(Untitled)

[helianthus16]

One way of looking at Lost: an exposition of every possible cliffhanger (including the original, with Jack's stunt) at every possible moment, from commercials, to ends of episodes, to the interludes between seasons

Comments

[into_seafoam]

I thought the episode was good, and I actually don't think it would have worked if they hadn't killed those two off.

My favorite line of the entire episode was Sawyer's: "Who the hell is Nikki?"

[helianthus16]

What precisely wouldn't have worked? I don't disagree, they've always been rather superfluous characters.

I liked the whole "This spider attracts males from all over the place!" "Do you suppose that means we'll see that spider again, Man of Science? Also, aren't those Monarch Butterflies in that cage? I thought you had _new_ species."

Also, the "Yes, I know about Trajectories!" Makes me wonder if he just made her a map to get her to go away, except that he acted like he was really enjoying her company.

Maybe he was a junior high science teacher actor.

[into_seafoam]

I think it wouldn't have worked for me because the nature of the episode is enjoyable because you never have to deal with those characters again. Whenever you introduce new characters there's always going to be this reaction, you know. Like how nobody really liked the Taillies and how everyone wants Julliet to die. I try to have an open mind for these additions (and in fact Desmond, who really is one of these additions, is one mf my favorite characters). But if this episode led me to believe that now Nikki and Paulo were going to be new A Team or even B Team members, I would have been annoyed with it. Instead, they were seemingly dead through the whole thing and when we found out they weren't dead, they were BURIED ANYWAY. Which is just so gruesome and cool, I think

[helianthus16]

I disagree with the notion that good story lines are a matter of making and breaking assumptions; and I really disagree with the ones where assumptions never end up being accurate. If you're just screwing with your audience you're not doing anything useful, or fun. You end up trying to spend all your time misleading your audience instead of telling a story.

Good story lines are made when the storyteller believes in the story; when it matters to the author, then the author has a chance to make it matter to the audience. Surprises are just one element of story.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I abhor the notion of defining stories in terms of challenged assumptions. Because, really, the easiest way to challenge assumptions is to devolve into arbitrary happenings.

It's one of those circumstances where, if you're telling a good story, you don't need to be thinking about which assumptions are being challenged where, you can remain focused on the story. Do you think (I'm going to assume you've seen The Sixth Sense)

[into_seafoam]

Well, one could argue that those new perspectives on previous events is also a way of changing our assumptions if we assumed before that Locke and Boone were the first ones to discover the drug plane and that Paulo had never met Ben and Juliette before.

But I agree with a lot of what you said. I think that the things you're talking about make a powerful script but I'm not sure that's how a lot of scriptwriting goes these days. My playwriting teacher making challenged assumptions an important point of focus is just sortof an example of that.

Maybe that's more theatre than film, but I know that theatre writing has a lot to do with audience expectation. I don't think the point of it is to screw with the audience as much as it is trying something new and maybe trying to teach your audience something about themselves based on their thought process through the progression of the play. Being a theatre major just makes me always look at every form of entertainment through that lens.