LOST: Alternate Ending

(I posted this on my personal blog, but figured it makes for entertaining reading, at least, to me, so I'm posting it over here too)

I've been reading up on various people's responses to the Lost finale. Everything I read has made me dislike the finale even more than I did when we finished it (and that was quite a bit...) and I've come to the following conclusion: I'm sick of people rationalizing for the show and "apologizing" for it. I enjoyed watching the show. I liked the show. I think I may even go back and rewatch the first five seasons at some point. However, it wasn't my favorite show in the world, and it has not rocked my world that it ended badly. Disappointed? Sure.

However, despite all that, I am moving on. In the past, when I've read a book that ended in a dis-satisfactory way, or watched a movie that left me feeling like, "Seriously? What?" I have had no problem with coming up with my own alternate ending and then pretending that was the way it really ended. (Always the overactive imagination... that's me).

Thus, without further ado, this is how I would have ended LOST:

Skip the whole sixth season and it's alternate-reality/purgatory thing... the bomb goes off, jumps our characters to their correct place in time, kills Juliet, and leaves Sawyer grief-stricken. Then, the ending would have gone something like this: We would have discovered that Jacob's motives were pure and that immortality is quite taxing and he has held the evil that is the smoke monster (which in my ending is a demonic/alien force caged on the island due to the island's electromagnetic uniqueness) at bay for as long as he can. He is tired and has run out of new things to try and feels that his control of the situation is slipping and he needs fresh blood and a new perspective to take his place. Jin and Sun would make it back to the mainland and live happily ever after with their daughter. Claire was actually dead and Kate would have to return to the mainland to be with Aaron. Jack and Locke would have a much cooler, far more impressive show-down, (along with a "real" storm) in which they both ended up dying. Sawyer becomes the island's new protector (because, really, what else does he have to do? And besides, he's been my favorite character since episode 1) and spends his days jumping the island through time (because the protector can do that) in order to keep Ben from getting loose on the world ever again because Ben becomes the new force of evil on the island (because there always has to be a balance and you can't destroy evil, you can weaken it, you can cage it, but you can't destroy the balance). And Hurley... well, Hurley goes home in peace because the island doesn't need him anymore and he gets to live out his life as the lucky guy to whom nothing bad ever happens - and is never plagued by ghost numbers ever again. In the final scene, we would see Ben and Sawyer sitting on the beach while a group of strange aliens build a four toed statue in the background and Ben turns to Sawyer (his eyes gleaming red) and says, "Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you?" And Sawyer just smiles and shakes his head and goes back to reading his book (some classic... maybe A Tale of Two Cities)... because he's cool like that.

The end.