Damon Lindelof Takes a Sentimental Journey - To The Middle East
thinbluemime
Damon Lindelof Takes a Sentimental Journey - To The Middle East
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-shehori/the-offtopic-interview-da_b_807174.html
by Steven Shehori
The Off-Topic Interview: Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof served as producer and co-writer of the 2009 Star Trek
reboot. He's also the award-winning co-creator, executive producer and
showrunner of Lost, one of the most original and influential series in
television history. We recently sat down to discuss Lost's legacy, the
future of serialized dramas, and surprises planned for the upcoming Trek
sequel. Then things got a bit off topic. My bad.
STEVEN SHEHORI: First off, I have a beef with you about the series finale
of Lost.
DAMON LINDELOF: Okay, let's hear it.
SS: It made me cry. In front of chicks. So thanks for that, asshole.
DL: The way I see it, only real men cry, and even 'realer' men tell other
men that they cry. So you're double macho in my book.
SS: The upcoming Star Trek flick you're writing: it's a sequel to a hit
film that's based on an iconic TV series. Which, if you think about it,
kind of makes it your Sex and the City 2.
DL: I hadn't thought of it that way. I actually haven't seen Sex and the
City 2.
SS: Me neither. I caught the tail end of a commercial for it one time,
where the girls were on camels for some reason. Mind you, being writers,
something tells me we could take a stab at guessing the basic storyline.
DL: Very true.
SS: Let's give it a shot. Hmm... Well, I figure Act I opens with Carrie,
Samantha, the redhead and the other one; they're on their camels,
hopelessly lost in the desert. Probably outside of Bahrain. The viewer
thinks, "What? They're not in the city, and they're certainly not having
sex. How'd they get into this crazy mess?" Then, we use the ol' Battlestar
Galactica narrative device: a title card comes up that reads, "One week
earlier..."
DL: Right, and now they're back in NYC.
SS: Where we need some sort of inciting incident that gets them on a
flight to Bahrain.
DL: And my instincts tell me if we're going to put these irreverent ladies
in the Middle East, we really want some sort of fatwa situation to occur.
My thinking is that Carrie writes a column that calls into question the
beauty and nobility of Middle Eastern female fashion choices.
SS: The Satanic Purses, so to speak.
DL: Yeah. I figure she ends up offending the wife of a high-ranking
cleric, and she has to go and apologize in person to avoid the potential
fatwa. And this leads to a series of comic misunderstandings.
SS: Her friends come along for moral support and, let's face it, for some
primo cross-Atlantic shopping as well.
DL: Absolutely.
SS: And then somewhere in Act II they're trying to respectfully
appropriate the Middle Eastern culture, but their sensibilities kind of
lead them astray. Where maybe Samantha's wearing a burqa, but it's tricked
out a bit too much because she feels black is so drab.
DL: Probably a midriff-revealing burqa.
SS: Yeah, which pretty much defies the purpose of the burqa, some might
say.
DL: And maybe that gets Samantha imprisoned, and they're going to cut off
her hands. But her concerns are less about grievous bodily injury and more
about, "What would the fashion implications be?" Which elicits an, "Oh my
God, she'll never be able to wear gloves with her evening gown again,"
response from the girls.
SS: Which brings us to the Act III turning point, where the girls try and
use their feminine wiles to free her.
DL: Yeah, a couple of them flirt with the local constabulary to try and
get Samantha out. When that fails, Carrie gives a very lengthy, earnest
monologue that ends with her crying, which has this halo effect on
everyone else in the room. It's like a superpower she has to make men feel
really, really bad about themselves.
SS: Right, which convinces one of the men to say, "All right, I'm going to
sneak you ladies out the back, and you're gonna have to ride off on these
camels to get away." And now we're back where the movie began, with the
girls bickering and lost in the desert like they're starring in a stylish
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
DL: And they're very, very thirsty. So we get the oasis montage. "What is
each lady hallucinating?" One of them sees a giant cosmo martini glass,
for instance.
