Wednesday, January 4, 2012

LOST Tour: Oceanic 815 crash site

It is arguably the greatest opening sequence in television history. A man regains consciousness lying in a palm grove within a dense forest. A golden lab scampers by. The man wears a dark suit. He is injured, but manages to struggle to his feet. In his pocket a tiny bottle of vodka -- the kind you might find in a mini-bar or on an airplane. Despite his distress the man picks himself up and races off through the jungle. He bursts onto a sandy beach. Surveying the coastline, his eyes finally light upon a chaotic and horrifying scene...

Despite a wealth of material I've still had somewhat of a hard time piecing together the precise location of the Oceanic 815 crash on Oahu's Mokule'ia beach. I believe this is the area where Jack's emergence onto the beach was filmed (note the tree in the background):

The foilage visible as Jack sees the destruction for the first time seems to be from the edge of this large cluster of tall shrubs:
Below photo courtesy @Lottery_Ticket.
This shot is from within the shrubs, looking toward the debris field:

And this is my attempt to provide a Jack's-eye-view of the scene circa August 2010.

...and a similar shot from a little further back.

Here is a clear shot of the beach along which the airplane wreckage was strewn for the pilot. (When the plane was brought back to the beach to shoot the rest of season 1 it looks as if it was setup a little further west.)

Buy a real aircraft, slice it up and ship it by frieghter to Hawaii. Unpack it, weld some pieces back together, then scatter it across a public beach. Piece of cake!

The tree in the background to the right of Jin is one of two that were located just behind the group of shrubs shown in earlier pictures. Only one of the two trees remain as of August 2010.

Behind-the-scenes of the pilot shoot, taken from the season 1 DVD.

The LOST pilot. All departments firing on all cylinders to produce one of the finest examples of filmed entertainment.

I wore this silly grin for the entire duration of our visit.

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