Regular visitors on Back to the Island have probably seen my correspondence with an intelligent German reader who questioned my comparison of Sayid to the concept of "philosophical zombies" (or "p-zombies"). While that gentleman and I agreed to disagree on the applicability of the term to Sayid's character, we both agreed that calling him a "zombie" was pretty apt.
Now it looks like Naveen Andrews, the actor who so capably portrays Sayid, might also agree. The new issue of TV Guide features cast photos of the main Lost actors, alongside their responses to TV Guide's question: If you could place your Lost character on another show, what show would it be? Here is Andrews' answer:
"HBO's vampire series, True Blood, where a character as dysfunctional - and potentially undead - as Sayid would actually fit."
Iiiiinteresting.
Read the entirety of the article (which isn't much - what's up with the trend of running GIGANTIC PHOTOS alongside smatterings of text in magazines? Are we collectively that illiterate these days? /End Old Man Rant) right here, at the Hollywood Reporter.
Monday, April 19
Everybody Loves Hugo (S6, Ep. 12)
The Back to the Island column for Everybody Loves Hugo has taken it's life-long love of Chicken and used it to create a benevolent Empire for your reading pleasure on Chud.com.
Thursday, April 15
An Interview with Hiroyuki Sanada
Good morning, everyone. My interview with Hiroyuki Sanada (Dogen on Lost) has been posted on Chud.com for your reading pleasure. If you enjoy it, please Digg it, or whatever it is that the kids are doing these days.
Hope it's enjoyed!
Hope it's enjoyed!
Tuesday, April 13
Lost: Season 6, Episode 12 Discussion
The Instareaction:
So were you left grinning ear-to-ear, nervous and amped up; almost absurdly energized by tonight's episode? Or was that just me? Further confirmation of the Love Snake theory, a warm and touching reappearance from Libby, a splintering of purposes, Death By Water Bottle, Jack's willingness to trust, Desmond's lack of fear, The appearance of another of the Island's Lost Boys (was that the MiB as a child?), the knowledge that some of the dead are trapped on the Island (echoes of my well of souls theory) and that the Whispers are the voices of those Purgatorial souls, the way that Desmond acts as a kind of Jacob in the Off-Island world, and the way the episode ends.....
Is this show really going to stick the landing?
After tonight I'm more confident than ever that the answer is 'yes.'
Original Post:
Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) would like to petition JJ Abrams for more Lost, according to a bunch of different online sources.
I'd sign that petition - and I never sign petitions for television/film/entertainment. See, counting tonight's episode there are just four (FOUR!) episodes of Lost left until the finale. How did this happen so quickly? And do they make a form of Methadone that's strong enough to deal with the withdrawal symptoms I'm going to be dealing with?
Some of you already know that once Lost ends I'll be turning my attentions toward The Book (which you can contact me about at WhatIsWater@gmail.com) and toward new material, so it isn't as though I'll be leaving this show behind completely or quit writing altogether. That said, I've been writing on/about Lost for almost a full year now and the transition away from that and onto other things is going to feel very, very weird.
But that's a subject for a month-and-change from now. Tonight it's all about the new episode. Leave your thoughts and comments here - I'll be in after it airs on the East Coast to give my Insta-reaction.
Best,
MMorse
So were you left grinning ear-to-ear, nervous and amped up; almost absurdly energized by tonight's episode? Or was that just me? Further confirmation of the Love Snake theory, a warm and touching reappearance from Libby, a splintering of purposes, Death By Water Bottle, Jack's willingness to trust, Desmond's lack of fear, The appearance of another of the Island's Lost Boys (was that the MiB as a child?), the knowledge that some of the dead are trapped on the Island (echoes of my well of souls theory) and that the Whispers are the voices of those Purgatorial souls, the way that Desmond acts as a kind of Jacob in the Off-Island world, and the way the episode ends.....
Is this show really going to stick the landing?
After tonight I'm more confident than ever that the answer is 'yes.'
Original Post:
Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) would like to petition JJ Abrams for more Lost, according to a bunch of different online sources.
I'd sign that petition - and I never sign petitions for television/film/entertainment. See, counting tonight's episode there are just four (FOUR!) episodes of Lost left until the finale. How did this happen so quickly? And do they make a form of Methadone that's strong enough to deal with the withdrawal symptoms I'm going to be dealing with?
