Lost creators comments re: SW...and karma

As a diehard, diehard, diehard Star Wars fan, and a diehard, diehard Lost fan, I have always found it a little annoying that Lindeloff, and especially Cuse, like to throw out little jabs at SW and Lucas.

From hearing Hurley say that "Ewoks sucked, dude," to hearing Cuse pontificate about how you shouldn't explain everything, a la midichlorians, their comments have pissed me off. Maybe I'm a bit sensitive, but for a couple of guys who have clearly based so much of their own work on Star Wars and its mythology, it seemed to me like as writers, they should have had a little more respect.

Now clearly, these guys are huge SW fans, and I don't mean to characterize them as anything but that. However, over time, they have made these criticisms, while riding high on their own Lost success. A success that in my opinion, has revealed itself to be somewhat of a 100 hour plus screenplay ponzi scheme. They created unbelievable mystery on top of unbelievable mystery, while usually answering each successive mystery with a new mystery, rather than a concrete answer. And now, here we are, at the end, and it seems like they didn't really have all that much by way of answers. Just cool mysteries that kept us coming back for more each episode. Now, at the end, we're hearing them say they never intended to give us all the answers, and that the mystery of the show is something they're trying to maintain, even after the finale.

Can you imagine how Cuse and Lindeloff would have reacted if at the end of ROTS, we never learned why Anakin went to the dark side? Or what happened to Luke and Leia's mother? Or what the Clone Wars was? If Lucas had said that he didn't want to "answer" the big questions he had posed, but rather allow the audience to come to its own conclusions, he would have been massacred. He was anyway.

I know this is a SW site, not a Lost site.

But is there anyone else who feels like the Lost guys should have just shut up, now that we've seen what they have delivered. Granted, TPM had flaws. It wasn't perfect. But man oh man, that Jacob/Man in Black episode was so much worse. Reading some interviews with Cuse and Lindeloff, they seem a little perturbed that fans can be so critical after so many great seasons and episodes. It'll be interesting to see if they can handle the criticism as well as Lucas did. I highly doubt they will.

Here's hoping the finale proves itself to tie up the series. That said, I can't help but feel that there is a little bit of karma coming back to bite them.

And on one final, random note...

When Sawyer said "who the hell is Anakin?", what the hell was that? A guy who makes references to dozens of pop culture figures doesn't know who Anakin is? It's fair to assume Sawyer would have seen ROTJ a few times before the crash, and thus, he should have known Anakin. I'm just saying.

 

It's just a movie, and a TV show. They have as much a right to their opinion as you do to yours. Live and let live.

 

That's pretty much the point of the line - "Anakin" is not a major player in the OT. We don't even get the name until RotJ*, and even then a lot of people (I think) just think of "Darth Vader/Luke's father" rather than "Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker".

The name simply has a lesser cultural penetration. It's more akin to remembering who Greedo is than who Yoda is.

*TESB SE-DVD revisions don't count for this discussion

 

While I agree that may have been the writer's intention, to insinuate that before the prequels, the name Anakin was not that well-known, I don't think this is accurate.

Any self-respecting SW fan back in the 80s and 90s knew that Darth Vader's real name was Anakin Skywalker. If you didn't know who Anakin was, you probably weren't really a Star Wars fan at all. To imply that the name didn't become well-known until 1999 is simply revisionist history. Given Sawyer's character, and the fact that he once referenced the old "wookie prisoner" routine, it struck me as a strange thing for him not to know.

The name Anakin is pretty distinct, and the OT was, simply put, the most popular modern day mythology that existed throughout his whole childhood. The Sawyer I know would not be so clueless.

Not a big deal. Just something that struck me.

 

And also, I would have had the exact same reaction if Sawyer had said, "who the hell is Greedo?"

 

Then again, assume Sawyer is meant to be the same age as actor Josh Holloway, who was born in 1969.

When SW came out he would have been 8, TESB 11, and RotJ 14.

That's exactly the right setup for a kid to adore the first two films and be "too cool" for Jedi and the "teddy bears" by the time it rolled around. Sawyer in particular seems like the kind of guy who would have moved on to girls and probably mocked any of his classmates who were still big SW fans in 1983.

 

Obironsolo, why don't you get the fact that "Who the hell is Anakin?" was intended to be an inside joke for the audience, and has nothing to do with the LOST plotline? It's not a serious statement.

Getting into what a fictional character should and shouldn't know about Star Wars just belabors the point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb2GmBkkaTU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0

 

What does all this have to do with Saga?

Please take this discussion to SWCommunity.

Thanks.

 

That's pretty much the point of the line - "Anakin" is not a major player in the OT. We don't even get the name until RotJ*, and even then a lot of people (I think) just think of "Darth Vader/Luke's father" rather than "Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker".


We first learn about Anakin Skywalker in ANH. We learn that Vader and Anakin are one and the same in ESB. And we learn that the identity of Anakin finally supplants Vader in ROTJ.

The joke in "LOST" was a bad one.

 

We first learn about Darth Vader in the first SW film; the name "Anakin Skywalker" is not mentioned anywhere in the course of the film. We are even told that he murdered the protagonist's father (at this point Anakin and Vader are two separate entities).

And prior to the 2004 ESB DVD changes, the name Anakin Skywalker wasn't found in ESB either; from the context of filmgoers in 1980, we can either assume that a) Luke's father (who doesn't have a name at this point) is Vader, or b) Vader is lying to recruit Luke to his side. In fact, a SW comic strip released prior to ROTJ called Luke's father "Tan Skywalker", which was later retconned to being a title rather than a name.

 

I laughed at it.

 

In before the lock. Ironically, what little I know about Lost has been mostly mentioned by the OP, but those points have lead me to the conclusion that the show must suck... while the OP considers himself a fan.

 

What are you talking about? I "got" the fact that it was intended to be an inside joke. I'm just trying to strike up a light-hearted conversation here. Last thing I need is someone getting personal and snippy with me. My point is that it wasn't historically accurate, and therefore, from this die hard Star Wars fan's perspective, the inside joke didn't make sense. When did I say it had anything to do with the LOST plotline? Clearly, it had nothing to do with plot. I know it wasn't a "serious" statement. So now I can't come on a SW forum and question a fictional character's dialogue, if the dialogue was meant as a "joke"? In Knocked Up, when Katherine Heigl's character says "Who the hell is Doc Brown?", that makes sense. Her character wouldn't know the reference. IMO, Sawyer would, and as a fan of the show, it seemed like bad characterization.

I can understand why Sawyer's line might seem insightful to younger fans who weren't actually around back in the 80s, because they might presume that the name Anakin was only known by die-hard SW fans back then. It's like watching a bad 80's flashback. It wasn't quite like that, but it may be funny to imply that it was. Any young guy who was a casual SW fan would've known that name, largely because a) it is such an unusual unique name, and b) the name reveal was a pivotal plot point in the series. Learning Darth Vader's real name was a big part of Return of the Jedi. This was my point. I never thought that the line of dialogue actually mattered in the Lost universe.

 

So every person in the US has seen the saga, then?

Sorry, but Sawyer doesn't come across as a person who gives a **** about Star Wars films, so it would be perfectly in line with his character. Hurley is the obvious Star Wars fan on the show.

 

Yes he does.

 

You obviously don't know the show, or you weren't paying attention. Sawyer has made more than one Star Wars reference.

The wookie prisoner bit.
He called Hurley "Chewie."

I never said everyone in the U.S. would know the reference. I said that Sawyer would.

 

That's okay. I still laughed.