::: Annie Frisbie
A disturbed student walks into the light. ::: Click here to read the full text.
lol, there isn't a donnie "in the past" there's 1 donnie and 2 universes. Since Donnie traveled back to the past, the mom isn't on the airplane anymore. He traveled back in time when the mom was still in the house, like how it showed at the start. The point is that everything in the tangent universe leads to that piece of the plane falling, leading to Donnie's choice of saving the universe. Since they traveled back in time, they still don't know where that part of the plane came from because it came from the tangent universe's future. You say you understand that they traveled back in time at the end of your post, yet don't understand that they did at the start... :P
wait? if donnies mom was on the air plane that same morning donnie died why is she still alive when u see donnies body goin in to the ambulance? isnt that part of the airplane that donnies mom was on? and if it was then why do they say they dont know where it came from? im confused off this whole movie i even whent on the web site. and stoped at the phone call cause it ends with "donnie time is up" or something like that. i even read the book sparrow wrote i understand what the charaters stand for acording to the book. but when he time travels back he laughs?cause hes goin to die... but then again wasnt there sapouse to be another donnie already in the past??? u see one donnie but if u think about it the donnie from the persent gose to the past, right.. so then wheres the one already in the past?
I have learned more by reading these frighteningly insightful responses to my favorite movie of all times. I feel like I have been mistaken all along. Being a psychology major, and having personal insight into the matter...I related on a psychological level to Donnie's hallucinations and grandiose ideas as symptoms of a biochemical/psychological journey. I didn't put together this or that timeline, and never thought to make sense of it chronologically or with respect to different ideologies. I just know that this movie is the only moving image I could honestly say depicts my thought process in a very beautiful tale. the hallucination of frank, and then the imminent plans for the future, the involvement of the government with the plane crash (the man in the silver space suit, the CIA looking men in dark glasses and suits) are all very loaded images for me and for those who suffer from thought disorders. The government, the future, time in general, ideologies, and the old existential dilemma all come to a screeching roar in my mind when I reach a psychotic peak in my thinking. These types of stories run rampant in my head and those that have the same disorder as I do. I only thought that the cycle at the end where Donnie ends up in his bed, and seem to die--and how that doesn't fit with the tangent universe, etc. I thought that they did that to have a creative ending because they could not explain the thought process of Donnie, and that his fictitious thoughts were the main point of the whole story! I thought the book, the time travel, and all of that were simply superfluous additions to create some distractions from his painfully obvious battle with paranoid schizophrenia. I think everyone must take what they want to out of this movie, and for me I guess that it is much more important to see a beautiful portrait of some of the journeys my mind and others like me have taken. I loved Donnie's rants in public about the absurdity of everything, and his lucid depiction of what ACTUALLY is going on. Sometimes people say that the depressed or mentally disturbed become overwrought because they overthink or have a much more realistic perception of what is happening. sometimes that is essentially what is going on.
I really want to meet the director/writer of this film.
Kim
I must say i just re-watched the movie and in a way, i think it's good they left some of the obvious stuf out because then you do this research and learn more and whole communities and develope about therioes of the film. that, and it makes people think.
It seems to me that the research serves the same purpose as the info in the director's cut. It really helps to see the main timeline of the movie as the tangent universe, though.
Jim
Actually, I've heard from someone that they are pissed about the book being in the Director's Cut because it makes the movie too obvious. I didn't think it was obvious at all though, still took a lot of thinking and a little research. :)
That's pretty sad, though, isn't it? That they cut the part that makes the movie make sense? :)
Jim
To everyone whose confused about the movie, in the Director's cut it shows parts of the "Philosophy of Time Travel" (which can be found online@http://www.tonystuff.co.uk/darko-time.htm). Read it and the whole movie makes sense. I'll answer the questions about the ENGINE:
"Artifacts provide first sign that a Tangent Universe has occured."
The engine is the artifact.
"The Living Receiver is chosen to guide the Artifact into position for its journey back to the Primary Universe. "
Donnie is the living receiver and so the whole movie is in the TANGENT universe until the end, which is when Donnie uses his special abilities to bring the artifact(engine) back to the primary universe. There were 2 engines in the TU because it was brought from the PU.
All the other characters in the movie are manipulated living (teachers, Gretchen, etc...) and frank is the manipulated dead.
what is th level 1 password for the donnie arko website??? i cant figure it out and its driving me niuts! If anyone could help id be much obliged! anyways its driving me nuts!!!!
Picture a perfectly straight horizontal line. That's the main timeline that we witness in the movie. Now go about 2/3 of the way down the line, and picture a branch shooting up at about a 45 degree angle from the main line. That's timeline number 2.
Now picture that one exact point where the split occurs. That's the moment the engine falls into Donnie's room. So it is the only event that's common to both timelines -- it can be the beginning of timeline 2 and still be caused by events in the future of timeline 1.
There is still a problem, though -- Donnie himself. If Donnie is in his bed when the engine hits the house, there should be a past Donnie who is outside the bed at the same time. In other words, if Donnie physically traveled back in time in timeline 1, then at the one point where the timelines diverge there should be two Donnies. But the movie doesn't say that -- it shows Donnie's family grieving his death.