SS: Which really wouldn't hydrate her very well at all, being alcohol and
such.
DL: Ultimately, it would be a dehydrant, yes.
SS: Then Samantha -- instead of seeing a waterfall or whatever --
hallucinates a Saks Fifth Avenue outlet. And when the other girls say, "A
clothing store isn't going to save you from dehydration!" she replies,
"No, but at least I'll look good when I'm dead."
DL: This is also the requisite point in the movie where Charlotte finally
speaks. She freaks out and spins completely out of control, and kinda goes
on a tirade about how selfishly everybody is acting. And that unites the
gang, where they say, "If we're gonna die, at least we're dying with each
other." And right at that moment, they probably get saved.
SS: Yeah, courtesy of some sort of deus ex machina. Maybe a nearby
helicopter pilot had picked up the intense flip-out on his equipment, and
decides to track the source. But it should be a callback to something set
up earlier on. Like maybe the pilot was flirting with Samantha in Act I,
but she wouldn't go out on a date with him. So now, he recognizes her in
the desert, and says, "I'm happy to save all of you... So long as we
finally get to go on that date, pretty lady!" And she's all like, "Forget
it! Get lost, creep!" and the other girls are all like, "Samantha!" and
she's all like, "Okay, fine!" but she's quite disproportionately pissed
off about the whole thing.
DL: And this life-changing adventure gives Carrie the insight to finally
understand how horribly she offended the cleric's wife with her column. So
she finally meets her and delivers another speech. This one's twice as
long and heartfelt as the one she used to free Samantha. It works, and she
ends up avoiding the fatwa. Then she goes on a huge shopping spree with
her new Middle Eastern friend.
SS: Capitalism being the great cultural unifier.
DL: And right before the closing credits, Samantha blurts out something
completely "I can't believe she said that!" in nature. Probably about
Muhammad. Which would set up an, "Oh no, here we go again!" response from
the girls.
SS: I think you've just written a solid ending to the franchise... Albeit
an ending that might polarize the fan base.
DL: True.
SS: Something you're not used to doing, obviously.
DL: I have no idea of what you speak.
--------------------
Bob
> men that they cry.
And totally phony ones lie and say they cry.
> SS: I think you've just written a solid ending to the franchise... Albeit
> an ending that might polarize the fan base.
>
> DL: True.
>
> SS: Something you're not used to doing, obviously.
>
> DL: I have no idea of what you speak.
Good one!
thinbluemime
"Where we need some sort of inciting incident that gets them on a flight
to Bahrain."
Did you know that Bahrain is an island in the middle of 2 seas, has twin
towers and is in the Middle East?
This "Off Topic" conversation with Damon Lindelof is like a metaphor
inside a metaphor inside a metaphor.
thinbluemime
Darren Delgado
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:50:20 -0500, Bob <robg...@bestweb.net> wrote:
> >> DL: The way I see it, only real men cry, and even 'realer' men tell
> >> other men that they cry.
>
> > And totally phony ones lie and say they cry.
>
> >> SS: I think you've just written a solid ending to the franchise...
> >> Albeit an ending that might polarize the fan base.
>
> >> DL: True.
>
> >> SS: Something you're not used to doing, obviously.
>
> >> DL: I have no idea of what you speak.
>
> > Good one!
>
> "Where we need some sort of inciting incident that gets them on a flight
> to Bahrain."
>
> Did you know that Bahrain is an island in the middle of 2 seas, has twin
> towers and is in the Middle East?
Did you know that you can find something that "proves" your Jews Did
9/11 theory, in any conversation or piece of entertainment, if you
twist it around enough?
Darren Delgado
BBBBBBBut, I thought the final season of Lost was beloved universally
worldwide, except for a few nuts in a newsgroup; why do all these
reference to Lost having no payoff keep popping up everywhere? :-)
thinbluemime
Darren are you still disgruntled that Damon is using parables that you can
not interpret and appear to be random thoughts with no coherent plan?
