One of the most hotly debated finales in TV history, fans of ABC's "Lost" either loved or absolutely hated how the series wrapped up its many, many stories. Leaving major questions unanswered and a huge outcry of "wait, so were they dead the whole time or what?" the finale is still referred to as brilliant, iconic, terrible and downright infuriating.
In a recent chat with "Entertainment Weekly" showruners Carlton Cruise and Damon Lindelof described their original plans for the finale which included a volcano, the ultimate battle of good vs evil and "Magma spewing everywhere".
Yep, the plan was to finish the series on the island's dormant volcano. As Lindelof puts it:
"The volcano had been dormant for the duration of the series, but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt. We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which ended up in the series manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. Magma spewing everywhere!"
Based on his travels around Hawaii, where the show was shot, Cruise was inspired by one of the volcanoes on the main island, and wanted to incorporate it into the show.
The mysterious island's volcano was alluded to throughout the series, especially in the episode "The Man Behind the Curtain" where a young Ben Linus was sitting in class learning about the geography of the island in one of the show's many flashbacks. At this time it was confirmed that there hadn't been any volcanic activity for a while, so it was safe to assume it was dormant. But Cruise and Lindelof wanted to resurrect the firey mountain for an explosive finale.
The show's creators also explain that, had it not been scrapped, the show would have incorporated the volcano into the mythology of the series before its appearance. In fact, it was apparently going to be revealed that the island's guardian, Jacob, would have tossed The Man in Black into the crater... thus creating the smoke monster! Ahh it's all starting to make sense. Sort of.
So what happened to the fiery fantasia? As Lindelof explains, "ABC was like, 'Guys, we love you, and we're letting you end the show; we can't let you bankrupt the network in the process'."
There was also the issue of how familiar a battle of good and evil would be on a volcano, with "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" doing just that five years prior to the finale of "Lost".
"We knew whatever we did was going to look Mickey Mouse next to it," Lindelof said.
So that's what could have been. The more you volca-know.
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