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Question about "Luminary"

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Guest SouthernCelt
Posted
and I would add the floater had the same clothes as Alex. This is what I got out of this episode: a young man goes to find himself 'into the wild', he sheds all his personal belongings, he sheds his previous self, and he reaches a different level of understanding of himself and the world. Perhaps in the process this revelation consumes him, and his physical body can't withstand that -- his shell, Alex Glaser, dies, hence the floater. But Alex Ventoux lives. He allows hisself to be seen by Frank and his parents in order to provide some closure to the people he left behind (and help Frank in his own journey into the wild) -- but as soon as he's done that he disappears again. Perhaps he walked away, left for the mountains, or perhaps he vanished (as his body would have no physical reason to exist). It's all a bit spiritual mumbo-jumbo explained like this, but it's a beautiful story. It would really bother me if this were just a plot hole (which I think it isn't)!

That's an explanation I postulated some time back in another thread. The type of leg break Alex had when Frank found him and presumably when he was treated in the hospital would not have permitted him to simply get up and sneak out on foot. I still think he moved on to another plane and the physical form seen by Frank and the others was simply a manifestation or memory incarnate of his previous self that perhaps he needed to enable him to finish his journal entry. Once he had completed his explanation and knew that it would be taken back to his parents, he simply moved on and the physical manifestation of his body ceased to exist.

Guest charlie98210
Posted (edited)
That's an explanation I postulated some time back in another thread. The type of leg break Alex had when Frank found him and presumably when he was treated in the hospital would not have permitted him to simply get up and sneak out on foot. I still think he moved on to another plane and the physical form seen by Frank and the others was simply a manifestation or memory incarnate of his previous self that perhaps he needed to enable him to finish his journal entry. Once he had completed his explanation and knew that it would be taken back to his parents, he simply moved on and the physical manifestation of his body ceased to exist.

That's a good point about Alex's broken leg. I hadn't noticed that. The point about the broken leg also got me thinking about what Alex says when Frank finds him. "I didn't want to die. I wanted to be alive."

It's in the past tense and is spoken like an apology or a statement of regret over the way things turned out.

Edited by charlie98210
  • 1 year later...
Posted

My favorite episode has no plot holes......

It is not uncommon for Frank, even in season 1, to see and know things that others can't prove, see or know. Off the top of my head, I recall the mesage on the strand of hair in Dead Letters as well as the callowlilly in Blood Relatives, that Frank just knew were there. I would assume that some of the Alaskan search is guess work, not to dissimilar from Nostalgia (I wonder if they were filmed in the same locations?). I think it's realistic to assume that there are directions of travel that would be the practical direction to go in, in addition to anything further that Frank would see vision-wise. Of course, Frank has to deal with the elements like anybody else, so it's not too eas a task for our hero!

As the Defender of Luminary (I know it really needs none, but it sounds cool!) , I would assume that the leg fracture is not that significant, or maybe was an injury other than a fracture. Short of having such a complex fracture with bone protruding from the skin, I would imagine that it is difficult to know for sure the true nature of the injury in he middle of the wilderness with no medical equipment. I would like to think that the blood loss was not due to the fracture. If it was, I cold see poor Alex being in the hospital for a long time. Rather, I would assume that the majority of Alex's injuries are more flesh than bone. Granted, it's not good to walk on any leg injury too early. My assumpton is that Alex had other injuries/ilnesses that made ambulation difficult. His face looked kind of creepy too! In the real "Into the Wild" story, I would make the assumption that Chris had difficulty ambulating due to starvation moreso than an incurred injury, given his weight loss.

Thank you for letting me revive this ancient 3 year old thread so I may continue to defend the faith !!!

Posted

Interesting points. How do you stand on the issue of the floater? Do you buy the more fanciful assertions that Alex had, at some point, died and what we see is his shell. For what it's worth, Chip Johanessen denied that this was what he attempted convey with the script but to muddy the waters a little the director informed Tobias Mehler that he was playing "an angel" so it could well be that despite the best of intentions that is what the director took from the script and that's the impression he gives on screen.

I find it a fascinating discussion.

Eth

Posted

I never got that impression (the angel thing) from my repeated viewings of the episode, though the idea is interesting. The angel idea seems more like an X-FIles episode....arrgh! another X-Files accusation to season 2! As much as I like some of the supernatural episodes, I have always viewed Luminary as more of a "natural" straightforward episode with Frank using his talents in a different way. I know the lights in the sky play a mysterious role as well as Frank's gift, but I always viewed the floater as a story point that Frank could see past but that everybody else could not. Based on this, I consider Frank the Luminary, in that he can see what other people can not see. I always felt that the floater gave Frank more motivation to look for Alex, knowing that Alex was still alive. As far as finding Alex, I always considered that to be Franks gift and intuition in action, not dissimilar from other episodes. The Judge comes to mind on this when Frank links the two dead bodies in the autopsy room and everyone else thinks that Frank is wrong. "500 years ago, you would have been burned as a witch." I love Bletcher's lines in that act!

Posted

I don't think the inference that Alex was an angel would have been too X-Files. After all, we were introduced to a recurring character this season that was an angelic visionary. If that was the threshold that would have tipped MM into XF territory then we'd already crossed it in "Monster" when Lara was introduced.

I agree with your thoughts mind. I was blissfully unaware of train of thought until I happened upon a topic here. It certainly wasn't something I drew from the narrative when I watched it. That said, the floater is a bit of a plot hole if you take it on face value and it is quite rightly stated that the nature of Alex's injuries would not have allowed him to hot-foot it from the hospital whatever his desires. Chip doesn't strike me as the type of writer who makes mistakes and I did begin to wonder if the explanations provided here had some grain of truth in them.

When Tobias Mehler stated that the director told him his character was an angel it was certainly something I began to consider more plausible.

Who knows, it's a beautiful episode whatever the true intention behind the floater was. I guess it's up the individual to make up their own mind.

Eth

Posted

My X-Files reference was a bit of a slant towards sarcasm, in that many folks seem to critique season two for this, when, in my opinion, it still remains quite different. But when one delves as deep into a show as is done here, it is impossible to not see similarities. Morgan and Wong wrote some of the best X-Files episodes too, of course!

It's like The X-Files in that if one just boils all the episodes down to categories of aliens, monsters, or spirits, one can miss the point of telling a great story.

  • 1 year later...
Guest SeattleSparky
Posted

Frank was trying to keep an open mind... telling them they shouldn't tell the parents anything until there was proof this was there son. Also, his flashes of seeing the Aurora....his "gift" gave him a hunch that this might not be Alex. If you remember, he then pulled a piece of a tree leaf out of the man's cracked head/neck. He checked on a computer to see exactly what kind of tree it came from, and when he found that part of the puzzle, said that this showed where the body entered the water. This was the only refference point he could find to know where to go next.... but he was having to lean hard on his own intuition to find the truth.

No, the dead man was never IDed, and it is thought that he was a tribute to Chris McCandles, who's story as told in the book "Into The Wild" inspired "Luminary".

Reading this book now, and just rewatched Luminary

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