KathyRose wrote:What do you think is the thematic significance? I'm guessing, that's where it ends up at the end of the show, with Oceanic 815 flying over it again.
Now I see what you mean. Despite the video-game quality CGI, I was moved by the content of seeing the island underwater in that scene. (Sidebar: I'm a lifelong audiophile-- I love and seek out and listen for sounds that please me-- and that's probably another reason why I didn't mind the computer graphics in that scene. The sound of the splash when the perspective impacted the water had me like putty, and Michael Giacchino's score for that shot was thrilling and sweet. And there was a Dharma shark! Neat!).
But to address your question, Kathy, I tend to think that, at least for me, optimal enjoyment of LOST comes partly from a desire to laugh along with the story's cornucopia of red herrings and possibly never-answered questions. I know they're going to answer a lot of the big questions, and it's fine with me that it's almost a logistical impossibility to even broach all the answers in the final season. Like I said in an earlier post, I've loved that my ideas on how the series ends have changed many times over since season one.
So about whether I think the series ends with the island underwater, I'm agnostic. Its submersion we saw could be a result of exactly the alternate reality that causes Hurley to believe he's lucky, and Desmond to be on the plane (for a possibly shorter period of time than the other passengers of 815?), and Charlie to try to kill himself, and for Kate to escape police custody at the airport, and for Jack to lose his father's body in transit overseas.
The question this alternate reality has led me to ask myself is, is that the reality we want for our heroes at the end? To make that question more feasible to answer, is that what I want for them? To just bumble along with the rest of their lives, some happily, some sadly, but none of them having knowledge of the extraordinary journey they endured together as survivors of the island crash?
Nah, I want them to know exactly what they experienced. For that reason, I hope that the new alternate reality is merely a narrative device that allows for the people of the original time line to resolve their greatest conflicts (or, if the fates would have it, and the writers are brave enough, for some of their greatest conflicts to be lost, or tragically unresolved) so they may carry on for the remainder of their lives with memories of their bizarre adventure.
