Watch, Watching, Watch -- Keep the change you filthy animal!

[Werthead]

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who was a writer-producer on the first two seasons of Lost, has a superb essay on the making of the first two seasons in which he outlined how the show was made.

The idea that they had every single idea for six seasons locked in before they made the pilot was, of course, false. But the counter-idea that nobody had any clue what they were doing and were making it up as they went along is also false.

The general idea is that Lindelof and Abrams outlined and wrote the pilot with only somewhat vague ideas of WTF was the big picture, but a big team of writers and consultants (also including Batman's Paul Dini) were roaring around in the background building up the mythology and Abrams and Lindelof were constantly pouring ideas into them that they then whipped into shape. So: 

(spoiled for length, not spoilers obvs)

Spoiler

During these sessions -- which began on February 24th of 2004, exactly one day before Damon and JJ finished writing their very first draft of the pilot -- a lot of the ideas that became the show’s mythology and format were discussed, pitched, and put into play for what would eventually become the series. Also, to be fair, more often than not, we were paving the way for the good ideas by coming up with a lot of bad ones. Very bad ones.

On the first day alone, Damon downloaded on us the notion that the island was a nexus of conflict between good and evil: an uncharted and unchartable place with a mysterious force at its core that called humanity to it to play out a primal contest between light and dark. 

In that meeting -- we had an assistant taking the notes I am consulting as I write this -- Damon also pitched out the idea of “The Medusa Corporation” a Rand Corporation-like entity that knew the nature of the island and had thus chosen it as a place in which to perform a series of behavior modification experiments in a series of scientific stations... and who had brought the polar bears in for these experiments. 

The reason The Medusa Corporation was performing these experiments was that they had stumbled on an equation -- much like the famed Drake equation, popularized by Carl Sagan in Cosmos and used to estimate the number of discoverable worlds holding life in the universe -- which predicted the end of the world. By performing experiments in a place they knew as a crucible for extremes of human behavior -- some of those experiments involving behavioral modification on polar bears -- Medusa hoped to change humanity and avoid an impending armageddon.

 

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As I described before, there was definitely a sort of "operational theory" for what the island would be -- it was liked by some and loathed by others -- and since Damon and Carlton chose not to say it out loud in the series finale, I won't presume to do it for them. Suffice it to say there was a concrete reason that we openly discussed on several occasions about why the island had an exotic source of power in its core that was able to wreak such miracles as time travel, the motion of the island, and somehow connect with selected people on a psychic level. 

On question number two. It is not purgatory. It was never purgatory. It will never be purgatory. 

Even after watching the series finale following a four-year absence from any exposure to the show, it was pretty clear to me that only after clearing up whatever insanity was happening on the island did Jack die... and then found himself in a pan-denominational spiritual halfway house where his father's  spirit explained that -- because the events of the island were so significant to the ensemble of Lost -- they had all been brought here to wait for one another so that they would all ascend together. Frankly, I found it to be a nice spiritual grace note, but it most certainly was not a confirmation that the island was purgatory

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"Did we know what we were doing, or were we just making it all up as we went?"

If you feel that I have not yet adequately addressed that... if you now consider yourself so strung along for so long that you are positively entitled to something brief and concise -- something you can tell your friends at cocktail parties, something that accounts for the rigor of not just being entertained by six seasons of Lost, but also trudging through countless articles, and magazines, and documentaries, and clip shows, and making-of books, and "oral histories," and this rambling screed -- OK, dear reader, here it is...

First we built a world. Then we filled it with an ensemble of flawed but interesting characters -- people who were real to us, people with enough depth in their respective psyches to withstand years of careful dramatic analysis. Then we created a thrilling and undeniable set of circumstances in which these characters had to bond together and solve problems in interesting ways. 

Soon thereafter, we created a way for you to witness their pasts and compare the people they once were with the people they were in the process of becoming. While that was going on, we also created an entire 747s worth of ideas, notions, fragments, complications, and concepts that would -- if properly and thoughtfully mined -- yield enough narrative fiction to last as long as our corporate overlords would demand to feed their need for profit and prestige, and then, just to be sure, teams of exceptionally talented people worked nonstop to make sure the 747 never emptied out.

