MovieChat Forums > The Signal (2014) Discussion > The 3 weird things I'd like explained.

The 3 weird things I'd like explained.

posted 10 years ago by ImTylerDurden
3 replies | jump to latest

I have to admit that watching films by this director is quite an experience. "Love" was like being in an empty cinema screening with one other bloke while a much better film was going on in the screen next door, you could hear something spectacular was going on but you were stuck with this one bloke and missing it. The Signal was confounding in a whole lot of other ways but I got the over all gist of it. However there were many things that did not make sense and I'm not sure if they were deliberate or down to the director's weirdness or incompetence. I can make up my own mind about a lot of it but on the below I can't;
1) During the opening credits when they're running in the woods, in the background is like a huge wall and a roof like they are actually indoors. Is that a real place near MIT where they did the shot or is that an effect for the film to hint early on about them being in a simulation on a spaceship? Surely there's not a real indoor forest that big for them to film in.
2) If they're on an alien ship would the aliens really label their craft with human numbers or are they really trying to say that Area 51 is actually a human/alien co project, oh and it's in space by the way?
3)Is everything after the coffee spilling scene actually in the simulation and everything up to that point just a flashback? ie at the point where the main guy goes out to the canyon edge to talk to the girl, they both have different clothes on and the main guy is looking around, frowning and feeling the ground as if he feels weird about his environment? Isn't that the same bridge as at the end in the background after all? And when they're back in the car the guy with glasses's phone is broken just as all the tech in the simulation is a bit old and retro, so could they have been in there quite a while with wiped memories.

[–] david-kraft 10 years ago

1. Looks like a bridge to me. There are a lot of bridges located in similar places so it's not something super rare either.

2. If humans had the technology they seem to have then things on earth would be so different. So doubt it's a co-project.. at the same time the numbers make no sense if it isn't. Unless they name their ships and stuff out of where they get them somehow.

3. Possibly. Nomad is already asking him if he's agitated when he's in the motel. Something they seem to like to keep track of.

[–] ImTylerDurden 9 years ago

Yeah, I can see it's a bridge now that you say it, the washed out look of the shot made it unclear.

[–] jeffturner1988 9 years ago

Actually I believe they are already in the environment from the first clip. Nic has a dry erase marker in his pocket. This marker is used specifically for solving problems throughout the film, from helping the young boy know where to actuate the claw, to writing on the bathroom wall when tracing Nomad's ip address, to drawing a layout of the installation which is hidden under the mattress as when he awakes he has none of his possessions, except for the marker.

Also, in the opening clip we quickly deduce they are driving Hayley to California as SHE of the three must transfer for a year to Cal Tech from M.I.T. in Massachusetts despite as we come to see, NOT being the computer whiz's Nic and Jonah are and therefore not the one who would of been to blame for Nomad's hacking M.I.T's mainframe the three had been suspected of doing by M.I.T staff. Why are all three along for the ride to Cal Tech... in her car? We know that they are not staying due to Nic's anxiety at her leaving. No mention is made of how they are getting back. No mention is needed, because the entire trip is a contrivance which gives them a logical reason to pass near Nomad's location they must deduce.

In fact as you deduce at the end of your comment, memory wiping and implanting is heavily used by the aliens to give appropriate back drops for scenarios that by themselves make no logical sense. They are simply three teenagers who were at some point abducted in the past. The newest scenario the aliens have orchestrated implants memories of Nic's legs failing and being unable to run beyond flooded paths regardless, but he is in his current age in the memories, implying his legs were fine up until a very short time ago, but the crutches in use have worn tape on their handles, implying he has used them many many times before.