The creator of "Defying Gravity" reveals some info on "Lost"

"And I just thought to myself, y'know, that's really dangerous. And then
when I got into doing this show, I said I don't want to do that; I don't
want to be in that position. First of all, I'd have ulcers if I did
that, which would just be crazy, and I wouldn't be able to sleep at
night. So I went in pretty much knowing where it was going to go."

-- James Parriott, creator of "Defying Gravity"

-- Steven L.

Ok, Im a happy dancing bunny because it validates what I've always
thought. (Which is a shame really.)

However, I thought that they did know where it was going, ish. I
remember the writers(and some actors) being quoted as saying, that the
last episode was always known. So, is this saying that was a lie too?

I suppose the fanboi get out is to say Damon was lying. Oh well.

--
AC

I think you can always say you know SOMEWHAT where the show is going.
Like, three or four episodes ahead. But as far as a big picture, no,
I don't think they ever had a real concrete idea for it, not even
until like the middle of Season 6.

I haven't seen anything posted so far to indicate that they knew ahead
of time anything about the last EPISODE other than it would contain a
particular SCENE at the end (i.e. the bit with Jack's eye closing).
How they were going to get there, what that scene would signify -
nothing posted so far has indicated that they knew anything in season
1 about those things. They just had their "Closing parenthesis" to
pair with the opening one at the beginning of the pilot.

That's sort of like saying "I know how this mystery novel will end"
when what you mean is "The last sentence will end with a period."
Technically correct, perhaps, but not very enlightening.

Yeah, sure. I suppose production and logistics, as much as anything
else, demand that to a point.

I was more thinking about comments alongs the lines of some key actors
knowing what the final episode would be from the beginning, or something
like that. Maybe they only expected 2 seasons and planned for that.
Although, I would have thought that if that were the case, they would
have said so. But then that would require admitting that the rest of it
went wrong and that aint good on a CV. Maybe in years to come we'll hear
a "new" take on things.

Cant help wondering if they had an idea how it would work given a
limited run, but got in a mess when it turned out so popular. A plan
would have still helped though.

But, given the fact that they were given 3 solid seasons to finish it
off, I think its unforgivable that it was not at least generally
planned. I understand the need to leave it free enough for writers etc
to "play". I remember at the time that the news of a set number of
seasons to finish revived my "commitment" to the show. I had been going
off it because it seemed like I was being bullshitted along. On hearing
that news, I thought, OK now they can sit down and make a real proper go
of it. In then end, I sat there for 3 seasons more thinking what the
hell am I actually watching here?

Nothing depresses me more than a wasted opportunity. Thinking about Lost
is like seeing an old school mate, who was really talented and smart,
drunk in a doorway, laying in his own urine.

I know I go on about it, but it just does my head in how they can start
so damned well (at the time I thought S1 to be utter genius), and then
cock it right up. Its such a pity.

--
AC

I bet Lindelof and Cuse are just *thrilled* about this revelation.
Not.

I think they always said they knew the last *scene* (Jack's eye
closing). And that makes perfect sense, since it was a scenario
envisioned by many fans as well. But almost anything could've
happened along the way to get to that scene.

The really sad thing about this revelation is that it definitely
renders any attempted analysis of what-we-thought-were-clues
meaningless. They threw in a lot of "themes" along the way, but if
there was no direction or plan to bring those things together, I don't
think there's anything particularly praiseworthy about including
them. They were just fodder to keep the audience strung along, and to
have *us* do the work of making a cohesive picture out of them. And
kudos to the viewers who made valiant attempts at it.

The exception, I believe, are the clues to the flash sideways universe
in season 6. The mirror imagery and the "stubborn tomato" comment
were genuine foreshadowing of the "Tomato in the Mirror" trope. But
big deal. That storyline was nothing more than a way out for the
producers.

I'm grateful for this revelation, because it actually provides more
closure for me than the show's finale.

“First of all, ABC literally bought the show [Defying Gravity] three weeks
before it aired. ABC, I think, in their own way, were trying to kill it."

"So why wasn’t the show [Defying Gravity] pitched instead to Syfy?
Couldn’t the show have shined there and gotten the attention it needed and
deserved? “You know, it could have. But we were always trying to create a
network show and not a cable show. So if you go out and just say “we’re
sci-fi,” the networks sort of balk at that. They want to know it’s bigger
and the potential audience is broader than a sci-fi audience."

http://cliqueclack.com/tv/2009/10/29/how-defying-gravity-would-have-progressed-straight-from-the-creator/

--
http://www.lostdude.com

It tells us all what we pretty much knew in the end, but it's still
kinda funny that it comes from the person responsible for the whole
DEFYING GRAVITY business. :)

Exactly.

I kinda knew as far back as the whole bit about young Charlotte being
*too* young that we avid fans in the audience were devoting a lot more
time to the details than the writers and producers were. I just chose
to remain in denial.