Still haven't watched this abc news video with White House correspondent
Jake Tapper interviewing Abrams, Cuse and Lindelof have you? Or have you
forgotten?
Jim G.
Darren Delgado <darren...@hotmail.com> sent the following on Fri, 14
Jan 2011 03:17:46 -0800 (PST):
I still have mime KF'ed, so I miss this stuff as long as everyone
ignores it.
But having said that, I thought that it was sad enough when he did this
sort of thing while the show was still airing. The fact that he's still
doing it is beyond pathetic. I don't know how much clearer Darlton (aka
mime's stalking targets) need to be to get him to give it up, come up
from his mom's basement, and take in some sunlight for the first time in
over six years.
--
Jim G.
Waukesha, WI
thinbluemime
Jeez, that's a new record for insults in one sentence while still avoiding
the topic, LOL
Dammit Jim, I'm not an eye doctor. Do you need filtered glasses ?
Bob
> BBBBBBBut, I thought the final season of Lost was beloved universally
> worldwide, except for a few nuts in a newsgroup; why do all these
> reference to Lost having no payoff keep popping up everywhere? :-)
Even at The Fuselage, where you'd expect some amount of home field
advantage, the "didn't love it" thread has over triple the number of
posts as the "loved it" thread for the concluding episode. Not only
that, but many participants were delurking to post in it, and many of
the posts expressed a DEGREE of dissatisfaction that you just don't
see in gen'l at The Fuselage, or in discussion of practically anything
on TV. And as I've written before, the same holds true in the offline
world, not only among people with whom I'd discussed "Lost" heavily
during its run, but also with people I was meeting or discussing
"Lost" with for the 1st time.
I have exactly 3 friends who didn't think the conclusion of "Lost"
revealed it to be a much worse story than they'd thought. One of them
is mostly a FOAF whom I haven't discussed the ending with yet, but was
said by our friend (who hated it and has done a much better job than
me of getting it off her mind) to have thought it good. Another is,
like me, a friend of Damon's via his father, whom I introduced her to,
who is reserving judgment because she saw it while heavily medicated
post-operatively. And the last is Damon's mother.
Bobbo in the Bronxo
Darren Delgado
> On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 16:58:16 -0500, Jim G. <jimgy...@geemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Darren Delgado <darrendelg...@hotmail.com> sent the following on Fri, 14
I don't know about Jim, but I see *you* still haven't read it, since
it explicitly says that *any* writing that took place shortly after
9/11 was going to be infused with some sensibility about it and change
the perspective of the writer. In other words, it's expressed in the
most general terms possible, and not in the slightest does it hint
that Lost was about 9/11 in any way.
Of course I posted that relevant portion of the article in here the
first, second, third and fourth times you linked to it here, but it
didn't stop you from claiming it says the exact opposite of what it
really says back then, so I don't see why it would now.
thinbluemime
<darren...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Still haven't watched this abc news video with White House
>> correspondent Jake Tapper interviewing Abrams, Cuse and Lindelof have
>> you? Or have you forgotten?
>>
>> http://lostdude.com/lostflash/lost911/index.html
>
> I don't know about Jim, but I see *you* still haven't read it, since
> it explicitly says that *any* writing that took place shortly after
> 9/11 was going to be infused with some sensibility about it and change
> the perspective of the writer. In other words, it's expressed in the
> most general terms possible, and not in the slightest does it hint
> that Lost was about 9/11 in any way.
>
> Of course I posted that relevant portion of the article in here the
> first, second, third and fourth times you linked to it here, but it
> didn't stop you from claiming it says the exact opposite of what it
> really says back then, so I don't see why it would now.
LINDELOF: When we were first working on the pilot, the idea that it was
going to start with a plane crash and that all throughout the first 10 or
so episodes of the show there are just shattered pieces of the plane all
around -- people started to process that 9/11 metaphor...
