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Post by BlazeHedgehod on Oct 13, 2005 23:05:36 GMT -5
But why is that better than flashbacks? It's still taking time out from a story to describe a character's motivation. Flashbacks are actually more engrossing in this aspect, rather than look at a person as he tells his story, we experience the memories first hand. But flashbacks aren't very creative and are generally a lazy way to show character development. Again: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sitting down and telling a story is just as standard and boring as having a flashback.
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Post by stackeith on Oct 13, 2005 23:13:02 GMT -5
But it allows for the character to tell the story in his own words. The way one character might explain a past event might differ largely from the way another one does. And that's one way characters can differ themselves from other characters. And stuff.
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Post by Squiggles the Chao on Oct 13, 2005 23:21:06 GMT -5
It's all the subtleties of dialogue and action which really make something worthwhile:
Roger: Tell me Dorothy, do you ever think about yourself? Dorothy: I think about my myself more than you do, at least. Roger: Yes, this is about me, isn't it?
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Post by BlazeHedgehod on Oct 13, 2005 23:54:28 GMT -5
But it allows for the character to tell the story in his own words. The way one character might explain a past event might differ largely from the way another one does. And that's one way characters can differ themselves from other characters. And stuff. Yeah, but then you get the potential for lying. These characters aren't here to tell stories to other characters. Infact, for the most part, in LOST, all the characters keep their backstories purely to themselves - the flashbacks give the viewer an idea of who they are, but nobody else in the show does; Nobody knew Locke was paralyzed from the waist down. It's kind of like, "I know a secret nobody else does - Jin's a member of the Korean Mafia! If they knew, they'd flip out!" I can't say I see many flaws in this forumla. It engages the viewer and keeps them locked firmly in their seat. And those are missing in LOST?
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Post by Squiggles the Chao on Oct 13, 2005 23:56:57 GMT -5
I chose a very obvious one, since I figured that everyone would get the idea that Roger is self-centered.
But the point is that, from the episodes I've seen, Lost really doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from all the other crap on network TV.
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sanius
Active Member
Posts: 301
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Post by sanius on Oct 13, 2005 23:59:10 GMT -5
I hate it when people say they hate a show or game because of "what i've seen". I'm going to guess you saw about 3 episodes and decided it was crap.
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Post by BlazeHedgehod on Oct 14, 2005 0:02:21 GMT -5
I chose a very obvious one, since I figured that everyone would get the idea that Roger is self-centered. But the point is that, from the episodes I've seen, Lost really doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from all the other crap on network TV. Name one TV series like LOST that has been on TV in the last 50 years. Gilligan's Island doesn't count, because it was a comedy.
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Post by dead on Oct 14, 2005 1:06:37 GMT -5
From what I hear of LOST it sounds ALOT like "Sliders", only without the dimension hopping.
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Post by BlazeHedgehod on Oct 14, 2005 1:44:29 GMT -5
From what I hear of LOST it sounds ALOT like "Sliders", only without the dimension hopping. Man WHAT?
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Sofox
Behind The Logo Team
Yeah, I'm still a jet propelled fox, deal with it
Posts: 1,273
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Post by Sofox on Oct 14, 2005 7:03:12 GMT -5
How many episodes have you watched Squigs?
Anyway, I've watched the first few, and had to stop for reasons out of my control and won't watch it again until I can continue from where it left off. To be honest I was sort of excited before seeing it for the first time, the concept of "Airplane crash leaves stranded survivors" was something that had been turning around in my head for years and I loved the idea of characters thrown into unconventional situations and having to deal with eachother in order to sort themselves out (1st season Digimon did this, and was one of the reasons why I loved it). Lost, at least at first, left me... disappointed. Somehow the characters never really sparked it off with me and seem like real people, the Island threat really didn't seem threatening enough, I just didn't get the sense of immersivness that I was expecting or the atmosphere of all these people trying to find a way out. I'm not sure why, maybe I felt the show was too arbitary, showing clear facts and defined characters rather then going for subtelty, ambiguity or inferrence. Maybe I felt the dialogue, while good, failed to really resonate the personality of the characters. Maybe I felt it didn't have that unique idenity and expression to it. Maybe I just didn't watch enough episodes to get into it which is why I'll be waiting for the series to repeat so I can get a better idea of the show. It did actually pick up a bit for the episodes I watched, Locke's episode was awesome, finding out who he was and what he dealed with. Character development can happen in a flashback and that episode demonstrated. Before that episode, we thought Locke was just some generic mysterious hunter guy, from his flashbacks we learned he had a very different past and struggled through serious and unseen obsticals before getting where he was then and cast new light and insight into his behaviour and characterstics since he arrived on the island. To say that the flashbacks are meaningless and devoid of character development because we already know what the person is like and what they are vastly overlooks the fact that we don't always know everything to someones character just by observing them or that there vast amounts of story and events that made them what we are today that we just take for granted.
