After the final season, when Lost is all done and over with, I would love to see them come out with a special edition super DVD Box set, or a special video website, that would feature every minute of Lost but in chronological order. Roughly speaking, the first part would be almost exclusively flashbacks, the middle and largest part would be the Island story and the last part would be what is, at this point, flashforwards.

The order of the on-Island story scenes would get rejiggered a bit.The episode, 48 Days, for example, would get broken up into pieces so segments of it would come up as they occur, sandwiched between scenes from the main fuselage survivors story, or the Others story, of around the same day.

The producers would have to make a judgement call on whether to place Claire's on-Island flashbacks in Maternity Leave as they occur or at the point when Claire was recalling them. Desmonds' story in the episode,The Constant, might make very little sense with the Island story separated from the flashbacks, so once again the producers would have to make the call on how stringently they want to adhere to a strict chronological standard. But for the most part viewing the events of the Lost story in chronological order could prove to be a very interesting and insightful way of re-viewing the Lost story. ( I, for one, think it would be great seeing all the events from the day of the Oceanic 815 flight in the order they happened.)

Please correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't the first scene (going by what we have seen so far) be the scene with Emily Locke in her room?

Other questions: Is "The Chronological Lost" something only the most fervent of diehard fans could get into, and would not seeing the familiar Present to a Flashback (or forward), then back to the Present format be a challenge even for them? Is this something you could see yourself watching (or buying)? Would it even be worth the producers time putting this together (which would include a lot of work editing out the audio transitions, and tweaks to parts of the music score)?

I've thought about this since early on.

Don't know if it would be a good or bad idea. It would take a lot of the element of surprise away. But I for one, would like to see this done.

Actually, they did this with the first two GODFATHER movies.
Editing it all into chronological order and even adding material.
Presenting it on TV as:

The Godfather 1902-1959: The Complete Epic
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0809488

It was considered a success. After the 3rd Godfather films was made, that was edited in as well.

>>>which would include a lot of work editing

Rather than presuming they would re-edit existing shows, perhaps they have kept all the original elements and could start from scratch.
That's how George Lucas was able to re-do the special effects in the re-issues of the original Star Wars trilogy.

We'll have a few years to wait for an official Lost chronological showing. This could be assembled by fans online. I don't have the PC power to view them, but I understand there are many "fan cuts" of feature films out there.

http://quickflix.blogspot.com/2008/03/fanedits-of-famous-films.html

Please correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't the first scene (going by what we have seen so far) be the scene with Emily Locke in her room?
It would work that way only if the real timetable accords with appearances, which I'm sure it doesn't. I think that if the makers of Lost put everything in real chronologic order (which they wouldn't until Lost had concluded), you would be very surprised, because part of solving this mystery is realizing that things aren't taking place when you think they are.

And then there'd be the question of where to insert scenes depicting events that never actually occurred.

Robert

I've been thinking about this recently and once I get a computer I can do it on, I planned on starting to organize all of the scenes into their chronological order. It's going to be a long process. I have no delusions of that. I figure I'd start somewhat soon, that way it won't be just a ton of work when the series ends. Plus it will give me something to do Lost related once I rewatch everything next month. As for scenes that show things that never happened, what exactly are you referring to?

This is why I always said the the episodes needed a time stamp. Knowing when events took place would solve a lot of problems, plus it would help to move the storyline along.

I for one would not have minded the time stamps. Anyone else?

I've thought about this a few times and I would love this. I would buy it in addition to the "normal" seasons. I'd pay up to $500 to have this handed to me with no work on my part.

Great idea!

This is why I always said the the episodes needed a time stamp. Knowing when events took place would solve a lot of problems, plus it would help to move the storyline along.

I for one would not have minded the time stamps. Anyone else?
A true time stamp would be "telling". Part of what the makers of Lost have done is deliberately mislead us as to when (and even where) events took place. That disinformation is an integral part of the story, and once you've figured it out, you've solved possibly the biggest mystery of Lost.

Robert

And then there'd be the question of where to insert scenes depicting events that never actually occurred.

What exactly are you referring to? I can't really think of any time we've seen that unless you mean dreams. Dreams should go right before they wake up though.

What exactly are you referring to? I can't really think of any time we've seen that unless you mean dreams. Dreams should go right before they wake up though.
Scenes that I'm sure never occurred and that weren't depicted as dreams:

MiKevin's story as told to Sayid of his return to NY
at least some of Claire's "recovered memory" as told to Libby
skies turning purpleMaybe some others were also fabricated of whole cloth. But a great many more occurred at a very different time from when they tried to make you think.

The key to all this is realizing they're constructing an artificial history. Most of the time they act scenes out, but once in a while when that's inconvenient they just imagine them and show us what they imagined. And because they don't want to take a lifetime to do it, sometimes they'll "age" a scene and use stand-ins for themselves as children, but often a prop detail or Richard Alpert's appearance gives away that they're doing that.

