(urth) Fringe

[Jeff Wilson]

On 4/6/2012 11:18 AM, Larry Miller wrote:
> I dont understand why people take the conclusion as the whole series
> being a dream.  Everything that happened in  the show happened to the
> characters.  The flash sideways was a glimpse into the afterlife which
> took on the form of an alternate timeline.  What suggestion is there
> that it was a dream?

It ended when Jack ended, and it was his dad that came back from the 
dead to reassure him that it was okay and Jack hadn't screwed up. I 
realize Dad says that everyone there is dead and created the scenario to 
help prepare themselves for the next life, but A) it's still kind of 
weird that these dead people are choosing to rally at the funeral of a 
guy that died before all but 2-3 of them had a chance to meet him, but 
left out people that many of them had more intense, favorable emotional 
connections to on the island and afterwards, and B) I notice that Jack 
and his dad have this reveal/discussion in this separate room away from 
the other cast, with simpler photography than elsewhere; it was made to 
be kept secret from as much of the cast and crew as possible, which 
shows a lack of prior commitment to the direction as much as a desire to 
keep the secret to me. Same for the "remembering" scenes, where I think 
at most three characters are party to it and of course they are not 
explained.

It had lots of wish-fulfillment in it for the other characters, too, 
there were very few if any characters in it that Jack hadn't met or at 
least possibly heard of, and Jack is this super-responsible custodian 
type who is soft-hearted and hates to see people suffer; it would make a 
wonderful escapist fantasy for him  to be off the island, back working 
with his ex and have his friends and redeemable enemies doing well in 
responsible jobs, with some of the people he'd written off as 
irredeemable getting their just deserts. And some of the people just 
weren't there, presumably because it hurt his brain to think about them 
anymore, like Walt and Michael.

And Claire's baby remaining a baby in the afterlife despite growing up 
with him for several years and Sun's baby being back in the womb could 
reflect his ambivalent attitudes about children in general and wanting 
to have a family with Kate.


-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >