Chicago Tribune Accuses LOST of ‘appropriating’ Flash Forwards from Battlestar Galactica
Chicago Tribune reporter/blogger Maureen "The Watcher" Ryan accused LOST of stealing the flash-forward concept from Battlestar Galactica today during a teleconference with Battlestar Galactica Producers David Eick and Ronald Moore.
They seemed to handle it with some humor, but of course no-one involved brought up the obvious fact that Battlestar Galactica ‘flashed back’ a long time before LOST flashed forward, and we still don’t know if the flash forward LOST executed was anywhere near the riskyness of BSG’s. On BSG the entire story jumped a year and we never saw what happened in between.
LOST is expected to complete the island story, and the flash forward was likely more of a nod to let us know that getting off the island isn’t the end of the story.
Regardless, word for word, here is how the conversation went:
Maureen Ryan (Chicago Tribune): What did you think of LOST sort of appropriating that flash forward thing that you guys did so well? (Laughs)
David Eick (Executive Producer): We often refer to them as thieves…
Maureen Ryan (laughs): Well, I was trying to be nice.
David Eick: …not writers or producers, thieves. Thieves in the night.
Ron Moore (Executive Producer): Did they jump ahead?
Maureen Ryan: Yeah there’s typically those flashbacks in an episode…
Ron Moore: Uh huh…
Maureen Ryan: …well it turns out that the scenes we were seeing of the lead character jack were actually taking place in the future after they’d been rescued from the island…
Ron Moore: Oh Really…
Maureen Ryan: Yeah… you’re not really sure what…
Ron Moore: … I haven’t kept up with it. I didn’t know that.
David Eick: We appreciate your alerting us and our attorneys will be notified immediately after we hang up.
Maureen Ryan: Try to get that royalty check…
If you want to know how serious they were about it, you can hear for yourself in this clip from the conference. I think they took it pretty much as a joke, which is how any rational person would; but I’m not too sure very many rational people would pose the question to begin with.
UPDATED: Maureen posted in the comments section below to explain the sentiment behind the question. I really don’t think it is necessary for her to point out that the producers were just joking around, because I did that twice in this post already. But I do think it is good to hear what was in her heart when she asked the question.
I’m the one that asked that question. If anything, I thought the Lost usage of a ‘flash forward’ might be an homage to Battlestar’s second season finale. And I truly did wonder how the Battlestar producers felt about that homage, or if indeed they saw it as such.
Yes, I do watch Lost, btw. And I liked the Lost finale, for what that’s worth. I thought it would be fun to bring up the comparison between the two shows and the whole time-jump thing — Lost is always giving shoutouts to other shows and some of the producers appear to be fans of genre fare, and I thought it’d be fun to just bring up the comparison.
That’s really all that was (I asked about other things too, btw). As for David Eick, he was joking around, as he was throughout the entire 45 minute press conference. It was all just in good fun. Anyway, carry on. Thanks.
Is this a joke? You gotta be f*cking kidding me. LOST stole the idea of “1 Year Later”?
Wow! I didn’t know BSG invented the concept of going forward 1 year.
[/sarcasm]
These guys must be on crack
Comment by Nate — June 1, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
It was a joke. They weren’t being serious.
Comment by Damon Lindelof — June 1, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
thanks for the heads up doc, is this true though, like serious?
”We appreciate your alerting us and our attorneys will be notified immediately after we hang up. ”
if it IS serious, not just jokey, they can eat s**t..annoys me when people try and take on things as big as LOST, and think they can win.
EDIT: phew..im glad its a joke lol..gash i got het up then! lol *runs in shame*
Comment by youngyd_07@hotmail.co.uk — June 1, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
Not only crack but a healthy dose of cristal meth….
For all BSG’s quality, they didn’t science fiction…So Klingon, please….
Comment by JDSalinga — June 1, 2007 @ 4:10 pm
… For the record, we are counter suing for them killing off major characters…
Comment by Damon Lindelof — June 1, 2007 @ 4:13 pm
Remember folks. The point is the Chi Trib gal is being a little loopy here, I think the BSG guys had fun with it rather then ask “…are you an idiot?” I love BSG.
Comment by DocArzt — June 1, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
I’m with you Doc……the question is ridiculous.
The BSG scenario wasn’t a flash…..the whole story moved forward a year and some of that was covered in the webisodes, it doesn’t jump around to different points in time to tell the story…..to even refer to it as a flash makes no sense…..time just moved on.
Do these Journalists actually watch the show’s they get payed to comment on…..I sometimes wonder!
