Lost finale

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Hindsight’s 50/50: You Choose to Either Focus on the Positive or the Negative Memories

No, I didn’t mean to say “20/20”.

It’s easy to look back at when life was a bit easier (AKA “the good ole days”) and compare it to now.  There’s a 50% chance that life seemed better a year ago, two years ago, or five years ago.  But, there’s also a good chance (let’s say 80%) if that’s the case, that you’re choosing to focus on the best parts of that time in your life, and for the most part, forgetting about the tough parts.  Hindsight’s 50/50 because you either romantically focus on the ideal parts of the past, making your present life the short straw compared to it, or, you don’t, and instead make an effort to choose the bad parts of that ideal year too.

In a sense, everything in life can be broken down to the statistical chance of 50/50.  Either you will get that one thing in life you’ve always wanted, or you won’t.  Either you win the lottery, or you won’t.   Either you will live to be 100, or you won’t.  One of the few events in life that can’t be assigned the 50/50 status is whether or not you will die at some point; No matter what the percent chance is how you leave this world: by cancer, by car accident, by heart attack, etc.

Last night I watched the final episode of Lost again.  One of the most memorable scenes for me was when the protagonist, Jack Shephard, technically in a flash-forward of the future after he had already died, meets his father in the afterlife.  “I died too,” Jack says to his father.  His father reassures him with a smile, “It’s okay, son… Everybody dies sometime, kiddo.  Some of them before you, some of them long after you.”

Whether you ever watched Lost or not, I’m not giving away anything by telling you what happened in the last scene. Because really, for any TV show or movie, ultimately everyone does die- it’s just that that’s never included in the episode.  Does Marley die at the end of Marley and Me? Whether he does or doesn’t die at the end, he still has to die sometime.  But it’s when a protagonist’s death is included in the script that we are forced to be reminded that beyond each “good time” and “bad time” in our lives, there ultimately is a bigger picture.

We have to choose to focus and dwell on the good parts of life now in this moment.  Otherwise, we end up psychologically living in the past when things appeared to be better than they are now, or we live in the future when things will hopefully be better, which is again focusing on a potentially imaginary life.  Because at this point, the glorious past and the perfect future are both impossible now.  The only thing possible is what is happening right this minute.

Hindsight really is 50/50.

Here is the final scene of Lost; the conversation between Jack Shephard and his father:

If you enjoyed this post, there is a 50% chance that you will also like these ones too:

The Good Ole Days: Past, Present, or Future?

and

Sounds Like Someone’s Got a Case of the What If’s?

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The Importance of the Perfect Ending

It’s satisfaction we’re looking for; not perfection.

Editor’s note: This post pretty much gives away the ending to the first Rocky movie and the finale episode of Lost.  If that matters to you, please don’t read it.

When it comes to movies and TV series, if the ending isn’t satisfying, I typically label the whole thing as “not that great.”  Movies like Quarantine and Vantage Point could have been so good, but the 90th minute proved the other 89 to be a waste of time.  On the other side of the token, movies like Cast Away and The Social Network could have totally had a lame, pointless, or predictable ending; but instead, the events leading up to the finale were brought together in a way that had me leaving from the theatre thinking, “good job, movie makers” instead of hearing a collective, annoyed gasp from the audience at the ending of another M. Night Shyamalan film that we all tried to give a chance.

Of course a good ending doesn’t always mean they all lived happily ever after, but at least that the characters learned from their experiences and became better people accordingly.  Like the first Rocky for example; by the end of the movie we realized we didn’t truly care whether or not he actually won the fight.  The point was that Rocky was given the chance to fight someone out of his league, he fought a good fight, and that Adrian was there to support him no matter what happened.  It was a perfect ending, even if our expectations were assuming he would win the fight at the end.  “Perfect” endings don’t actually have to be perfect; they just have to be worth the ride.

I have come to the realization that one of the reasons I am a movie enthusiast is because watching good movies is a fun way to (metaphorically) download lessons on social situations into my brain and to become more “life experienced” without having to actually live through those experiences myself.  Sure, a major part of life is learning from your own mistakes.  But most of the time, I prefer to learn from other people’s mistakes- and I don’t care whether or not it’s someone I actually know in real life or a fictional character in a movie.  I think it’s such a wonderful bonus that in addition to the character building experiences I already learn from everyday life, I can extract this knowledge from stories shared through the seemingly petty vehicle of entertainment.

To me, no ending will ever be better the finale episode of the TV show Lost, where the characters reunite in the afterlife to reminisce their shared years of life on Earth together, despite the fact that by that point (not the entire six seasons) they had all been dead for decades or even centuries.  It was unique and extremely creative in that it superseded the limited perspective of the human lifespan.  Despite acknowledging that while what we do here on Earth does indeed matter and yields eternal consequences, it reminds us that one day this life does indeed end.  And whether or not we fully understand The Smoke Monster or why Walt was so special or how long Hurley and Ben Linus ended up staying on the island, the point isn’t that we get all our questions answered in detail.  And whether or not you’ve ever seen an episode of Lost to understand those bizarre references, the perspective of looking back on the meaning of our lives from an post-life view is pretty interesting; it reminds us who and what truly matters to us.

 

No matter which side of the parallel between real life and the entertainment world I am on, I am still wired to want the perfect ending.  I have to believe that in real life I will live a long and happy life with my family.  Simply, I just want a realistic and satisfying ending, with a few pleasant surprises thrown in for good measure, since I know there will be unpleasant surprises disguised as necessary plot lines.  A perfect ending isn’t always defined by all the ends being tied together when the credits roll.  Instead, it’s knowing there is meaning behind it all- that is satisfaction.