--
Jim G.
Waukesha, WI

Whoops. The should read "too old." I think. Heck, I'm already
blocking the whole thing out of my memory. :)

Same here. I gave them the benefit of the doubt even up until the
middle of Season 6. The moment I realized the show was going to drive
into a ditch was when they revealed that MiB was the Smoke Monster all
along. Because there's so many inherent ridiculous contradiction that
ensue from that plot point. They already had so many loose ends to
tie up, with only about 10 episodes to go, and here's another giant
gaping hole needing to be filled. What chance could there be of it
ending well?

Or, as summed up at The Fuselage, http://forum.thefuselage.com/showpost.php?p=2358351&postcount=73
. If they were telling the truth then, they really took me in, me
thinking something must've knocked them off track.

That's not a scene, that's just a SHOT. The scene ending on that shot
could've been who knows what? For example, Hurley throwing a bit of
hot Hot Pocket in Jack's eye.

Yeah, to me they screamed (and still do, as I think about them) "Big
house grift!" With so many clues on that THEME, I figured, how could
it not add up SOMEhow?

Yeah, but Kate's response to "choo-choo tunnel" foreshadowed the Anti-
Jacob's being shoved down the canal into the Tunnel of Light too, but
made no sense unless Kate knew about the tunnel -- and that doesn't
fit with season 6. So the writers clearly knew some things they were
going to put in, but only as such isolated particles as Jack's eye
closing.

It's as if Shakespeare decided to write a play that had people around
a heated cauldron, people carrying trees and shrubs around, and
somebody washing hands, and figured he'd fill in the details later.

Bobbo in the Bronxo

Sigh. I remember when we denied being a sci-fi show, too.
http://bit.ly/gCNJTl
about 9 hours ago via web
Retweeted by 54 people
DamonLindelof

http://twitter.com/DamonLindelof/status/25055726363746304

--
http://www.lostdude.com

(to tdciago too)

Ok, that actually sound right now you (both) say it.

Cheers.

--
AC

Im not sure the idea that fans envisage something validates much.

Absolutely.

Not sure if that is evil genius or darn lazy.

Yup. I feel a bit sorry for them because to me it loks like they were
conned.

Im sure a fan with time could establish such links in the rest of the
series.

I agree, it does provide more closure. I think that is the best way for
every one to look at it.

I'm not pleased about it though. As I have said, I think they missed an
opportunity to get genuinely "great".

--
AC

Well, clearly we see the damage Lost did to fans. How many are now
suspicious of arced drama now? Look how, despite how it turned out, the
SGU writers were telling us the had a plan. They felt the need to
reassure the fans.

Its bloody hard to now trust in writers and TV in general.

--
AC

> > > The really sad thing about this revelation is that it definitely

I kept it going even longer by interpreting that entire episode as non-
literal or non-objective.

The original premise of this thread implied the Lost show runners (Damon &
Carlton) had no plan mapped out for Lost, past 4 episodes into the future.
I contend that premise is faulty. Darlton have said they had a plan, but
it was not cast in stone but was more like a road trip, road map, where
diversions on the journey would come up and they would detour, but always
moving from point A to point B.

If Damon & Carlton had promoted Lost to the buyers like James Parriott did
"Defying Gravity", Lost would not have made it past 2 seasons. Disgruntled
fans might think that would have been better, since those fans hated the
ending of Lost which was highly spiritual in nature, but still retained
the elements of redemption that were woven throughout the series.

I contend there is a deeper plan to Lost than most fans can see or accept.
The Lost island is the axis mundi of the Universe with blood related
relatives fighting and killing, in order to control the light that is in
every living human being. Lost had a plan, the stakes are real and it all
began with a September airliner crash.

---------------
Trivia:

If you are tempted to say, "I don't see a plan", I might ask, then did you
see The Black Rock (Stone) on the way back from The Black Rock in season
two of Lost?
http://lostdude.com/lostpics/s02e23HR-0000COMBO_2.jpg

I have never heard one poster in this forum offer a solution to the
question this screen grab poses.
And for those old timers, no, this is not a deformity growing out of
Sawyer's ear, LOL

--
http://www.lostdude.com

And really, given how much time they were spending being media whores,

[Repost: First copy of this quoted itself, so to speak.]

Implied? Apparently Damon said it. Best case is an advanced 4 episode plan.

If you want to say people don't accept a plan existed, when Damon says
"no", then I suggest you are the one having acceptance issues.

Contend all you like but are you really going against the people who
actually wrote the thing? Now that's denial of the highest order.

Those two images have little in common apart from a general shape.
What's your point there?

If anything, that proves my point about the show and its uber fans. They
will connect anything possible to make sense of the incomprehensible.

--
AC

Damon is a professional story teller. Have your children ever told you a
story? Was that story true?

If your child wanted something or wanted to hide something, would they try
to tell a clever story to get what they wanted?

