Was Jack's original plan, a lie?

[ForTheIsland]

Darlton and others have stated that Jack was supposed to die in the pilot originally, but was saved by ABC wanting to keep him.

Do you think that was a lie to keep us from thinking Jack would last as long as he did and to lead us to believe he was more disposable and could possibly die well before or during the last season pre-finale?

I'm thinking maybe they just said that in effort to prevent people from predicting the closing eye shot because we'd think Jack would die earlier. Hmm

[David]

I had thought originally they had a big name (Michael Keaton) slated to play Jack and the whole thing was that they would kill off a big name star in the first episode (it would be a shocker to kill the star). My thought was that when they changed from "big star" to MF that they also changed the story.

I always thought that perhaps Jack dying in the first episode would have made the "Michael Keaton Jack" the Christian Shepard character in the story, popping in and out throughtout the story.. and then as we see CS actually had a big part in the entire story for 6 years.

Not a bad job for an actor who's character was dead throughout the entire run of the show!

David
~

[spinaltumor]

I don't think it was a lie, but I also think people put too much emphasis on it.

Like, it's a fact that's treated as though this was their big plan for the pilot episode up until the very last minute when it suddenly got changed.
But I think it's more that when JJ and Damon first worked out the pilot, they planned to kill whoever the doctor was, but then when they talked to ABC, ABC immediately said no. JJ and Damon agreed with the reasoning and so from then on planned to not kill the doctor.
The change was made very early on and with little repercussions.

Also, I know when Matthew Fox was cast as Jack, Jack was already set to survive.