Think of it as doing for themselves roughly the same thing the makers of Lost are doing for us. They don't have to follow Mr. Emerson or Mr. O'Quinn around from his birth, they just use different actors to portray Benry & Locke. Well, within the world of the characters they're doing it the same way. The scene of Ben's arrival on the island didn't really take place so many years ago, and that wasn't really Ben. Similarly with Locke's birth. With Sawyer they gave us a hint: the adult Sawyer hiding under the bed, and then a shot of a child as he was imagining himself to be in the same position.

If they gave us a time stamp and dated the "1950s" scene of Locke's birth somewhere after 2000, that would give the whole game away, wouldn't it?

Robert

I think this is a great idea. I would love to see it if it ever gets done.

I've been thinking about this recently and once I get a computer I can do it on, I planned on starting to organize all of the scenes into their chronological order. It's going to be a long process. I have no delusions of that. I figure I'd start somewhat soon, that way it won't be just a ton of work when the series ends.

Yeah that could be a tiring process but worth the time and effort I think :)

Ok I don't buy any of that Suds. Flashbacks are really stories of the people's pasts.

Ok I don't buy any of that Suds. Flashbacks are really stories of the people's pasts.
Then why did the makers of Lost go out of their way to insert anachronisms in them?

I had the idea to do this too, I just did a search on google to see if the idea spawned elsewhere, as I'm sure it had and found this thread so I joined, hence this post being my first. Anywho, I've started re-editting scenes like this, a little bit sloppily, I admit, but it's still fun. I'm starting off by doing it by character, and just the flashbacks first. So far I've done Eko, I figured his would be the easiest since he only had 3 flashback episodes and they're easy to edit in a linear fashion. Then I did Charlie's, then Hurley's, and last night I did Locke's(almost an 80min movie's worth with his!) The toughest parts to re-edit for me, are like in "Everybody Hates Hugo" when they go back and forth between Island & flashback when Hurley is giving his speech to Rose towards the end of the episode. Eko's works out really well, though.

As for the whole time stamp thing, that would've been a terrible idea! It would totally take me out of the show and make it flat.

The real trouble is going to be mixing the characters so that you have every even in proper relation to everything else. Did Hurley win the lotto before or after Eko killed those two dudes in the church? I have no idea off the top of my head so it's going to take a long time to get every scene correctly placed.

Correct, that's why I'm starting off doing it by character first. Then try and figure the rest out as I proceed. I'm keeping the episodes where Desmond goes back and forth where they are, because those things are happening to him at the point in time that he is on the island/freighter. I also am going to leave the episodes that happen on the island, that take place after the crash (ie "Three Minutes") intact, except for when The Others and Desmond are concerned.

I'm not sure why I'd need this whole thing in order after we all know what happens in the end.

I think that would be a cool idea...just might be kind of interesting to watch that. I would buy it! :biggrin:

I'm currently installing Windows on my new desktop. Theoretically I should be able to start doing this very soon.

Edit: I have now started messing around with some episodes in AVI format. I think I'll probably move to DVD once I get the hang of what I'm doing. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have problems ripping Season 2, since I did before. If anyone knows any decent programs, let me know.

If you haven't watched the phenomenal "LOST: The Synchronizing", do so immediately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ILPnh4mOKo

After witnessing the Herculean efforts that were required in order to take roughly NINE MINUTES' worth of the LOST chronology and show it all happening in "real time" I think you will miraculously come up with something else very important that you need to be working on instead, like fixing the Valenzetti Equation or something!

- mnw

Other questions: Is "The Chronological Lost" something only the most fervent of diehard fans could get into, and would not seeing the familiar Present to a Flashback (or forward), then back to the Present format be a challenge even for them? Is this something you could see yourself watching (or buying)? Would it even be worth the producers time putting this together (which would include a lot of work editing out the audio transitions, and tweaks to parts of the music score)?

The special edition of Memento had an easter egg that played the movie in chronological order. It would be exponentially more work to create such a thing for a six season TV series then it was for one movie, like Memento, or even three, like Godfather.

And while I did watch the Momento easter egg, I only did so once. I enjoyed it, but I preferred the movie out of order. It put you in the shoes of the main character, trying to figure out the sequence of events. I put myself in the same boat for LOST. I would enjoy seeing it, once, but I prefer the mystery.

I think Chronological LOST would appeal to newcomers because it would take some of the confusion out of the series. It would certainly end the accusation that "LOST never answers its own questions" because by the time the question was asked on the island, the chronological sequence would likely have already played through the flashback that had the answer.

However, I think LOST would lose something in the translation. The inter-cutting of past, present, and future is the signature element of the way the show tells its story. The changes in perspective keep the audience off balance; at any moment, we may see a flash, forward or back, that will completely change the perception of a particular character (I think we're in for some surprising flashbacks from Jack, Kate, Hurley, Locke, Sayid, Sawyer, Christian, and Ben in the last episode or two of the series).

When Lost ends, everyone will realize that most of the details regarding sequence of events didn't matter. What's crucial will be the realization why they didn't matter. And it's not time travel.

Robert