Lost Creators Now Officially Refusing To Tie Up Loose Ends
Remember Libby? The lady that Hurley had a big (get it?) crush on, and who Michael straight shot in the gut? POP POP! But also remember how in the cliffhanger ending to one episode it turned out that she was also in the psych ward with Hurley before the original crash on the island? Whoa! And remember how in the season finale last year how she gave Desmond his boat? Wow! Just a couple of the many mysteries that Lost has not so carefully built up over the years, making the average viewer highly skeptical and concerned that he or she is going to be left holding a fistful of loose ends when the show ends next year.
Well now, in a series of interviews, Lost creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are basically saying that this is exactly what is going to happen. Because they have confirmed that they have no intentions of completing the Libby storyline.
From Sky1:
Libby is also one of those things where we feel like, that story's told--it's done. We've told as much about Libby as we wanna tell....For us, Libby's story is done.
From Lostpedia (via ONTD):
I think the point we were trying to make with the Libby story is that everything is graded in terms of importance for us, and, as we are doing the last season of the show, it's not going to be sort of a didactic, you know, here's a list of a thousand questions that we're going to answer. That would not make for a very entertaining show. We are focusing on what we consider to be the significant questions, and mysteries, and character relationships. That's the story that we're gonna tell. I think that the reference to Libby was more illustrative of the fact that I think, we accept the fact that in the end of the day there will, probably, you could ask a spectrum of a thousand different fans "Well what question did you not get answered?" and there might be a thousand different answers, but we are focusing on what we consider to be the main questions of the show and the main narritive. It's impossible to tie up every loose end, and we don't really consider, honestly, Libby's story is incredibly tangential to the principle action on the show.
Grade THIS for importance!
Normally, I am all for leaving certain conclusions unresolved. We all know that the last scene of The Sopranos was a work of art that should be framed like the "Mr. Lisa" and hung in a museum. But we all also know that Lost is not The Sopranos. And it's not so much that I am so crazed over the Libby story's resolution that I need to start and/or join a hilariously ridiculous Facebook group. Although I've definitely wondered about Libby more than most of the other half-conceived mysteries they've thrown in our unsuspecting faces. The important thing is that this is setting off a very dangerous precedent. Now that they have laid the groundwork, they will feel totally comfortable to drop the balls all over the place (is what she said). AS IF THEY CREATED THIS SHOW AND GET TO DO WHAT THEY WANT WITH IT!
Lindelof and Cuse are right, you could ask a spectrum of a thousand different fans what question they want answered and get a thousand different answers, BECAUSE YOU KEEP TAKING US DOWN DEAD END ROADS BECAUSE FOR A LONG TIME THERE I'M PRETTY SURE YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU WERE DOING, YOU MONSTERS! You wash your hands of this? MAYBE WE SHOULD WASH OUR HANDS OF YOU!
Boo.*
*All of this is just a joke. Only nerds care about this stuff, right you guys? Whatever! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go do something really cool.
Posted by Gabe at 4:45 PM in Backlashes, Behind The Scenes
Tags: Carlton Cuse | Damon Lindelof | Lost
I hope you're serious about joking because I heard the exact opposite:
http://tinyurl.com/ygtyxp
Score = -7
Not cool Lost. I know if you actually had a way of everything fitting together you'd come out with another one of those internet meta-games we all hate but that still provided some relief for important stuff thats been otherwise untouched by the actual show. I'm looking at you, Valenzetti Equation and other stuff I didn't quite catch!
Score = 1
I'm sure there will be information that can lead the audience to a proper conclusion for Libby. Like her name showing up on a payroll for Widmore, for example.
Score = 4
Pro Tip: Don't start watching lost.
Score = -9
I remember one time I bit off more than I could chew, and everyone was like "Are you gonna finish chewing that?" and all I could say was , "fumm umm uh muh."
Score = 19
Forget Libby. WHAT ABOUT WALT?! HE MADE BIRDS SUICIDE BOMB THEMSELVES INTO WINDOWS!! ANSWER THAT LOST!
I'm so sorry for Kanye-ing that you guys!
Score = 21
It almost seems that Lost was conceived as one big ratings con (i.e. establish a mystery that gives way to another mystery while nothing gets resolved), and people have caught on. I stopped watching a while ago, so maybe I'm not qualified to say that, but the entire structure of the show is built upon adding intrigue to intrigue with minimal resolution. I'm starting to think that this was literally the whole idea.
Score = -13
It really upsets people when you suggest this about Lost, which is kind of confusing because it seems to be exactly what's going on.
