Text: Seapark
If you use an American drama to define the 2000s, then this drama is undoubtedly "Lost". Unlike "The Sopranos" and "White House Heroes", this American drama written by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof represents all the new school things, brand new The narrative method, the group image perspective without a specific protagonist, the fantasy scene beyond reality, and the unprecedented induction and summary of the classic Hollywood narrative. As soon as the first season aired, he successively won the Emmy Award and the Golden Globe Award for best drama, leading his own era. After "Lost", more and more dramas began to pay more attention to structure, and pursued the chaos of time and more complicated narratives. It can be said that without "Lost", there would be no contemporary classics such as "Western World", "Ghost Invasion" and "Watching the Earth". And after "Lost", there is no longer such a long and complicated public TV series. The change in the form of American dramas will turn the next decade into an era when cable TV short-form boutique dramas dominate. It can be said that Lost is not only the first pioneering American drama in the new century, but also the last classic of the old era.
There is a classic religious joke. A man encountered a storm when he was sailing on a boat. He suddenly realized that it was God's punishment. So, he knelt down and prayed: "Please forgive me for the sake of other innocent people." At this time, he heard a low voice from the sky: "Do you think I have been idle these years, get this together." Is it easy for me to be a boatman?" This joke may be the best summary of the plot of "Lost".
Ocean Airlines Flight 815 from Australia to Los Angeles crashed on an unnamed island. A total of 48 people survived the plane accident. They have different nationalities, backgrounds and skin colors. Under the leadership of Doctor Jack, the group began to build camps on the island, looking for food, and struggling to survive. At the same time, there seems to be a mysterious supernatural force on the island, and some malicious "others" threaten their lives at any time. In the process of surviving, everyone's past gradually surfaced. These 48 people have completely different life stories. And fate brought them to the same flight. It seems that they came to this island by another kind of inevitable. ...
Speaking of "Lost", I have to mention his behind-the-scenes creator J.J. Abrams, who relied on the two dramas "Double Spy" and "Lost" to create myths and successfully transformed into a movie. The director, has successively become the head of the three popular series of "Mission Impossible", "Star Trek" and "Star Wars", and has become the fastest-climbing producer in Hollywood in the past two decades. "Lost" is undoubtedly his most important Masterpiece. What he injected into "Lost" is a whole new structure. It looks like a closed story that only takes place in a small space on an island. There are only 48 survivors in total. The first season mainly revolves around 14 protagonists and a dog. In fact, "Lost" was taken by Abramovich. Rams has injected new gameplay into the closed space, creating an extremely open narrative.
The series is very revolutionary using a two-line narrative approach that parallels flashback and reality. The story of each episode focuses on a certain protagonist, telling his story before going to the island through flashback, and then through the current timeline. Tell about the impact of past events on this person. In this way, Abrams deepens the proposition of destiny. The series keeps telling us that we don’t actually understand the characters we are “familiar with”, and everyone is made up of unknown pasts. The island has become a fate they must experience.
Fans who have experienced that period will also know that, with the help of the newly emerging Internet, various discussions of "Lost" have always been hotspots in major American drama forums. Fans are guessing the truth about what happened on the island and share their theories endlessly. The various fan theories of "Lost" are even more insightful than the real finale. To some extent, "Lost" has also affected the reality. The series of numbers "4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42" that Hurley won in the lottery in the play also became the most popular number for buying lottery tickets in the United States that year. (Even in a lottery winning number in 2011, all four numbers matched). In 2009, "Lost" became the most-on-demand American drama on the Internet in a survey. 1.425 million users ordered at least one episode of "Lost" on ABC's official website, which also made it the king of the early streaming media era. drama.
Let us return to the previous jokes. In the 21st century where globalization is accelerating, transportation is so convenient, and the Internet is so developed, it has become easier to bring together a ship of completely different sinners, and it will not even take God a few years. It is the different flashbacks of different characters that give the entire episode a completely different experience for each single episode. This flashback is not only in time, but also in space. Sometimes we are in the dark interrogation room in Iraq, sometimes we enter the mind of a liar in the United States, sometimes we come to Africa to join the endless wars and gang fights, and sometimes we enter the context of Korean family ethics dramas. A fat man who won the lottery looked at the whole story more comically from the perspective. With 14 characters and countless flashbacks, the world of "Lost" is not confined to a small island at all, and this crashed flight has become a miniature of globalization, and then enters the full genre of big narratives.