Some of you already know that once Lost ends I'll be turning my attentions toward The Book (which you can contact me about at WhatIsWater@gmail.com) and toward new material, so it isn't as though I'll be leaving this show behind completely or quit writing altogether. That said, I've been writing on/about Lost for almost a full year now and the transition away from that and onto other things is going to feel very, very weird.
But that's a subject for a month-and-change from now. Tonight it's all about the new episode. Leave your thoughts and comments here - I'll be in after it airs on the East Coast to give my Insta-reaction.
Best,
MMorse
Apropos of Nothing
Joss Whedon is in final negotiations to direct The Avengers.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Lost-centric programming.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We now return you to your regularly-scheduled Lost-centric programming.
Monday, April 12
Island Reviews: Waking Sleeping Beauty
"Waking Sleeping Beauty" (WSB for the rest of this review) is one hell of a home movie. Want to see what a young Tim Burton looked/acted like while crammed into one of Disney's old animator offices, or want to catch tantalizing glimpses of folks like John Lasseter and Glen Keane?
Of course you do. People like Burton, Lasseter and Keane are titans in the animation industry, and the idea of seeing archival footage that features them working at Disney during the studio's infamous fallow period (late seventies through the end of the eighties) made me salivate like one of Pavlov's puppies. Even more promising: Don Hahn (veteran animator, Oscar winner, and home-video-enthusiast) has worked at Disney from the age of twenty, and he was present and filming on all of Disney's "second golden age" features, from Little Mermaid through the Lion King.
It's a shame then, that for this viewer WSB ends up feeling both unfocused and wrongly-focused at the same time. The film spends most of it's running time split between (1) the efforts of Disney Animation to produce relevant (read: "fiscally successful and ripe for ancillary product creation/exploitation") films again following a string of critical and financial disasters and (2) the now-infamous relationship between Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner.
But by splitting the focus (and arguably spending FAR too much time on the Katzenberg/Eisner details - there's nothing that's said that couldn't have been succinctly expressed with a few minutes of voiceover or one judiciously-chosen interview) the film abandons its initial promise. WSB doesn't truly tell you HOW Disney Animation shifted from making clunkers to making new classics. Instead, the film just tells you that it happened.
That sin is compounded by what Hahn DOES choose to share with us. Why are we spending time on Katzenberg and Eisner when there's footage of Howard Ashman (lyricist for Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and most of Aladdin) playing "Under the Sea" for the first time for a group of delighted animators and looking adorably self-conscious in the process? Why do we spend too much time listening to Roy Disney's behind-the-scenes grievances when there's footage of Robin Williams riffing as the Genie in clips that never made it into the finished film?
This pattern repeats itself over and again. Either we're shown the "what" without the "why" or the "how" (Controversial animation figure Don Bluth managed to steal half of Disney's animators away from the studio. We learn that this happened, but not why or how) or we're shown yet-more footage of Eisner playing Cheerful CEO for the cameras or Katzenberg on a couch.
That's not to say that "Waking Sleeping Beauty" isn't worth seeing. If you're a fan of animation in general (as I very much am), or of Disney, or of the specific films from this period, WSB is very much worth a rental, if only to watch as Howard Ashman gives a very specific set of intructions to the voice of Ariel and cements a classic moment in Disney history. But if you're hoping for something deeper, something that focuses on the true creative heart of Disney's animated films - the animators - then you're likely going to be a little disappointed. We see their faces (in truly endearing home-video shots), and we hear a bunch of them say hello, but we never get a sense of who these people are/were, what they did, why they did it, or what the process was.
What we get instead are the reminiscings of one animator and a scattered array of really great moments captured on film. While Don Hahn is warm, engaging and blissfully armed with vintage archival footage, that warmth is overshadowed by two titanic egos who've already had their stories told and told in detail. Katzenberg and Eisner's feud marrs "Waking Sleeping Beauty" just as it seems to have marred Disney's breathtaking Mermaid-to-Lion-King track record.
The Verdict: Rent it.
Of course you do. People like Burton, Lasseter and Keane are titans in the animation industry, and the idea of seeing archival footage that features them working at Disney during the studio's infamous fallow period (late seventies through the end of the eighties) made me salivate like one of Pavlov's puppies. Even more promising: Don Hahn (veteran animator, Oscar winner, and home-video-enthusiast) has worked at Disney from the age of twenty, and he was present and filming on all of Disney's "second golden age" features, from Little Mermaid through the Lion King.