So Donnie's time travel couldn't be physical. He had to tell himself to stay in bed somehow. In that case, when picturing the line, you'd have to imagine that the main, straight line after the divergent point disappears, and all that's left is the main, straight line up to the branch, and then the main line only follows the branch. This would be really changing the past, then, in that it only allows one timeline to exist at a time.
Clear as mud :).
Jim
Thanks much for the responses. I think authorial intent in films is even more complicated than authorial intent in novels, because a novel is pretty much the product of just the author (editors influence to varying degrees, but sometimes not at all), while films are always collaborative efforts. The Director guides and funnels these efforts -- is something like the controlling genius -- but the control is not absolute. At any rate, there's a great deal that's been said about the fallacy of authorial intent from a number of sources. It's probably not worth it to try to repeat this argument here. But intentional arguments just don't hold water -- the director may have intended a certain impression, but that's no guarantee that he/she pulled it off.
I agree with you that time, in the film, was not linear but branching. The problem is, both timelines had an engine falling into Donnie's room -- that was the divergent point. One time line took off from that point with Donnie staying alive. That's the timeline we witnessed. It's a closed loop so far as Donnie is concerned, because when the wormhole opens he travels back.
The second timeline took off from that point with Donnie dying. It is open -- there are no more controls on it.
And since both timelines had an engine falling into Donnie's room, both timelines had a wormhole sucking the engine from the future into the past at that point.
Okay...let's go with what you said. The engine being ripped off the plane is part of the first timeline. That is right. The first timeline is what we see in the movie.
Wait...wait...I think I can work this out.
I wish I could put images in this freaking message board :).
Two Engines?
My comment on your comment on the plane engine is that it was -shown- being blown off in the first timeline (presumably a Tangent Universe) and the web site lets us know that the same accident did not take place in the second timeline (The Primary Universe). If that is the case then the picture it paints is not time as a straight line that is being jumped back and forth on, but time that is shaped like a branch with finite tangent lines coming off of the Primary Universe timeline.
But this still begs the question, if in the primary timeline on October 2, 1988 two of the exact engines same exist, the what the hell? If a tangent timeline is created and some of the matter from the second timeline interacts or jumps over to the primary timeline via wormhole or startrekian transporter or something, then matter has been created from nothing. Does matter double when the timelines diverge? If matter cannot be created from nothing, but for an act of God (who is presumably the guy that created matter from nothing in the first place) just making little tangent universes as a hobby?
And as for your question about Frank, I have been thinking about that, but I gotta go feed my son so that will have to wait.
Ginger... shoulda read past chapter 4 of A Brief History of Time.... Taylor
To Web or Not To Web:
I guess that we just differ in how we interpret films. I look at them a product of their creator and as such, we the viewers can discuss and imbue all the meaning that we want to, but I see the final interpretation and explanation belonging to the writer/director. He created this universe and he can explain it or not explain it as he wishes.
I think it is important to give a creator license to comment on his own work because in the film industry it is pretty much impossible for a writer to actually get his story onto theater screens for people to see. We all know how money, politics and egos do a great deal to change a movie from what it was intended to be.
Now IMHO we can always choose to reject any elaboration on the original film (in whatever form it comes in, an interview with the writer, a web site from the production company, a sequel, etc.) if it does turn out to be "BS" and is not in keeping with the movie.
In this case, the web site adds just a little bit more to our understanding of the of what was going on in the film with out betraying it. It gives us some text from the book that Donnie was so influenced by, which is really helpful in understanding why he acted the way he did, and gave context for the letter he wrote to Roberta Sparrow. It also gave us a small epilogue in the form of a phone conversation between aviation officials about the plane. This gives us a clue of how the film portrays time travel working, and actually opens up more questions for discussion about how a Tangent Universe interacts with the Primary Universe.
I think that the web site is especially relevant in this case as making another movie to comment on the first would be a stunning feat since the movie lost four million dollars in its first release :) Since they went ahead and blew a few grand more on top of that in a web site, might as well pay attention to it.
cont...
Oh, nonono....
The website is irrelevant, all we have is the movie. They can say all they want, but if they didn't make it part of the movie, then it's not in there :). There's what the movie as a completed product means, and then there are the blanks everyone likes to fill in around it. What the movie creators have to say about the blanks is interesting and important, but it's not controlling. Otherwise, authors would be able to make up all kinds of BS about what they wrote after the fact.
If they want to do this, then let me make another movie :).
See, you can SAY the plane was on the ground all you want, but the movie deliberately left the impression the plane was in the air when the engine was torn off -- in fact, the movie -showed- the plane in the air when the engine was torn off, and led you to believe it was the plane that Donnie's mother was in. So if they're trying to say they intended it to be two different engines, then the film wasn't conceived or executed very well.
The rabbit being Frank after his death is pretty plausible, but what does that explain? Why was the rabbit doing these things, then?
Jim
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WHOA! Donnie didn't travel himself back in time. If you carefully read the "Philosophy of Time Travel" the Living Reciever is chosen to GUIDE the Artifact into position for its journey back to the primary universe. He doesn't travel himself so there aren't TWO Donnies in the primary Universe.