Boaz
I so much appreciate you taking the time for such a thoughtful, insightful and detailed response. Unforuntately, I have to disagree with a few of the points you made, or, at the very least offer a different conclusion.
First and foremost, I think the last 10 minutes have to be viewed multi-religiously, rather than through the lens of any one particular religion. The writers/producers tell you that as soon as you get into the Chapel when we see this image
I think that the message that Lost was sending was one that was very similar to the one in Cloud Atlas, which was one of my favorite films in a long time. I won't say more about that for fear of Cloud Atlas spoilers, but I can elaborate in another post. Right now, partially due to time contraints and partially due to not wanting to reinvent the wheel, I'm going to post 2 pieces that describe how i feel about the Lost ending
This was (supposedly) submitted by a writer from the Bad Robot team
First … The Island:
It was real. Everything that happened on the island that we saw throughout the
6 seasons was real. Forget the final image of the plane crash, it was put in purposely to f*&k with people’s heads and show how far the show had come. They really crashed. They really survived. They really discovered Dharma and the Others. The Island keeps the balance of good and evil in the world. It always has and always will perform that role. And the Island will always need a “Protector”. Jacob wasn’t the first, Hurley won’t be the last. However, Jacob had to deal with a malevolent force (MIB) that his mother, nor Hurley had to deal with. He created the devil and had to find a way to kill him — even though the rules prevented him from actually doing so.
Thus began Jacob’s plan to bring candidates to the Island to do the one thing he couldn’t do. Kill the MIB. He had a huge list of candidates that spanned generations. Yet everytime he brought people there, the MIB corrupted them and caused them to kill one another. That was until Richard came along and helped Jacob understand that if he didn’t take a more active role, then his plan would never work.
Enter Dharma — which I’m not sure why John is having such a hard time grasping. Dharma, like the countless scores of people that were brought to the island before, were brought there by Jacob as part of his plan to kill the MIB. However, the MIB was aware of this plan and interferred by “corrupting” Ben. Making Ben believe he was doing the work of Jacob when in reality he was doing the work of the MIB. This carried over into all of Ben’s “off-island” activities. He was the leader. He spoke for Jacob as far as they were concerned. So the “Others” killed Dharma and later were actively trying to kill Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley and all the candidates because that’s what the MIB wanted. And what he couldn’t do for himself.
Dharma was originally brought in to be good. But was turned bad by MIB’s corruption and eventually destroyed by his pawn Ben. Now, was Dharma only brought there to help Jack and the other Canditates on their overall quest to kill Smokey? Or did Jacob have another list of Canidates from the Dharma group that we were never aware of? That’s a question that is purposley not answered because whatever answer the writers came up with would be worse than the one you come up with for yourself. Still … Dharma’s purpose is not “pointless” or even vague. Hell, it’s pretty blantent.
Still, despite his grand plan, Jacob wanted to give his “candidates” (our Lostaways) the one thing he, nor his brother, were ever afforded: free will. Hence him bringing a host of “candidates” through the decades and letting them “choose” which one would actually do the job in the end. Maybe he knew Jack would be the one to kill Flocke and that Hurley would be the protector in the end. Maybe he didn’t. But that was always the key question of the show: Fate vs Free-will. Science vs Faith. Personally I think Jacob knew from the beginning what was going to happen and that everyone played a part over
6 seasons in helping Jack get to the point where he needed to be to kill Smokey and make Hurley the protector — I know that’s how a lot of the writers viewed it. But again, they won’t answer that (nor should they) because that ruins the fun.
In the end, Jack got to do what he always wanted to do from the very first episode of the show: Save his fellow Lostaways. He got Kate and Sawyer off the island and he gave Hurley the purpose in life he’d always been missing. And, in Sideways world (which we’ll get to next) he in fact saved everyone by helping them all move on …
Now…
Sideways World:
Sideways world is where it gets really cool in terms of theology and metaphysical discussion (for me at least — because I love history/religion theories and loved all the talks in the writer’s room about it). Basically what the show is proposing is that we’re all linked to certain people during our lives. Call them soulmates (though it’s not exactly the best word). But these people we’re linked to are with us duing “the most important moments of our lives” as Christian said. These are the people we move through the universe with from lifetime to lifetime. It’s loosely based in Hinduisim with large doses of western religion thrown into the mix.