And then we made it all up as we went.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Last Night in Soho is a bizarre yet visually stunning film. I highly recommend it. 

[Ramsay B.]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Finished Station Eleven, hard to stop watching it for both of us. Really very good, beautifully filmed and performed. I do think the first half was stronger than the second half, in some respects, but all in all well worth the time to watch. 

I agree. I think it lost some steam down the stretch, especially when not dealing with the Jeevan/Kirsten storyline. Overall liked it a lot though.

I watched The Favourite for the first time in a while. So good.

[SpaceChampion]

I decided to watch the first two episodes of How I Met Your Father, and it is dreadfully unfunny with no interesting characters so far.

The theme song is the same but kind of a lifeless anemic version.

The guys in the show live in the same apartment Ted, Marshal and Lilly lived in.  Their pirate swords are still there, hung up about the fireplace.  Thank god there is no blue horn.

 

 

[RumHam]

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who was a writer-producer on the first two seasons of Lost, has a superb essay on the making of the first two seasons in which he outlined how the show was made.

Thanks for posting that, never saw it. Or that infamous document he mentions that people use as evidence they were making it up.

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As I described before, there was definitely a sort of "operational theory" for what the island would be - it was liked by some and loathed by others - and since Damon and Carlton chose not to say it out loud in the series finale, I won't presume to do it for them. Suffice it to say there was a concrete reason that we openly discussed on several occasions about why the island had an exotic source of power in its core that was able to wreak such miracles as time travel, the motion of the island, and somehow connect with selected people on a psychic level

So... crashed alien ship that possibly seeded earth with life, right? I can't think of anything else that fits.

[Werthead]

26 minutes ago, RumHam said:

Thanks for posting that, never saw it. Or that infamous document he mentions that people use as evidence they were making it up.

So... crashed alien ship that possibly seeded earth with life, right? I can't think of anything else that fits.

I think if they'd gone in one direction, it would have been as the Island as the source of the myth of Eden, and the light is effectively the source of human consciousness and life as we know it.

I think the crashed alien spacecraft doesn't work because there is no sign of the aliens themselves, their origins or anything else to make that a viable option.

[DMC]

Alien gods, regular gods, what's the difference, right?

[Larry of the Lawn]

I saw an original script for the episode where they initially opened the Hatch, and it was called "Golgotterath" instead of "The Hatch."

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Munich: The Edge of War on Netflix.

A pretty well made historical spy thriller. The Munich agreement is pretty controversial topic (that would be a thread of its own) and many would say this film provides an overly sympathetic portrayal of Chamberlain. It's a portrayal that does have some historical support and is plausible if not historically accurate. A pretty good film. 

[RumHam]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

I think if they'd gone in one direction, it would have been as the Island as the source of the myth of Eden, and the light is effectively the source of human consciousness and life as we know it.

I think the crashed alien spacecraft doesn't work because there is no sign of the aliens themselves, their origins or anything else to make that a viable option.

I was imagining that it crashed so long ago, like I said maybe bringing the most basic forms of life to earth even. There really wouldn't be any evidence left, the ship itself would be very deep underground.

[TheLastWolf]

Speechless. Grave of the Fireflies. It's been a long time since something touched my heart (or the hole where it was), not even Jojo rabbit (if you're talking recent)

[DMC]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who was a writer-producer on the first two seasons of Lost, has a superb essay on the making of the first two seasons in which he outlined how the show was made.

Thanks for linking this.  What he had to say about Walt and the "Special" episode was really interesting - 

Spoiler

For example - even though we assumed from jump street that the polar bears had been brought to the island as part of the Medusa Corporation's work - there was also a very strong drive from Damon and JJ to advance the story that Walt was a powerful psychic. This explained, for example, the bird hitting the window in the episode "Special." Walt-as-psychic would also help us explain why The Others had such an interest in Walt and would ultimately kidnap him.