It's a shame then, that for this viewer WSB ends up feeling both unfocused and wrongly-focused at the same time. The film spends most of it's running time split between (1) the efforts of Disney Animation to produce relevant (read: "fiscally successful and ripe for ancillary product creation/exploitation") films again following a string of critical and financial disasters and (2) the now-infamous relationship between Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner.
But by splitting the focus (and arguably spending FAR too much time on the Katzenberg/Eisner details - there's nothing that's said that couldn't have been succinctly expressed with a few minutes of voiceover or one judiciously-chosen interview) the film abandons its initial promise. WSB doesn't truly tell you HOW Disney Animation shifted from making clunkers to making new classics. Instead, the film just tells you that it happened.
That sin is compounded by what Hahn DOES choose to share with us. Why are we spending time on Katzenberg and Eisner when there's footage of Howard Ashman (lyricist for Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and most of Aladdin) playing "Under the Sea" for the first time for a group of delighted animators and looking adorably self-conscious in the process? Why do we spend too much time listening to Roy Disney's behind-the-scenes grievances when there's footage of Robin Williams riffing as the Genie in clips that never made it into the finished film?
This pattern repeats itself over and again. Either we're shown the "what" without the "why" or the "how" (Controversial animation figure Don Bluth managed to steal half of Disney's animators away from the studio. We learn that this happened, but not why or how) or we're shown yet-more footage of Eisner playing Cheerful CEO for the cameras or Katzenberg on a couch.
That's not to say that "Waking Sleeping Beauty" isn't worth seeing. If you're a fan of animation in general (as I very much am), or of Disney, or of the specific films from this period, WSB is very much worth a rental, if only to watch as Howard Ashman gives a very specific set of intructions to the voice of Ariel and cements a classic moment in Disney history. But if you're hoping for something deeper, something that focuses on the true creative heart of Disney's animated films - the animators - then you're likely going to be a little disappointed. We see their faces (in truly endearing home-video shots), and we hear a bunch of them say hello, but we never get a sense of who these people are/were, what they did, why they did it, or what the process was.
What we get instead are the reminiscings of one animator and a scattered array of really great moments captured on film. While Don Hahn is warm, engaging and blissfully armed with vintage archival footage, that warmth is overshadowed by two titanic egos who've already had their stories told and told in detail. Katzenberg and Eisner's feud marrs "Waking Sleeping Beauty" just as it seems to have marred Disney's breathtaking Mermaid-to-Lion-King track record.
The Verdict: Rent it.
The Back to the Island E-Mail Bag: P-Zombies, "Infection," and Very Intelligent Germans
After the Back to the Island column for The Package was published on Chud.com I received a comment admonishing me for drawing a potential comparison between Sayid’s “infection” and the idea of philosophical zombies (just click on the link to go to the column in question and refresh your memory). I invited the commenter to explain to me and the audience just why it was that the comparison didn’t fit. And while that commenter never responded to my invitation, I did get a lovely e-mail from a German gentleman (let’s call him “Our Mutual Friend,” since I haven’t received his permission to use his name) that attempted to do the same thing.
We had a brief but interesting exchange, and I thought that you folks might want to read it. It’s dense on his end with some pretty heady philosophical language, but I think it’s worth your time if you’re interested in delving a little deeper into Lost’s Pool of Potential Philosophical Touchstones. You can read the exchange by clicking here.
My thanks to Our Mutual Friend for sharing his copious knowledge, and for engaging in an intelligent and respectful dialogue. The majority of people who've contacted me since I started this blog have been a pleasure to communicate with, and I'm pleasantly shocked to have found so many sincere and kind people inhabiting the virtual world.
We had a brief but interesting exchange, and I thought that you folks might want to read it. It’s dense on his end with some pretty heady philosophical language, but I think it’s worth your time if you’re interested in delving a little deeper into Lost’s Pool of Potential Philosophical Touchstones. You can read the exchange by clicking here.
My thanks to Our Mutual Friend for sharing his copious knowledge, and for engaging in an intelligent and respectful dialogue. The majority of people who've contacted me since I started this blog have been a pleasure to communicate with, and I'm pleasantly shocked to have found so many sincere and kind people inhabiting the virtual world.
Saturday, April 10
Happily Ever After (S6, Ep. 11
The Back to the Island column for "Happily Ever After" has experienced enlightenment for your reading pleasure on Chud.com.
Thursday, April 8
Lost: Season 6, Episode 11 Discussion
UPDATE (04.08.10)!!
