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Damon and Carlton Speak about the end of the ARG
(Comments: 62)
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ABC,
Carlton Cuse,
Damon Lindelof,
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62 Comments:
One word came to mind with this. Dumb.
Then another.
really dumb
Uh... what?
Where's the ARG?
And did anyone else hear Kris White or somebody laugh in the background around a second before the video ends?
Here is a quote from the Official 'Lost' Magazine interview with Bryan Burk for the 2008 Yearbook in regard to the ARG: "As usual, Damon, Carlton and the gang get buried with possiblities of what they can do. Damon and I had dinner the other day and he was talking abbout all they had in store. It's insane."
Wait...is it me, or they just told us that they're quitting the ARG because the visits are kinda reduced?! :(
Totally LAME. :(
I hope they are kidding us.
LOL, I just kept thinking "tail between legs". How embarrassing for them.
They won't be making an ARG, but exclusive scenes from season 5 with their comments? If this is true as what I got, I'd still be happy; if not, I want ARG BACKK!!
If that's what really happened I feel bad for them... but at least we get something.
i feel bad that ABC decided to cut the ARG because of costs. at least Damon and Carlton are doing something for us!!!
I would also love to have some new podcasts!!!!
I don't think they are being serious here...they know that this ARG was total crap and that it bored everyone to death. But they can't just tell us that Hoodlum screwed up so they had them fired ;)
Maybe they were afraid of losing viewers and they decided to give away S5 material to get everyone interested in LOST again.
I like getting new stuff from the upcoming season and one thing is for sure: It can't get worse :)
It's honestly hard to tell what's going on behind the scenes based on this video. I've never done the ARGs but I always follow the information that comes out of them, and it seems like really NOTHING was happening with this one. So if they did get the crunch and were told to scale back expenditures, it might make sense that this lackluster ARG would be the first thing to go.
Maybe we weren't tuff-enough to join dharma.
it was strange. well, i do feel sorry for them and I'm glad they finished our suffering ''is it over, is it not? Shall we wait...?'' It's over. I am glad to know. However now I'm confused about the Ajira airlines... I was hoping the ARG will continue with that.
I don't believe it. They had smirks on their faces the entire time... I don't think its over. And that "graph" they had for the "Dharma stocks" there is NO DHARMA!!
I think the kids say....
"EPIC FAIL"
I didn't see this mentioned yet and to my knowledge thought the premier was two hours, an hour recap and the hour long new episode, but Damon said three hour premier. Anyone shed some light on this?
The first hour is a recap clip show and then the premiere is a 2-hour episode.
Three hours = 1 hour recap ep, followed by episodes 1 and 2 of season 5.
^^^^Thanks guys, the 21st can't come soon enough
It's not rocket science to figure out what happened. The fact of the matter is this ARG was garbage. WAY too much waiting and not enough stuff happening. At least in the last 2 things were moving forward. This was just sitting there floating along doing nothing.
My guess is that knowing people were bored, and knowing that Cuse & Lindeloff like to produce quality stuff, they pulled the plug on it. I don't think it has anything to do with money. I think it has everything to do with the fact that they realized that what was produced was not up to snuff with what hard core Lost fans have come to expect, so they pull the plug, and in "fun" talk about DI falling apart, etc, and decide to just give us extra fuel for the coming premiere.
Just my thoughts.
I thought they were going to be answering questions ? Guess not. Ur...damn ?
Absolutely right, Zor, just what I meant earlier.
How could they even expect us to get excited by crappy Flash games with no clues or LOST-related stuff whatsoever aside from the name "DHARMA"!?
And even without the essence of a LOST-ARG (clues, characters, story, etc.) Hoodlum did an awful job...
They looked EXTREEEEMELY embarassed!
I'm not convinced it was anything to do with the Credit Crunch, I think they pulled the plug on the ARG because WE kept moaning about it.
It's nice that they haven't left us TOTALLY empty handed, but a simple 'sorry - we fucked up' would have been better...
I think it goes a long way to the characters of Cuse and Lindelof that they don't leave us high and dry. They take time out of their busy schedules to apologize and give us weekly updates. With all the spoilers and stuff that happened the past two season regarding the finales, I'm surprised they give any information to the fans. I'm sure ABC did this as a cost cutting measure and applaud the creators for taking care of their fans.