Score = 2
What I don't get is why that would be a problem. It has been, from the outset, a show about mystery (NOT a mystery show, which is different). It's about how people live in a world of continuing uncertainty, vagueness, danger, and wonder, a world oscillating between judgment and redemption, life and death, free will and fate, interconnectedness and isolation, faith and science. (Hey, that sounds like the real world!) Seriously, if they devoted 10 minutes to Libby and said "she was a spy!" or "she was really mentally ill!," how would that serve the story? Or, to put it another way, how is the story lacking if it's left the way it is?
To back off from my point a bit, of course there has to be a balance between mystery and knowledge. So, there are some basic mythological elements such as Jacob, the smoke monster, and island healing properties that will be "resolved." Overall, though, I'd say some 80% of the island strangeness will be left mysterious, which is fine by me.
Please note that while I wrote this, I was watching sports and drinking beer and objectifying women and doing other manly, manly things.
Score = 1
Libby gave Desmond the boat in the season 2 finale not last year's. When is gabe?
Score = 42
LOL "when is gabe"
Score = 0
To be honest, I agree with Darlton (normal everyday not nerdy or obsessed at all people call them Darlton, right?) in that the Libby thing isn't really weighing all that heavily on my mind. I never had the expectation that all of the fucking curveballs and loose ends and mindfucks could reasonably be answered. Or even a majority of them. That's not what I want from Lost. As long as the big mysteries are answered, I'm pleased.
Score = 10
Typically the way you 'solve' these problems is by killing people. Since Libby is already dead, that's not going to work. So, you kill the people who give a shit and boom, voila, problem solved.
Score = 5
I for one will be very frustrated if this is true. Those of us that have stuck with the show,particularly after so many fans have jumped ship (like Jin), have done so in good faith that every ridiculous detail and connection they have worked so hard to cram into every scene would eventually be resolved, and our commitment to the often WTF narrative ethic of the show would be rewarded. Anything less is sloppy, lazy and careless storytelling. The Sopranos is different because it was its realism that made it so compelling. Life for the characters goes on even though the story of the show is over. Lost is fantasy that is remarkable for its lack of realism, and as such the storytellers have a responsibility to their audience to complete the story. If they ran out of time to do so, that makes the Nikki and Paolo episodes even more egregious.
Score = 9
If this goes the way of the Battlestar Galactica finale, i.e. "we the creators will decide what is important for you, and what will be conveniently never explained", I am going to be pissed.
Score = 5
God dammit. I completely forgot about the Libby thing. I really liked her, too. Gabe, I blame you for me now being angry about this. But thanks I guess.
Why does driving drunk with Michelle Rodriguez have to be so FUN?
Score = 8
the writers always knew where the show was heading. they said in the same interview that the radio transmission sayid and hurley picked up from 1940, "or from any time" as hurley put it, was on purpose. there actually HAVE been many clues to what's happening the next season.
but this is something that should be resolved. this isn't "leaving it up to the audience" because we have NO FUCKING IDEA who she is. it'd be different if there were clues or something.
Score = 2
I happened to catch the episode where the tail section crashes the other day, and had forgotten all about the kids getting kidnapped and Cindy the Stewardesses disappearance and shit like that drove me bonkers.
HOWEVER. You have to remember that most of this was brought up in the second season of the show, when they had no end date in mind and had no idea what was going to happen per ABC. So, basically, I think they were throwing a lot of shit into the air because they didn't know how much storytime they need to fill. Looking back, I'm sure they regret a ton of those decisions (you know, like those assholes that got buried alive). And you can never account for actor's and contracts, like Walt growing up or Harold Perrineau (apparently) being an insufferable dick or Mr. Eko leaving to go direct the story of his life (GOOD CHOICE!). So, you can't blame everything on Darlton, because after they tied up the whole contract with ABC, the storytelling has become a LOT more focused.
I'd also like to propose an equation that measures the goodness of the season/episode in relation to Abrams involvement (i.e. when he isn't doing movies).
Score = 6
This really only gives more firepower to my friends who make fun of Lost because "they were just making stuff up the whole time," instead of supporting my argument of "Nuh-uh there's skeletons in caves and stuff and they had it sketched out from the beginning and shaddup its on leave me alone!"
Also: Cop Out. Libby being in the mental institution was one of the greatest and most WTF??? episode endings. BOO.
Score = 4
"It's impossible to tie up every loose end."
No it isn't. Make a show that doesn't have ten thousand fucking loose ends that would require at least ten more seasons to fully sort out. It's called being good writers for a TV show. I don't watch Lost, but this whole situation is absolutely Ugh-tastic. It's an Ugh world, and we're just Ughing in it, say hello to my little Ugh, we're gonna need a bigger Ugh, etc.
