These guys are going to relive this again. That's some f'ed up fate.
I wonder if a sequel to this would've broken this loop and possibly have James & Lisa survive.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
This was my one of the worst things introduced in the film. It causes gaps in plot and logic.
Also, did the witch put herself in the time loop as well by default?
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Definition of troll on IMDb - anyone who expresses a view different to mine.
its not that hard to understand its just the witch using her powers thats all
shareThey can't change the past because what happened is what has already happened. They only got lost in the woods once, the blair witch just sent their footage back in time
Definition of troll on IMDb - anyone who expresses a view different to mine.
For that tape to exist, the exact events of the film had to play out, but it leaves a gap with Lane.
At some point, Lane had to experience the events of the film for the first time. However, Lane's motivation to go to the woods comes from the footage he found, but that footage couldn't happen unless he experienced the same events of the film in the first place. This couldn't happen because his first experience could not take place in that manner.
But whatever, we'll just explain it with "the witch powers did it".
Nah bro, the witch just took it from the future and sent it backward in time with her crazy witch powers.
She can do that because she's The Blair Witch.
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren.
The problem here is, in the future she takes it from, why did they go into the woods? The reason this time is directly due to the footage, so why would they be there in the future before they had seen the footage?
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They go into the woods because the witch brought the tapes -from- the future into the -past-, thus drawing them into the woods.
She can time travel dawg. That's really all there is to it.
You seem to be missing the point here...The witch brought the tapes from the future into the past. That means that at some point the tapes would have to have been made already. Meaning that the group of protagonists went into the woods at some point for a completely different reason than because of the tapes. Otherwise the tapes wouldn't exist at all to BE brought back in time. The events of the film have to have happened for some reason already without the witch's intervention. Which begs the question...if the witch already killed them, as the footage suggests, then why the hell did she bother to send tapes back to the past just to do the exact same thing again?
shareI don't know her motivation really, assuming she sent the tapes back. I wouldn't read just that much into it, it's only a horror movie. My only guess is that it -had- to happen that way because that's how the timeline worked.
We'll never know why the witch set up the time loop/paradox. Who knows.
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren.
So we have a time loop that may or may not be a time loop, a paradox with no explanation, and a witch that apparently likes killing the same people in the exact same way multiple times. in other words it's a twist that makes no logical sense and seems to have been thrown in purely for the sake of having a twist, which is never a good thing.
shareYou're looking at it in a way that assumes the Witch has to obey the laws of time, which she CLEARLY doesn't given how much she can screw with it. She exists outside of time, so a matter of bending it into a loop isn't too hard.
The Titanic sinks, Bruce Willis is a ghost, and Rosebud is a sled
Yes, she can control time...that doesn't change the fact that she apparently had that footage, meaning at some point that footage would have to be recorded before she could send it back in time. Unless she spends her time using her powers to create footage for the expressed purpose of sending it to people so that she can have them come over and visit the house, wherein she's set everything up perfectly so that she can get the main protagonists to film the exact footage she previously created on her own. It makes no logical sense, even in a supernatural context.
shareBasically she killed them, then sent the tapes backward in time so to do it again is what I understood from it.
One that pushes me a long and leaves me so.
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren.
So. That still leaves the question, what was the original reason they would have been in that house taking footage in the first place? She can't send the footage back in time in order to kill them all again without the footage existing in the first place. I realize we're talking about a supernatural entity but this is a giant logical hole in the movie's narrative that's incredibly distracting and ultimately undermines the entire climax. Again, it makes no logical sense even in the context of the movie.
shareWell witch powers, duh.
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren.
So that leaves us with a witch that created footage out of whole cloth using her powers in order to send it to a group of people for no reason whatsoever in order to get them to come to the Rustin Parr house where she could then have those same people record IDENTICAL footage to what she created...that's dumb. There's really no other way to put it. It's just genuinely stupid. It's a twist for the sake of a twist and that's never a good thing.
share@ Wartle - I think you're getting this all wrong.
They way I see it they went to the woods because of the footage that Lane found, which was shot by their own future selves unbeknownst to them at the time.
Now at this point you seem to be asking why the 'future selves' on the footage went there as they hadn't made the footage yet.
But they did already make the footage, those future selves also had future versions of themselves who shot footage, and so did those future selves, and so on and so on. Due to whatever magic the Witch ended up using, there's essentially an infinite timeline loop where they always end up going to the woods because of the footage that 'future selves' shot. Then the witch sends the footage back (again), and it starts all over again. There's never a point where there is no footage motivating them to go to the woods. The witch has essentially removed the starting point of the footage and trapped them in a loop which they are doomed to be a part of.
Basically, witch magic did it.
Again, for this loop to start the footage has to exist first. So they have to have filmed the footage before it's sent back in time for them to find. meaning that at some point, before the loop can be formed, they have to have gone to that house for some other reason in some kind of "prime timeline" in order to make that footage. Why, in this initial prime timeline, would they have originally gone into the woods and found that house? What prompted it? Or, did the witch actually create the footage only to have them show up and recreate it perfectly? One of those options is stupid...the other is a giant hole in the movie that exists purely because they decided to throw in a nonsensical twist in for the sake of having a twist.
shareThat's just it, there is no initial 'prime timeline' anymore. The witch did something to space and time which looped it all together, in every past and future timeline there is always footage already shot by future selves.