Comment by Markus Darkus — June 1, 2007 @ 4:21 pm
Much as I love BSG, I gotta say that as either joke or serious, the claim that Lost in any way took the flashfoward idea from BSG is ridiculous. First, the BSG “flashforward” was very different in style and texture - so much so, that it’s not really “flash” at all, but just a sudden leap, with no return to the past or present.
You know, when I was President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (1998-2001), we got lots of queries from people claiming that this or that author had taken their ideas … and almost always, it was an idea so common that your grandmother probably came up with it, too…
(And after I was Pres of SFWA, I was asked to consult in a case about The Matrix - in which a guy claimed that the use of a phone in a science fiction setting was somehow unique… )
Bottom line: Lost’s flashforwards were unique, in the context of Lost. As for jumping unexpectedly into the future … that’s been a staple of time travel since at least H. G. Wells…
Doc - You have a superb board here! Keep up the good work.
To Damon Lindelof: a pleasure to “see” you here - I think Lost in general, and the finale last week in particular, are among the very best things ever to be on television.
Comment by Paul Levinson — June 1, 2007 @ 4:37 pm
Flash Fowards are nothing really that new - although you would think so after “Lost,” “Heroes” and apparently “Battlestar” (Sorry, don’t watch even though my best friend begs me to). The most famous Flash Foward was written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne in the X-Men “Days of Future Past” and the Legion of Superheroes not only had various issues that show things that would happen in the future they also stopped production briefly and when they started back up it was several years later and the joy of reading was trying to figure out what happened and who lived and why. I know one time I went to pitch a story to Paramount that I was really excited about and afterwards I realized that I had “lifted” it from a comic book I read as a kid.
Comment by David — June 1, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
“Appropriating that flash forward thing.” I don’t think so!!! But I do think “Lost In Space” should have sued Star Trek; The Next Generation for stealing the phrase “Resistance is Futile”.;P
Comment by H20 — June 1, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
Battle Star is complete shit. Over acting galore.
Comment by mick — June 1, 2007 @ 5:33 pm
Maureen’s all like “ha ha, I busted lost…” Eick and Moore are like, “What a tool…”
Comment by JamBone — June 1, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
The BSG twist was hardly risky. By the end of 3×04 Moore had already started mashing the reset button. Moore worked on Star Trek for over a decade so if anyone knows how to press the reset button it’s him, the only difference is that in Trek they used time travel to return the status quo, where as the BSG characters just forgive and forget everything. I still love the show though.
And everyone seems to think that the big twist in the Lost season finale was that it was a flash-forward but the real twist is the revelation that the characters (or some of them at least) WILL get off the island. A very bold move by the writers imo considering there’s 3 more season left. The only way BSG could have approached the magnitude of the Lost twist was if it had revealed that Adama and co will arrive safely on Earth.
Comment by sprofessor — June 1, 2007 @ 5:56 pm
Perfect analogy sprofessor. The BSG jump was really more of a ‘well duh’ moment. I mean who didn’t think that the minute they stopped running they’d be caught by the Cylons. Anybody?
I used the word ‘risky,’ but ultimately it was a risk that worked out and it did result in some pretty cool plot material later on. I just remember watching it and saying “wow, something doesn’t feel right… did I just poop myself?” It was just that uncomfortable. I was worried. My biggest fear was, and not to digress too far from this site’s mission as a LOST site, was that they’d lost their FX budget.
Comment by DocArzt — June 1, 2007 @ 6:03 pm
I love how she cackles at the end of the question… what an idiot…
Comment by Sparks — June 1, 2007 @ 6:05 pm
According to the time-loop theory+plus_some_fixes ( http://darkufo.blogspot.com/2007/06/vozzek69s-theory-of-everything.html ), the flash-forward was actually a flash-back (it was the end of a *previous* time loop that the survivors actually got rescued). So, BSG could be accusing Lost all for nothing.
Comment by Eugenia — June 1, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
ok they were laughing…..
it’s obvious they aren’t serious about it.
they were joking.
Comment by Taylor — June 1, 2007 @ 6:21 pm
sprofessor wrote: “everyone seems to think that the big twist in the Lost season finale was that it was a flash-forward but the real twist is the revelation that the characters (or some of them at least) WILL get off the island”
It’s the same thing - getting off the island and being in the future are part of the same twist.
Comment by Paul Levinson — June 1, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
I’m the one that asked that question. If anything, I thought the Lost usage of a ‘flash forward’ might be an homage to Battlestar’s second season finale. And I truly did wonder how the Battlestar producers felt about that homage, or if indeed they saw it as such.
