* This EW set-visit article on Lost by their irritating, fanboy-CW-reinforcing Island correspondent Jeff Jensen is packed with mild spoilers of the who-gets-a-flashback variety, but it’s also got some interesting bits regarding how the cast and crew’s perception of the show has changed since it cemented its 48-episode endgame. You pays your money and you takes your choice. (Via Jim Treacher.)
* Speaking of Lost, for whatever reason, it’s only been this season that I’ve reached critical mass with obsessive theory-spouting Lost fandom, and here’s why: It’s a total waste of time. Trying to predict what the show is “about” based on the information we have now presupposes that nothing that happens in the remaining two and a half seasons will alter or add to that information. Given the history of the show, and how many layers it adds to its mythos season after season after season, that’s a patently ridiculous notion. Trying to “explain” what’s going on now is like finding a bunch of pieces of a DIY Ikea furniture item and putting together a nice sturdy table, but then turning around and discovering like 60 more pieces and realizing it was supposed to be a sectional sofa. And that’s not even getting into the fact that these cockamamie theories almost always a) assert as fact suppositions with no roots anywhere but the theorizer’s mind (“given that the Island is stuck in 1996…”); b) completely lack any kind of character-based/emotional component, which is the whole point of the show, not whether the Monster is made of nanotechnology.
* Bruce Baugh hated, hated, hated the ending of Frank Darabont’s The Mist. In a separate post he uses the film’s Mrs. Carmody as a springboard for a call for more Scripturally accurate fanatics. For real, they could have done something rooted in the millennialist brand of evangelical Protestantism that’s made the Left Behind series a hit, and instead they coughed up a muddled cliché.
* This in-depth LA Times article on the long strange trip of the giant-shark movie Meg says there’s still some hope it’ll get made. (Via Bloody Disgusting.) I’m almost positive the eventual film will be very, very bad, but the water monster lover in me would be remiss not to show the totally bitchin’ promo image:
* I love how Paul Pope’s art looks more and more like elaborate cursive handwriting.
* Hey, Renee French has a blog! (Via Brian Heater.)
* Hotness from Becky Cloonan:
* Custom-made steampunk Star Wars action figures. Wowsers. (Via Topless Robot.)
* This week’s Horror Roundtable is about our favorite horror quote. With sexy results!
* Finally, “Hey Trash, what did Old Lady Clinton say when you torched her campaign headquarters?”
I am so glad to see someone else taking my stance on Lost spoilers. It’d be like figuring out the plot arc of Babylon 5 from the first season. (One guy came pretty close, actually – JMS posted the guy’s email after the series finished, with the author’s permission. That’s one guy out of how many net-connected fans? And as I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted before, the obsession with guessing later steps seems to ofen get in the way actually appreciating what we’ve got so far.
“the obsession with guessing later steps seems to ofen get in the way actually appreciating what we’ve got so far.”
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! It drives me nuts. And part of what makes me nervous about BSGv4 so far is that by focusing so much on mythology elements it’s inviting the same kind of guessing game. In both cases it gets back to my beef with art that can be “decoded.” To me that’s just not what art is about.
But I was having this discussion with my wife yesterday, in terms of one specific internet friend of ours who was driving me nuts about both shows, and The Missus pointed out that to some people, it’s not “art,” it’s “entertainment.” The guessing-game aspect, no matter how pointless it may be and no matter how inimical to appreciating the real value of the shows that it might seem to you and me, is precisely the value of the shows to them.
Well, there’s something to be said for that. (Duh. Sean’s Wife Is No Dummy, Part #7000 in an ongoing series.) Where I get bothered is…well, two specific concerns.
First is when it clearly isn’t actually working for them as entertainment, but is instead a focus for anger and hostility, and a zero- or negative-sum competition to “solve” the thing and prove the solver superior to everyone else, particularly the show’s creators.
Second is when the “the show is to be solved, not enjoyed” crowd get in the way of other chat. Here you’ve got the gimpy guy’s bias – since I can get out or even have company in so seldom, I have to let net chatter fill a lot of the role that would go to face-to-face rambling if I were healthier. Obviously if you can just drop it and go talk to others it’s not so big a deal.
First is when it clearly isn’t actually working for them as entertainment, but is instead a focus for anger and hostility, and a zero- or negative-sum competition to “solve” the thing and prove the solver superior to everyone else, particularly the show’s creators.
Yeah. I’ve definitely talked about that before, I think, particularly regarding Lost. And The Sopranos, to an extent. I’m just sort of baffled by watching a show and looking for reasons NOT to enjoy it. Aside from all the philosophical problems I have with that, it just seems like a poor return on the investment of however many hours of time per season you’re spending watching the show and then writing about it afterwards.
Second is when the “the show is to be solved, not enjoyed” crowd get in the way of other chat. Here you’ve got the gimpy guy’s bias – since I can get out or even have company in so seldom, I have to let net chatter fill a lot of the role that would go to face-to-face rambling if I were healthier. Obviously if you can just drop it and go talk to others it’s not so big a deal.Hey, gimpiness needn’t enter into it–for me it’s “guy who lives on Long Island while all his friends live in NYC or Rockland or Westchester or Jersey.” I don’t get a lot of facetime with any of my friends other than The Missus, so internet discussions (blogs, boards, email) are valuable to me too.
Lost: A tale of two interviews
Yesterday, two interviews with Lost head writer Damon Lindelof and showrunner Carlton Cuse popped up that seem almost tailor-made to be illustrative of two conflicting schools of Lost fandom. On the one hand you have comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s interview w…