The Back to the Island column for "Happily Ever After" will be published tomorrow, not today, on Chud.com. Part of this is due to my having far too much fun yesterday, but most of it is due to the fact that there is a LOT going on in this episode, and I want to give the hour it's due.
Thanks for understanding, and for your patience - I can promise that the wait will be worth it!
Insta-Reaction:
Whoa.
Buh-bye, Second Snake theory? It sure seems that way, judging from the events of tonight's episode. The off-Island and on-Island universes bled together in Happily Ever After. What to make of everything? I'll be sussing it out over the next day or so, but here are some initial thoughts:
Eloise Hawking/Widmore as Mastermind of space and time? It's certainly hinted at here, as Hawking/Widmore reveals that she knows far more about Desmond's situation than he does.
And in that vein, what was up with Minkowski? Didn't he seem a little too eager to fulfill Desmond's every wish?
Desmond as Dr. Manhattan Island...Did anyone else think of Alan Moore's Watchmen as Desmond was caught in the EM field? And how bizarre was his sudden "enlightenment" at episode's end? What to make of him wandering off into the jungle with his old buddy, Sayid? Is he working off of some kind of "enlightened" state, aware that he's "supposed" to go that way? Is he aligning himself with the MiB? And what does he want with the Oceanic list? Is he looking to reunite the castaways and the potentially split timeline?
Back in Season 4 I talked about the idea of the castaways' conciousnesses becoming aware of their "past lives," and that's to some extent what we saw tonight. Consciousness was again an enormous theme in Happily Ever After, Along with the notion of Love as a powerful connector, drawing consciousnesses across whole worlds. If unabashed romanticism isn't your bag, then the Constant talk of love tonight probably made you groan. Im not allergic to the particular brand of sincerity (or schmaltz, depending on your POV), and so I found myself touched by the sentiment, rather than put off over it. I suspect results may vary. There's a ton of fun stuff to chew over in general this week - I'm looking forward to writing this.
Original Post:
Judging from the (often misleading) promo that runs after each new episode, this week's installment of Lost promises to make us all weepy. Will someone die tonight? It sure seems that way. Leave your thoughts on the episode here. I'll be popping in after it ends to give my Insta-reaction.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
The Back to the Island column for "Happily Ever After" will be published tomorrow, not today, on Chud.com. Part of this is due to my having far too much fun yesterday, but most of it is due to the fact that there is a LOT going on in this episode, and I want to give the hour it's due.
Thanks for understanding, and for your patience - I can promise that the wait will be worth it!
Insta-Reaction:
Whoa.
Buh-bye, Second Snake theory? It sure seems that way, judging from the events of tonight's episode. The off-Island and on-Island universes bled together in Happily Ever After. What to make of everything? I'll be sussing it out over the next day or so, but here are some initial thoughts:
Eloise Hawking/Widmore as Mastermind of space and time? It's certainly hinted at here, as Hawking/Widmore reveals that she knows far more about Desmond's situation than he does.
And in that vein, what was up with Minkowski? Didn't he seem a little too eager to fulfill Desmond's every wish?
Desmond as Dr. Manhattan Island...Did anyone else think of Alan Moore's Watchmen as Desmond was caught in the EM field? And how bizarre was his sudden "enlightenment" at episode's end? What to make of him wandering off into the jungle with his old buddy, Sayid? Is he working off of some kind of "enlightened" state, aware that he's "supposed" to go that way? Is he aligning himself with the MiB? And what does he want with the Oceanic list? Is he looking to reunite the castaways and the potentially split timeline?
Back in Season 4 I talked about the idea of the castaways' conciousnesses becoming aware of their "past lives," and that's to some extent what we saw tonight. Consciousness was again an enormous theme in Happily Ever After, Along with the notion of Love as a powerful connector, drawing consciousnesses across whole worlds. If unabashed romanticism isn't your bag, then the Constant talk of love tonight probably made you groan. Im not allergic to the particular brand of sincerity (or schmaltz, depending on your POV), and so I found myself touched by the sentiment, rather than put off over it. I suspect results may vary. There's a ton of fun stuff to chew over in general this week - I'm looking forward to writing this.
Original Post:
Judging from the (often misleading) promo that runs after each new episode, this week's installment of Lost promises to make us all weepy. Will someone die tonight? It sure seems that way. Leave your thoughts on the episode here. I'll be popping in after it ends to give my Insta-reaction.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Thursday, April 1
The Package (S6, ep. 10)
The Back to the Island column for "The Package" has been gratuitously exposed for your reading pleasure on Chud.com.
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