Why I am not happy with the Lost finale

I've generally enjoyed Lost over the past few seasons, and I've come to accept that many of the plot elements on the show can be explained no better than Star Wars can explain the Force, or X-men can explain how mutant superpowers work. There's a point when you have to stop asking "why" and enjoy the content given that the writers can never fully explain every single detail. That's fine.

What's not fine, however, is brushing these things aside as if they aren't special or noteworthy or like they don't matter or like the viewer shouldn't expect the worlds built around these things to ultimately be important. My dissatisfaction with Lost is on the same level as Luke telling us the force isn't special, or the X-Men telling us that the battle for the rights of the mutants wasn't important. Those things have to be important, or there was no point telling the story to begin with.

Ultimately there was no reason Lost couldn't have just been a very special and well done example of science fiction storytelling with a clear plot that began, built up, and ended with a resolution of a number of conflicts. There's no reason it had to suddenly turn into this weird unclear spiritual quagmire in the final episode. The finale was a cop-out of proportions I have never personally experienced. Is this how fans of the Sopranos felt? Is it worse?

Anyway, let me get into the specifics of my issues with the finale:

1. Unclear what happened

A lot of people on Twitter are saying that people who didn't like the ending simply didn't understand it. Really, now, I think I am a smart enough guy with a lot of experience following weird show plots and reading crazy prose. I totally can see the various ways the finale can be explained, but this finale will have people arguing about it, and that's bad for a season that was prefaced with the idea that all will be revealed. If everything was revealed, why are we still arguing about it? It's not 100% clear what happened. We were five minutes from the end of the entire run of this show without a totally clear idea of what was going on. Did the final 5 minutes explain it all?

Will it even matter if the crew behind the show comes out and tells us what they meant? If Michelangelo came out and told us that the statue of David was a woman, would we think it was a woman? The art should speak for itself.

2. Missing characters

I know it would be hard to schedule every actor to come back for the finale, but that's not my problem. There were MAJOR characters totally missing, and no matter what interpretation of the ending you have, you can't be satisfied with the idea that this resolution left out characters who had extremely major plot arcs. Where were Michael and Walt? I believe the actor for Michael was mad at the way his character was handled. Once again, not my problem. I could definitely deal with these people not being there, but it's still a problem and flies in the face of people saying that the ending was perfect. Not perfect.

3. What does it mean to "let go" or "not let go"?

This is similar to the first point, but it's such a huge hole that I need to address this by itself. Ben and Eloise couldn't let go, I assume, and that's why they both resisted entering the church at the end. What does that even mean, though, in terms of story? What happens to them if they don't let go? Is it a bad thing? Ben's ending actually seemed fairly happy. He finally got what he wanted, and he got forgiveness for his most heinous crime. So what exactly am I supposed to think of him not being able to enter the church at the end and join everyone else? This was a BRAND NEW idea that was just introduced minutes before the end, it had no special connection to the story we'd been watching all along. His story was already resolved. What could it possibly mean to not have him with everyone else to share in that? On a similar note, what was the deal about Eloise not wanting to let go and let Daniel join everyone? The world we were shown seemed happy enough. Is it a bad thing at this point if she's clinging to her beloved son? What did it mean to enter the church? What would it have meant for Ben or Eloise, and why would that have changed the plot one way or another? All we can do is guess! Do I need to have a spiritual outlook to understand? I don't want to have to be spiritual to understand a TV show built around good old-fashioned storytelling!

Then again, someone could come along and tell me this point is stupid because I am misunderstanding the plot. Refer to point 1.

3. Major plot points not sufficiently addressed or addressed in a very patronizing way.

A great example of this is Jack telling us that having Jacob's power is no different from before. Jacob is a guy who painstakingly followed and stalked around all the people he would bring to the island - in a mysterious plane crash, no less. I was so excited to see how Jack's new powers would play out and what he could do with them. Oh, sorry, no powers. Nothing. Jacob was just a weirdo who made up that these people were chosen and randomly was able to appear all over the world to be in their lives. Hurley can see dead people, Miles can talk to the dead, smoke monster can see the dead, become a deadly smoke cloud, AND shapeshift. Jack becomes Jacob and he is the same as always? That's so patronizing and a huge cop-out. Jacob had powers. We all know he had powers. That's one of the main premises of the plot of this show and one of the huge revelations in the last couple seasons is that there's this guy Jacob who is actually making them come to the island to live out these tests of humanity in the name of finding a protector for the light.

Unfortunately, this is just one good example in a pile of many examples where a core plot element was brushed to the side like it didn't mean anything.


4. It didn't have to be this way

I feel very strongly that what the writers had built up could have all been resolved in a number of ways that would have addressed most of my complaints here. Lost is like your favorite song missing the last 30 seconds. You know it could have ended well, it just didn't. I am confident that people will draft alternate ways the show could have ended which would have satisfied most people a lot more. I don't want to make people who loved the ending mad, but I feel pretty strongly that there wasn't just one good way it could have ended for you, either, and I believe even more strongly that a significantly larger number of people could have enjoyed it given the material the writers were working with.