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LOST Recap: Finale- “The End”

I loved it.  Absolutely.  And I believe it was the best, and really, only way, to end the show.  But it just took me 24 hours after watching to understand why.

The entire show was just about Jack Shephard.  Everything else, including the island and its ability to heal people and time travel, the Smoke Monster, the Dharma Initiative, the Others, Jack’s friends, Jack’s enemies, the light in the cave… All of it were the parts of Jack’s life that ultimately mattered to his existence.

In the likeness of the movie Vanilla Sky, when you’re dead, it’s all over- so why focus on the character’s earthly life after they die?  But the writers of LOST took that concept to a new level by acknowledging that all the mysteries, actions, heartaches, and triumphs all boil down to one thing- the people that were involved in your life.

Even Vincent the dog’s best purpose on the island was to comfort Jack as he died.

I definitely plan to write much more in the near future answering the remaining questions about LOST: Why was The Man in Black never given a name?  Who was the first protector of the island?  Did it really matter that Desmond and/or Locke typed the code every 108 minutes?  What was really accomplished by Juliet sacrificing her life by detonating the bomb in 1977?

But as for today, I think it’s more important to focus exactly what happened in the finale.  The most begging question is what’s up with the flash-sideways?

The first time we saw the characters of LOST in the finale season, they were on the plane.  Note there were never flash-forwards or flash-backs during the flash-sideways, indicating no past or future in that timeline.  They weren’t reincarnated, having to live their lives all over again, in this version with the island being sunk.  The alt-reality was simply an “acknowledge your dead and that your life mattered” precursor to the afterlife, often referred to as “purgatory” or “the waiting room”; it started with the plane ride.

Keeping in mind that life on the island (and “the real world”) continued after Jack died, that Hurley and Ben served as the island’s protectors for the rest of their lives, that Claire, Kate, Sawyer, Richard, Miles, and Frank all left the island and lived normal lives back in the United States or wherever they chose to re-establish their lives… they all still died at some point.  Most of them of old age, living to be in their 70’s.

And once they died, before going to Heaven, they were reunited, having the blessing remembering how they mattered to each other.  And since time, in essence, doesn’t exist in the afterlife, they all met at the same time, since it didn’t matter that Jack died 40 years before most of them did.

But because Jack was the main character of the show, the show stopped with his earthly death.  The rest of the living characters lived their rest of their lives and eventually died, the show just didn’t continue to follow their earthly lives.

So when Jack died in 2007 (three years after originally crashing on the island), and (say, for example) that Kate died in 2051, they met at the same time in “the waiting room”.  (Because time doesn’t exist after earthly life ends.)  Then they went on to Heaven with the rest in the church.  (And Ben went once he was ready.)

The writers were clever to utilize a nearly universal belief that there is some sort of life after death.  The episode was quite saturated in Christianity (which was a smart idea since most of America identifies with some version of it), yet didn’t write off other popular international religious beliefs, thanks to the “major six religions of the world” stained glass window in the church.  The point wasn’t to depict any religion’s specific teaching on the afterlife as specifically accurate, but to instead play and expound on our perceived general ideas on life after death and the importance of the people in our lifetime after we die.

I don’t see how LOST could have ended any other way.  Yes, technically “all our questions” were not answered.  But it involves using our imaginations and clues from the show to fill in the blanks, as we as Losties have been doing the whole time.  It will bring me much joy to take matters into my own hands by filling in these blanks with many more LOST posts to come.

Comments welcome.

(They will most likely be spun off into a new post if they are interesting, insightful, or raise a good question; or instantly deleted if they are full of nerd spite: “NO!  You’re wrong!  What really happened was…  Looks like you never thought of that while trying to make your weak point, did you?…”).

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37320802/ns/today-entertainment/

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LOST Recap: Season 6, Episode 16- “What They Died For”

I can’t always be right- Ben is definitely ultimately a bad guy, at least in reality.  Ben is doing his best to keep his promise to Widmore that he will kill Penny.

So I was wrong about Ben, but I still think the finale will end in modern day 2010, which so far has never been seen on LOST, only up to 2009.

Desmond in alt-reality is starting to make a lot more sense now.  He ran over Locke to jog his memory of reality and his gathering everyone he can for a reunion which somehow will serve a purpose of changing reality, despite living in alt-reality.

Two minor questions were answered.  Why does Faux Locke walk when he can fly?  He likes the feeling of having his feet on the ground as it reminds him of being human.  Why was Kate’s name crossed off the list on the cave wall?  She became a mom to Aaron, that’s the only reason.  But by her coming back to the island, she technically put her name back on the list, as Jacob offered to change it back.

Though I already knew it in the back of my mind, Jacob confirmed why he chose the candidates: They are all flawed, alone, and looking for something- just like Jacob.  As is the newly orphaned Ji Yeon who will replace Jack as the island’s protector.

Well, I’m pretty excited about the LOST party I will be attending Sunday night.  Now I understand how the rest of America feels when the Super Bowl is on.  As far as my expectations, I have a feeling the finale will evoke the same feel and emotion as the episode “The Candidate”, where Jin and Sun died.

It will be sad, yet it will be the only way for the thing to end properly. And all of our questions will not be answered.  Just the main ones.  The unanswered ones will help keep LOST alive by all our theories that will continue to be born, keep LOST alive in our hearts.

I wonder if at the end of the finale on Sunday, if the screen will say “FOUND” instead of “LOST”.  Probably not.  Too predictable.