'Site' Movie Ending Explained: Are Neil & Garrison Dead Or Alive?

Site’s ending hinged on a final confrontation between Neil and Garrison. Neil was Garrison’s employee at Vey Commercial Real Estate Inspection, and one of their recent projects involved assessing a property that Carl and Byron wanted to sell to a party that wanted to build a school. Carl and Byron didn’t give them a lot of info about the building, but a casual analysis of the facility by Neil and Garrison proved that it used to be some kind of a science lab, which was shut down after a freak explosion. The device that caused the mishap was still intact and was emitting some form of radiation that messed with Neil and Garrison’s perception of reality. While Garrison kept ignoring the signs, things got really bad for Neil as he got his son, Wiley, into a horrifying accident and freaked out his ex-wife, Elena, with his wild interpretations of whatever he was hallucinating. Garrison, partially motivated by his own visions, felt compelled to help out Wiley and Elena by getting them away from the erratic Neil and delivering them to Lynn, Elena’s mother. That didn’t go down well with Neil, and in order to get back at Garrison for meddling in his familial affairs, he informed the school executives about the dangers of building an educational institution atop a facility that had a machine that could mess with one’s mind so that Garrison’s deal would fall through. And he also lured him into the facility for a showdown. What was the result of that clash, and what was the real reason behind it? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

Given how Site kept alternating between three different time periods and concluded things with a major curveball, I think it’s important to understand the chronology of the events leading up to the confrontation between Neil and Garrison. So, in 1931, Japan’s Kwantung Army invaded China’s Manchuria. The section of that army that was led by Ichiro essentially kidnapped Jian—along with his wife, Xifeng, and son, Guang—just because he was a builder. Naomi, Jian, Xifeng, and Guan weren’t the only ones who were kidnapped like that; every Chinese family that had some knowledge of constructing buildings was taken to northeastern China to erect a facility, titled Unit 731, meant for inhumane experiments. These experiments involved exposure to radiation, frostbite, and lethal pathogens such as the bubonic plague. These POWs were referred to as marutas, or logs, and they were burnt in an incinerator once the purpose of their existence was fulfilled. When Jian, Xifeng, and Guang were about to be killed, Jian supposedly tried to escape, but he was shot to death. Xifeng and Guang were killed right after that because, as per the official reports, there were no survivors of the horrors that happened at Unit 731. 

Sometime between the 1930s and the 1970s, Americans gained access to what had happened in Unit 731, and they used Ichiro’s findings to fuel their methods of modern biological warfare. In 1978, the US military sanctioned Project Indra—where Indra was an acronym for Inter-Dimensional Reconnaissance Applications—which was headed by Tobin, Aravane, and Ronith. They aimed to access and survey other time periods with no chance of interfering with actual history. Now, I have some confusion about how these scientists in Clarke County, Iowa, got their hands on the wooden piece that Jian used to attack Ichiro, thereby allowing them to connect with that time period. If you know the answer or have some solid theory about it, please let me know in the comments. But yeah, the scientists of Project Indra were allowed to look into 1931 because there were no survivors. So, even if this meddling with time went wrong, the repercussions wouldn’t be felt in the present day. By the way, I guess this movie is treating time like a closed loop, where making alterations in the past will have a direct effect on the present, instead of the branched timeline theory, where every alteration in the past will create a new timeline and won’t affect the “present” that the one making the alteration is coming from. 

Anyway, Tobin wanted results, as he feared that their project would be shut down if they failed to convince their higher-ups that they were making progress. Meanwhile, Aravane and Ronith were of the opinion that they should take things slow to avoid a catastrophe. However, as soon as Tobin saw a vision of the past through the particle accelerator-like time machine that they had built, he caused it to go on overdrive, which led to a massive explosion. During that incident, Tobin, Aravane, and their unborn child died, while Ronith survived. Since Ronith had seen a vision of Neil, who wasn’t even born then, he kept searching for him. Coincidentally, Neil and Garrison got the deal to refurbish the lab that housed Project Indra, and that led to some form of quantum entanglement. When Neil roped Naomi into the matter—because Neil wanted to make sure that he wasn’t going crazy—she also became a part of this narrative that spanned several decades. 