Need to Vent a Little Bit

I really don't have the passion to keep a journal going it seems, but sometimes the space limitations of Twitter or FB statuses aren't enough to get my thoughts down.

First, everything is going great, and I am happy with my life. I got married, got a raise, and bought a house. Things are just perfect!

Now, although this doesn't anger me or pose any threat to my happiness, I just need to express some hard feelings about the attitude of a certain person at my job. I can handle people complaining about some aspects of the job because, like most things in life, there are always areas that could be improved and there are people who are aggravating.

I am irked because this guy who's leaving my work does not see how amazing some aspects of this job are. I know he is surfing the web a lot, going outside to take naps, and basically putting down the company all the time, but we all leave him alone because he does his work, and he does an alright job. Anyone who's been in the workforce for a long time knows that it's tough to find full time work in a stable company which isn't going to get on your ass for bullshit outside of whether you did your job. I am coming from a past job where all internet was blocked and we were told to "look busy" on a regular basis, even if we did our work. This is the first job I ever had where people haven't nagged me to look busy at all times. They give you real work to do or they let us do our thing. No one wants us to look busy or dress up nice just to keep up appearances. All anyone really wants here is that you do your damn work. It's a beautiful thing.

I really don't care that people might want to leave my job, because it's not exactly the most exciting work, but I don't like if people are going posting public insults on Twitter about stuff that happened at work and making it seem like this evil stupid place. It's not even close to the worst place this guy will work in his life, unless he's the luckiest guy who ever lived. Eh, maybe he is.

New phone, mobile Facebook and Twitter upstages blogging

I have been absent from the blog due to my new ability to update my life from my phone at all times with pictures and video and whatever else. There's still something to be said for making longer blog entries, so maybe I'll still show up on here from time to time.

Tomorrow is my brother's civil ceremony "wedding". He'll be officially married. I'm going to film it for him in HD.

I found a blog for my High School's distance running team because I ran a search for an assistant coach who passed away. I didn't know him that well, but I know he was well-liked and was always nice. Apparently Dave DeWolfe is their head coach now. I was on the team with him until 1998. He was an incredibly good runner, and the best guy we had for those two years. Ah, nostalgia.

I'm terrible at updating!

I always feel like I don't have anything substantial enough to say to warrant an entry, but I guess I can keep it simple and that's fine.

Last Saturday I drove to Hoboken for Lissy's ex-roommate Emily's party. Yes, I drove there. This was possibly a bad idea since that place has no parking. I hadn't been to Hoboken before so I had no idea. We wound up walking at least a mile from where we parked, but at least it was warm out. All said, it may have been easier to drive than to take mass transit, especially since I somehow did not go a single wrong way the entire trip. Despite detours due to the parade and being lost, I still just happened to get there and home without a single turnaround.

My neighbor is a crazy old bastard and it sounded like he punched a hole in the wall on his side. I got this nice new drumming footpedal which makes almost no noise at all, but I guess he's not a reasonable human being and he just wants to be angry at us for nothing. I can't fathom that he can hear me playing drums anymore, at least not to the extent that he would notice it without sitting in total silence against the wall. I now wish we'd picked a place that has regular noise ordinance laws as the lease agreement, because the landlord sounds angry at me despite having no evidence of anything. "Well if he can hear something then it's too loud." He says he can hear it, keyword being "says". I guess the people upstairs talk too loudly, too, because sometimes I hear them. Actually, those people upstairs from me are lucky they have ME below them. The guy next to me would have had them evicted by now for their cats.

25 Random Things

I copied this from my Facebook notes because it makes a decent journal entry.

1. I don't enjoy most food that's considered "comfort food" anymore. Potato chips, french fries, burgers, soda, etc.

2. I used to drink a lot of soda, but found it easy to stop once I realized what it meant for it to be bad for me. I don't miss it.

3. I cook every night except for the occasional Saturday when we go out to eat at a restaurant.

4. I'm good at rhythm games mostly because of how thoroughly I get a huge library of songs stuck in my head. I will go over every note and every beat of a song all day while I'm doing other things. I rarely if ever do what would be considered genuine practicing.

5. I like orange juice with maximum pulp. It seems to taste sweeter, and I do want to feel like i'm eating an orange: a really, really juicy orange. Seriously, you rarely have to chew it.

6. I love looking at old photos and imagining what life would have been like - the older the better.

7. I love reading non-fiction, especially when I'm taking a break at work. I've learned more from reading on my own than I learned in high school and college combined.

8. I feel that being out in the world working a serious job has been more of a learning experience than school was.

9. I can write a top quality essay in a couple of hours. I started most of my college philosophy essays the morning they were due. yet I graduated with department honors.

10. I love to help people with their writing and would not mind being a tutor if I had the time.

11. I don't have issues falling asleep, and once I'm asleep I will sleep through nearly anything. Lissy's alarm goes off every morning, and I couldn't even tell you what it sounds like. Even if I wake up, I can fall right back asleep with ease. This was not the case in high school; it began when I went to college.

