ABC's LOST Almost Had A Different Ending Involving A Volcano

LOST's ending will forever be a subject of debate among fans of the popular series which ran for six years on ABC. Varying interpretations of the show's conclusion have left some fans loving the character-driven saga on an island in the south pacific while others feel let down by its lack of answers.

In either case, the series almost had a very different finale involving a volcano which was teased earlier in the series.

Series executive producer Carlton Cuse got the idea for the volcano early on during his work with the show and wanted to bring it around for the concluding episodes but never got to it.

"We were always looking to cannibalize anything on Hawaii to aid in the visual storytelling of the show," Cuse said to EW. "We also thought of the island as a character on the show, so we were always looking for things that would give it more personality."

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"It was something we banked and thought we could use downstream."

The crew must have been banking on the volcano story for years. As the story went on LOST, a scene which felt like it would be key during its airing revealed the island's volcanic nature in Season 3. With three season following the episode, the story would never pan out for several reasons.

The volcano was originally going to be used to create an epic battle sequence in the series finale, something which sounds like Anakin and Obi Wan's duel in Revenge of the Sith with Jack fighting the John Locke-looking version of the Man in Black.

"The question was always, how do you basically visualize and dramatize the idea that the island itself is all that separates the world from hellfire and damnation?" says Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof. "And the answer was the volcano."

Instead of the volcano and its magma-spewing eruption for the battle, fans were treated to a more contained and mystical take on the island's representation of containing the balance of good versus evil. Desmond Hume was lowered into a set built to contain the cork keeping evil contained to the island which caused relentless earthquakes to ring out. Originally, those tremors would have been sparked by the eruption.

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The volcano had been dormant for the duration of the series," explains Lindelof, "but based on moving into this endgame, the island had become unstable and the volcano was going to erupt. We were going to have lots of seismic activity, and ultimately, there was going to be this big fight between the forces of good and the forces of evil, which ended up in the series manifesting as Jack and The Man in Black, in the midst of magma. Magma spewing everywhere!"

At this point, it is hard to imagine LOST offering any other type of finale, especially one with magma flying around the survivors of Oceanic 815. The original idea of having a raft involved in the final episodes of Season 1 made those involved skeptic until Cuse suggested actually building the raft. Such an attitude became the norm by the end, as the crew thought there was no limit what they can achieve, but the network thought differently of the explosive take on the series finale.

"ABC was like, 'Guys, we love you, and we're letting you end the show; we can't let you bankrupt the network in the process,'" Lindelof said.

"It would be visually stunning and really exciting for the audience. After six years and around 121 hours of the show, we had shot literally every part of Oahu that we could for island scenes and flashbacks. So the idea that, for the finale, we could go to this new locale that's going to look new and different and unique, primal and ancient and end-of-the-world-ish, that would be great."