D*MNIT Donnie Darko, last time.

[FS]

ok, ok, before you rip my head off. A couple of days ago Donnie Darko was on TV and I just had to watch it a second time. It's not underrated. It's not known to a select few people. It's certainly not i-get-knocked-down-but-i-get-up-again cult. 80% of the Internet thinks they're smarter, better people for having seen it, and they're probably idiots.

I enjoyed the movie for the most part. I thought the characters were likeable and funny and the more bizarre scenes were handled well. But I want to know, once and for all, if the ending makes any damn sense as it is, if you need some extra information (which, of course, you shouldn't) to make sense of it, or whether it's really just self-indulgent smoke people are somehow blowing up their own asses.

Everytime the movie gets discussed, all you end up with is a thread full of people either saying it sucked or people putting their nose in the air and telling other people they don't understand its many facets and layers, without saying WHAT they don't understand.


NOW. What I basically don't get about the ending. I assume that Donnie zipping back to the moment the plane engine fell on his house is something he learned from the book about time travel. But what is the purpose of his death? Does it somehow close the wormhole or whatever hovering over his house, eventually becoming the vortex you see over the town at the end, which possibly destroys the world? And if yes, how? What's Frank's purpose? Him calling Donnie out of bed merely sets the events in motion that get him killed, and possibly triggers the end of the world.

I've looked into the little webgame on donniedarko.com, and while it's amusing for the same reasons the movie is, it barely helped me make sense of the ending.

OK, now hold back the condescension or the need to say the movie sucked, and just help me out here.

(THEN I'll have the thread locked, deleted and dropped from a plane over the ocean, I promise)

[MetalMilitia]

Your not supposed to get the ending you are just supposed to say that you do. Like...
1 "yea i get it"
2 "so whats it all about?"
1 "uhhhh, its complicated. Watch it again and you'll understand"

Then everyone thinks your totally intellegent.

The only people who understand it have been smoking copious ammounts of marjuana and are already quite sketched out by a fierce looking dog on the way home... or something.

But anyway, yea i totally got it. Just watch it a few more times and you will too.

[Karl Hungus]

this should clear things up, i didn't really understand the ending until i read this on the DVD extras.

http://www.tangent-universe.org/dump/time_travel.html

[Rongi]

i think donnie was supposed to die and frank making him come out to the front yard was not supposed to happen and maybe frank was bitter that he died so he haunted donnie and thus set in motion the end of the world.

I'm probably very wrong but hey at least i have yet to mention my utter hatred of this movie.

[James]

I'll take this from Movie Mistakes:

Q. Why does Frank go back in time anyway, if it will result in him dying(saving Donnie) and how did HE time-travel? And why does he urge Donnie to do all those violent things?

A. Frank never goes back in time. In a special feature on the DVD called The Philosophy of Time Travel, there is an extensive discussion of what happens when an object slips out of the proper time continuum through randomly occurring portals. Forces exist to ensure that the object has a human guardian, whose responsibility it is to return the object to a portal in time that will send it back to the proper continuum, often sacrificing the life of the guardian. Frank, in the movie, is both a rather unimportant human figure and the adopted face of the force guiding Donnie to his destiny (returning the airplane engine) that exists outside of either time continuum and can speak to the inhabitants at will. The only thing he directly tells Donnie to do is to burn down Cunningham's house, which results in Cunningham's trial and causes Rose to take Kitty's place escorting the dance team to LA, and Rose chooses to take an earlier flight home. This is the only way the airplane engine would have been in the portal to be returned to the proper continuum. The other violent things Donnie did were merely satisfying his own issues with school, his girlfriend, and her death.

[FS]

I still think there's something off there. Cause whoever gets on the plane that loses the engine doesn't friggin matter. The plane's still going to make the same flight and lose the same engine in the same place. Planes aren't cabs that wait for specific people to get on them.

Next to that, Donnie's death is meaningless. An airplane engine STILL fell on his house, and that engine STILL doesn't belong in the time and space it's in. If it's object he's supposed to return to its proper time, well, he didn't do it.

The whole thing might've made sense if in the timeframe and area where the engine fell into the wormhole, Donnie's survival caused that plane to never take off, creating a destructive paradox due to an object that should never exist.

Frank's character just seems like a weird idea shooting far past its purpose. I've read the stuff about the Manipulated Dead, and whichever way you look at it, he calls Donnie out of bed and sets everything in motion.

graah, if I think about it too long it's going to start pissing me off too. I like the fact that there's people thinking up new ways to approach time travel, but they shouldn't screw it up like this.

[executioneer]

since he died, his mom and sister do not continue on with the dancing competition (being sad) and therefore are not on the plane when it gets crashed

[executioneer]

whoops wtf i did not read the bottom part of this thread?

[executioneer]

man what i dont get is why everyone thinks THIS movie is hard to wrap up how everything works but terminator 2 everyone just accepted

[MetalMilitia]

whats confuseing about terimator 2?

- John connor sends a robot back in time to protect himself coincidentally at the same time as skynet sends a smiliar robot to kill him.

-The whole situation unfolds, climaxing in a steel works where both robots get melted.