The conceit that the writers created, basing it off these religious philosophies, was that as a group, the Lostaways subconsciously created this “sideways” world where they exist in purgatory until they are “awakened” and find one another. Once they all find one another, they can then move on and move forward. In essence, this is the show’s concept of the afterlife. According to the show, everyone creates their own “Sideways” purgatory with their “soulmates” throughout their lives and exist there until they all move on together. That’s a beautiful notion. Even if you aren’t religious or even spirtual, the idea that we live AND die together is deeply profound and moving.
It’s a really cool and spirtual concept that fits the whole tone and subtext the show has had from the beginning. These people were SUPPOSED to be together on that plane. They were supposed to live through these events — not JUST because of Jacob. But because that’s what the universe or God (depending on how religious you wish to get) wanted to happen. The show was always about science vs faith — and it ultimately came down on the side of faith. It answered THE core question of the series. The one question that has been at the root of every island mystery, every character backstory, every plot twist. That, by itself, is quite an accomplishment.
How much you want to extrapolate from that is up to you as the viewer. Think about season 1 when we first found the Hatch. Everyone thought that’s THE answer! Whatever is down there is the answer! Then, as we discovered it was just one station of many. One link in a very long chain that kept revealing more, and more of a larger mosiac.
But the writer’s took it even further this season by contrasting this Sideways “purgatory” with the Island itself. Remember when Michael appeared to Hurley, he said he was not allowed to leave the Island. Just like the MIB. He wasn’t allowed into this sideways world and thus, was not afforded the opportunity to move on. Why? Because he had proven himself to be unworthy with his actions on the Island. He failed the test. The others, passed. They made it into Sideways world when they died — some before Jack, some years later. In Hurley’s case, maybe centuries later. They exist in this sideways world until they are “awakened” and they can only move on TOGETHER because they are linked. They are destined to be together for eternity. That was their destiny.
They were NOT linked to Anna Lucia, Daniel, Roussou, Alex, Miles, Lupidis, (and all the rest who weren’t in the chuch — basically everyone who wasn’t in season 1). Yet those people exist in Sideways world. Why? Well again, here’s where they leave it up to you to decide. The way I like to think about it, is that those people who were left behind in Sideways world have to find their own soulmates before they can wake up. It’s possible that those links aren’t people from the island but from their other life (Anna’s parnter, the guy she shot — Roussou’s husband, etc etc).
A lot of people have been talking about Ben and why he didn’t go into the Church. And if you think of Sideways world in this way, then it gives you the answer to that very question. Ben can’t move on yet because he hasn’t connected with the people he needs to. It’s going to be his job to awaken Roussou, Alex, Anna Lucia (maybe), Ethan, Goodspeed, his father and the rest. He has to attone for his sins more than he did by being Hurley’s number two. He has to do what Hurley and Desmond did for our Lostaways with his own people. He has to help them connect. And he can only move on when all the links in his chain are ready to. Same can be said for Faraday, Charlotte, Whidmore, Hawkins etc. It’s really a neat, and cool concept. At least to me.
But, from a more “behind the scenes” note: the reason Ben’s not in the church, and the reason no one is in the church but for Season 1 people is because they wrote the ending to the show after writing the pilot. And never changed it. The writers always said (and many didn’t believe them) that they knew their ending from the very first episode. I applaud them for that. It’s pretty fantastic. Originally Ben was supposed to have a 3 episode arc and be done. But he became a big part of the show. They could have easily changed their ending and put him in the church — but instead they problem solved it. Gave him a BRILLIANT moment with Locke outside the church … and then that was it. I loved that. For those that wonder — the original ending started the moment Jack walked into the church and touches the casket to Jack closing his eyes as the other plane flies away. That was always JJ’s ending. And they kept it.
For me the ending of this show means a lot. Not only because I worked on it, but because as a writer it inspired me in a way the medium had never done before. I’ve been inspired to write by great films. Maybe too many to count. And there have been amazing TV shows that I’ve loved (X-Files, 24, Sopranos, countless 1/2 hour shows). But none did what
LOST did for me. None showed me that you could take huge risks (writing a show about faith for network TV) and stick to your creative guns and STILL please the audience. I learned a lot from the show as a writer. I learned even more from being around the incredible writers, producers, PAs, interns and everyone else who slaved on the show for 6 years.
