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dmick74 t1_ja9dxj7 wrote

Reply to comment by Spaghetti__Girl in Finally giving LOST a watch in 2023. by shadowdra126

I loved the ending, but your assumption that people who didn’t like it also must not have understood is wrong. I’ve known people who liked it and who didn’t like it, but they all understood it. Such is life that people have different opinions about subjective pieces of art.

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Spaghetti__Girl t1_ja9eawf wrote

Sorry, that’s not what I meant. I mean I see people all the time say what happened but it’s not really what happened. Trying to not spoil.

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ThatEvanFowler t1_jaafuwn wrote

Like, constantly. For over ten years now. I saw people saying it twice last week. I used to correct them. Now I just don't even bother.

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Queasy_Turnover t1_jacr2z2 wrote

Exactly. Like, the ending is not some high concept, obtuse conclusion that you need a film degree to understand. It's pretty straightforward. It's crazy to me that people could watch 6 seasons of a show and then get upset by a clear ending that they somehow misinterpret as something completely different. What were they watching that entire time? I don't think of myself as a very intellectual person that has a higher understanding of things and I don't like accusing people who don't like something with "You just don't get it", but in this case, they simply didn't.

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ThatEvanFowler t1_jadq4m8 wrote

Yeah, a character literally explains that what they are saying is not the case in clear, plain English. Whatever. They can be wrong. I still think that it's a bummer that it probably drives away people who would love the show if not for having gleaned a mistaken impression of it, but I think I've hit my lifetime limit for arguing with text on a screen.

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Queasy_Turnover t1_jaehviq wrote

>I still think that it's a bummer that it probably drives away people who would love the show if not for having gleaned a mistaken impression of it

It definitely does. I have a friend who I had been trying to convice for a while to watch Lost because I knew he would like it, but he kept saying "I heard it goes nowhere and in the end they don't answer anything". He finally caved and wound up loving it.

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Dismal-Past7785 t1_ja9orrl wrote

To this day you see people posting “what happened” in the finale and the show incorrectly. What they post directly conflicts with what is actual said in the finale and shows that they don’t understand the show. Anyone that understands the show and reads other people takes on the internet knows exactly what I’m talking about without looking at the spoiler text. I’m prepared to say that it’s the wrongest take of all wrong takes. I see supposed “media journalists” and reddit threads espousing this take to this day, and in my book it instantly discounts them from ever having an opinion worth reading. It is honestly mind boggling how these people get to their conclusion.

If you want to know their incorrect take: >!these people think they were dead all along and the island was purgatory. They outright tell you in the final episode that this is not the case, and the only instance of purgatory in the show is the season 6 flash-sideways realm. Everything else happened while they were alive.!<

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DimitriCushion t1_ja9xxft wrote

I had a discussion with someone on here awhile ago who apparently was a huge fan of the show when it aired, but they hated the ending and had never gone back to it since. Only thing was that they had misunderstood the ending in the way that many people seem to have. After a back and forth on the subject they refused to accept what I was saying and put it down to "different interpretations", despite what the show explicitly spells out to the viewer. Incredibly frustrating. I've got no problem with anyone who disliked the ending, but I really don't get how so many people managed to misunderstand it when they basically have a character knock you over the head with exposition explaining everything.

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Dismal-Past7785 t1_jaarlkf wrote

>!Jacks dad (Christian) literally says “you’re dead now, but everything happened on the island while you were still alive, with these people, and it was the most important time of your life which is why you are now in the afterlife with them getting ready to move on”. It is mind boggling how people get from that to “island = purgatory”.!<

It just blows my mind that people don’t understand it. I just can’t figure it out. I remember watching it live in College, then talking the next day with people. To this day I think less of the people that thought >!island = purgatory!<.

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Queasy_Turnover t1_jacsf7q wrote

I think a lot of people had that theory in their head the whole time they were watching it and just refuse to accept that they were wrong. Kind of like a "See? I called it years ago!" attitude.

I'm with you though, I can't help but judge someone who watches a show for that long, is explicitly told in the finale what happened, and still completely misses the point. I had a coworker who fairly recently was going on about what a waste of time Lost was because the ending was so bad. I told him his interpretation of the ending was flat out wrong and why, but he wouldn't accept it.

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Khiva t1_jablvkf wrote

I absolutely loathed the ending, and still do, but I did a quick search to find the conversation you had in mind and honestly it's hilarious, and a little sad. I really have no idea how a person can be that wrong.

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Logical_Copy_8465 t1_jad1p3y wrote

The guy trys to argue the last scene with Jack and the dog happens after the crash. As far as I remember the dog wasn't even present at the time of the crash and if it was it wasn't fully grown

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heysuess t1_jad384s wrote

Well now you're both wrong. The dog was present after the crash. It's in the first scene of the show. Vincent wakes Jack up and runs out of the woods.

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Logical_Copy_8465 t1_jad3ox7 wrote

Fair enough, it's been almost a decade since I watched it. But their interpretation would mean the dog comes out of the forest wakes jack up then he just dies

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staedtler2018 t1_jac8nrz wrote

>I really don't get how so many people managed to misunderstand it when they basically have a character knock you over the head with exposition explaining everything.

I imagine that these people got lost somewhere around flash-forwards and time travel shenanigans and just didn't have a good grasp of anything that was going on by the time we got to the actual ending.

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Logical_Copy_8465 t1_jad2dud wrote

The final had ratings that hadn't been seen since early season 4. A lot of people had stopped watching and just came back to the last episode or two to,see how it ended. Unsurprisingly its not an easy final to understand as a standalone episode

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Khiva t1_jablgbb wrote

> I’m prepared to say that it’s the wrongest take of all wrong takes. I see supposed “media journalists” and reddit threads espousing this take to this day, and in my book it instantly discounts them from ever having an opinion worth reading

I mean I would have maybe gone with "the holocaust was awesome" or something on that level but sure, misunderstanding the ending of a TV show, I suppose that's pretty far up there.

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Dismal-Past7785 t1_jabrj26 wrote

I meant in the context of TV show takes. There’s no need to be pedantic.

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Locutus747 t1_jabhsw2 wrote

I was fine with the ending it was the “flash sideways” leading up to the ending that ended up not being good to me

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Queasy_Turnover t1_jacqaxf wrote

>I loved the ending, but your assumption that people who didn’t like it also must not have understood is wrong

In my experience, it's not an assumption at all. I've talked to multiple people about the ending of Lost and I've asked those that dismissed it as "bad" and "a waste of time" why they felt that way. They all gave a variation of the same answer, proving they didn't understand it.

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