5161

Arthur C. Clarke once famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

With time travel now introduced into the narrative, the writers can now present characters that embody this sentiment.

5162

However, they have claimed over and over that everything in Lost does not occur via supernatural means. Sure, it feels like fantasy, but the Clarke quote above is basically what’s going on here.

5163

Oh bullshit. Next you’re going to tell me that Star Wars was SF.

Yes they want to perform a Doing In The Wizard in the final season, but I REALLY have my doubts that they will pull it off.

5164

I’ve got a handy adandy definition for SF and Fantasy that let’s you clearly figure out what’s what:

Sci-Fi is about man’s relationship with technology.
Fantasy is about man’s relationship with symbols (often personified).

By that definition lost is so Fantasy it hurts.

5165

I didn’t say Lost was SF. I merely called upon the myriad times that the people behind the show have gone on and on about how everything in Lost can be explained without supernatural means. Which, if they live up to their claim, means we’re going to see a lot of science-fictiony stuff in the final season in their desperate attempt to explain things that, well, are really fucking hard to explain other than “it’s… MAGIC!”

I wasn’t disagreeing, I was merely pointing out what has been said, and Clarke’s quote is apt when applying it to the Lost crew’s claims.

5166

Can you show some quotes to that effect? All I know is that, around the middle of the first season, they said that everything they’d shown us up to that point could be explained rationally/scientifically.

And, AFAIK, they never claimed that they would provide scientific explanations.That quote by DT, from the article he linked above, seems to confirm that the rational angle was meant to suck the audience in, before unleashing smoke monsters, moving islands, an eternally young Richard, and “constants” mumbo jumbo.

They were playing semantic games by using “scientifically possible” to describe everything they had shown before, while saying nothing about what they would show in the future.

This post from 5 years ago (no source attribution) contains the quote by Lindelof I’m thinking of:

“I can say that there will be other mystery things arising that will make the ‘monster’ pale in comparison to what you’re going to want to find out. We’re still trying to be firmly ensconced in the world of science fact. I don’t think we’ve shown anything on the show yet that has no rational explanation in the real world that we all function in. We certainly hint at psychic phenomena, happenstance and being in a place where they probably shouldn’t be, but nothing is flat out impossible. There are no spaceships, there isn’t any time travel.”

A week later, the smoke monster made its on-screen debut. And “there isn’t any time travel” has clearly obtained the “no longer operative” status.

So, no science. But it will be fun!

5167

I am humbled, sir. That quote I have not read but I still stuck with their original design for Lost. I’m somewhat disappointed that they did not adhere to their promises for the show. If that’s the case, then all bets are off. I had two theories about what The Island is, and now they’re completely and utterly fucked. But, for posterity, I thought it would play out like this:

  1. The Island is not an island. It’s been there for time immeroable; an alien species that crashed and was stuck for whatever reason. It seems that Jacob wanted them to be stuck, and his nemesis didn’t. I pictured a huge alien ship that has existed for millenia and an island just grew around it; take the “defense system,” the never-aging, the “originals” like Jacob and his nemesis; take the comments about the nemesis’ desire to return to wherever he came from, the ancient mythology involved, the ability to manipulate time and space, the etching runes inside the wheel room… I immediately thought “alien.” And I’m probably not the first to do so.

  2. The island was created in the future. Now we have time travel, space displacement, and a whole hoard of shit that is really difficult to explain. My second theory was that the island was a mistake, a misstep in future technology, sent so far back in time that whatever they were building eventually grew to be an island.

I don’t expect either of those theories to pan out, but I still like to question and wonder as to what will. But really, it’s the best show on television, and whatever the writers give us, I’ll probably enjoy it, even if I feel it’s inadequate.

5168

I have the last season on Blu-ray and it has the most interesting special feature I’ve ever seen a movie or TV show have.

The last Blu-ray disc comes with Lost University. It’s an amazingly detailed application which mimics an actual university (team mascot: Polar Bear!). You register online (BD Live is required). Take an entrance exam (Surprisingly I didn’t do well enough so I had to watch a remedial Lost 101 course). Sign up for courses. The courses each discuss just about every topic that the show brings about in detail in video with actual professors. You learn about philosophy (who is John Lock, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, Jean-Jacques Rousseau), physics (Einstein’s theory of relativity/time travel), Language (Korean/French), Egyptian hieroglyphics, survival tactics & more. Most of these classes have two lectures with some homework thrown in. Before you pass the class, you need to take and pass the final exam. When you pass all your courses there’s another semester with completely different courses. If a class is too tough you can drop the course. Your grades are tracked and “A” students are posted online in the deans list for all to see.

I don’t know what happens when you graduate but I’m going to try for it. Very well done.

5169

I’m going to have to send a fax to hell for them to reserve a special place for you for spending my money.

Looks like I get to buy the Season 5 Blu-Ray collection of Lost. I find all of those things interesting. I would buy that game if it were just a game.

5170

You can check it out here and sign up (to take the classes you need the disc):

http://www.lostuniversity.org/

The disc has been worth it for that and the commentary on the season opener. Cuse and Lindelof just go into the time travel aspects of the show and the thought/writing process behind everything. None of that “Oh and there’s so and so she’s great.” crap that commentary tracks so often have. $35 on amazon which is $5 cheaper then when I got it.

5171

I would dismiss almost any quotes from the creators that originate around Season 1. I get the impression that Linedelof and Cuse didn’t know the answers back then (I think JJ Abrams has said that he didn’t know any of the answers when he wrote the pilot). In fact I think that was one of writer David Fury’s reasons for leaving the show.

Once Abrams started focusing almost exclusively on feature films, Lindelof and Cuse realized they would be the ones holding the bag. So they figured out how to draw all of the elements together, even if it meant using stuff they had previously denied like Time Travel, supernatural stuff, etc.

5172

So here’s my argument for science fiction. It’s a time travel story. And we’ve been shown in the story that there is technology that causes this to occur. When Ben turned the wheel in season 4, two things happened:

He teleported to Tunisia and moved through time. (Same thing happened to Locke later.)

The island appeared to move through time.

So the explanation for the wheel I think comes down to some possible scenarios:

a) People from another time have technology that we don’t understand in the present

b) Same as “a” but the twist is that they’re aliens

c) God-like creature or entity

d) Something not introduced yet (dream, purgatory, etc)

If a or b is right it’s sci-fi, if it’s c or d fantasy wins.

5173

This is actually sounding far more appealing to me than the coming final season.

5174

It’s fantasy with a technology overlay (science fiction). The struggle between fantasy/symbols/faith/destiny and science/technology/rational/chance has been a recurrent theme, as personified by Locke and Jack.

I always liked Roger Zelazny’s novels, and he was adept at straddling the lines between fantasy and science fiction.

5175

I don’t think we really have the definitive answer yet. I’m sure they’ll head-fake in both directions before it’s done.

5176

Until finally running the ‘it was all a dream’ play.

5177

Ah, but which character’s dream was it?

5178

Hurley, of course.

It’s too crazy to be anyone else’s…

5179

I believe the producers have already officially discounted that possibility.

5180

Pretty sure the producers also said there wouldn’t be time travel or anything super natural, yet here we are.