Ok, now, not very many movies have the capacity to go completly over my head, but somehow, this movie has succeded. After watching the movie, I don’t get any of it. Not a single bit of it, none of it made sense. So, if someone would be so kind as to expalin it to me, I’d be pretty grateful.
There are many different interpretations as to what the movie was about. I recommend going to the site www.donniedarko.com
It’s extremely hard to navigate, but you should follow through and read the Philosophy of Time Travel. It kind of fits everyone into place of who was who. Donnie Darko is not a movie you can understand the first time around. Certainly watching it more than 5 times if you’re an avid fan and willing to understand will make you grasp the concept, but if you’re fed up with it you wont get it.
To sum it up, DD is about self enlightenment, the hidden subtext. Is there really a divine being?What is death? You can tell Donnie gets “enlightened” at the end where he is in his bed after he reversed time and chooses to die .
Long spoilers for anyone who has not seen the movie
I could go on, if you wish, but to explain Donnie Darko is very difficult. He is a boy that had 4th dimensional powers, and could control time. At the beginning of the movie, there is an unstable universe that is created on the night of october 2nd. As soon as Donnie falls asleep, the real world, called the Primary Universe crosses paths with a Tangent Universe, an unstable dimension that is due to collapse in 28 days, bringing everyone in the world with it. Donnie doesn’t know he can manipulate the TU, and shut it down, thus bringing time back to the real world where no one will be harmed.
The Tangent Universe is created when a jet engine falls into Donnie’s room-no one know’s where it came from. It came from another universe thus causing the disturbance. Donnie, unknowingly prepares to lead his world back into the Primary Universe with the help of his teacher’s, Gretchen, Living/Dead Frank and Grandma Death. He must learn about his “destiny” to control time warps to collapse the Tangent back into the Primary (which he does, in the end, as everything reverses) and he either 1) chooses to die as he may know he will get crushed or 2) he has no memory of what could’ve happened and has no idea he is about to die. I prefer to think of the first because it goes along with Donnie’s character. That’s why he laughs. He’s prepared to face death.
I could explain in more detail. Maybe this helps?
That does help, however, all this stuff about Tangent and Primary universes doesn’t sound like it was in the movie. When did they talk about this?
This website is fucked up.
They didn’t…apparently you have to make the most out of it first time around. It’s stupid if you ask me, you absolutely will not understand who the Manipulated Living/Dead are, what the P/T universes are, unless you listen to the director’s commentary in the DVD or go to the site and figure it out for yourself. I was confused first time around and read some Donnie Darko message boards and lurked as people theorized and debated over every little thing in the movie,s o that’s how I picked up on the terms.
I don’t know how you could understand the Primary and Tangent universe either if you just simple watched it…they don’t mention it, but some hints are picked up if you listen to Donnie and his Science teacher.
I understand it because I tend to understand time fuck ups like that. What happend was the tangent universe seperated from the primary universe, and then the movie starts (basically).
So were the spherical trails the future movements of those people? If so, why did Donnie go for the gun in the first place?
AH good you can make something of my ramblings:yipee:
The movie started with Donnie sleepwalking, something he does periodically and then that night when he goes to sleep, Donnie’s sister, Elizabeth, gets home after her boyfriend (which is Frank when he’s alive) drops her off. After Frank drives away, he honks his horn, “waking” Donnie up, and he begins to sleep walk…I THINK…I haven’t watched this in awhile, but Living Frank had something to do with waking Donnie up, apparently, so that he moves and doesn’t get killed.
A Tangent Universe in the movie, is created when a large, metallic craft (the jet engine) loses course and goes into a porthole, creating an unstable universe, which was the Tangent. This happened on October 2nd, and everything that happened after that, was in the Tangent universe. Since Donnie reversed time in the end, everything that happened after that, did not actually happen.
Yes, the orbs that flew out of their bodies were a self projection, Donnie’s therapist confirms this when she looks over the book.Donnie went for the gun, because someone, probably Frank summoned him up into the bedroom, to get the gun.
Without the gun, Frank would not have died, and would not have come back in his costume to “guide” Donnie to his “destiny”. There is one big chain reaction in the whole movie- when Donnie receives the book. Without the book, he wouldn’t have written the letter to Sparrow, and Sparrow would not have been standing out in the middle of the road. She was, and (living)Frank swerved to avoid hitting her (something he wouldn’t have done if Donnie didn’t send the letter to Sparrow) and gretchen wouldn’t have been killed, which wouldn’t have prompted Donnie to kill Frank and he would not have come back to taunt and help Donnie.
Apparently Frank is a messenger of God, and he was the one who guided Donnie to the room. You see a hand out of one of these orbs. It was Frank.
On this website, I got to the part about the plane, and then suddenly Caller #1 is gone. What happend to him?
And how do you figure that Frank is a messenger of god?
The movie had the divine intervention theme. That was half of Donnie’s battle, thinking if there is a God or not. Some things in the movie can’t be explained and are credited to some sort of higher being helping Donnie. Now, that may seem like a weak excuse, but EVERYTHING in this movie is linked and everyone does/ says something for a reason…to say they just left a plot hole is very odd…so I think the director was implying that some sort of higher being wanted to help Donnie.
And in the extended DVD version Frank was talking about God and how He loved his children, so in a sense, it was implied that Frank was sent from God.
On the site, with the caller things, I never really understood that. They are just three men I believe from different nations discussion where the jet engine came from and it is highly top secret…I never listened to it all, I explored the other regions of the site. If I remember correctly, if you’re ever lost, or someone wants to check it out, the passwords are Sparrow, Ling(ling?) Rose and Breath(e). I forget which ones go to which levels.
I got everything just fine, and I only saw it once. I guess I just have more knowledge on temporal paradox than I thought.
You’re lucky. It screwed the hell out of my mind the first time.
Its hard screwing somthing up thats allready screwed up to scew up with in the first place.
Yea, I got all the passwords. I guess I explored the whole site.
So, I guess I need to watch the DVD…
Yeah the DVD ties up a bit of loose ends. There are two DVD versions I think, I have the shitty one and it doesn’t explain a whole lot…but you get to see deleted scenes and see how Donnie died, etc.
Dude- Donny Darko is one of my favorite movies- and I got it the first time I watched it. 
Of course, I don’t have as much understanding as some people do of the film- because its heavily tied to quantum physics (bleeeeh).
I don’t think its best to spoil it for you, but everything in the movie has a purpose.
And besides that point- I loved it when Donny spoke out during the motivational seminar. I SHOVE FEAR UP YOUR ASSSSS!
On a side not, that Fear/Love scale is taught in some high schools in our country. Sad, no?
I saw the movie a while ago, and I thought I understood it, but I may not of. I had a different interpertation of it…hmm, I’ll just have to watch it again.
lol, my favorite line was, “With all due respect sir, I think you’re the fucking anti-christ.”