Such flashbacks have also created many classic character creations. In the first season of Soya’s story line, only one episode has turned this selfish ghost, which had previously been hated by all audiences, into a love and justice. At the same time a cynical attractive man. And in Desmond's flashback, this lover who had gone through all kinds of hardships just to return to his lover, and finally became Sisyphus who kept keeping the code to guard the order of the island, was embarrassing. Locke’s flashbacks are full of Abrams’ narrative tricks. This wild man full of wild survival skills, in the real life off the island, is an ineffective and neglected loser. In the last shot of the flashback, Abrams even revealed that he is actually a disabled person in a wheelchair. Such an episode is almost the largest template used in the flashback of "Lost", that is, to hide some key information and reveal it when the dramatic conflict is the most intense, so as to achieve the best shocking effect.
At the same time, this approach also deepens the audience’s understanding of the characters. There are too many stories that are only known between the audience and the characters. These secrets will not be shared with other characters, so the audience can better bring in the characters. , A deeper understanding of the plight of the role. Fans who chased "Lost" back then will definitely be like the author, looking forward to the latest episode every week that will tell about their favorite characters. And when the protagonist this week is Sawyer, Locke, or Desmond, it must be the hottest day for fans to discuss.
As the secrets of the island continue to be revealed, and Damon Lindelof replaces Abrams who went to film "Mission Impossible" and "Star Trek" to become the chief creator of the series, "Lost" also More and more to the end of the magic stick drama. The timeline became more and more difficult to understand, and there were more and more supernatural phenomena. At the end of the final, there was no explanation for the problem, and a false reunion was given. It can be described as the most disappointing finale of an American drama before "Game of Thrones".
But at the same time, the appearance of Lindelof also brought some new breakthroughs to the series. For example, the flashback was no longer just a flashback, but became a flashback in the later stage, which is about the life of the protagonist after leaving the island. , And even once made people suspect that this is a story from another parallel universe. Such flash pre-processing also gave a new dimension in the inherent mode of the drama.
In addition to the main line, the advanced operations before the flashback have also become the imitation objects of many complex narrative American dramas in the future, such as "Western World", "Suspect Tracking", "Arrow" and "American Horror Story" They all continue a similar routine, using a large number of flashbacks to tell the story in parallel before the flash, blurring the timeline. Among the first two works, Abrams also participated. It can be said that it is his original narrative technique that changed the pattern of American drama creation afterwards.
Most importantly, "Lost" summarizes the spirit of the time in the United States and even the world in the first decade of the new century. The millennium bug, 911, the war in Iraq, and the rise of smartphones have made countless people feel truly lost. Abrams And Lindelof caught this. The island in "Lost" was frozen in 1996. People are trapped in the past, insisting on a 108-minute cycle, and the cumbersome world outside can never allow them to adapt. To a certain extent, "Lost" is open. It uses an extremely novel technique to tell a contemporary mythology, combining science fiction and religion. From other perspectives, "Lost" is closed and nostalgic. It traps the protagonist on a small island and tells them that this is the best life. The new technology of globalization does not make them happy, but a slightly idealistic one. The mission is what people really need.
The protagonist Jack, after leaving the island, leads a disappointing and mediocre life. He keeps flying on the plane just to experience the plane crash again and return to the island, which is embarrassing. As a doctor, Jack is an elite of the bourgeoisie. He believes in science and opposes fate, but he gradually accepts all this and even teaches his meaning to fate. He is a really lost person who is overwhelmed by real life. He is eager to escape from reality and return to the comfort zone on the island to be the leader of a small team. From the beginning, Locke believed that the island gave him a mission. After arriving on the island, his leg was miraculously healed, and he was a staunch fatalist. In the end, he had to leave the island he believed in and return to the outside world that was unfriendly to him. They also represent modern society. People make different choices, stay where they are, or follow the times, but each choice makes people anxious, each choice will deprive us of happiness, and stagnation will encounter society The "defense mechanism" hunts and kills mercilessly.
Advance and escape are the different choices we have experienced in the first decade of the new century. Some have moved forward, and some have stayed in the past forever. This brings us into the fragmented future where we are now. Is this the only future? Today, when globalization is bankrupt due to the new crown, do we also feel a bit of "lost"? At this time, looking back at the finale of "Lost", we are fantasizing about a parallel time without a new crown. Does it represent the small island of the past and is the ultimate destination of our souls?
(Originally contained in Iris)
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