Monday, November 30, 2009

Spanish Lost Promo

This new promo from Spain has been circulating since yesterday, and this is my first chance I've had to post it. While there's no new footage from S6, someone who understands Lost completely has put it together, placing each of the characters on a chessboard and moving them through the game. It's brilliant. Now why can't we get promos like these here?!

19 comments:

Eamonn said...

That...is...awesome! Seriously, I got chills.

Sachin.Dharwadker said...

I must say though, I am a bit disappointed that Jacob and MIB are simply being called "Gods." I thought there would be more to their characters than that. Hopefully I'm right.

Hunter said...

Sachin, none of this can be taken as cannon. It's just material they created to hype up the season.

Sachin.Dharwadker said...

Oh I see...if you say so. I just assumed that it was true because this is a promo by a network that shows Lost.

The Question Mark said...

haha that was a pretty sexy trailer. It almost felt like a Clavin Klein ad. :P

Anonymous said...

lost + radiohead = very cool

fb said...

that was WAY cool. i'm with you, eamonn -- chills!

Anonymous said...

AWESOME!

-Tim Alan

Dougie McIntosh said...

Did anybody notice the "subliminal" translation under :
AND GOD ALLOWS THEM TO KILL ?
[ gives checkmate ].

I'm with Eamonn - very chills inducing.

And I'm also with Anonymous : LOST+radiohead does equal trés cool . . .

Ashlie Hawkins said...

Awesome. I love how "LOST" sounds cool in any language - "Perdidos"...I laugh whenever I see it on TV in French, "Perdus".

Nikki Stafford said...

Sachin: I think Hunter's right; this was put together by a network running Lost, as you say, but there's no way Darlton would have spilled the beans on what will happen in the season to a tech guy putting together a promo at a network. They have the rights to air the show, and they're send the satellite feed of the show as it airs, but it's up to them to put together promos based on the limited materials they have. What this team has done is nothing short of glorious.

Dougie: I think "Gives checkmate" was added by campetin, who uploaded the video for us. He probably noticed that after the shot, you can see the checkmate from the place where the person falls on the chessboard, so he simply added that in.

So... in 2010 will everything be in its right place, as the Radiohead lyrics suggest?

Robert said...

This is awesome. Even without new material it looks original.

Fred said...

There is something really odd about this. First off, the promo was awesome, but never to be seen in North America except on YouTube or here. What North American audiences get is some standard fare that I would say doesn't get into the spirit of LOST like this promo does. Second, although this promo is from Spain, the show comes from America. America produces a lot of great television. So I'm wondering where is the Spanish version of something like LOST (leaving aside language barriers)? There have been some awsome promos.For instance, the Skye 4 promo for the first Season is still my favorite. Maybe the producers of LOST should have had a contest for fan promos? Or did they?

But this reminds me of another, Huh? moment when the annopuncer tells us that in House there is one doctor who checks the screenplay and three who check him. I turned to my wife and said, well, I only see one doctor. How often is she wrong that I might need three other doctors to check her work?

humanebean said...

MOST .... FANTABULOUS ... PROMO .... EVER

Think I'll go back and watch it AGAIN, now.

; ]

Anonymous said...

The "gives checkmate" most likely reflects a disagreement about the translation.

The narration is taken from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Persian mathematician/poet/philosopher who lived from 1048 to 1131 AD. Needless to say, it was not originally written in Spanish, and it has been translated many, many times into many, many different languages over the last thousand years. Translating first from old Persian to modern Spanish, then from modern Spanish to modern English, introduces lots of possible points for disagreement.

A rhyming translation into English is:
We are but chessmen, destined, it is plain,
That great chess-player, Heaven, to entertain;
It moves us on life's chess-board to and fro,
And then in death's dark box shuts up again.

You can see how that captures the meaning while using completely different words.

The most famous English translation is by Edward Fitzgerald, and goes like this:
Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.


A more "literal" translation is:
We are the puppets and fate the puppeteer
This is not a metaphor, but a truth sincere
On this stage, fate for sometime our moves steer
Into the chest of non-existence, one by one disappear.

Nikki Stafford said...

Wow, thanks for that! Great analysis and translation for us. :)

Anonymous said...

I should add that whoever thought to combine Lost + Omar Khayyam + Radiohead in a TV promo is totally my hero. Probably the best, most creative promo I've ever seen.

Nikki Stafford said...

I don't know if y'all have seen this yet, but apparently Carlton Cuse tweeted that this was the best Lost promo ever. Here's the writeup from EW on it:

http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/12/01/lost-promo-that-has-lost-fans-and-even-its-producer-buzzing/

Dougie McIntosh said...

Thanks to everyone for the replies
[ Nikki et. al. ] and the information. I thought you might want a wee look at the following links :

The Spanish station Cuatro, which ran ....
http://www.forareasonblog.com/2009/11/30/author-of-the-chessboard-poem-in-the-spanish-lost-promo/

[ which u might have found on the Entertainment Weekly link that Nikki provided ]

and :

Chess by Jorge Luis Borges :
http://southerncrossreview.org/64/borges-chess.htm

and :

The Middle Stage : Chess with Jorge Luis Borges

http://middlestage.blogspot.com/2005/05/chess-with-jorge-luis-borges.html

-- Dougie.