I'm sure my old thread for posting these LOST review links is somewhere, but...

[JasonPratt]

...it has been so long since "Reetae" posted Part 7 I just didn't have the wherewithal to search back through the threads. Slightly more lazy to create a new one.

If you don't recall, or don't know, a Youtuber by that name started... gosh, two years ago... a project that he originally just meant to lead by introductory context into a discussion about why, for various narrative and thematic reasons, he didn't think the ending of the TV series LOST worked. At all. And not saying that as a hater either, but as someone who truly loved the show and still appreciates all the things it does well.

First, he thought he'd provide context with a little 15:24 video introducing the topic and looking at Season One for context, not only in story and theme but in overall quality.

But then he realized that while the seeds of the eventual problems had been sown so early, it wasn't really until Season Two that the problems seriously started taking hold.

But then it wasn't until Season Three that....

-- Two years later, and (by one count) NINE HOURS AND TWENTY-NINE MINUTES... wow that sounds ludicrous. The grand finale episode 8 alone (just released today March 31, as I discovered slightly by accident), clocks in at about a third of that. (And there's evidently a planned epilogue coming of 20 minutes or more. Plus possibly a few more eps on side topics.)

But as an analytical documentary, on story writing and development, this series ranks in my opinion as one of the hidden treasures of the internet. It ranks up with Michael Kaminski's 2008 The Secret History of Star Wars (Kindle Edition but there's a large glossy paperback, too) for using primary sources to trace a history of story development where the authors have worked hard to obscure how they were changing the story while they were making it.

The first video is naturally rough, but Reetae gets better as he goes along. I know it's going to feel, and sound, like he's slagging the show, but he doesn't even want people to use his videos as hate fodder against it. (Me neither.)

This is, simply, a major work of literary criticism, spiced no doubt with some sarcasm and other humor, packed with content. It's practically a doctoral monograph -- except hugely fun to watch and listen to (for me anyway).

I give you (again, mostly): REETAE REMEMBERS LOST

[Edited to add: uh, humorous R-rated language is relatively frequent, so even if a 9.5 hour structural analysis of a TV show was safe for work, somehow, this would be NSFW. Choose actual and indirect audiences responsibly.]

Episode 1: Remember Walt? (15:23)

Episode 2: Why the Mysteries Matter (17:38)

Episode 3: The Great Island Pregnancy Conundrum (29:54)

Episode 4: Moving the Island (21:53)

These videos address seasons 1 through 4, roughly speaking, tracking the development of story problems and thematic incoherencies. The could also be considered one large episode, serving as an introduction to the topic, and the roots and early spread of the problems.


Episode 5: Making It Up (1:03:30)

Episode 6: Jack 2.0, or How I Never Learned To Love The Bomb (1:32:31)

Having considered the first four seasons, the thesis is now in a contextual position to determine that Season Five is where the show went off the rails; and why, and how. These two eps could be considered a large second episode.


Episode 7: You Didn't Get It, Allegedly (2:17:14)

Discusses how Season Six stands in comparison to, context with, and contrast to, the previous seasons (even in comparison to Season Five).

Episode 8: The Ending (3:09:44)

Analyzes the infamous ending in context of the rest of the series, and pulls the overall analysis together.


34,067 seconds.  :bd: 9 hours, 27 minutes, 47 seconds

Almost as long as the Lord of the Rings Extended Trilogy.  :D

[JasonPratt]

I meant to get back to this eventually for Fraternally Anticipated Questions:


1.) IS THERE REALLY ANY POINT WATCHING NINE AND A HALF HOURS OF INTERNET GRIPING?!

...yes? If you aren't entertained by a few minutes into the first ep, it won't be any different (although better in editing quality and composition) as you go. Still, I understand the leeryness. It's a hard question to answer. Feed me an easier one, O imaginary voice in my head!


2.) IS EPISODE 8 A WORTHY ENDING TO THE SERIES (not counting the probable epilogue-not-really-ep-9 forthcoming)?

I was not disappointed at all, and enjoyed it as much as the prior eps, but a more objective answer requires splitting this question up into subsidaries considering the question of: does ep 8 succeed in its purpose?


3.) WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF EPISODE 8?

To examine the narrative and thematic structure of Lost's final episode in the context of the long-form story creation and storytelling that came before; and to argue on detailed analysis how and why the ending annoyed so many of its fans as a factor of that long-form story creation and storytelling. Also, relatedly and to be fair, why many fans loved the ending; and why many still love it, and why another-many felt sour about it after loving it initially. The ending was designed to do its best under the circumstances to make fans feel like a worthy ending had arrived, but (per the thesis) was designed in a cheap, shallow way to actively deceive fans.