ABRAMS: But it wasn't until we got to the set the first day and saw this
airplane...that it was so depressing and it was so numbing to see this
plane there. It was a very interesting thing that that reality of not just
a plane crash but, you know, but 9/11 itself there -- it wasn't
theoretical anymore.
Not Sure
> On Jan 14, 6:20 am, Darren Delgado <darrendelg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > BBBBBBBut, I thought the final season of Lost was beloved universally
> > worldwide, except for a few nuts in a newsgroup; why do all these
> > reference to Lost having no payoff keep popping up everywhere? :-)
>
> Even at The Fuselage, where you'd expect some amount of home field
> advantage, the "didn't love it" thread has over triple the number of
> posts as the "loved it" thread for the concluding episode.
Holy shit, an internet message board somewhere is more heavily
weighted against the finale than towards it? The next thing you'll be
telling me is that your local VFW hated it too :)
Not only
> that, but many participants were delurking to post in it, and many of
> the posts expressed a DEGREE of dissatisfaction that you just don't
> see in gen'l at The Fuselage, or in discussion of practically anything
> on TV. And as I've written before, the same holds true in the offline
> world,
Yes, in which you're in contact with literally tens of people.How can
Damon show his face out in public anymore, knowing that your "friends"
disliked his finale?
Bob
> On Jan 14, 5:44 pm, Bob <robg...@bestweb.net> wrote:
> > On Jan 14, 6:20 am, Darren Delgado <darrendelg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > BBBBBBBut, I thought the final season of Lost was beloved universally
> > > worldwide, except for a few nuts in a newsgroup; why do all these
> > > reference to Lost having no payoff keep popping up everywhere? :-)
>
> > Even at The Fuselage, where you'd expect some amount of home field
> > advantage, the "didn't love it" thread has over triple the number of
> > posts as the "loved it" thread for the concluding episode.
>
> Holy shit, an internet message board somewhere is more heavily
> weighted against the finale than towards it? The next thing you'll be
> telling me is that your local VFW hated it too :)
"An internet message board somewhere"?! It's the goddamn Fuselage,
the official board of the show's creative team, and the numbers are
405 and 120, respectively. That's a big sample, statistically.
Jim G.
Darren Delgado <darren...@hotmail.com> sent the following on Sat, 15
Jan 2011 02:59:14 -0800 (PST):
It's a lost cause, Darren. That's part of what makes it so pathetic.
The other thing that makes it so pathetic is the fact that he can't let
it go and move on. At least the rest of us have gracefully conceded
that our pet theories didn't apply once Darlton showed that they didn't
care enough to make an ending that mattered. But mime keeps plugging
away with his Israel insanity, in spite of the incontrovertible evidence
(directly from the horses' collective mouth) showing that he's wrong.
thinbluemime
If you can not see the influence of 911 on Lost after all the evidence I
have posted, including #8 "Why We Write" by Damon Lindelof and an abc news
video of Jake Tapper, White House correspondent for abc news, interviewing
Abrams, Cuse and Lindelof in a Nightline segment titled, "Lost through
Post 911 Eyes", then there is no way you can see any of the other hidden
themes in Lost. Period. You and Darren are either mentally challenged or
intellectually inept.
I suspect you both are to proud to acknowledge the 911 thread that
permeates Lost. I can live with that. Can you?
For further study for those a bit more opened minded, do some research
into other works of JJ Abrams, including, "Cloverfield" & "Fringe". 911
permeates those works also, as well as Abrams pending project, "Let The
Great World Spin" which is a 911 allegory, though the story precedes 911
by quite a few years.
I am getting off my soap box and this high wire for now. If you have
questions concerning Lost that you think I might be able to help you with,
please feel free to ask. It's not all about 911. I have never said it was.
