this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
142 points (96.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43908 readers
1066 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I haven't watched TV in years; kids and my previous job really killed that.

There's SO much out there since I last picked up a remote, and I have a fucking huge backlog.

I'm open to anything, as long as it's well done.

Series I liked: Vikings, Norsemen (hysterical), The Americans, GoT, Man in the High Castle, Expanse, Spartacus (Batiartus is amazing)

I'm scratching the surface of Boardwalk Empire, but open to other rabbit holes.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

That's fair. Lost had trouble because they were building the track as they went. I still loved the ride though. For me, I don't think every question needs an answer as long as what it creates feeds into the themes of the show. Like on Lost, I wish they never explained the Smoke Monster, it just wasn't necessary.

With Leftovers, I'd say it's ending is the perfect summation of the show and anything else would betray what it was going for.

spoilerIt's a show about logic vs belief and that's where it leaves us, do you believe Nora? What happened to the 2% ultimately doesn't matter because the show is about how people deal with the unexplainable. There's no satisfying answer to that mystery.

You're not alone in not liking the ending though. I've had this conversation before and it's totally ok not to.

[โ€“] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 months ago

I appreciate what he says he's going for, which is that it's a story about the characters, not the sci-fi/magic. If you've watched Tales from the Loop, I think it does a much better job at this. You always want to know more about the tech, but you're never lead to believe that that's what the story is about.

I would liken good story writing to a magic trick. The writer has to create a bunch of threads, and weave them together in such a way that are interesting, but just opaque enough that you can't predict how they all tie together in the end. And once you reach the end, like a magic trick, your mind is blown at how well everything fits together.

But Lost and Leftovers feel like they're keeping a bunch of threads going, only to drop 90% of them on the floor, tie two together, and say "it was never about those other threads". And I feel like I'm still standing there like, "um...aren't you going to guess my card?"

Lindelof thinks that's his gimmick, but to me just feels like he's just decided he's not going to do the actual difficult part of story writing.

This snippet is my favorite review of Lost.