(Also, Ep 7 had gotten up to the final handful of eps, and those still needed to be discussed -- and this takes up a significant portion of Ep 8. It isn't all the final series episode, much less all the final scene.)


4.) DOES THE 8TH EP SUCCEED IN THIS (compound) PURPOSE?

I think so, yes. I went into the episode dubious about the 3 hour length, and came away impressed. The author connected a lot of dots for explaining why I, myself, felt distinctly unsatisfied about the ending (aside from it conflicting with my religious beliefs, although it turns out one major component of thematic failure is, in effect, a crappy religious/philosophical message being sold to the audience under a mask of shallowly profound feelings.)

To give one big example (not related to the cruddy philosophical bait-and-switch about gooey feelings instead of actual repentance for past actions), anyone who watched the series to the end will have noticed that the church seems strangely empty with only a relative handful of characters "passing on", and that they're paired up in romantic couples with only a couple of exceptions, and that one romantic couple makes literally no sense in regard to what the show itself has repeatedly shown and told us. Not that I'm trying to avoid spoilers, and the episode itself will certainly be very spoilery about this, but anyone not having watched the series would just be confused if I said Sayyid and... whatever her name was, the blonde girl who died early on the show. This was very much nothing more than a convenient if slightly chivalrous hook-up for their own entertainment, while Sayyid is along the way clearly shown to have truly loved a completely different woman. But he's there with the shallow asthmatic bimbo (not to be insulting but that's how her character was explicitly written) instead. This makes massive amounts of anti-sense. Why would the writers even do this? If there's one thing fans and detractors on the ending could universally agree on, it's that foisting the idea that these two are who meant the most to each other, is ludicrous beyond any belief. It doesn't just break the prior characterization of Sayyid, which had been conveniently thrown in the dumpster and set on fire anyway in the past couple of seasons for cheap dramatic purposes (and definitely not in a way that led to this at all); it smashes and jumps up and down all over the whole apparent point to the flash-sideways plot of Season 6 ending like this. How could the writers have been this stupid and tone-deaf to their own work?!?

But from the writers' perspective, they weren't being stupid and tone-deaf (though that often also seems the best answer in other regards). It fits a strategy of designing the church scene to include as many first season characters as possible (they're all from Season One except the major fan-favorite exceptions of one couple, who showed up first in Season Two), to provide a sort of innuendo of feeling that the show had been going here all along -- and to include only the most emotional romantic couples possible from the first season, to give fans as much emotional boost to the ending from that direction. This is why other highly important first season characters get left out, and why other highly important characters from subsequent seasons get left out -- even when they were important for the 'reality' side of Season Six!

Why bother with this cheap emotional sham at all (which along the way is connected in the final several episodes to mostly-romantic flashback highlight reels?) As a distraction, because the 'real' main plot was falling apart in its resolution and the main writers realized that, worse, they weren't anywhere near providing resolution to all the mysteries, or even to all the most important ones, that they had substantially been selling the show on: not only on the mysteries but on the ANSWERS being both important to the story and forthcoming, especially in the final season, which just wasn't true (but which marketing continued for the box sets of the total series: "the answers are here" etc.) They needed to provide a feeling of emotional happiness and continuity with the first season, to sell the ending because they didn't really have a good ending (and never did, and bluffed that they could haxor up a good ending in time).


5.) OKAY BUT, NINE AND A HALF FREAKING HOURS TO GET HERE (ALMOST A THIRD ON THE 8TH EP ALONE)?!?

On the implied actual question here, no I acknowledge I don't think the analysis had to be that long -- some amount of that is just cathartic fun along the way, plus appreciation of the good parts of the show (in the author's estimation which I generally agree with).

But I do think the analysis did need to be substantially lengthy, because a chief accusation by the author is that the main writers for the series were (and, being continually unrepentant about it in the decade plus since then, still are) serial liars against their own fanbase, who are willing to sacrifice the professional reputation of their co-workers to protect their own egocentric self-marketing.

That's a harsh accusation, and it shouldn't be made lightly: there ought to be plenty of evidence presented to support that accusation, and a related issue would be when did this bad faith against their own audience begin? (Answer: pretty much from the beginning but it got a lot worse over time.) That by itself explains and justifies the length of Reetae's series -- and does he succeed in that goal? I think he does, and he demonstrates it repeatedly over the length of the series. To appreciate the accusation, a lot of context is needed.


So there you go. That gives a better idea, I hope, of what to expect from the critical analysis and its grand finale, and so also of whether anyone would feel it's worth even trying to watch. If all I've done is help convince someone this isn't a project you'd be interested in, and so not to waste your time, then I have succeeded in my purpose for this followup post.  >:D

But I myself was super-impressed with it, and I wanted to share with anyone who might also like it.  O:-)