Score = 1
"It's called being good writers for a TV show. I don't watch Lost..."
If you did, you'd know how buttfucking retarded your first statement sounds. Thanks for playing though!
Score = -5
I said "I don't watch Lost" to mean "I don't watch Lost anymore, and therefore have no investment in what they do or don't do on that show." I watched the first season and like two episodes in the second, and soon realized the show wasn't as intelligent and complex as I originally thought, it was just a random narratives that were thrown together in a half-assed attempt to be intelligent and complex. Kind of like a drunk stupid people who all of the sudden think they're the second coming of Nietzsche; "What if God were an apple?" Uh, he's not, spitting out loose ends like you're a yarn factory or something does not make your show intelligent/thought provoking, shut up both of you.
Score = -5
Lost: this is what happens when you have no plan, asshole TV writers. Maybe on the next series you work on you'll spend the second season crafting a detailed arc for the show instead of getting high and trying to freak each other out with your ideas.
Score = 5
prediction for the title of tomorrow's post on Lost:
"Not WHO is Faraday's father, WHEN is Faraday's father???"
Score = 2
i don't know how anyone who has watched this season can really complain about the results we are getting out of the people who put this show together. i think this season has been really entertaining.
Score = 3
This is why I can't bring myself to watch Lost. Even if they tie up every other storyline, this would be SO frustrating.
Score = -3
I bet it's like playing poker. You've got an amazing hand and the pot keeps growing, but as it goes along, you become increasingly less sure that you've got the winning hand. And the remaining player is just smiling as he feeds in more chips to the pot. And you want to fold. But you've already got so much invested in that pot to quit. And then he lays down a royal flush and BAM!
....you've just wasted roughly 100 hours of your life.
Score = 3
I started watching this show again recently because of how many people on the internet think it's just the bee's knees and my personal take is that the whole thing is undeserving of its own hype. You don't deserve those dramatic trombone noises in scene cutaways, Lost!
They obviously had no idea this shit would last as long as it has aor that they'd be held accountable for suggesting certain shit that was probably only originally intended to make everything seem creepier. I'm not hating for that, but ... they do get paid a fucking ridiculous amount of money to do their jobs. They could at least be better at it. There are so many half-assed things about the show that it would be impossible to tie them all up. Such as: why are all the people named after famous smart people so named? Is that redheaded chick going to come back and write her very own Jesus allegory? Is Widmore the Aslan of the Lostnarniaverse?
Score = -5
I get that they can't answer everything because of what someone mentioned before - when they brought these things up in season 2, they had no idea how much airtime they were going to get. You can't do tight, logical storytelling when you know how much time you're going to have.
That said, it'd be nice if they could have some kind of explanation. They did all that Hanso Foundation stuff between seasons a few years ago, so maybe they could do little backstory webisodes or something after the wrap-up of the season. Or, you know, just tell us what was supposed to happen.
Score = 0
I am now pissed off before 8 in the morning. Maybe a new record for me.
They friggin loose-ended themselves into a corner. THE ONLY WAY TO RECOVER IS TO START TYING ENDS, LOST. Seriously, if we get to the end of the show and find out it's just The Man Who Was Thursday all over again (people running around, convinced that they're doing important things, when in actuality they're just expending energy) I am going to break something.
Score = 1
Haha, I feel so vindicated for never watching this show...I remember sometime during its second season, I think, and one of the creators was on some late night show and was all "no really we SWARE we know where it's all going and it'll all make sense, not like what happened with the X Files." And I was like, it is going to be EXACTLY like the X Files and I am no way going to get involved in this. So right, Lucy and the football.
OTOH, this does leave a lot of stuff to be tied up in comic books and novels, if you're into that scene.
Score = -3
People who are saying that this proves that the writers have never had any idea what they were doing: that doesn't really follow. They aren't saying that they had no plan for Libby and are ignoring it because they don't know what to do with her. They're saying that with the time that they have left, it doesn't make sense to have a Libby background story episode. It would just interrupt the flow and pacing of the last season. They should have answered her questions back in Season Two, but they didn't, and I would rather have them drop it now than have it awkwardly jammed into the last season.
Score = 5
You guys are being fucking ridiculous. This isn't Damon and Carlton 'giving up'. If you're actually paying attention to the show then you'd know they're pulling off a seasonal arc that revolves around a company on the island thirty years before the survivors even crashed there. Libby was in the mental institution for one scene, and while it was a "WTF" moment, it does not seem incredibly relevant to the main plot at this point in the series. I mean, the main point of that episode, was to imply that Hurley was crazy AND THE WHOLE ISLAND WAS MADE UP IN HIS MIND. I don't think the writers have decided to explore that avenue, and I don't think Libby's backstory would really end up being something entirely worth seeing. Whatever, you guys should be happy about the storylines they will tie up, because I'm willing to bet they're a lot more interesting.
