(Spoilers) When did they go to....?
The spaceship? Were they always on it, was it all part of the experiment or did they fo there during the story?
shareI believe they were abducted earlier but not too far back. A poster in another thread mentioned how all those flashbacks show Nic as an athletic type running and jogging. Throughout all those flashbacks he seemed to be approximately the same age he is at the start of the movie. That combined with another observation from another thread that Nic supposedly recently developed a condition that impeded his legs movement but the crotch is pretty banged up and is even taped up which indicates heavy use.
So, the idea is that the three protagonists have already been abducted before and this whole movie from the beginning is nothing but a simulation. Possibly (or probably) one of many they have been put through in order to study their emotions and reactions.
I didn't see this as a repeated simulation. I could be wrong but I thought these young people were abducted because they were smart enough to follow the signal, and the aliens wanted very intelligent subjects this time. I think they had tried the average intelligent person previously and it didn't work so well.
Through the flashbacks it showed that Nic was an athlete but when he and his girlfriend went on the carnival ride, it must have malfunctioned. Both fell and were injured but his legs were permanently injured. This inability to walk/run combined with high intelligence were of particular interest to the aliens as they thought he was an ideal subject most likely to ultimately accept and use the new alien legs.