About Me

My photo
Greetings. I am the Illusive One. For many years now I have been a huge video game player, movie viewer, and book reader. For almost as long, I have been a critic of these things and many people respect my opinions of these things and have often said I belong on G4 doing reviews on X-Play or a similar show. Sadly that is not likely to happen. So instead I shall do reviews for you, uninfluenced by other reviewers, of video games books, movies, and, occasionally, music and political actions. I hope you find this informative and helpful. Thank you for your time.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

One Year Without Lost: The Series Finale

           Welcome to the third and final part of One Year Without Lost.  As I mentioned in my Star Wars V.S. Lord of the Rings post, finales inevitably disappoint.  The finale of Lost, however, met with a lot of mixed opinions.  Some people loved it, some people hated it and a smaller percentage of people weren't sure what they thought about it.  But I honestly don't care what they think on the matter.  I'm just going to give my honest thoughts on how I remember the series finale.  To those who haven't seen it, this article will contain spoilers so consider this is your warning.  This is One Year Without Lost: The Series Finale.

The final episode aired on ABC on Sunday, May 23, and had a total runtime of about two and a half hours.  However, what they called the Lost Series Finale Even lasted for about four and a half and was sponsored by Target.  For starters you had a two hour recap of the entire series with the cast and crew giving their thoughts on the series.  I never found much point in this recap, other than to get people hyped for the final episode and maybe to refresh people’s memories.  That was all well and good but as I remember, it just annoyed me and made me want for them to get to the episode already, (so I guess you could say it worked).
            The biggest problem I had with this, however, were the ridiculous number of commercials they had.  As remember, the actual episode had about an hour and forty five minutes of actual runtime and about forty five minutes of commercials.  It seemed like every five minutes they had a set if commercials interrupting the damn episode and this pissed me off beyond belief.  There were always at least two Target commercials in the breaks and by the time the episode ended I just wanted to burn one of their stores down.  I mean, they treated it like the damn Super Bowl with the number of the commercials they had in it.  To this day, I can't go into a Target without getting pissed about the whole thing.  It damn near ruined the finale for me and I have never forgiven Target or ABC for allowing it.


            Before I even get into the final episode, allow me to give my thoughts on the final season.  For starters, the build up to the final episode was well done.  Much of the final season had just been a blood bath as more characters died in it, (both minor and major), then the rest of the seasons combined so you were eager to see the Man in Black go down.  Throughout the sixth season, an alternate reality existed where the survivors made different decisions in their lives and never crashed on the island.  As the season progressed, however, the characters began to remember things from the reality on the island and by the time the final episode came around, the realities were ready to collide.
            So what about the finale itself?  Well, on the island things were fairly straight forward.  Jack and the rest of the survivors are trying to stop the Man in Black from destroying and escaping the island.  I have to say the solution was very well built up and actually made a lot of since, (given that it's Lost).  It was incredibly suspenseful as the survivors were trying to keep the Man in Black on the island but at the same time had to cause the island's destruction in order to kill him but then had to stop its destruction because who know what will happen.  The whole thing will just make you head spin.  It was also incredibly satisfying to see the Man in Black finally go down after all the horrible things he caused and to see several of the crash survivors finally get off the island.  I also couldn't help but love the fact that Hurley became Jacob's replacement and Ben became his second-in-command.  In truth, Hurley was the best man for the job and Ben got what he always wanted in that regard.
            The area, however, that really got my eyes watering was alternate reality.  All the characters were reuniting with their dead companions and it made for some tear dropping moments.  The reunion between Ben and Locke was of the most satisfying.  Ben is finally able to truly apologize to Lock for killing him and you feel that his apology was genuine and gave me the feeling that all had been forgiven between the two.  Then you had Hurley talking to Ben saying he was a great number two and Ben telling Hurley was a great number one.  These conversations were just perfect for the situation and reminded me that it was a character driven story and constantly made my eyes water. 
            None of these, however, can hold a candle to the final conversation.  During the final episode, all of the characters say that they are leaving and only Jack doesn’t seem to know what's going on.  All the characters go to a church where Jack is approached by his dead father, Christian, who tells him the truth; that they were all dead and this place, (what we thought was the alternate reality), had been created to reunite all them as their time on the island had been the most important of their lives and tells them that it's time to move on to whatever is beyond.  They all sit in the church with happy looks on their faces.  At the same time it cut to a scene where Jack was dying from a knife wound and was just perfectly cut together.  The church fills with light, Jack falls down lays down in a bamboo forest with Vincent the Dog beside him, mirroring the first scene of the first episode closes his eyes on the island, leaving the viewer with a happy yet upset feeling.
            All around, I would have to say this was the best ending to any series, (be it book, film, or video games), that I have ever seen.  While a lot of people hated the way it ended I honestly loved it.  It finished up the story, delivered a satisfying ending to the whole thing and I thought the final twist concerning the alternate reality was just perfectly played off. 
A lot of people, however, hated it for reasons I have never understood and I honestly don’t know what everyone was expecting from it.  But for me it had the perfect blend of feel good and bittersweet to it.  Maybe it’s because not everything was explained or they didn’t like the twist ending, but for me I can only think of one adjective to describe it: Perfect. 
So until next time this is the Illusive One and if you have a problem my opinion on this you can go to hell.






No comments:

Post a Comment