Quote:
Originally Posted by sakura-panda
Often, in my limited experience, cashing in on an subject's popularity either falls short of expectations or tarnishes the original to such an extent that I no longer enjoy the original. Not all of the time, but enough that I tend to stay away from continuations of stories that I think have been concluded.
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In general, that's very true, which is why so many successful series producers do refuse to revisit their topics, for fear of ruining the original. I can think of a few exceptions to the rule, but not many.
Spoiler:
I do think that Ben's storyline has some interesting possibilities. The clear implications behind Hurley's and Ben's brief conversation outside the church are that Hurley and Ben lived on the island for some indeterminate timeframe, doing God knows what. When Jack looked out of the plane's window in the alternate reality just after the turbulence that in that existence did not down the plane, the view is of an island that is underwater, implying that perhaps at some point in time in the past the island did sink after all, which could have happened at some point after Jack died on the island. The whole Hurley/Ben/Desmond story could, with such talented actors and writers, be turned into another compelling story arc that could span one or two movies or 3 or 4 seasons.
Yes, you're absolutely right, the story as it has now ended is relatively satisfactory, and could reasonably be seen to end here with no loss of artistry. When I said blatant teaser, though, I meant that if the owners of the franchise ever did want to do a spinoff, this would be a fairly obvious tangent to take; it's almost beyond reason to say that professional script writers with a commercial eye would have written such an obvious potential second story arc into the end of this one with absolutely no intention of ever exploiting it in the future. I mean, you gotta admit, from the time Hurley and Ben dragged Desmond from the cave, they said things to each other there and at the church that practically bludgeons you over the head with a sledgehammer that there is a complete story between those two for some indeterminate time between the island and the church. In fact, it could be easily seen that the writers actually left themselves two outs: what happened after they dragged Desmond from the cave, and then what does Ben go on to do after Hurley departs the scene. Everything else that is unanswered about previous minor subplots, etc., can be left behind. These two possibilities are practically begging for either a couple of movies or a couple of follow-on TV series. Lindelhof and Cuse are creative geniuses, no doubt. They are also savvy businessmen and clearly didn't pass on the opportunity to write themselves a couple of story options for future exploitation if the commercial audience is there for it.