Yes, I do watch Lost, btw. And I liked the Lost finale, for what that’s worth. I thought it would be fun to bring up the comparison between the two shows and the whole time-jump thing — Lost is always giving shoutouts to other shows and some of the producers appear to be fans of genre fare, and I thought it’d be fun to just bring up the comparison.
That’s really all that was (I asked about other things too, btw). As for David Eick, he was joking around, as he was throughout the entire 45 minute press conference. It was all just in good fun. Anyway, carry on. Thanks.
Comment by Maureen Ryan — June 1, 2007 @ 9:20 pm
goldenmalicious - I agree with everything you said, with the exception of my not understanding the analogy
Comment by Paul Levinson — June 1, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
does anyone believe thats actually damon lindelof who posted above? cause I don’t. how much of jerks do you guys feel like for calling the interviewer and idiot and then she shows up here. Its always terrifying when the anonymity of internet posting becomes almost like real life.
Comment by James — June 2, 2007 @ 12:25 am
didnt alias do the exact same thing a few years ago? which was a jj abrams show.
Comment by boots electric — June 2, 2007 @ 6:02 am
boots - not the exact same thing, but, yes, Alias reinvented itself in the middle of its second season… I wrote about this last week …Lost and Alias: Now Something Else in Common
Comment by Paul Levinson — June 2, 2007 @ 6:49 am
and jj did something similar in the last season of Felicity.
Comment by paola — June 2, 2007 @ 7:14 am
Flash forwards invented by BSG? I propose that was written about by Chuck Palahniuk four years ago. It’s a central theme in ‘Lullaby’, written in 2003. It’s funny because the Lost finale used the “flash forwards” exactly how Chuck used them in Lullaby. A central theme of the story with bits of the end thrown in. That being said, I’m sure there have been many authors who used that device before Chuck.
http://www.amazon.com/Lullaby-Chuck-Palahniuk/dp/0099437961/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0258430-9808821?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180794223&sr=8-1
Comment by Brian — June 2, 2007 @ 7:26 am
Another fine example Brian. The discussion can, though, by examples become fairly circumlocutory. The bottom line is, if your steeped in enough of the art you know better than to make off hand comparisons.
Comment by DocArzt — June 2, 2007 @ 7:32 am
hey paul- well alright.
hey doc- wasn’t there some big ruckus about you being a bad writer or something a while back? well, after reading your 1000 word post (2 posts up), i can confidently say that THOSE people are idiots.
Thanks for summing up the entire discussion.
Comment by goldenmalicious — June 2, 2007 @ 9:34 am
whoa!! Damon Lidelof was here?!? dude Ive been watching lost since day one i havent missed an episode since. but in season 4 can you please, find a way to incorperate the song ‘locke’d out again’ in a locke flashback. that is if there are flashbacks. ?!?!!
Comment by Oscar De Leon — June 2, 2007 @ 9:40 am
Doc - great comments about the flash forward. I just hope it’s “real” and things don’t get conveniently fixed by some time travel or alternate timelines. I thought the finale of Heroes was a bit of a cop-out after their cool future episode.
Comment by rick — June 2, 2007 @ 9:49 am
I doubt Damon was actually here unless he’s moved to Alberta Canada.
Comment by DocArzt — June 2, 2007 @ 10:01 am
Getting off the island was an idea stolen from the show Gilligan’s Island, Bob denver is rolling in his grave. It’s no surprise that Jack wants to get back to the island. Remember getting off the island was bad for Gilligan too…on the island he met Zsa Zsa Gabor, Don Wrikles and even Kurt Russell. Also remember, Gilligan never got to play basketball with the Harlem Globe Trotters off the island. All the fun is on the island. So the Lost producers better forget about BSG and prepare for a huge lawsuit from the Professor and Mary Anne here on Gilligan’s Isle!
Comment by stingerdawg — June 2, 2007 @ 10:05 am
I was on that call as well, and I remember thinking what a *weird* question it was, I even made an offhand joke about it in my writeup of the teleconference. Even being a big fan of BSG it took me a minute to figure out what flash forward she was talking about, since it was handled in such a completely different way.
I love both shows, and when the big flash forward thing was revealed (I missed the spoilers, thank god) I didn’t even think of BSG.
Moore and Eick were, as you can hear in the clip, pretty amused about it. They were very funny guys all around, and very nice to the horde of journalists questioning them.
