update of "Get" "Lost" page

[doc...@gmail.com]

I've added graphics in the middle of the page at http://users.bestweb.net/~robgood/teach . If you can't figure out their significance, the explanation will be coming in a later entry in "Get" "Lost".

[Erowid]

Does any of this touch on the Island and its strange "abilities" or is this just about the people?

-a fan

[doc...@gmail.com]

On Monday, May 28, 2018 at 11:48:01 AM UTC-4, Erowid wrote:

> Does any of this touch on the Island and its strange "abilities" or is this just about the people?
>
> -a fan

It's about all of it.

The island has no strange abilities. Those are only illusions arranged by Benry.

One of the graphics I added explains the "325 deg" reference on "Lost". It's an allusion to the movie title "North By Northwest". That's not an official compass direction, but "northwest by north" is, and 325 degrees is just 1.25 deg off from that exactly, and is closer to that named heading than to any other. "North By Northwest" concerns a non-existent persona, and "325" on "Lost" is therefore meant to allude to Alvar Hanso.

The frame from Marvel Comics means the supposed time slips on "Lost" are also illusory. Jason Wyngarde is a character named for, and drawn in the likeness of, Peter Wyngarde as Jason King on "Department S", the TV series on which "Lost" was primarily based. I was the one who told Damon Lindelof about "Department S", and being a reader of Marvel Comics, he must've found that character, which gave him the idea of incorporating illusory time slips into "Lost".

Bobbo in New Jersey-o

[doc...@gmail.com]

On Monday, May 28, 2018 at 11:48:01 AM UTC-4, Erowid wrote:

> Does any of this touch on the Island and its strange "abilities"

You'll never really understand "Lost" as long as you think the Island (i.e. the actual geology/geography) had abilities. If you even think there was much importance to the choice of location, you don't get it.

[Erowid]

I agree. It would be far more interesting to understand why people made that up and why people believed any of it. I'm not there yet.

[doc...@gmail.com]

On Friday, June 8, 2018 at 11:41:56 PM UTC-4, Erowid wrote:

> I agree. It would be far more interesting to understand why people made that up

You mean why it was written to appear that way? That question can be answered on 2 levels.

1 level is just that the writers decided in advance to make a story that'd appear one way to the audience, but with enough clues that the audience could figure out what it was really about. "Lost" was made by mystery writers, after all, known primarily for their detective shows. Damon had previously done "Crossing Jordan" and had worked with Carlton Cuse on "Nash Bridges". Mr. Cuse had also been known for "Marshal Law" and other detective shows.

The other level is to ask, why those PARTICULAR things? I can't infer as much about Carlton Cuse. The only jumping-off point I can see in his work was the famous cliffhanger of a season-ending episode of "Marshal Law", in which Sammo was shown famously falling from a flying airplane without a parachute, "TO BE CONTINUED". That became a running gag with fans and in the industry, where Mr. Cuse said he wanted to start a series with a fat Chinese guy coming down SPLAT on the ground. Damon carried that gag on by starting an episode of "Crossing Jordan" that looked like an intended pilot for a spinoff series starring his friend Jerry O'Connell, with a shot of an empty landscape and someone coming down SPLAT like that. So "Lost" can be seen as a continuation of the "Marshal Law" question, i.e. how does someone survive such a fall, but with a bunch of people instead of one. The answer is, they're doubles, which of course is one possible explanation for Sammo, i.e. there were 2 of him.

But Damon I knew for years before "Lost", and on "Lost" I see many things that we discussed. I told him about "Department S", which was before his time, and in particular "One of Our Aircraft Is Empty". I also told him my idea to vex audiences by making things appear to be mistakes on the screen.

Now I can trace the development of the ideas for "Lost". From "Department S" came the outline of the plot. From Peter Wyngarde as Jason King on that show (and his later spin-off) Damon must've found that Marvel comics character and the idea to incorporate illusory time jumps as an allusion to him. From "The Lost Special" came the title for "Lost", including the episode "Special", and other ideas; it is likely that Damon figured out that "Watchmen" was based on "The Lost Special", and that "Lost" was his way of saying to Alan Moore, "I see what you did there."

"Hamlet" was the solution to how to give a realistic way for a character to present an analogy to the overall plot within the play, thereby providing a relatively easy clue for the audience.

Damon's father David was interested in zombies (the allegedly real, deluded kind). Either David or film studies probably introduced Damon to director Frankenheimer's "paranoid trilogy" of "The Manchurian Candidate", "7 Days in May", and "Seconds". "North by Northwest" would've been studied by any serious film student just because. David had shown us the TV serial of "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil".

> and why people believed any of it.

Clever deceptive writing and the willingness by the audience to ascribe the "mistakes" to mistakes. But I'm afraid the makers of "Lost" underestimated the commitment of audiences to what's seen earlier as the "real" and later-revealed contradictions as unreal. By the time we were told of the wreck on the bottom of the ocean, audiences were too eager to swallow an explanation that that was fake, so they wouldn't have to accept that what we'd seen previously -- the wreck on the beach -- was the fake. Waiting almost 3 seasons to present the contradiction made it very hard for viewers, even though there'd been plenty of reason for doubt from the beginning. Look in this newsgroup from the airing of season 1 of "Lost", and you'll see opinions that the crash had been faked.

Bobbo in Andover