-The end

[executioneer]

what about skynet getting created from the technology from the first terminator that got crushed

what about john connor only getting born because he sent someone back in time to protect his mom

[MetalMilitia]

:/ it *kind of* makes sense. Seeing as how no one knows how time travel really works they can pretty much make it up as they go along.

[FS]

I think Terminator's time travel is easier to just take for granted because it relies on more generic time-travel-in-movies concepts. Those "future person must do something to the past or he'll never have existed" loops make no sense, but they've been done so much you no longer question it.

Like how people in movies have a conversation over the phone, and the other person hangs up, and the one person keeps saying their name. WTF, do they not hear the click and the dial tone?

[executioneer]

Originally Posted by MetalMilitia

:/ it *kind of* makes sense. Seeing as how no one knows how time travel really works they can pretty much make it up as they go along.

and thats the explanation to the end of donny darko, good night

[FS]

THREAD LOCKED

[the_dudefather]

Originally Posted by MetalMilitia

whats confuseing about terimator 2?

- John connor sends a robot back in time to protect himself coincidentally at the same time as skynet sends a smiliar robot to kill him.

-The whole situation unfolds, climaxing in a steel works where both robots get melted.

-The end

hate to reply in a locked thread, but in theory skynet could have sent their robot back years later (and the human resistance vice versa), as the destination was the same. but why they were sent back on the same date, its as if that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance. Almost as if it were the junction point for the entire space-time continuum. On the other hand, it could just be an amazing coincidence

great scott!

[MetalMilitia]

Damnit, im going to have to watch the film again and see if at any point they mention why its that exact date... Im sure they mention why at some point. like a 2 second sentance from arnie shortly after he meets john connor. :/

[Perndog]

Ahem.

Here's what I got out of the ending of Donnie Darko. I saw it a few months ago.

When Donnie unnaturally walks out in the middle of the night and lives, all sorts of bad shit happens and it's all at least indirectly because of him. I think his girlfriend dies at the end or something.

So Donnie goes back to bed and bites it like a good little boy so no one else dies.

The end.

Does there really need to be more analysis than that?

[executioneer]

i think the real question everyon is asking is "why the time traveling jet engine"

[MetalMilitia]

It would have been way better if a T1000 fell through the roof :/

[executioneer]

hahahaha yeah

[James]

Originally Posted by executioneer

i think the real question everyon is asking is "why the time traveling jet engine"

And the point of the jet engine's travel, a wormhole had opened up, which is what caused the jet engine to be sent back, and destroy Donnie's room.

The theory I believe this movie suggests, is that points in time -and all their alternative possibilities- loop endlessly, which would explain Frank the bunny. He is a product of an alternate time loop.

Presumably, the jet engine also falls into that time loop. But the wormhole caused the engine to fall into an alternate route. And going by what I previously posted, it's a seriously of alternate realities and time loops that come together to cause the engine to crash in Donnie's room, to cause Frank to save Donnie's life, and the eventually kill Donnie to close the wormhole that Donnie's life being spared opened in the first place.

The wormhole could presumably opened because, in the time loop of Donnie's life, his life being saved from the engine from the future crashing into his room is what caused the wormhole to begin with. He was working outside of the fabric of time, which caused the wormhole, which caused the jet engine to fall through time, which caused Frank to save him, which caused Donnie to be working outside the fabric of time. It's a cycle that doesn't end, until something happens to change it (or UNchange it, as the case may be).

Time travel doesn't make any sense, and that's pretty much the bottom line. Donnie Darko is a movie that tried to make sense of it without making TOO much sense, and that's the end of that.

[Skulhedface]

If you want a long, almost scientific explanation about Terminator, go to this site. You have to bother with a lot of speculation, but it works. The same site has things on Donnie Darko as well, FS, if you're interested.

In the meantime, my take on the ending of the movie was quite simple: Frank told Donnie the world would end in 28 days. Donnie lived through those 28 days and at the end ends up travelling back to the night the engine crashed in his room. Donnie stays in bed and dies. Time paradox. World ends. End of fucking gothic fanboy speculation.

[opel]

And the point of the James socks, a wormhole had opened up, which is what caused one sock to be sent back, and destroy James brain.

The theory I believe this movie suggests, is that points in time -and all their alternative possibilities- loop endlessly, which would explain Frank the bunny ate my sock. He is a product of an alternate time loop.

Presumably, the missing sock also falls into that time loop. But the wormhole caused the other sock to fall into an alternate route. And going by what I previously posted, it's a seriously of alternate realities and time loops that come together to cause the missing sock to crash in James room, to cause James to put the remaining sock on his penis, and the eventually kill Donnie to close the wormhole that Donnie's life being spared opened in the first place.

The wormhole could presumably opened because, in the time loop of Donnie's life, his life being saved from the penis from the future crashing into his room is what caused the wormhole to begin with. He was working outside of the fabric of time, which caused the wormhole, which caused the missing sock to fall through time, which caused James to save him, which caused Donnie to be working outside the fabric sock of time. It's a cycle that doesn't end, until something happens to change it (or UNchange it, as the case may be).

putting a sock on my penis doesn't make any sense, and that's pretty much the bottom line. Donnie Darko is a movie that tried to make sense of it without making TOO much sense, and that's the end of that.

[executioneer]

whao are we talking about the same movie