So by getting out of the loop at the end, does this mean the other Hectors are trapped in their respective loops forever? At first, Hector seems to think he needs to kill or prevent the other Hectors from going back in time to achieve this, but by film's end he is out of the loop as another Hector is driving back up to the silo. Thoughts? Thanks in advance!
you got it. hector 1 always will get into the time machine when the scientist claims he's hiding him from hector 2. and hector 2 always will get in the time machine when he thinks he killed his wife.
shareHector 1 and 2 are NOT trapped in a loop forever, everything happens only once.
shareThey are all the same Hector. So noone is stuck anywhere. He just lived a few more minutes than the rest of us since he looped twice :)
shareActually he will live a bit less (about 2 days), his body didn't stop aging when he was reliving the same day 3 times.
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He doesn't relive the entire day 3 times, he just goes back about 90 minutes to the past each time. So at the end, Hector is about 3 hours older than he's supposed to be.
shareOk, the timeframe isn't quite clear, but indeed it's not a full 24 hour day.
But still Hector will not have lived longer because he timetraveled twice. But in fact, if he'll die of natural causes it will be 90 minutes (by your calculation) earlier as normal.
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180 minutes earlier actually (it's not my calculation, it is stated in the movie that Hector travels 90 mins to the past). But nobody is disagreeing with you, ibrarules was just saying that Hector has lived more than the rest of us because in the end he's 3 hours older than he would be if he had never traveled through time.
shareYep, hypothetically a loop only happens once, but seems like a never ending thing on films, but for the main character is only one experience.
If I could travel to yesterday, a loop would be created, there would be two versions of me only for 24 hours....until the one who has not travel back in time, travels back for the first and only time....
Thereby being in a loop.
shareThe loop is infinite creating infinite universes from the end of that loop but the char is not in a loop.
This is because each loop iteration creates a new clone of the char.
This is an infinite multiverse type movie situation. For there to be a loop, there needs to be only 1 char and 1 universe where going back in time erases the old version with the new one.
This is one of the most argued points on these forums:
Static-Loop (loop is only existent during the small window that the machine is operational and passing two Hector(2 and 3)).
Dynamic-Loop (loop is forever; for every Hector-3 moving forward, Hectors 1 and 2 are heading back).
What I think? Is that too many viewers are trapped within the (limited) Audience Perspective and merely assume Hector-1 and Hector-2 vanish into the void from which they sprung. Never considering that you can have linear temporal folding within a vast system of sub-realities/holograms.
Leaving us with two types of debater:
1. Reality is complex and mysterious; and we still have so much to learn
2. Reality is simple and science has killed all mystery; and we're about to tell you how temporal folding really works.
Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.
It's really about perspective. As an audience, we are witnessing the events of this day over and over from different perspectives, but the events occur only once.
To say someone is "stuck in a loop" to me would mean a person repeatedly going back to the beginning, with everything resetting like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. His consciousness is sent back into his body when the radio alarm comes on. It may last eternity, it may just be a very long time with many cycles, but there's no foreseeable end and time becomes irrelevant because it's always the same day.
What we're seeing here is more like a linear timeline that happens to fold back on itself. The events of that day unfold because all 3 Hectors are in existence from the beginning. When Hectors 1 and 2 get in the machine at the end of the day, they aren't new versions of themselves going back "again" to experience the events of the day as Hectors 2 and 3. We're just seeing them leave the timeline the only way they ever did from a new perspective.
If you followed Hector 2 back in time at the end of the movie, he wouldn't be experiencing those events "again" you'd just be observing Hector 2's experience for the second time. Hector is in no more of a time loop than if you watch a movie more than once. The characters of the movie aren't in a time loop because you watch it a second time, you're just observing the events again.
No one is trapped in the loop.
Hector 1 goes in machine (thinking Hector 2 is killing him) and he becomes Hector 2.
Hector 2 goes in machine (thinking he killed his wife) and he becomes Hector 3
Hector 3 lives peacefully after.
You're right, except I doubt Hector would live peacefully after the events of the movie ^^
shareAt the end of the movie:
1) Hector 3A is free to live as the only Hector in his own time because Hectors 1C and 2B both went back in time.
2) Hector 1C goes back in time to become Hector 2C. He encounters Hector 3B and Hector 1D who will become Hector 2D because of his actions. This means that new Hector 1s will always be encountered and new Hector 2s will always be created.
Hector 2B goes back in time to become Hector 3B and eventually be free to live as the only Hector in his own time.
3) All the Hector 3s (3A, 3B, 3C, 3D, 3E, 3F...) will all live apart chronologically while all Hector 1s and 2s will continue to coexist with other Hectors.
4) Basically the same sequences repeat infinitely, just with different Hectors.
This is incorrect. There are only 3 versions of Hector coexisting during the events of the movie, no Hectors 2B, 3F or whatever. We see what happens to each version of Hector in the movie. The same sequences do not repeat infinitely, they happen just once. Hector 1 travels to the past and "becomes" number 2, then he travels a 2nd time, "becomes" number 3 and goes on with his life.
"You're not thinking 4th dimensionally!"
So at the end of the movie, we have Hectors 3A, 2B, and 1C (I'll stick to this naming convention for the purpose of this argument).
So when Hector 1C at the end goes back in time to become Hector 2C to trick Hector 1D, who is that Hector 1D? He certainly isn't Hector 1C/2C. He isn't Hector 2B who goes back in time to become Hector 3B. He isn't Hector 3A who is now free of all other Hectors.
If Hector 1D isn't Hector 1C/2C, 2B/3B, or 3A, then he must be a different Hector from the three, right?
No. I already said it in my last post (it's my old IMDB username, but it's me ^^).
For some reason you're assuming Hector's time travels repeat infinitely, but they do not. He just uses the time machine two times to travel a few hours to the past. That's it. It's a fixed timeline, a causal loop.