I just think that if you do an ARG, you've gotta do it right but I don't blame Darlton, I'm glad that they're doing something for us.
this sucks..... and it blows
They're up to something ! :D.
what the fuckkk.
all those puzzles... a waste of time!?
I actually think this is great. I never really participated in the ARG, so yeah. But now we get weekly info from the creators of the show themselves. I have no problem with that. Anyway, the ARGs haven't been dramatically important. They don't really matter much for the story of the show anyway.
To be fair Luke-Thompson weren't all the puzzles a waste of time anyway? What were you and everyone else following this actually hoping to gain from it? ARGs are just a different way of promotion.
Nice to see D&C announce the end though- far better than a faceless press release from ABC.
Do you think maybe this could all be part of the long-term plan? to fool us into thinking it's over then catch us off guard? or am I just grasping at straws here?
I just find it weird that they sent out the official dharma instructor t-shirts and set up something happening on dec 15, set up the ajira airways clip embedded in the fray music video and also saying they'd have a Q&A with darlton..
Just seems very sudden to say it's over afte they'd put out all that stuff quite recently...
hehe you mean like...hans:"dear recruits, only the most trusting people are getting this email. due to highly concerning events, we had to go underground for a period of time. that is the reason why we organised the fake failure of the recruiting process and the also fake transfer of the dharma initiative to the tv show lost. more information will come as appropriate. namaste". I do not think so.
But maybe...something will go down at Ajira
Don't have speakers at work, so I haven't been able to watch the video, but I agree that the Ajira website/promotion is odd if this is truly the end. Random people aren't going to start watching a show because of a fake airline ad and people obssessed enough to care about a fake airline already watch, so it seems like an even bigger waste of money??
exactly Kristine, why would they have even bothered puttin the Ajira in the video if it was just gonna end up as a red herring?
Well there could be a couple of reasons
1) This was quite a rushed decision to "pull" the arg and the promo had already gone out.
2) The Airline has nothing to do with "this" arg.
Yeah those are good points, I can see how it could have been due to a rushed pull out, but I don't really see what they'd expect to achieve by prematurely abandoning one ARG then jumping straight into a new one... unless they'd planned to have two in the first place. Or maybe it's just a promotional idea for Ajira Airways being a big part featuring in season 5?
Ajira might be in the budget for S05, while the ARG was in an ancillary or ad budget leftover from S04, or for S05 prep. It is expensive to hire web developers to do all this crap, and what with all the people involved, not everyone was on the same page when the plug was pulled, perhaps?
maybe Ajira is how the O6 get back to the island? I thought i read soemwhere that ajira means island??
it could be a bit of a ruse. we were subjected to a number of fake outs during the course of the game so far (black swan/white swan, hidden messages in the code, dan bronson(?) ect)so perhaps this is just another. i personally will give it until 12/15/08 to pass final judegment. who knows..born on 8/15 live at 108!!
I don't know... this whole thing feels like part of a "long con" to me. :D
As long as the series itself isn't affected, I'm more than satisfied!
I think it doesn't matter
I'd prefer they realize it sucked horrible and just end it instead of trying to force it into the show or force it to actually happen.
Anyone who actually invested more into it than they would the show ... thats just lame on your part
It wasn't good and we knew it ... let's just get excited for season 5
I am still feeling jipped from something.....and I am not even sure what from. But, nothing I can do about it. I will take what I can get and continue to wait for season 4 to come on dvd. And then season 5 to air!
Perhaps ... The Darlton now know, L O S T has a rock solid fan base of about 470,000?+ who will watch L O S T whatever, do rubbish ARGS whatever, hang on their every word whatever, analyse every promo whatever etc. etc. whatever and they have no need to spend anymore precious resource on the committed faithful.
If they do have have spare resources, they may be better spent on getting new L O S T I E S on board.
I dunno what I think about this ??
Darlton are the steady hands at the till. THey know exactly how to get what they want. The ARG was lame this time and they knew it had to go. Because really, keeping the fans wet is not altruistic and it's not about "throwing us a bone"- it's a viable marketing arm.
We're the ground ambassadors of the show.