Comment by Liz — June 2, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
If anything, the flash-forward in the season finale reminded me of the Babylon 5 episode ‘Bablyon Squared’. The brief but intriguing exchange we witness between the future versions of Sinclair and Delenn in that episode is deliberately loaded with precisely the kind of tantalising clues and infuriating ambiguities which everyone is currently arguing about in relation to the conversation between Jack and Kate at the end of ‘Looking Glass’.
In fact, I can’t think of a single trick that Lost has pulled which Babylon 5 didn’t pull first.
Don’t get me started with my ‘Smokey is a Vorlon’ theory …
Comment by ClovisSangrail — June 3, 2007 @ 10:12 am
J.J. Abrams’Alias was the one to use a flash forward as a main plot device. However, it was the Alias Season Two finale, not the previously mentioned example… In the Alias Season Two finale, Sydney Bristow blacks out after a fight with the evil Francie. When she wakes up, she makes contact with APO only to find out that she has been missing for two years and her boyfriend is married to another woman! It was one of the most shocking cliffhangers of all time (at least for us Alias fans)!
If anything, BSG stole the entire “flash forward” season cliffhanger from J.J. Abrams, not the other way around!
Comment by V2David — June 3, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
Let’s face it everyone, NOTHING IS ORIGINAL ANYMORE! Remember the episode of South Park “Simpons Did it?” Well, chances are someone has done it before and someone will do it again. No big deal. It’s not that it’s been done, is how good it has been used.
Comment by Master Fucknut — June 3, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
I like on Battlestar Gallactica when Twiggy says “Beedy beedy beedy”.
Comment by Higdon — June 3, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
V2David - What was I talking about regarding Alias was not its use of a flashforward, but its complete reinvention of the fundamental premise of the series. This happened in the middle of Season 2 - in the Phase One episode - in which SD-6 was destroyed.
Comment by Paul Levinson — June 3, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
Babylon 5 did lots of flash forwards….
Comment by debbie — June 3, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
You can’t steal flashforwards. They are a writing technique, i wrote a story with a flash forward the week before LOST finale aired, dmanit, they stole from me!
Comment by BenLeeway — June 3, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
Higdon… how wrong you are.
The characters name was “TWIKI” not Twiggy.
The show he was on was Buck Rogers NOT the original Galactica.
Comment by Akbar Fazil — June 4, 2007 @ 9:45 am
Doc, you are wrong about “we never saw what happened” between the jump forward at the end of Season 2. A season 3 episode dealt with this specifically.
Comment by Akbar Fazil — June 4, 2007 @ 10:29 am
What I meant is to the level of detail that LOST will take. We got snippets of what happened, but who really wants to see 12 episodes of Baltar slipping into debauchery while the settlers build a tent city.
Lost will cover what happens between the flash forward and now in finer detail. There wasn’t much mystery to the BSG flash, they built a community, the Cylons showed up (Which we knew would happen) and that was it. You weren’t left saying “What happened in between,” you were left saying “What will happen now?”
Comment by DocArzt — June 4, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
Maybe Maureen should be looking into the intellectual thefts and plagiarism committed by Eick and Moore themselves.
Such as the cinematography of Firefly.
Or the mining of ideas from an earlier attempt to bring back BSG from Tom DeSanto, producer of Transformers.
http://www.cylon.org/bsg/bsg-desanto-01.html
Comment by Jaeson Jrakman — June 4, 2007 @ 3:51 pm
whoa, no one ever did a flashforward before BSG, they own the patent, get out the lawyers…
Just joking.
Comment by coachj — June 8, 2007 @ 1:49 pm
To Maureen Ryan:
I like BSG, it’s a thoughtfully written show that deserves some of it’s praise. BUT, a great show can not pay homage to a lesser show (and the thought that the Lost writers would shake up the core of their show’s entire universe to “pay homage” to another show is quite ridiculous anyway, perhaps more insulting that claiming it’s a ripoff).
And to think that Lost ripped off BSG’s flash forward is as dumb as thinking that Lost invented flashed backs. These are simple writing techniques INVENTED before film even existed. Today’s creativity is all in how the techniques are used, and Lost’s flash forward is nothing like BSG’s.
Also, in the interview you cited elsewhere about Lindelof suggesting it “would be a ripoff” to use a flash forward like BSG, he was:
1. obviously trying to deflect the question in the face of the huge finale spoiler fiasco,
2. being his usual ultra-deprecating self, and
3. not being serious, because in another interview he stated that the choice to flash forward had been made when he and Abrams created the series at the beginning.
Comment by Vitaminwater — July 12, 2007 @ 5:26 pm