I am going to try and keep this post as spoiler-free as possible, as I know there are several people reading this blog that would like to try this experiment themselves. However, there will be very minor things revealed here, like names and events that everyone knows about (the plane crashes, dude!).
For those of you that don't know, I am in the middle of a big experiment with the show LOST, which is as a newbie to the show (well, now former newbie), to watch the show in chronological order, not the order in which episodes were aired. Doing this required an insane amount of research to get everything right, and as I'm now watching the show in the "present day" i.e. the crash and the events following the crash, I'm realizing that I must have missed some flashbacks, as relationships seem different in some cases than they would have been based on their last flashback, and in one case I'm not even sure how some characters ended up in Australia.
So it is still a work in progress, but I'm confident that I've watched the bulk of the flashbacks, and all I can say is if you haven't watched the show before, this is a GREAT way to do it, and I highly recommend it. I was confident it would be when I started this both because I felt that the mystery parts of the show wouldn't be as interesting as the character development (and so far I've been very right about that) and because every one of my friends that had been religious LOST fans thought that it would be awesome.
Now that I've started watching the events on the island, I've been very pleasantly surprised by how consistent the characters have been even in the first episodes with their flashbacks, even though the flashbacks I watched spanned three seasons. This isn't true in all cases, but it's clear that a fair number of the characters were fully realized by the writers even in the first or second episode, which is a great accomplishment. Doing this has also made some scenes in the first couple of episodes be extremely poignant where they wouldn't have been otherwise (one in particular is an early exchange between Jack and Kate where Jack (and the viewer that hasn't watched the flashbacks) doesn't know Kate's past but unintentionally alludes to it and she has a strong reaction), and has made a couple of character's actions be even stranger and mysterious than they would have been otherwise (Sun and Locke in particular).
I will be trying to make the order I've been watching the show in available as soon as I can, but I really do want to watch the whole show first to ensure I haven't missed anything. I'm also going to contact the creators of the show about this and see if I can get them to back it and give me some information about events that don't have a very clear date. This will likely take a long time, as I have many episodes to get through. However, I've also decided, contrary to my last post, to try and watch the show as fast as possible rather than only watching one day on the island per one day of viewing, so that I can finish this sooner rather than later.
Anyhow, great show so far! I've been pleasantly surprised by this whole experience, and I hope that continues. I'll check back in with any major development, like me contacting the creators or when I finish. Now get LOST. :)
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Not to be a total shill or anything, but if you're interested in watching the show in chronological order, I've been working on doing that with the entire series and releasing them in episodes on my site (I'm about halfway done with the entire show at the moment). You can check it out at http://www.chronologicallylost.com
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteThat is really wonderful. I've basically been doing the exact same thing, but not editing them together like you've been, just watching them on Netflix. The thing I'm doing has two features slightly different from yours:
1. This is the first time I've ever watched LOST in any capacity, so I'm really doing this more for the creative experience of seeing if it works for a newbie to watch the show in chronological order rather than the way it was originally aired. So far, halfway through Season 2, I would say it works really, really well.
2. Now, again, I haven't watched the show before, but it didn't make sense creatively to me to watch the time flashes, such as when Locke turns the wheel for the first time, before I had ever actually seen Locke be born, for example. I actually don't think that's really how the time flashes work, to my understanding; they happen as if all of the stuff from the first three seasons happened, then the time flashes change history and even the location of the island to some extent. So I disagree with you in that respect.
Again, cool that we're both doing this. I'll be checking in more and more about my experience of doing this. Cheers!
Good luck on you the rest of the way. I don't want to reveal too much about the time flashes since you haven't seen the show before, but I will say that it's made pretty clear that the events that occur during the time flashes are an actual part of the island's history. So when they go back in time, they always went back in time, people who were present during the time that were there would remember them being there, and anything they did in the past would have played a part in how the rest of the timeline played out.
ReplyDeleteSo since I'm attempting to present the show in chronological order, instead of in the order the Losties experienced it, the time flashes definitely have to take place in the time period they took place in.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteAwesome, thanks. I should clarify my thoughts on the time flashes (and I apologize if I was a bit harsh in saying that I disagreed with you about them; I was writing at 1 in the morning after a very long workday). I think for strict, literal chronological purposes, yes, it makes sense to watch them in the correct order.
But for my purposes, which is to test if a new viewer would enjoy and comprehend the show, I think it makes more sense to watch them the way the show presented them. This is especially true for the 1977 flashbacks that lead up to the Incident (yes, I've had to spoil things a little bit for myself in order to put my viewing order together), since watching those without first knowing who Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are, for example, would I think be too confusing, especially when you see "later" flashbacks of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer as little kids. So in general, while I'm trying to not watch the show the way the creators presented it i.e. not in chronological order, in this one case I think it makes sense to watch the flashes and the 1977 moments the way the creators presented them.
I could be totally wrong about that above statement, though, and once I watch the entire show, I'll watch your videos to compare. I think it's really great that we both had this idea, and I'm extremely grateful for all the hard work you've been putting into editing the videos together. I will say that so far, watching it in chronological order has been wonderful, and I actually think I'm enjoying it more this way than if I had watched it the way it was aired. Thanks! :)
I gotcha. I thought that's maybe what you were referring to, but I wasn't sure.
ReplyDeleteI will agree that my series is meant for the LOST fan that's already familiar with the show and has seen it before. Although I would be curious to see someone who has never watched it sit down and go through it. While there would be some things that are very unclear (ie. Who a lot of the main characters are, exactly), it would be kind of fascinating from a prequel-type stance of being able to see the path that all of these people took to get to where they ended up, with the occasional future version of themselves showing up. Although, to me that's almost just a different kind of mystery. For example, the Incident was this big mystery on the show for years, what was it, why does it matter, etc. Whereas watching it in chronological order, the Incident is still a big deal, but you know about it right away, and so when the Losties are speculating as to what it might be or what it means, you already know.
I compare it a little bit to the Star Wars saga. Pretty much everyone has watched IV, V and VI, and then after that watched I, II, and III even though they came first on the time line. Well, what if you watched them in chronological order, someone who had never seen it before. Sure, the big reveal of Vader being Luke's father would be just another moment. But on the other hand, the downfall of the Republic, the rise of the Empire, the reveal of Sidious as Palpatine, the death of the Jedi Order, etc., all of these things would be unexpected.
I think this show kind of works that way too, although probably not as fluid. It changes the way you experience things, but overall I think it still flows as a story.