first it seems they were going to pretend that "Jacob" was someone made up by Ben to fool his followers (the empty cabin, Ben killing Locke to keep him quiet). But at the end of season 5 they began the "Season 6 sleight-of-hand" and put Jacob into that. EDIT: The other thread is thousands of posts long and contains a much lower ratio of discussion to white noise than this one.
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May 26, 2010 22:03
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The Hurleybird was something that fans randomly latched onto, but really didn't have anything mysterious behind it. The producers were poking fun at the fans by having Hurley actually mention it the next season. "Dude, did that bird just say my name?"
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May 26, 2010 22:06
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dyzzy posted:That's too bad, but it's still a matter of not allowing "they made it up/didn't have a plan" to be a crutch in this thread. I don't plan to use it as a crutch all the time though. I honestly believe that they did have answers for some of these things even as far back as season 1, and when those topics come up, I'll be happy to talk about them fully within the context of the show. For example. I am pretty sure that the Others as originally conceived were supposed to be a mixture mystical and science. I'm almost 100% sure that the Dharma Initiative was supposed to have been one and the same as the Others. Dharma built their poo poo on top of older relics and hosed around with them. The Swan was on top of exotic matter and The Temple (which WAS a hatch as shown on Ben's map) was likely built over strange temple ruins. Don't forget the Egyptian writing inside the Swan (on the countdown). Tom mentioning Hanso as a great man also lend credence to this. EDIT: Or the smoke door underneath the Dharma house.
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May 26, 2010 22:12
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Cellophane S posted:Oh, was there ever any gap-filling re: Libby being in the insane asylum, offering Desmond the boat and then showing up on the island? The actress that played Libby was removed from the show before her plot could be fulfilled.
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May 26, 2010 22:15
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