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Post by Squiggles the Chao on Oct 14, 2005 20:02:38 GMT -5
Name one TV series like LOST that has been on TV in the last 50 years. Gilligan's Island doesn't count, because it was a comedy. The challenge is actually to name one series not like LOST in the last 20 years. It suffers from some of the same maladies as most network TV shows: - It has unoriginal and unlikable characters.
- It has a terrible ratio of commercials to actual show.
- The writers have no idea where they want to take the show and the characters, and are constantly creating awkward details and situations while trying to figure it out.
- The writing is over dramatized and simplified to the point where it requires very little, if any intellectual investment.
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Post by Tenniru on Oct 14, 2005 20:20:28 GMT -5
... What just happened to this topic?
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Sofox
Behind The Logo Team
Yeah, I'm still a jet propelled fox, deal with it
Posts: 1,273
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Post by Sofox on Oct 15, 2005 4:34:53 GMT -5
... What just happened to this topic? What message board are we on?
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Post by Tenniru on Oct 15, 2005 19:33:48 GMT -5
Oh, I'm sorry. For a moment I thought I was a board with an attention span beyond five minutes.
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Post by Squiggles the Chao on Oct 15, 2005 19:36:15 GMT -5
I agree with Tenniru (though not his last, pithy statement). I made one little mention of the fact that I don't like LOST, and the topic jumped all over the place.
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Post by Domokun Clasico on Oct 15, 2005 22:31:27 GMT -5
DS simply because of mario kart bundle and nintendogs bundles.
PSP doesn't have much to offer except UMD movies.
(I'm refering to this from the POV of the average casual gamer that doesn't homebrew)
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Post by Mirai Zikasu on Oct 16, 2005 3:54:44 GMT -5
Back on the subject of the iPod, as I said, before they screw around with this video bullshit, I really wish that they would take time to figure out how to achieve gapless audio output...
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Post by BlazeHedgehod on Oct 16, 2005 5:31:46 GMT -5
This is more a matter of personal preference more than anything else, and I have already commented that, after over 50 years of television, it is extremely difficult to find an "original" character without treading into territory best described as "ludicrious".
How does this relate to the quality of the show itself? This is more a curse of high ratings than anything else: A high ratio of sponsorship means they have more commercials to show, so they can make more money.
Ah, so you know the writers personally? You've spoken to them, and they have said to you, in person, "We're just writing whatever the hell we can think up. There's no actual plan." Because, seriously? This show is a mystery. It's supposed to be mysterious. You're not supposed to know what's going on until the mystery is solved. I'm sorry this isn't CSI, where the mystery is solved at the end of every episode. I'd say this right here is the biggest proof you never really gave the show a fair enough chance.
Yeah. Of course. What's the secret of the island? Is it so simple that you know the entire premise of the series already? Or maybe this is the reason why you think the writers aren't actually telling a story; because you don't get it. You think it's simple, so the fact that there might actually be a story there goes over your head because your expectations are so low that a show like LOST could never do something like that. It's too simple!
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Post by Squiggles the Chao on Oct 16, 2005 11:51:53 GMT -5
Ah, so you know the writers personally? You've spoken to them, and they have said to you, in person, "We're just writing whatever the hell we can think up. There's no actual plan." Because, seriously? This show is a mystery. It's supposed to be mysterious. You're not supposed to know what's going on until the mystery is solved. I'm sorry this isn't CSI, where the mystery is solved at the end of every episode. I'd say this right here is the biggest proof you never really gave the show a fair enough chance. Say it with me now: It's network TV. In network TV, the writers never write with the next episode in mind, unless they are doing a two or three part arc. This is the X-Files all over again. It too was a show about a mystery. But what happened is that it was a mystery without a solution. People get tired of this after two or three seasons. You'll see it happen in LOST. So the writers will hastily wrap up the mystery in a vague way that leads to another. They'll do the same thing every few seasons, getting less popular each time, until they're cancelled. You may be optimistic that this won't happen. You may think that they really do have an answer to the mystery. That's just because you're used to seeing too much anime where they do have the story for the entire series planned out. But that's not part of the US industry. To plan out the whole series defines that it will have an ending. That means that even if the show is popular, they lose revenue from the episodes they could have made with more episodes. So they do them one at a time to produce as many as they can, with no end in mind. It's simply how the industry works.
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Post by dead on Oct 17, 2005 13:53:24 GMT -5
And that's why I like Manga. They plan out things 100 issues in advance.
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