But if you can not see the 911 influence woven through 6 seasons of Lost
by now, I seriously doubt you ever will.
Darren Delgado
BBBBBBut, I thought Lost was universally loved and respected among its
vast fanbase, except a few douchebags in a Usenet group! How can the
majority of an official site dedicated to Lost be shitting all over
the ending? :-)
Gregory E. Garland
@f30g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, rob...@bestweb.net says...
Tweedledumber, I thought we had already gone over how stupid you are;
don't exacerbate the issue by pretending you understand statistics and
polling. The number of posts in the threads mean nothing when you see
that, just like here, many are the same whiners repeating the same thing
over and over again. The blatant idiocy of you claiming that a self-
selecting group constitutes a valid statistical sample simply means that
you are, to put it bluntly, proving your lack of intellectual
capacity... yet again.
--
Gregory E. Garland - Alive, occupying space, and exerting gravitational
force
Darren Delgado
> In article <9cb8c4a6-b6aa-4939-9420-d9bd3ed2d6d7
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Jan 15, 4:01 pm, Not Sure <fred1321...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Jan 14, 5:44 pm, Bob <robg...@bestweb.net> wrote:
>
> > > > On Jan 14, 6:20 am, Darren Delgado <darrendelg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > BBBBBBBut, I thought the final season of Lost was beloved universally
> > > > > worldwide, except for a few nuts in a newsgroup; why do all these
> > > > > reference to Lost having no payoff keep popping up everywhere? :-)
>
> > > > Even at The Fuselage, where you'd expect some amount of home field
> > > > advantage, the "didn't love it" thread has over triple the number of
> > > > posts as the "loved it" thread for the concluding episode.
>
> > > Holy shit, an internet message board somewhere is more heavily
> > > weighted against the finale than towards it? The next thing you'll be
> > > telling me is that your local VFW hated it too :)
>
> > "An internet message board somewhere"?! It's the goddamn Fuselage,
> > the official board of the show's creative team, and the numbers are
> > 405 and 120, respectively. That's a big sample, statistically.
>
> Tweedledumber, I thought we had already gone over how stupid you are;
> don't exacerbate the issue by pretending you understand statistics and
> polling. The number of posts in the threads mean nothing when you see
> that, just like here, many are the same whiners repeating the same thing
> over and over again.
You mean like someone saying "Tweedledumber" over and over again?
Or would that be like cheerleaders for Lost still being butt-hurt 8
months after the fact that people don't universally love your first TV
crush, and making angry, emo posts lashing out at the slightest
criticism, over and over again?
Bob
disrespectful remarks in the "didn't love it" thread at the 'Lage.
Gregory E. Garland
6f6f4b...@i17g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>, rob...@bestweb.net says...
>
> I forgot to mention the unprecedented number of moderator edits for
> disrespectful remarks in the "didn't love it" thread at the 'Lage.
Perhaps you forgot to mention it because it never happened... unless you
consider about 3 out of 400+ an "unprecedented" number on a moderated
forum.
Bob
> In article <1bbd75e1-b03f-49e2-b18f-
> 6f6f4b4c7...@i17g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>, robg...@bestweb.net says...
> > I forgot to mention the unprecedented number of moderator edits for
> > disrespectful remarks in the "didn't love it" thread at the 'Lage.
>
> Perhaps you forgot to mention it because it never happened... unless you
> consider about 3 out of 400+ an "unprecedented" number on a moderated
> forum.
> --
You must not have looked in the right place. It wasn't 3 for the
whole thread; there were sometimes that many mod-edited posts on a
single page of 10 posts in that thread, more if you count separate
edits in the same post.
Bill Taylor
> I am getting off my soap box and this high wire for now.
If only! But writers of messages like these ALWAYS come back.
> If you can not see the influence of 911 on Lost after all the evidence
Sure. There was an airplane crash and an Iraqi was on board.
TONS of 911 influence!
Now piss off!
-- Wearied William