I get what you're saying that it had to start somewhere, but this is where suspension of disbelief comes in.
It's a movie about a time manipulation witch. I don't think hammering down the exact timeline is ever going to happen. It's just people sent into the woods by future selves being sent into the woods by future selves being sent into the woods by future selves. There is no starting point anymore.
imo that's a much better assumption than yours where the witch makes identical footage out of cloth for no apparent reason and sends it back in time so it can end up on Youtube.
I don't care if there's no prime timeline anymore...at one point there had to be, which leaves a giant hole in the movie. A giant hole that didn't have to exist that was created entirely due to their desire to have an illogical twist. I understand that the whole idea is that it's a loop they're repeating. The problem is the loop makes no sense. As is usually the case with a time travel movie.
shareYou're absolutely right, at one point there had to be an original creation of the footage, but again, it's a movie about a time manipulating witch. Again, suspension of disbelief is a thing.
But if you want to go ahead and hate the movie based on your own assumptions about whats happening, you go right ahead. I don't think time manipulation is supposed to be something for us to understand, mostly because it isn't real.
Suspension of disbelief isn't something a movie just gets simply for being a movie, you have to earn it by being a good movie. If I were intrigued by the twist, or thought the movie up to that point was effective, I would have went with it. But that wasn't the case. The majority of the movie was a boring, truncated remaking of the original film with a few tiny tweaks to the structure, followed by a climax with a shrieking video game enemy running around a house making loud noises. And after all of that the movie wants me to buy a time loop being responsible for the whole thing? No. It's insultingly nonsensical.
share"Suspension of disbelief isn't something a movie just gets simply for being a movie, you have to earn it by being a good movie"
The thing is opinions are subjective. Some people believe this is a good movie. By your logic, apparently that makes what I said about suspension of disbelief justifiable, no?
Honestly I feel like you're just rejecting my answer because it isn't what you want to hear. I'm sorry you didn't like the film and believe that alone revokes any right it has to suspension of disbelief. That seems ridiculous to me, but whatever. That's your choice.
No, man, I'm not rejecting your answer because it not what I want to hear. I'm not a 15 year old that insecure in my own opinions that I can't handle someone else's interpretation. I'm arguing against it because it leaves a massive logic and or plothole in the movie that completely unravels the entire film. It's as illogical as Tony Stark deciding not to unleash his army of hundreds of Iron Man drones until the end of Iron Man 3.
shareI kinda wanna call the Tony Stark thing suspension of disbelief too :p
Alright man I respect that; my apologies if I seemed hostile at all, isn't my intention, I just honestly believe they intended it to just be some perma-loop with no original source anymore because of time manipulating witch magic, and we're simply supposed to go with it and not think about it too much.
Agree to disagree I suppose? I will say that the way it was shot was horrible in comparison to the original movie and I wish isn't wasn't so saturated it in dumb jump scares, not to mention lot of other.. issues, so I do understand where you're coming from.
What got them to go into the woods before they filmed the footage the very first time? As I see it, they set out into the woods because of the footage that lane found, but before they ever filmed that footage, there was no reason to go searching. So you see, they would not have actually ever gone out with out a second reason. The writers made it seem like James only was going on a search because of the footage, which was a mistake. If he had said, "I was going any way but this footage just fuels the fire." Then it would make sense that they'd be out there filming the original first-time footage, so that the witch could have lane find it after we sent it back in time. But to say the witch fabricated the footage entirely and that we could suspend our believe is hard to do when it makes no sense AND it's the basis for the entire plot of the movie.
shareI agree, I don't understand why they would go there for no reason. James has been looking for Heather for 20 years. So he could have gone there way before. It really is this one video that made him go and it makes no sense to fo that far for no reason whatsoever. That's the biggest plot hole. Some others can be explained but this makes no sense I'd really like to know.
shareJam another dragon down the hole.
shareYou're not thinking 4th dimensionally.
shareThere is a perfect explanation of this phenomenon from Lost season 5.
shareMaybe the footage that got them there had not happened yet, but the witch used her powers to create a false memory of it in each of their minds? So they thought it was real, thus going into the woods and creating the real thing.
shareThat is what I was thinking. In BoS, she messed with what they saw, their reality. So it's possible she distorted the tape.
shareI think its the opposite of what others are stating, I think she sent them back in time, this would explain why the GPS doesn't work, why the drone camera could not see a road and why the tape was found later.
"This is What You Want... This is What You Get"
This seems to be a classic case of a Bootstrap Paradox (aka Causal Loop).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_loop
"Game over, man! Game over!"
This what really brought down the majority of the film. It should of stuck to something really simple than a stupid gimmicky thing like that.
Meet me at the waterfront after the social.
Maybe they were big fans of Lost. :P
The tapes they found were made in the loop, but we assume the loop is our time, but going by the movie, the loop is before they go into the woods.
They go into the woods and it's 2014. That night they're transported back to, say, 1996. Therefore the tapes made in those couple of days and are put by the tree would be put there in 1996 and they'd be able to find them again in 2014. Once that happened, it would skew the future timeline. *insert Doc Brown diagram*
Of course, this doesn't explain why Lane or Talia are not affected or why the tree that was hit by lightning is still split all through the movie. So yeah, it's just a twist that looks cool until you think about it for half a second.