Help shape the greatest moments, characters, and quotes in 'Lost' history
We're coming to the end of all things "Lost" here at Zap2it. I know, I know. Don't worry: I'm sure in the afterlife, one of you will run me over with your car to wake me up. In fact, I can pretty much narrow down who that will be to two or three of you already. But have faith: even though I'll stop blogging here next week, all of the content will live on. It's not going anywhere. All of the entries, all of the recaps, and all of the galleries will stick around for as long as Zap2it does. And since that's the case, I need your help.
Before Season 5 started, I compiled a series of Top 25 galleries. Obviously, those all need amending and updating before I sail off into that great white light...of summer vacation. So while I have a few ideas of what should be included in the final version, I want your feedback as well to help formulate the final decision. I'll list each gallery (linking the existing one to start) and offer a few thoughts about each to help shape your thoughts on the matter.
The Top 25 Characters
1) Jack's totally, totally moving up the list. No doubt in my mind.
2) Walt's totally, totally moving down on the list. No doubt in my mind. Heck, he might be gone when all is said and done.
3) A lot of you noted at the time that Charles Widmore's initial omission was an outrage. Should I amend that, or did Season 6 not help his case?
4) I'm really trying to figure out where Jacob/Man in Black go. When I created the list, they only appeared in one episode (and, in The Man in Black's case, one scene). They are certainly IMPORTANT figures in "Lost" lore, but should they bump off characters such as Claire? Ponderous indeed.
The Top 25 Quotes
1) I have to be careful and not just re-arrange this list to essentially boil down to "everything Miles said this year," which I could easily do without being vigilant.
2) "Nothing is irreversible" will definitely make the cut. So will Smocke's speech about the saddest thing he ever heard.
3) Nothing that Zoe ever said is admissible as a suggestion. Just...yea.
The Top 25 Moments
1) Just as there will be a temptation to overdose on Miles in the quotes gallery, I feel like there will be a temptation to load up on moments from "The End" here. But I am going to try and limit it to three, tops.
2) At least one current Top Ten moment is going to take a HUGE fall. Like, potentially, off the list entirely.
3) While "What Kate Does" is widely considered to be a subpar episode, I bet her scene with Sawyer on the docks makes the final cut.
4) I have a sneaking suspicion nothing that happened in The Temple will make the cut, though the Hurley/Dogen scene in "Lighthouse" might sneak its way in there if enough people think it should.
So let me have your input? My colleagues here at Zap2it will be updating these in time for the blog's swan song next week. So vote early, and vote often!
Photo credit: ABC
Moments:
Stating the obvious: the final montage of cuts between Island/sidewayspurgatorywhatever.
I think all my other choices are too cheesy for the likes of this place.
I stumbled upon this post by a Lost fan who was slightly miffed by the ultimate ending. Here, he suggests an alternate, more science-based narrative/solution.
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This is how LOST should have ended:
The Hydrogen Bomb goes off. Daniel Faraday's plan succeeds, even though he dies, and he knows this because he's a mega-genius, right? He clearly had a plan and knew what he was doing. But how does he succeed?
Because another universe is created by the convergence of energies at the explosion - a "big bang" so to speak. In this new universe, the island has sunk because the arcane energies keeping it afloat and outside of space and time have been spent. Faraday knows this is what's going to happen - but he also knows that consciousness can transcend space and time, as that was the heart of his research. So his plan is that his consciousness, and everyone else's who was ever trapped on the island, will be transferred into the new universe.
Once the bomb has gone off, the Monster has already lost the game and he/it doesn't even know it - because the universe only has room for one timeline, and the previous universe is now a temporal anomaly and will slowly decay into non-existence. As people die in the Lost universe, they "wake up" with all their memories in the new universe. Except, of course, for Jacob and the Monster, because THEY NEVER EXISTED OUTSIDE OF THE ISLAND. Hence, the monster loses, and Jacob's endgame is to make neither of them ever exist. This is why babies generally cannot be born on the island, because the universe doesn't like paradoxes.
The whole last episode could have been this fantastic climax of destruction and apocalypse, with EVERYONE dying, except Desmond (who survives right up until the finish and who has the ability to cross between universes because of his exposure to the EM pulse) and he gets to explain exactly what happened to the Monster and why he's doomed to non-existence (Desmond secretly gets the explanation from Faraday in the new universe). The Monster, after having killed everybody and thinking he has succeeded, screams "Noooooo!!!!" as the old universe crumbles into oblivion. Faraday gets to explain everything to all the Losties who gather together at the concert, and now get to live the rest of their lives thanks to the proper application of science!
See how frigging easy that was? No god, no purgatory, no baloney, no cop out. You could even say that the "ghosts" on the island were just alternate universe echoes of people's stray consciousness skipping through time and space because the island was a nexus of time and space.
The writers were LAZY, and religious fantasy is NOT a substitute for actual science. The show still gets to be about people, and it still gets to actually be science. The end.
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I am back and I don't care if it's too cheesy for you lot, I've decided.
This quote from the finale really got me, and if you wanna go for simplicity you could choose Rose's "You can let go now" but since it's Christian and Jack I think it's more powerful:
You needed them and they needed you" "To what?" "To remember and to let go"
It's so hard to pick so few. I am just thinking of all the moments... it's too hard so I'll leave it at that.
"You disrespect his memory by wearing his face but you're nothing like him." = Awesome
Can we start a petition to continue this blog in some form? Maybe a monthly post or something? The show will be analized for years, you could probably find something to write about once a month. We're already going through Lost withdrawal, we need this!
The Ben and Ilana scene should be in there somewhere. And since the Ben and Hurley scene with the Apollo Bar made the original Top 25 (?), it should get to move up in honor of what it says about things to come. I'd also like to see Desmond & Charlie's car crash / Desmond's awakening from Happily Ever After, the Sawyer/Juliet reunion at the vending machine, as well as the final sequence from the finale (or just Jack in the bamboo grove, if it needs to be more specific).
And just for the record Kevin, I think that ending would be far more of a cop out than what actually occurred on the screen. You can disagree and prefer that ending, and that's totally fine - but there's no reason to be condescending.
The moment when Jack admits that Locke was right about almost everything has to be top 5. Jack definitely nedds to go up on the character list, and helen and Walt need to go. I also think that at least TMIB should be on that list.
quotes:
"And how are you going to do that, Jack?"
"That's a surprise."
"We have to go back" is the best moment ever in my opinion, so that should stay where it is. I also can't forget the beginning of S2 with Desmond in the hatch and the music playing. I thought ABC was broadcasting the wrong show until the explosion, and then it blew my mind.
As far as quotes, "whatever happened happened" along with Christian's explanation to Jack at the end ("everybody dies sometime kiddo" or "the time you all spent on the island was the most important part of your lives") are crucial for people to understand the whole show. There are still people out there arguing that everybody died in the crash or that the island was purgatory. If either of those had actually been true, the show would have been ruined for me.
I have to say MIB was one of my favorite characters. Maybe because I really was wanting him to turn out to be the good guy, and maybe because they made him a sympathetic character in "Across the Sea." But even without that, you can't leave out the smoke monster! He was there from the beginning, and Jack's whole "destiny" was apparently to kill him and save the island. Jacob can and should be forgotten. Jack should go higher in my opinion also, even if he was a little lacking on the personality side. The show centered on him and Locke.
John Locke Speaking to Charlie Pace - "Struggle is Nature's way of strengthening it."