12. #11 is not always a blessing, because on occasion I oversleep for work accidentally. I put an alarm across the room from me, but even getting out of bed doesn't always fully wake me up. Granted, 99% of the time I do wake up when I get up, but you only need one bad day to piss people off at work. My current job doesn't notice if I'm late, though.

13. I play World of Warcraft to some extent, but I can't stand it when I feel some obligation to play a game when I want to spend time with friends or just do something else.

14. 80% of the gaming I do is when Lissy is asleep and I have no company over. The other 20% is Rock Band with friends.

15. I didn't used to listen to any female artists, but in the past three years it's at least evenly divided with a likely edge to the women. I credit the song "Lust" by Tori Amos with setting me on this track. I used to be too embarrassed by those sweet songs, but I liked "Lust" so much that I couldn't help myself. Once I gave in to this, the floodgates opened. I now have no shame. (Thanks to Virginia for sending me that song)

16. The first concert I ever went to was the American Idols tour from season 4 accompanying my friend Virginia. I've been to quite a lot more since then, even going to some local shows sometimes now.

17. I don't watch that many movies. When people start talking about movies to me, invariably the words, "how can you not have seen..." will be uttered to me. It's not that I don't like movies, I just don't think to go see any unless someone else wants to.

18. I'm a very good skier, but I've only skied in Colorado. My dad told me that I'd be disappointed by east coast resorts, so I never bothered. He also told me that he never met anyone who got as good at it as quickly as I did. I've never gotten that big of a compliment from him about anything else.

19. I'll probably never try snowboarding because I don't want to be a beginner again. Also, you have more ability to make sharp turns on skis and remain standing when at rest, though I admit that boarders have a big edge in the tricks and jumps department.

20. I don't have a texting plan on my phone. I'm way behind with phone technology, despite how much of an internet and online messaging whore I am.

21. I met all of my serious girlfriends using the internet in some large way. I encountered Lissy in person first, but I still didn't talk to her until I found her website and left her a comment on it. I had dated people I met in classes and such before, but it was always very short lived.

22. I've never been drunk. I will drink alcohol, I just don't care enough about finding out what it's like to be drunk to bother having more than a glass. I'm also loud enough at parties as it is.

23. When I was in kindergarten to second grade, I spent a lot of time doing the girls' hair during reading time, and playing house with them.

24. I don't like to travel unless there's something fun to do where I'm going, or someone I want to see there. I'm not interested in traveling just to see the sights.

25. I have never tried any recreational drugs.

Sore!

I drummed tons of tough songs tonight and got really sore. I've definitely gotten a lot better at the drums lately. Some things I used to think were impossible I can get through with ease now, and some things I didn't even want to try I can give a really good showing on. I made some videos of me playing which I might post, but I'm not sure they're that good or interesting.

Tomorrow I'm going to get up around noon and head over to a music store in Fords which is extremely close to me. They're having a free Buddy Holly tribute and Nicole Atkins will be there. I feel like a stalker mentioning her in both of my entries now, but come on, it's like 15 minutes from me, and it's free.

I had on the news today and they were talking about how the Republican Party voted its first black person as the head of their national commitee or whatever. First of all, I am sick of all this talk about first black, first woman, first whatever. I think of these guys as people who are simply qualified and I can't wait until we get to the point where we can stop jerking off to the fact that we have more diversity in politics or whatever it may be. These guys are no more different from me or you than anyone else. They're just people. We're the same goddamn species. Anyway, I hope that no one is thinking that he was elected just because he's black; it's more like, he was as qualified as the next guy and it's just sad that it even has to be an issue in way at all that he's black. People will tell you that this is a sign of change for the republicans, but come on now. It's aesthetics. Let the man succeed or fail on the merits of his actions, not on the wow factor of his genetics.

Nicole Atkins and drumming

I haven't had a normal blog for a long time, but I found my favorite local musician/artist Nicole Atkins on Blogspot, so I decided it would be nice to keep track of what I'm doing to avoid having to link my old old Livejournal when I make comments on her (and other) journal entries. Yeah, it lets you comment via AIM, too, but that failed for me.

Anyway, I was interested in if Nicole had a new album coming out soon and wound up finding this journal. I always think it's great when I find blogs for celebrities and others that I admire because it brings them down to Earth and helps alleviate the need to gossip about them. I remember a funny moment after a Queen & Paul Rodgers concert a couple years ago where I got home from the concert and Brian May had already updated his blog merely an hour after the concert ended. I wish more classic rockers were internet whores.

I downloaded Mr. Brightside on Rock Band the other day and using my awesomely almost-realistic Ion drumset I tackled it. That song is just great for training a new drummer like me on stickwork. I play on expert, but I do fail out on a lot of songs, particularly songs with extended quick stick work and crazy footpedals. Mr. Brightside is the first time I felt comfortable playing a quick drum beat, and it has major lulls to give you a rest between.