In Site’s ending, when Neil, Garrison, Naomi, Wiley, Elena, and Ronith arrived at the lab and turned on the time machine, it allowed them to alter the events of 731. Instead of dying in 1931, Jian, Xifeng, and Guang managed to escape by forcing Ichiro to masquerade as a prisoner of war who was trying to escape. They settled down in Harbin and lived a full life. That had a ripple effect in Iowa as well. Tobin listened to Aravane and Ronith’s advice about not putting their time machine on overdrive, and they probably even shut down Project Indra. That likely allowed the authorities to turn the land on which the lab stood into a public pool, which stayed operational for decades. Naomi was reborn as Sora, and she had a daughter named Corinne, and both of them met with Guang to learn about how he and his family had survived the horrors of Unit 731. In this “healed” timeline, I don’t think Neil and Garrison existed. I’m not even sure if Elena existed because we didn’t see her in the closing moments of the film. That said, Wiley was born, probably in a family that was made of parents more responsible than Neil and Elena, as indicated by his perfectly functioning eyes. The end.

The site’s version of quantum entanglement and time travel is based on the concept of Indra’s net. This Indra’s net has multiple interpretations across various cultures. According to Buddhists and Hindus, the king of the gods, Indra, spun a spider-like net from his palace on Mount Meru, thereby making it its origin, which had no end point. As per East Asian Buddhism, the junctions on this net had a jewel, and each of these jewels was somehow reflected in all the other jewels. And these “jewels” can be interpreted as the planets or planetary systems strewn across the universe where each planet is seemingly disconnected from each other, and yet they have a bond on some spiritual level. Meanwhile, the Chinese Buddhist Huayan school uses the Indra’s net to describe the interconnectivity between the microcosmos, macrocosmos, and “dharmas.” In simpler terms, everything is technically independent, but upon further inspection, it becomes apparent that all the things that we can perceive are influenced by the past and the present, and this cycle of cause and effect will happen as long as the universe exists. 

That’s fine, but how does all this apply to the plot? So, as far as my understanding of the plot goes, in the 1930s, Jian failed Xifeng and Guang moments before all of them died. He knew that there was no escape for them. He should have stood beside them and faced death together. Instead, he tried to make a run for it, despite promising several times that he wouldn’t abandon them. The reason for his betrayal is unclear. Maybe the false promise of surviving the hellish ordeal in Unit 731 kept him going. But as soon as he realized that his end was near, he chose to escape instead of being a pillar of support for his family. In the 1970s, when Tobin, Aravane, and Ronith highlighted the connection between that timeline and the ‘30s, the dynamic between Tobin, Aravane, and their unborn child reflected the relationship between Jian, Xifeng, and Guang. Much like how Jian betrayed Xifeng and Guang in their final moments by trying to escape 731, Tobin did the same by putting the time machine of Project Indra into hyperdrive. I said “highlighted” earlier because, as per the concept of Indra’s net, the connection between these six souls was already there; the machine just underscored that, despite being separated by time and geography. 

Things get a little confusing in the 2020s. As far as I understand, Neil was the vessel for Ichiro’s soul, Garrison was the vessel for Jian’s soul, Naomi was the vessel for Xifeng’s soul, Wiley was the vessel for Guang’s soul, and maybe Elena was a vessel for Aravane’s soul. Technically, the soul should have gone from Xifeng to Aravane and then to Naomi. Why is that not the case? Well, your guess is as good as mine. That’s not the only complicated part, though. The movie kept insinuating that Neil was Jian, and hence he had to do right by Wiley (i.e., Guang). But the truth of the matter was that Garrison—who was actually Jian—had to rectify his past mistakes by “saving” Wiley. Meanwhile, Neil was actually Ichiro, who had gotten a chance to atone for the sins he had committed in the 1930s. Since Naomi had the reflection of Xifeng’s soul, Garrison was attracted to her. Apparently, the fact that he was going through a divorce with his wife, Deidre, had nothing to do with it; it was all due to “science.” Anyway, since Garrison realized his purpose, he was able to reunite Wiley with Naomi, and Xifeng killed Ichiro in order to get her revenge for having subjected her and her family to horrors beyond human comprehension. 

