Dokumanju 0 Posted February 21, 2003 Share Posted February 21, 2003 (LOTSA SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD, DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE) I watched this film a few nights ago and my mind has been ALIVE since. it's got to be the best mind warping movie i've seen in a long time. I can't stop thinking about it. Anybody else got a theory about what happened? i went to the site www.donniedarko.com (it messes u around as well) and i've kind of formulated an idea about what happened but i wouldn't mind hearing other people's theories first. So, doozo, lemme hear ya thoughts. Link to post Share on other sites
batty 0 Posted February 21, 2003 Share Posted February 21, 2003 I think they all went on a trip to London at the end. And then missed the flight! It would have helped if they had logged off before they did that though. Shucks! Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted February 22, 2003 Share Posted February 22, 2003 ??? Batty? Yeah I love that movie. A definite favorite. I don't really understand where your confusion comes in though. It seems pretty resolved to me at the end. I recommend watching the DVD commentary for more insight into what is going on. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted February 22, 2003 Share Posted February 22, 2003 Great flick that one. I want to see it again. I did have the dvd but didn't watch any of the extras. It is a bit of a spin out, especially the last 20 or so mins. Yeah i thought it finished quite neatly. How they got there was weird though. Link to post Share on other sites
Dokumanju 0 Posted February 22, 2003 Author Share Posted February 22, 2003 i think batty's post got mixed up and sent to this topic by mistake. He's prolly wondering where the hell his post has gone. As for the movie, i think it was purposely made to be intepreted in many ways. This is what i thought. 1) in the movie, fate is pre-determined. Donnie was supposed to die on oct 2nd but Frank wakes him up and he doesn't. this is the start of the tangent universe. 2) The time limit is how much time until the universe will end. The normal universe and tangent universe can co-exist for a while. The universe is also not a perfect place and sumtimes things like this pop up every now and again. jet engines fall out of the sky on the wrong date. Or was Frank just pulling donnie's chain? was the end of thw world just the end of donnie's personal world ie his mum, sister, Gf and frank dies or everybodys ie everybody dies? 3) The jet engine is the artifact/vessel. 4) Donnie is the living receiver. 5) Frank is the manipulated dead. manipulated by who? god? Roberta sparrow mentioned to donnie that we all die alone. Did she mean that there is no god? 6) Frank wants donnie to go back in time and die on his bed, thus not creating the tangent in the first place and making everything okay. Or was the only thing that travelled thru time the jet engine? 7) Donnie = jesus? 8) Vanity smurf = gay? 9) Am i reading way too much into this movie? I think i am. i don't have the dvd so i have no idea what was on the cut scenes/commentary. Would appreciate it sumone could enlighten me. This is starting to get obsessive, i think i have to sit down and watch the movie again. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted February 22, 2003 Share Posted February 22, 2003 Doku - like i said i haven't watched the extras so i cant help you out there. I too thought about the tangent universe idea. It is definatley a movie that can be interpreted many ways. I'm still a bit confused about Frank. I was thinking that the human Frank resides in one universe while the imaginery friend Frank is in the other universe. I am sure there is more to the character Frank, but i can't for the life of me figure it out. I think your first point is what most people understand to be the meaning. I think the count down was to the end of Donnie's universe, not the rest of the universe. It was a personnal countdown. Donnie = Jesus? I'm interested in this idea. Care to eloborate. I loved the talk about the Smurf's in the movie. Great stuff!! I'm going to have to go and get the dvd again i think, Link to post Share on other sites
amandanism 0 Posted February 22, 2003 Share Posted February 22, 2003 havnt seen it myself (probably should) but im definetley getting my friend the dvd for her birthday, shes always raving about it. Link to post Share on other sites
sam_casper 0 Posted February 23, 2003 Share Posted February 23, 2003 I dont know that i could say much more than it was ODD. good but ODD...??? i think i too need to see it again! Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted February 24, 2003 Share Posted February 24, 2003 About your points Doku - 1. exactly 2. yes. good question but I think it was the end of the entire universe unless he set it back. 3. Is the vessel the plane or the engine. Even after things get set back the engine still falls. 4. Please explain more. 5. Frank could be anyone - the fact he is a 6 foot rabbit is an allusion that works well as a story telling device but isn't important to the theory. There is definitley a lot of speculation about the existence of god related to predetermined "destiny." 6. That's kind of the big unrevealed thing. How does taking Gretchen (sigh...) to the mountain at that time fix things. Did he never really have a choice. Did he just have to make the most of his time before the clock ticked down? Did any of that time really matter? Did he travel back at the end? Was the Donnie laying in bed the same Donnie that had lived throught that entire time period? 7. Another allusion maybe but I think it may be going a little far. 8. I thought Donnie explained it well enough. 9. No, there is a lot more even. This is a brilliant movie. Link to post Share on other sites
