I'm assuming that the events that occur to Columbus are unchanged by the work of the characters after the end of the movie? Which would explain what he found in the envelope...basically it means "Call me up, I have more stuff for you to investigate."...?
sharehey..you hit on something, yes; if the bermude triangle never happened, then there should have been no cross; i smell a goof...
shareWell, technically speaking, if everything had been solved, they'd never be hired in the first place, because there would be nothing to investigate... So yeah, the only way any part of the ending would make sense from a temporal reasoning point of view would be that something did happen that caused some kind of disruption. Then again, maybe the filmmakers just shrugged and went "meh, whatever".
shareYeah, and THAT screwed the entire mini-series. As well as 6 hours of my life watching it.
shareonly those who got affected by the events (the ones that saw the visions) remember what happened. that's why the guy that was supposed to pay the 5 billion remembers it aswell and pays them.
the cross is another matter, it must somehow mean that some of the events aren't being caused by the ripple effects the marine created.
As I interpreted the cheque in the envelope, it was Eric Benerell (the guy who hires them) who sent it. In the end bit, they spoke to his no-longer-lost brother, but then you saw Eric seeing them leave the building, looking thoughtful. So as I understood it, he saw them, remembered that he had given them a mission and as they did solve his question, they got the promised reward.
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[DON'T PANIC]