Although the genre-averse Powers That Be at network and studio were resolutely opposed to the science-fictional idea of a psychic boy who could manifest polar bears on a tropical island through the strength of will alone, Damon and JJ nevertheless gave themselves a backdoor into this area by putting the bear in a comic book that appeared both in the pilot and thereafter in series.

Frankly, it's hard for me to look at an episode like "Special" and not completely take from it that Walt is a powerful psychic who manifested the polar bear in order to test his father's love once and for all... but the execution of the episode apparently left plenty of wiggle room to give us plausible deniability - even as Damon would regularly come into the writers' room, throw up his arms and declare "Of course Walt's psychic."

Now that's something I wish they addressed more.  And I think it's fascinating how he thought it was obvious Walt was manifesting the polar bear in that episode.  Really makes you wonder how the series would have played out if the writers had more free rein to explore such "too sci-fi" avenues.

[Wall Flower]

5 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Speechless. Grave of the Fireflies. It's been a long time since something touched my heart (or the hole where it was), not even Jojo rabbit (if you're talking recent)

A extraordinary and devastating film.

[Ramsay B.]

5 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Speechless. Grave of the Fireflies. It's been a long time since something touched my heart (or the hole where it was), not even Jojo rabbit (if you're talking recent)

I’ve always wanted to see this but the only version I can find is on Itunes and it’s dubbed only. I hate dubbed anything but may just have to suck it up.

[Rippounet]

10 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Speechless. Grave of the Fireflies. It's been a long time since something touched my heart (or the hole where it was), not even Jojo rabbit (if you're talking recent)

I think it's the one work of fiction that made me shed a tear as a grown-up.

[Veltigar]

Watched the first three episodes of Peacemaker. Not impressed by it at the moment. I could even refrain myself from watching episode number four, which usually is a bad sign. I'll probably keep watching as I really liked The Suicide Squad, but if it doesn't get better by the end of season I'll probably skip this next year.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Watched the first three episodes of Peacemaker. Not impressed by it at the moment. I could even refrain myself from watching episode number four, which usually is a bad sign. I'll probably keep watching as I really liked The Suicide Squad, but if it doesn't get better by the end of season I'll probably skip this next year.

Surely the title sequence alone merits some applause.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

Watched the first three episodes of Peacemaker. Not impressed by it at the moment. I could even refrain myself from watching episode number four, which usually is a bad sign. I'll probably keep watching as I really liked The Suicide Squad, but if it doesn't get better by the end of season I'll probably skip this next year.

How do you see an episode of television called The Choad Less Traveled and not immediately click play.

[Veltigar]

2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Surely the title sequence alone merits some applause.

Definitely the best thing about it so far!

2 hours ago, RumHam said:

How do you see an episode of television called The Choad Less Traveled and not immediately click play.

Well, I didn't see that title. That probably explains it  

[Gigei]

Just finished watching Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Some random thoughts:

• I love me some Tony Leung but Fala Chen just looks way too young for him as a romantic interest. Chen is actually 49 which on paper is fine, but she looks like she's 30. Having said that, I do understand that his char is a lot older so its fits. And they couldn't have cast an actress in her 50s because she has kids. I guess this is just personal thing.
• On the other hand, Leung is leagues better in movie martial arts compared to the others which fits cuz he's supposed to be this badass 1,000-year-old. He's actually more believable than Simu Liu who's younger and more fit.
• Michelle Yeoh was a delight, as usual. The same with Awkwafina.
• I did not recognize Ben Kingsley, but I nonetheless loved him. And his pet. Or was the Mandarin the pet? LOL.
• I thought Simu Liu was quite charming. He's better in the action and comedic parts than the drama though.
• Something about the magical village looked weirdly CGI. I'm not good at technical movie bits so I can't pinpoint what was wrong with it, but it basically looked weirdly fake? Like uncanny valley for me.
• Overall, an entertaining movie.