The Big Picture
- The inclusion of a volcano in the final season of Lost was inspired by the real-life volcanic landscape of Hawaii, as seen by the show's producer on a family trip.
- The volcano was meant to be the setting for the ultimate confrontation between good and evil on the island between Locke/Man in Black and Jack, with the eruption symbolizing the release of darkness.
- Ultimately, the volcano setting was scrapped due to budget constraints, but it was not essential to the show's main focus on the characters and their personal journeys.
It’s widely known that Lost had one of the most controversial and divisive series finales. The show debuted to critical acclaim and continued a somewhat-steady run of mythos build-up. But the final season seemed to deliver even more questions and then lean into making it all about the characters and not about the mythology itself. Lost’s final episodes dealt with the revelation of what the flash-sideways really meant and also with the final confrontation between good, represented by Matthew Fox’s Jack, and evil, embodied by the Man In Black using Locke’s (Terry O’Quinn) guise. In an Entertainment Weekly interviewDamon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse revealed that, while planning the final season, they tried to reignite (almost literally) a seed that was planted as early as Season 1 – a volcano – as the setting of this last fight.
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What Did Lindelof and Cuse Plan for the 'Lost' Series Finale?
The volcano wasn't pulled out of thin air. Inspiration to include a magma-spewing mountain in the series came from a family trip in which Cuse toured the volcanoes of Hawaii. The idea was stored in his mind and sprung out down the road. The seeds were planted in the first season, with Danielle Rousseau’s (Mira Furlan) map sneakily including a crater at one of the island’s tips. Die-hard fans started tying ends in Season 3, when the show started to immerse into the Dharma Initiative’s background. A flashback into Ben’s (Michael Emerson) school years shows how a typical baking powder volcano experiment is being taught as part of the island’s characteristics.
It was only a matter of time before Cuse and Lindelof thought of this plot, and it finally happened towards the final season. Since they had already included almost every corner of Oahu while filming for the series, adding one of its extinct volcanoes into the mix seemed the logical way to follow. Having a climax of a beloved franchise take place on top of a volcano and/or with magma spewing everywhere resonates with sci-fi classics like Lord of the Rings: Return of the King or Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Lost’s impact on pop culture made it deserving of sharing a space with them.
How Was the 'Lost' Volcano Fight Supposed To Go?
Toward the end of the series, Lost’s mythos was made even bigger after offering insight into the Man In Black’s (Titus Welliver) backstory and his relationship with Jacob (Mark Pellegrino). Everything boiled down to a timeless fight between good and evil, where the island acted as a cork to keep the Man In Black from unleashing his wrath upon Earth. Flashing forward to the present, Jack would represent Jacob’s side while fighting Locke/Main In Black on top of the island’s volcano. Very much like the smoke monster, a dark matter would erupt from it, representing the Man In Black’s impending darkness to be unchained. The volcano was going to be the ultimate physical version of the “cork”, the last frontier between this paradisiacal prison and the outside world.
It made sense at the time. After all, the island was also a character in Lost, a living being in the Dharma-verse. Said living being would’ve been stretched to the limit by all the time traveling that Ben provoked after turning the wooden wheel at the end of Season 4. But broadcast TV has its constraints. It might not be obvious in Lost, especially since it boasts one of the most expensive and impactful pilots in history. But the last seasons, as with every show, experienced a waning in popularity, meaning costs had to be cut for the network to be able to fund the whole deal. The resulting product was a tweaked storyline where, instead of a volcano, we got a fountain of light representing the heart of the island – in which the smoke monster was created. The battle between Jack and the Man in Black was transferred to the cliffs of Oahu which, considered its towering heights and the fierceness of the sea, turned out to be equally menacing.
It surely would’ve been interesting to see the volcano setting as the backdrop of Lost’s final fight. But, to be truthful, it wasn’t essential. Given Lost, in the end, was more about the Oceanic 815 passengers than anything else, a volcano could have taken the focus away from the final revelation of the series. The flash-sideways reality needed to take the spotlight to get the audience invested in the final moments of the aptly titled episode, “The End”. As Jack lays dying on the island, he reunites with his friends and his father (John Terry) to be able to cross over together, totally subverting the “Live Together, Die Alone” mantra.
