You've said many times that when people find out who Adam and Eve are, we'll all realize just how long you've been planning the mythology. Well, I went back and watched the "House of the Rising Sun" scene, and Jack says that the clothing looks like it's 50 years old. Is he just not very good at calculating the rate of decay on fabric?
CC: Jack is not really an expert in carbon dating.
DL: He's not really a forensic anthropologist. We need to bring in Bones.
CC: Or Charlotte. She's an anthropolgist.
DL: The other theory that I would like to throw out there is that Jacob and his mother were just expert craftsmen. They made those clothes on that loom so well, it would appear that they were only 50 years old in decomposition, when in fact it's several thousand.
CC: Or perhaps the fabric is magic. A lot of theories there, Alan.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
OUTRIGGER SHOOTOUT: Hey, Losties: run, don't walk, to Alan Sepinwall's exclusive interview with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse regarding (among many things) fan disappointment from last night. In briefest part:
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They seem quite defensive at first, but then I loved how they teased him about the outrigger. And this exchange is great, too. "Perhaps the fabric is magic." Perhaps, indeed.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting really tired of these insufferable over-promisers.
ReplyDeleteI think we both care about and think about the show Lost (I'm drawing a distinction between what many of us originally fell in love with and what's been on the air lately) a lot more than DL/CC do at this point. They spent years dropping all those bread crumbs and now they seem to be unhappy/annoyed/amused that we took their "clues" seriously.
ReplyDeleteIt would take a time-stamped script notarized by George Washington and Honest Abe to make me believe they had anything even remotely like what we saw last night in mind when they did "House of the Rising Sun." It stinks of ret-con...fairly entertaining ret-con in a standalone sense, but just not part of "our" Lost. And the lie bespeaks a pretty high level of contempt for those of us who have been paying attention.
I think we both care about and think about the show Lost (I'm drawing a distinction between what many of us originally fell in love with and what's been on the air lately) a lot more than DL/CC do at this point. They spent years dropping all those bread crumbs and now they seem to be unhappy/annoyed/amused that we took their "clues" seriously.
ReplyDeleteIt would take a time-stamped script notarized by George Washington and Honest Abe to make me believe they had anything even remotely like what we saw last night in mind when they did "House of the Rising Sun." It stinks of ret-con...fairly entertaining ret-con in a standalone sense, but just not part of "our" Lost. And the lie bespeaks a pretty high level of contempt for those of us who have been paying attention.
Do all showrunners think so highly of themselves, or are these two gentlemen just special? I've read a few of Alan's extended interviews, and they come off as rather self-important compared to others with considerably better shows.
ReplyDelete"Contempt" is the perfect word here. The central conceit -- that they can't be judged for creating the show the way they want to create it, to heck with what the viewers might want -- is just wrong. When you create entertainment, you're going to be judged for how entertaining you are. The show is a relationship between the creators and the viewers, and while they are entitled to do the show the way they want to, I'm sure not going to feel like I need to withhold judgment if I feel as if they've broken the implicit compact we've made.
ReplyDeleteI just simply don't get the criticism that people who have invested their lives in making a creative work somehow don't care about it anymore just because some fans don't care for the direction the show is heading. Or that there's an "'our' Lost" that doesn't include the people who have steered it for 6 years.
ReplyDeleteI may not have liked every moment of the last 6 years, or even of just the last season, but damn, they've certainly earned my respect for what they've pulled off. And while I might have some questions about the execution thus far of the finale, I'm certainly going to wait until I see the full thing before I pass judgment.
Additionally, I don't see them coming off as smug or certainly not contemptuous or insufferable in the interview. Confident, yes. Secure in what they've done, yes. And good for them. I don't need my creative types to be cuddly; I want them to execute their vision to the best of their ability.
I like how "Lost" has been so interactive for years, though I generally keep my fandom confined to what I see in the episodes and not in "Bad Twin" or the webisodes or what have you. I appreciate that the fans have gotten to have so much fun, to whatever degree they want, over the years. But I've never lost sight of the fact that it's not my show. It's not a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.
I'm with Chip, I just think that at a certain point they had to sit down with each other and say "we're never going to please everyone, we have to just run with our vision of the show as that is what created the interest in the first place." That doesn't mean that I necessarily think they planned every step out, or that I'll like the ultimate resolution (although I think I will.) I just think that creators of any kind, while they are creating for an audience and have to think about that audience, SHOULD ultimately put their vision of what they are creating first, for better or for worse.
ReplyDeleteWhile nothing I do will ever reach an audience the size of the Lost audience, nor am I egotistical enough to compare myself to Darlton, I relate to them and what they're saying in that I create programming for some very vocal audiences in my job. While I listen to, and sometimes incorporate ideas/criticism that come from that audience, I learned early on that I'll never please everyone, and ultimately, what makes the programming I create successful and popular to the majority of my audience, is by putting the editorial integrity of the program first and audience second. Most of the time that results in a program that satisfies a majority of the audience. And sometimes I have to have conversations where I'm sure the other person thinks I'm snobby, difficult, and unlikeable (and hell, maybe I am) where I listen, tell them I appreciate their feedback and want them to enjoy the program, but that they don't get to determine what that program consists of. And if they decide they don't like the program, they don't have to attend it.