Damon Lindelof sees 'Harry Potter,' apologizes to 'Lost' fandom, gets ripped anyway

"Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof saw "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I" over the weekend, and he now says he understands how people who didn't like his show's finale feel.

Which is to say, he's not a fan. Lindelof writes on The Daily Beast:

"As I staggered out into the parking lot [after the movie], my brain was deftly trying to resolve a deep and complicated paradox: If I loved the book, and the movie was an incredibly loyal adaptation of that book ...

"How could I possibly hate the movie? And even more distressing...

"Based on the careful emotional logic I'd been using to insulate myself from the slings and arrows of 'Why didn't you people answer any god***n questions?' and 'A golden light in the middle of the island? SERIOUSLY?!?', if I hated the movie ...

"Did that mean I was no longer a fan?"

See, Lindelof had always figured that the people who liked to pick "Lost" apart and professed their distaste for the show in general and the finale in particular weren't "real" fans. Having seen and not enjoyed "Deathly Hallows Part I," he writes, precipitated the brief crisis mentioned above, but then (deep, cleansing breath) he realized that no, he's still a huge Potter fan and will still be lining up for "Deathly Hallows Part II" next summer and probably crying at the end.

Oh, and also? He's now rethought the whole you're-not-real-fans thing vis a vis "Lost."

"I sincerely and genuinely apologize to all those whom I have stripped of their 'Lost' fandom just for complaining about the stuff you didn't like," he writes. "It doesn't make you any less a fan. In fact ...

"It just makes you honest.

"I respect that. And I'm genuinely sorry for ever feeling otherwise."

Which is nice and all, but didn't exactly go over with Daily Beast readers. They take him to task for a factual error (relating to the number of Horcruxes Harry and Co. have yet to destroy), for the tone of his review, for "Lost's" ending -- you know, the usual. All of which led Lindelof to tweet the following on Monday afternoon (Nov. 22):

"Me: 'Sorry, haters. You have a point. I feel your pain.' Haters: 'Go f*** yourself.' Sigh..."

Sorry, Damon. On the upside, we really did like the "Cowboys and Aliens" trailer.