Damon and Carlton are master story tellers. They lie for a living !

Damon and Carlton wanted to do a sci-fi story. They and Abrams have said
exactly that in earlier interviews. They also said the studio was
resistant to sci-fi as did Parriott.

Lost being sci-fi was a plan that abc and most fans didn't see or realize
until the second season of Lost. Just because you could not see the plan
does not mean a plan did not exist.

Do you remember the September airliner crash that was Lost's beginning?
Then read why Damon writes:
http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/why-we-write-number-8-damon-lindelof/

While you may not see a plan, I surely see a pattern.

It's not easy to see. It's never been easy.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.lost/browse_thread/thread/c8ac6a6f6efd0efb#

--
http://www.lostdude.com

"AC" <x...@xxx.xxx> wrote in message
news:_DXWo.2384$NG3...@newsfe22.ams2:

Matthew Fox said that he knew how the series would end. We now know it
ended with Jack dying. So it makes sense that the producers told Fox
about the final dramatic scene he would be playing.

But knowing that ending isn't knowing all that much--since there are a
zillion possible plots you can think of that could end with Jack dying.
If back in season 1, we had known that the series would end with Jack
dying, that wouldn't have told us much about all the intervening
seasons. Heck, just knowing that Jack ends up dying wouldn't have
helped us figure out what was under the hatch.

Part of it was that.

But part of it was also the resignation of co-producer David Fury way
back in season 1. Fury said he had tried hard to keep the entire plot
together as one roadmap. When he left, the plot seemed to slide out of
control. I don't know which was the cause and which was the effect.

-- Steven L.

Jesus H. Christ.

No, child, there are _not_ a zillion possible plots where the producers
planned from the beginning that Jack would end up dying to protect the
Island.

The fact that they _knew_ from the _beginning_ that their preferred
ending was Jack's death scene shows what all of you whiners repeatedly,
pathetically, and with total failure try to deny was true: They had an
overall plan for how the Losties were going to interact with the Island.

I have no problem with the fact that that plan may have zig-zagged at
various points due to character modifications, firings, or defections;
in fact, I would love to know those details. That still doesn't alter
the simple fact that the producers knew from the very beginning of the
show that the central hero was going to go from skeptic to willing to
sacrifice his life for the Island.

--
Gregory E. Garland - Alive, occupying space, and exerting gravitational
force

Begging your pardon, but I cannot recall any quotes where they said
they knew in season 1 that the final scene would be "Jack dying TO
PROTECT THE ISLAND." All the quotes I recall reading just said they
knew it would be "Jack's eye closing" (i.e. dying). Nothing at all
about knowing why, to what purpose, etc. If you have a quote that was
specific about the "to protect the island" part being known in season
1, could you give it (or a pointer to it)?

While there are still a lot of ways where you could get to "Jack dying
to protect the island", there ARE a zillion ways to get to just "Jack
dying".

Don't mind Greg. He's the resident "I <3 Jack and Kate so don't say
anything mean about the ending" guard chihuahua.

Begging _your_ pardon, it's because writers don't think that way. If you
took a look at what Lindelof had to say in "Why We Write" you see that
they just don't invent a random scene, say "that would be cool", and
then shelve it. They invent whole streams of how you get from A to B.
When they re-wrote the pilot with Jack as the hero they had a enough
time with plotting the story to be able to _tell_ Fox that was how they
saw the show ending when he was being cast for the part. That means they
already had some idea of how to get from the opening scene to what they
hoped to be the final scene despite all the whining to the contrary.

"que...@infionline.net" <que...@infionline.net> wrote in message
news:4d30192d...@news.west.earthlink.net:

Actually, the writers could have skipped seasons 2 and 3 entirely (and
most of season 4 too)--and still gotten to "Jack dying to protect the
island," let alone to just "Jack dying."

Let's work it backwards:

Jack dying to protect the island--from what?

From the Swan station or other DHARMA experiments gone awry? They could
have written it that way.

From Widmore? They could have written it that way.

From the "Jughead" H-bomb? They could have written it that way.

From a time travel paradox? They could have written it that way.

But they didn't write it that way.

No, in the end, Jack died to protect the island from the stone being
removed to release the Island's power, something that didn't even get
introduced till season 6.

-- Steven L.

news:4d2c45d3...@news.west.earthlink.net:

It's a little better than that--but not much.

It's like someone who never read "Hamlet" asking you what that play is
about, and you reply: "In the beginning, Hamlet hears about a Ghost.
In the end, Hamlet is dead."

-- Steven L.

> In article <4d30192d.3136...@news.west.earthlink.net>,
> ques...@infionline.net says...

> > <g...@earthlink.net> wrote:

> > >In article <gLKdnXlGEb_mXbLQnZ2dnUVZ_o6dn...@earthlink.com>,
> > >sdlit...@earthlink.net says...

Am I unusual in not being able to follow this guy's thinking? Like
there are some loose cx there?