We’ve been accused by a few readers of purposefully putting the kibosh a business deal with no serious consequence to anyone but the owners. While there are some who would rather see the Xerox building torn down due to its history, we’re against that…
Background: Many a fight scene were reenacted at The Stink’s Alias watching parties, and our publisher looked great in his [blue dress](http://abc.go.com/primetime/alias/gallery/wallpaper9.html). So we admit it, there’s a part of us that wants “Lost” to fail so J.J. Abrams has more time to repair the show we love.
That being said, Abrams and executive producer Damon Lindelof have approached shooting in Hawaii with the right frame of mind, the frame of mind we’ve always taken: Hawaii is a location, not a story.
>If you are going to shoot in Hawaii, *the island has to be one of the characters…* The idea of a cop, lawyer or doctor show set in New York, Los Angeles or Boston and shooting in Vancouver has just been overdone… and a *location* like Hawaii is a great untapped *resource.* (emphasis added)
Hollywood listen up: Shoot all you want in Hawaii, just don’t try to tell a story *about* Hawaii. It’s rather boring. Seriously. Who remembers The Byrds of Paradise for anything other than a young and perky Jennifer Love Hewitt in a cheerleading outfit? No one, that’s who.
Fox is taking a huge gamble with North Shore. Sure, they get the tax break for setting the show in Hawaii, but then how many episodes of “fish out of water” and “mixed race coupling” plot lines will the audience endure? And how many episodes will feature a white guy getting beat up or threatened by a menacing Asian-Pacific Islander stereotype? That’s how every episode of Marker began.
To summarize:
1. Hollywood: No Hawaii stories unless you were born and raised.
2. If we see Jason Momoa do his “I’m an ignorant haole learning how to be local so I can respect the Aina” shtick again there’ll be vomiting in the streets.
3. If any of us were the show runner for “Lost” we’d take the Xerox building deal in a heartbeat, after squeezing a few choice incentives out of the state of course.
Oh, and tell ABC and Bad Robot we’ll take our 10% of the building deal incentives up-front. Small bills please.