I know for a fact that they have at least 5 more fans of the show JUST because I talked it up and gave those people the "Disc 1" challenge, and got them hooked on it. Those people are Lost fans because I'm such a nut that I can't stop talking about it. You keep the fans chattering, you keep the buzz going.
So to focus now on Season 5 Behind the Scenes stuff is a great idea.
Cut the losses and course correct.
They're the showrunners of Lost for a reason, fellas.
I just want more official podcasts! Come on Darlton! Banjos! Pantslessness! Ezra James Sharkington! I gotta have it!
I'm sorry, that is absolute garbage. If you really expect me to believe they couldn't fund the ARG because of the financial crisis then I guess sign me up for Aliens on Mars club, because that's utterly ridiculous.
To those of you who thought the ARG was boring or thought not enough happened, you obviously have little experience with ARGs. Do you want something every day? That's not reality. I think this one could have turned into something pretty cool, but it wasn't allowed to develop.
Anyway, so angry at the moment.
Oceanic Airline was featured in Fringe. Olivia finds a boarding pass with Oceanic Airline on the tab.
I didn't care at all for the previous ARGs, I thought this one had so much more potential than the others ever had. I also think Darlton is just messing with us, telling us it's all over so they can jump on the message boards and see what we think of it. They're not above that, they used to come on the message boards all the time to get fan input. And it's really not that expensive to hire a couple people to toss together some web junk for an ARG, it's more than possible to make something worthwhile on a slim budget.
I totally think this is a long con and we should probably wait until December 15th to see if this is all just to screw with us. If we thought we were getting nothing then it actually picks back up won't that be better than just picking back up like we thought it was going to?
In fact, I wouldn't doubt if the video emails they're putting out become the start of the new ARG come December 15th.
@Blandeskt: The first ARG, The Lost Experience, HAD something everyday, and so challenging that you could work on it all day to figure it out. So it is realistic, they have done it before. With a fake DJ/Podcast/Video's/Puzzles/Websites/Multiple plotlines and all :)
AB*Locke, I hope you are right. But earlier someone said that that would be really cool for us die hard fans, but not a good marketing technique for less invested fans. They think: oh, OK, the ARG is over, and then don't look back at it, and totally miss the fact that it started up again.
But then again, if this is a long con, then they can reassure themselves that only a handfull of people are still playing the game, so then they could give us some really cool info, as a reward. *Daydreams along*
I don't think Damon and Carlton should have dirtied their hands with this. Now they're assosciating themselves with the catastrophe that followed whilst evoking memories of the exciting prelude (Comic Con/Dharma booth etc.)
If it really is a curtain call/admission of failure, then they should have had some Hoodlums do it. I know they're crash-happy site and snooze-inducing updates are what made me quit half way through.
they should get hodlum to fess up for it, but i dont think thats going to happen. they are not going to bash a company online for all to see. Did they even mention hoodlum or did they just run with the story of dharma. Im sure hoodlum would be pissed if damon and carlton said it was all their fault. not a good business move.
I'm still gonna keep my eyes peeled for updates etc. up until Dec 15th then i'll officially abandon this ARG lol
If they are having financial problems, I'm sure a little user fee of like $1 (or not even that) could be implemented, or set up a shop for laminated dharma cards or something.. that would make them some money..
@Lost in Canada: they kept to the story :)
So, finally, what will happen next? Which date are we waiting for and what is the wait for? Will they reveal some sneak peeks of the upcoming episodes with their comments or what? Forget about ARG, I want something that has high quality - not meaning high quality "videos", but "information"!
annebeth, TLE also had more back in terms of outside ads/partners...
The ARG was no good anyway. I'd rather have behind the scenes stuff. I think this is great news.
I think it was a smart decision. The ARG sucked. So, what they did was cancel it in the same fashion that they would cancel a TV show that sucks or that started out good and began to suck later, such as Pushing Daisies.
I really hope LOST brings us good stuff. All the series are sucking right now, dramas and comedies. Except House. House rules.
When will we be getting this exclusive videos and comments from Darlton? On December or January? Or the worst... after each episode? :( That would be sad, because I've been waiting something to spend some time before the season premiere, and no ARGs, no exclusives - we'll be just waiting without something to the premiere?
I can't complain, the ARG wasn't any good, this is much better
I have Damon's shirt!