And yeah... I get it... this is the internet, so you're stoked because the creators have finally been like 'yeah... we aren't answering every single thing because we don't have time', but this isn't some huge flaw in the plan. That's why they're skipping it. Because it isn't that big a deal in the end game of the show. Calm down.
Score = 5
Most important question to be answered: How did Hugo Reyes get the nickname "Hurley"?
Score = 5
This is why I've always had a love/hate relationship with Lost. They've said the same thing about the numbers. They said "The numbers aren't anything, they are just bad luck for Hurley", which is complete bullshit considering how much the storyline revolved on them early on.
What they don't get and what Lost apologists don't get is that the main thing here isn't that Libby's little side adventures or the numbers are crucial to the story or would be particularly interesting to tell. The problem is that, by saying "This really doesn't interest us", they are admitting this is one (of too many to count) question, that never had any answer. If this had a solid answer, it could be woven into the storyline. What they are saying is this: "We have too much on our plate already to bother thinking of a reason why she was in the hospital". I mean, if they have an answer, but don't have the time to put into a story, just tell us what it/she is. Put it in one of those stupid online games they loved using to rope in people early on. Drop it in an easter egg on the website. Spout it in an interview.
Will they do that? No, because there's only one reason she was in the hospital: they needed another lazy WTF moment to keep people hooked. They planned on thinking of something later, but they added so many of those same questions-with-no-answers that right now they just need to focus on thinking up answers for the big questions.
I've told my friends, I already know how Lost is going to end. Its going to end in some "I guess we'll never really know what happened on that island" debacle, the hardcore fans will defend it to the death as some "They knew the answers, they just kept them a secret to preserve the mystery" rationale, and in the end, these two will be the ones with the last laugh....and they will be laughing at all of us.
Score = 3
I've realized that listening to Cuse and Lindelof explain away the questions they aren't going to answer is like watching a little kid explain to his teacher that he left his homework at home.
"Really guys, if you don't have an answer for us, just tell us. We won't be mad, just tell us the truth."
"No, no we really did it. We filled it out and everything, but then we got distracted by a big boat and the 70s, and then the bus pulled up and we had to run to catch it, and I must have left it on the table. Maybe Carlton's dog got ahold of it. I don't know, but when I looked in my bookbag it wasn't there, but I swear we actually did it."
Score = 3
lol i just hope they explain what on earth that weird black smoke is
Score = 0
I can almost guarantee there will be more loose ends than a yarn factory * (* borrowed metaphor from Briewer) when LOST ends, because they will still sell books and comics or whatever to continue the unraveling of the mysteries.
Personally I think it was a bad decision to come up with this Charles Whidmore evil empire shit in the first place, which is similar to how JJ ruined "Alias."
Where the fuck are Bernard and Rose?
Score = 2
Regardless of what you think of LOST or its plot elements, Gabe is right to geek out here. WE STILL DONT KNOW WHY HURLEY CAME BACK TO THE ISLAND. How hard would it be to have ONE SCENE with Libby offering some resolution of her story/motivation for Hurley?? We got the whole boring Kate and Aaron episode showing us scenes we already suspected (sawyers baby momma, claires mom) but not one mention of Libby. After years of suspecting she was a 'guardian of destiny' like Ms. Hawking, NOTHING??! AAAARGH
Score = 1
I don't find the Libby story to be that important to me, but it sets a bad precedent indeed.
I've always felt that after season 1 they just started going in the dark. Lost is one of those shows that in order to "make sense" it needs a specific run time. When you start over-stretching it gets ridiculous.
I stopped watching for a while. Now I'm back because knowing that it was going to end next year it would eventually tie-up some ends. Let's hope the real important stuff is not swept under the rug and we don't get a WTF ending that makes us feel like we've wasted all of our time!
That's my same fear with Fringe, I think it's a great show but it will eventually lead down that road, just like Alias before it. It's the JJ Abrams curse!
Score = 1
I've been straight up telling everybody and their god damned uncle this from fucking day 1 about the Lost writers having no story arc or intention of wrapping up all loose ends.
I followed Alias, I've been hurt like this before. And yet I come back for more. I don't have a problem, I can quit any time. I just don't want to.
Score = 0
did they ever explain the polar bear?
Score = 0