Now, if you try to get into the logistics of this quantum entanglement, your head is going to cave in. If you look at it from a thematic perspective, I suppose writer-director Jason Eric Perlman is saying that you don’t have to be a literal tyrant to destroy a family’s future. An irresponsible father can cause immense harm, and by the time they realize the error of their ways, the damage that’s done ends up being irreparable. Also, I guess the movie is saying that you don’t have to be connected by blood to ensure that an innocent child gets to live a healthy life; sometimes you have to look past your selfish interests and use your privilege to aid those in need. Coming to rewriting history, I think the film understands that that’s impossible. Hence, as a species, we should ensure that we don’t act like literal demons who wage wars, torture innocent souls, and turn this beautiful world into a nightmarish hellscape because there’s no way to undo trauma and death.

Yes, Site seems like a shoddily-made film, but the topic of Unit 731 is actually a well-documented chapter of human history. If this is the first time that you are hearing about it, well, buckle the hell up. Yes, Unit 731 was a facility that was located in Harbin and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Army from 1936 to 1945. The most notable members of this operation were Lt. General Shiro Ishii, Major General Masaji Kitano, Lt. Colonel Ryoichi Naito, and many more who were tried as war criminals. Some of them thankfully died in prison, while the sentences of many of these ghouls were reduced for reasons that I don’t fully understand. Here’s why. The Chinese prisoners there were not only exposed to disease-causing agents but also bombs that had the ability to inject one’s system with infectious substances upon coming in touch with their skin. These diseases included syphilis and gonorrhea. Men, women (some of whom were pregnant), children, and even infants were operated upon while they were alive to see how their internal organs reacted to the diseases (especially the plague) they had been infected with. Anybody who managed to survive this ordeal was killed with potassium cyanide or chloroform. 

As mentioned in the film, these prisoners of war were in fact referred to as “logs” or “maruta.” The term originated from a joke that the staff of Unit 731 used to crack about the fact that the official cover for the incinerator that was being used to destroy the bodies of the survivors was that the facility was a lumber mill. Pathogens for anthrax, plague-infected fleas, typhoid, and dysentery were “discovered” through this inhumane process. And Ishii used them in China during World War 2 via biodegradable bombs that had rats and fleas in them, contaminated water bodies, adulterated snacks, and more. The movie mentioned subjecting prisoners to frostbite, and, yeah, that’s true as well. Everyone, from adults to three-day-old children, was forced to dip their fingers in salty ice water, and then their frozen limbs were struck with a stick so that the broken area could be “studied.” In addition to all that, people were tortured with the help of low-pressure chambers, electrocution, centrifuges, mustard gas, white phosphorus, and lewisite. Of course, several attempts to escape Unit 731 were conducted, but there weren’t any survivors. Almost everything that we know about what happened there is based on testimonies from the scientists and guards that worked there. 

As for America’s involvement in all this, something that’s mentioned by Ronith, Lt. Colonel Murray Sanders had no idea about Unit 731’s existence when he came to Yokohama in 1945. It was only after he threatened the Japanese with Soviet involvement that they produced their studies in the “art” of biological warfare. When that was passed on to General Douglas MacArthur, he ensured that some of the physicians of Unit 731 were granted immunity so that the great United States of America could learn from all the data they had collected by torturing humans. It was only after news of experimentations that were conducted on American pilots reached their ears that they indicted some of them. 

There’s much, much more to what went down in Unit 731. All the information is available to the public. If I keep talking about them, I think I am going to lose my mind. In conclusion, I’ll say this: we have learned nothing from history. Humans are incapable of empathy. We have so many instances of man-made atrocities. Yet, we continue to repeat history as if we’ll get a do-over. There are no second chances. We get one chance and one chance only. If we spend that on wars, genocides, and acts that will make horror movies look tame in comparison, then we don’t deserve this planet that gives us everything we need to live a sustainable lifestyle. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Site. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.