Dokumanju 0 Posted February 25, 2003 Author Share Posted February 25, 2003 okay, about the donnie=jesus thing. First of all, donnie sacrifices himself so that everybody else could go on living. Secondly, there's this idea the old lady puts in his head about dying alone. try to imagine it from donnie's point of view and u can see the jesusy "into your arms i commit my spirit...why have u forsaken me?" idea that god's doing an "omakase" on Donnie. Thats where i got the jesus reference from. Might be just me tho. About the living receptor - have a look at the official site. It shows sum of the pages from the "philosophy of time travel" book and it's mentioned in there. As for vanity smurf...if vanity's as bent as a fish hook, how does the dude get his rocks off? there must be other gay smurfs who just haven't outted themselves. My vote goes to handy smurf, the tat and the buff, manly voice he does just totally gives it away. as for taking gretchen up the mountain near the end...who knows? i don't have a theory there. another thing i'm confused about is the time travel thing. Did any time travelling actually take place? Was the whole movie just donnie seeing the future and the consequence of him not dying? Donnie and monitoff were having a conversation about time travel and that time travel required some sort of vessel. if the vessel is the plane engine, did it travel thru time? it still fell at the same time in the real universe. But the site tells u that there are two identical engines therefore making the engine that landed on donnie's house the engine from the plane in the tangent universe. so donnie, after reading the book on time travel, works out how to manipulate the engine to travel back 28 days and have it appear in the real universe. is that what happened in the end? I'm still confused. but it was a great movie. Did anybody else get into the tears for fears laden sound track? Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 Christ! After reading these posts in this thread im getting myself more confused now. More ideas and theories to think about. I like the jesus/donnie link. I had a chat to a guy at work about it. He had heard of that theory as well. So its not just you. I'm not sure about the taking of the girl up the mountain either. not sure what thats all about. Pretty cool view from up there though. How did he know to go to the mountain to see it all??? I think Donnie must have time travelled at some point because we (the viewer) saw the plane engine fall through the roof twice. So at some point Donnie must skip back so that he can get into bed as the engine falls the second time. Damn, im really going to have to watch it again and watch the special features as well. My mind feels like a pretzel! The soundtrack was great, very different. I wasn't expecting it at all. It really helped to give the movie a unique feel to it. So can anyone explain to me the two Frank's? Because that is what really has me scratching my melon. There is an imaginery one that only Donnie can see, and then towards the end there is Frank - but a really person. And the imaginery and the real Franks both look the same under the costume. So whats the deal? Link to post Share on other sites
neversummer 0 Posted February 25, 2003 Share Posted February 25, 2003 I might sound like an idiot but i was absolutely lost in that movie..and that why i loved it! it made me think so much about what was going on and that make a movie so much better than all the Sci-Fi, computer graphics, plot as thin as fishing wire movies out there now. Frank????? Link to post Share on other sites
Dokumanju 0 Posted February 26, 2003 Author Share Posted February 26, 2003 hey snobofreak, one frank has a hole in his eye from where donnie shot(or stabbed?) him. I'm not going to get into which one he is tho... Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted February 26, 2003 Share Posted February 26, 2003 yeah, the imaginery Frank has a hole in his eye where Donnie stabbed him but the "real" Frank doesn't. Is there a connection between the two Frank's? Is it that Frank is different in the tangent universe than he is in the other universe? The real Frank doesn't show any of the injuries that the imaginery one does (i dont think). Link to post Share on other sites
enderzero 0 Posted February 26, 2003 Share Posted February 26, 2003 Donnie shot Frank, he didn't stab him. The stabbing in the bathroom is just foreshadowing the shooting. This Frank materializes (it isn't really Frank) when the countdown begins to guide Donnie to do whatever it is he needs to do for whatever reason. I tend to think it is Donnie's "illness" or subconscious that is directing him - maybe some kind of higher thinking. It is this Frank personification that is calling Donnie out of the house (the sleepwalking). He wakes up at the top of the mountain at the beginning of the movie, showing him where the event will happen. Then this subconscious draws him out of the house before the disaster. The plane engine definitely traveled back through time. His mom and sister are on the plane on their way back from LA when it hits the worm hole, sending the engine back in time and through the roof. It is unrevealed and confusing as to whether the Donnie at the end is aware of the past month. But the interaction between Gretchen and Donnie's mom at the end shows how the worlds are interconnected. Maybe that Donnie just knew everything was all right now before going to bed. BTW Dokumanju - you should edit the first post of this thread to say MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD so as not to ruin this movie for anyone that hasn't seen it. Link to post Share on other sites
Dokumanju 0 Posted February 26, 2003 Author Share Posted February 26, 2003 An even greater mystery is what is batty talking about? oh yeh, thanx for the heads up ender. Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Ender - the bathroom stabbing was the one i was talking about. OK, now what i don't get is why and how Donnie is able to "imagine" Frank when he hasn't even encountered the real Frank? Donnie sees Frank quite early on in the movie but he doesn't actually meet him till near the end. It is just complete conincidence that they are identical? Or is this connected to the time travel thing? Even though time travel isn't in the start of the movie. (i think??) I think that Donnie does have knowledge of what has happened in the last month. Isn't that why he got into at the end? - So that he could undo everything that had happened? he must have had knowledge of what happened or he wouldn't bother killing himself. Well thats what i thought anyway! Link to post Share on other sites
danz 0 Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 jesus....what a trip... just watched the movie, and have been screwing around on that site...major mind f$#"! what is going on???? need sleep... danz Link to post Share on other sites
sam_casper 0 Posted February 27, 2003 Share Posted February 27, 2003 Awsome website!! Link to post Share on other sites
fukdane 2 Posted March 23, 2003 Share Posted March 23, 2003 Saw it yesterday. Strange. Enjoyed it though. Link to post Share on other sites
IIIII 2 Posted April 3, 2003 Share Posted April 3, 2003 I just saw that too. . serious wierdfest. Link to post Share on other sites
DrEvil 0 Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 I watched it last night. What is it? Pretty wierd...seen the website too?! Link to post Share on other sites
snowboard_freak 0 Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 Yep, the website is definatley a headf**k. Crazy. Link to post Share on other sites
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