In the end, for me,
LOST was a touchstone show that dealt with faith, the afterlife, and all these big, spirtual questions that most shows don’t touch. And to me, they never once waivered from their core story — even with all the sci-fi elements they mixed in. To walk that long and daunting of a creative tightrope and survive is simply astounding.
now for the next one
The End of Lost: Death, Dharma & the Dao
written by Michael Carmichael
Six years ago, the most compelling series in the history of television began after a plane crash when Jack Shephard opened his eye in a bamboo forest on a Pacific island to see a dog called Vincent running towards him. On Sunday, this most compulsive series in television history ended with Jack Shephard closing his eye in the same bamboo forest with Vincent next to him. This epic is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. The following is one single, simple solution to the series.
Unbeknown to billions of viewers, the writers of
Lost inundated us with an epic predicated on eastern philosophy. It now seems likely that many in the huge American audience will repudiate the series as a brilliant and fascinating piece of fantastic hokum, while the inhabitants of other older and wiser cultures will embrace
Lost as one the most powerful metaphors to have emerged from the turbulent nausea typical of Hollywood. It will seem to them almost as though a miracle has occurred -- in a windswept wilderness a vast pavilion filled with chimpanzees hacking away randomly at computers has created -- at long, long last, a masterpiece of post-modern psychodrama. But the truth is always stranger than fiction.
All was revealed in the ultimate scene of the finale, "The End," broadcast to expectant millions on Sunday.
In the same bamboo forest, the protagonist, Jack Shephard, suffering a mortal wound and lying on the ground near death, smiles as Vincent the dog comes up to him and a jet bearing six survivors soars overhead. Then he closes his eye and dies happily. The hero becomes a relic close to the now-ancient and abandoned wreckage of the crashed plane that placed him and a huge cast of characters on the mysterious island. This ending is a gripping replication of the opening scene of the pilot episode of
Lost, when Jack opens his eye after suffering through the crash of Oceanic 815 to see Vincent running towards him in the bamboo forest. The circle closes over the hero as he fulfills his final task on the Island.
We now know that the entire series of
Lost takes place in the flickering moments between Jack Shephard opening his eye in the bamboo forest and closing it in the last scene of the finale, when all of the passengers are suspended in the bardo, the intermediate state between life and death.
All of the gripping psychodrama of the past six years took place in the mind compressed into the twinkling of an eye of the wounded hero. The hero resolves his dharma, his duty to the universe, in a vast psychic collision with the confused minds of the other passengers aboard the doomed flight and a broader cast of supporting characters drawn from their lives. The island is now revealed as the dao -- the natural platform of reality where humanity resolves her duty to dharma.
We now see Jack Shephard as the most compassionate character in the epic. Filled to the brim with -- and motivated solely by -- his compassion, Jack sacrifices everything to heal, save, and minister unto others. Jack alone amongst the cast of admirable characters derives virtually every single syllable of motivation in his psyche from compassion. Selfless to the end, Jack contrasts with every other character in their infinite degrees of selfishness. As the most highly evolved psyche of the series, Jack could only sacrifice himself to become the ultimate martyr of the cult of
Lost.
Much will be written about
Lost, but little will be relevant. Sad to say, but few western film critics are even aware of the existence of eastern philosophies that are far too frequently relegated to the realms of religion. Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Sufism are far more than the cruder religious dogmas and fundamentalisms familiar to American and European audiences. Ancient cultures encompass philosophies steeped in scientific theories of consciousness that are far in advance of current western approaches to the mind and its brain.
In the shattering aftermath of the end of
Lost, the overwhelming tendency will be to dumb down its meaning to the level of mere western entertainment.
Lost deserves to be understood as an epic -- an infinite interlocking series of trilogies and operas articulating the transformations of consciousness through the processes of death.
Death is central to all world religions. Lao Tzu, the Buddha, and Chogyam Trungpa, the iconoclastic founder of the Naropa Institute, and countless other eastern philosophers have investigated and understood the cognitive phenomenology of death. Millennia ago, ancient philosophers discovered that the transformations of perception and consciousness at the time of death go far beyond the later dumbed-down and doctrinaire Judeo-Christian models of paradise.
America, the infantile and innocent heartland of the western frontier, is still far from awakening to the perennial lessons of
Lost, but the series' mere existence is a positive development meaning so much more than Macbeth's ignorant default to a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing.
