Donnie Darkie-give me an explanation

Maybe because there is no such thing as time travel dumb ass.

You have to read extra stuff online in order to understand the movie, which in my opinion is its biggest flaw. My solution is this: don't try to understand it, just enjoy the images, the characters, and the basic concepts of time travel/fate and how they could possibly interact with our world.

It's such a crap, it starts as a Lynch rip off and then the directors turn it into a stupid story about time travel and parallel universes.

bascially ima explain this as easily as possible

when the engine lands in his room it rips open a worm hole that creates a "gateway" to the "other universe" that exists.

after a certain period (the time given to him by the rabbit) is when the worm hole will destroy both universes.

so in order to close the worm hole he must follow certain paths that will lead him to travel back in time, and in order for the worm hole to completely shut he needs to die when he heads back in time, sort of a sacrifice.

so he does things like flood the school so that he can meet his girlfriend which is one of those paths he must take and etc etc.

eventually he follows these paths which allow his girlfriend to be killed by frank so that he ends up killin him (who is also the rabbit from the parallel universe who tells him to take those certain paths)

Frank must die and so must Donnie because they are the only two beings who are able to interact with eachother from different universes. So there needs to be a balance or something along those lines and so one frank and one donnie needs to die. sort of like highlander, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!

so donnie kills frank, and goes to see the plane his mom is on (which she had to get on the plane instead of that one lady because she stayed behind to testify for that child pornographer who donnie burned his house down) and the mom must be the one to be in the plane cause the plane would hit the worm hole and cause time to travel back and the person in the "time travelling vessel" needs to be the mother or something like that of the main communicatee (donnie). so that happens donnies back in his room and stays there to die because this time the rabbit/frank isnt there to tell him to leave and therefore he dies and everything is all fine and f***in dandy.

runtorun wrote:

So I watched Donnie Darko and I loved it, but I am confused on a lot of situations. Could somebody give me an explanation about the movie. Maybe it's just that I am not understanding time travel well enough.

Which version did you watch? the regular or the director's cut? The regular version sucks. The director's cut has a lot more explanation and guiding to what the movie is about. Plus, the music is better. One of the neatest things about that movie is how the music seems like it was made for the movie.

ps - the more explanation and guiding is provided through like 30 minutes of extra included scenes. They even read pages of the Philosphy of Time Travel between scenes. The readings are what really tell you what is going on in the movie.

I've seen Donnie Darko more than once, and I never would have come up with that explanation. Is that really how it's supposed to go? because I had no idea.

Stupidest movie I have ever seen.

Good movie.

I had to watch it a couple times.

I got the dvd directors cut. Very good.

And that Tear for Fears cover (Mad World) is pretty trippy in the end.

"Mad World"

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for their daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

And their tears are filling up their glasses

No expression, no expression

Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow

No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny

I find it kind of sad

The dreams in which I'm dying

Are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you

'Cos I find it hard to take

When people run in circles

It's a very, very

Mad World

Children waiting for the day they feel good

Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday

Made to feel the way that every child should

Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous

No one knew me, no one knew me

Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson

Look right through me, look right through me

Generally yes and no. Its sort of a self interpretation but I went on the website and other websites and this one explanation seems to be the most agreed upon.

die hard with a vengeance wrote:

Its sort of a self interpretation

have you seen the director's cut? after that, i dont think that there is any self interpretation. they show the pages of the book to you that explain pretty much what is going on.

Basically, Donnie was supposed to die when the engine landed on him, but he didn't. That means he has to go back and die like he was supposed to so that the universe isn't destroyed.

And then you have the globs that come out of people's chests. The 'physics' is pretty retarded, but it's a good movie.

I have watched it over and over. The last time I watched it, I got the sinking feeling that it might be about time travel...and finding God. When the old woman wispers in is ear about dying alone, etc., etc. Once I realized that, disappointment set in. Yes, better not to think too much about the movie and just revel its music, imagery and quirkiness.

The film is nihilistic in that there is no set purpose that it is trying to convey or a concrete reason for why the events in the story take place (like the jet engine coming out of nowhere). The conversations that Donnie has with his science teacher about time travel and an "act of God" are often overlooked and quite significant (depending on one's personal interpretation of the film). That said the story focuses around absurdist/existentialist themes like the inherent absurdity in existence and the situations one finds oneself in (sorry if I sound repetitive) and how the individual must act and accept total responsibility for these actions in a world without meaning and purpose. Also the philosophy of Martin Heidegger is prominent throughout the movie like Donnie's struggle to find his identity and cope with the situation in which he finds himself, and the concept of the "being unto death," that the only immortality that can be obtained is through greeting death with complete calmness and peace. Heidegger's views of poetry and cinema (that it should not promote a certain school or thought of philosophy but instead be its own philosophy through the images and emotions it portrays) also influence the film. Thus, and this is the beauty of the film, it illicits different individual emotions and thoughts from each viewer. The point (as a few posters have mentioned already) is that there is no set point. Just enjoy the experience of the film and try to think about what it is conveying about life (I only talked about philosophy, there are many other themes in the film like teenage angst, family relations, the complexity of emotions, ...). Lastly, I would not recommend watching the director's cut because it explains too much about the story and thus subtracts from the subjective experience of the viewer.

The film coincides with the story of Christ.

That site that was linked to, stainless steal rat or whatever, is very misinformed. For example, they say that Dues Ex Machina means Machine of God...which it literally does. In actuality, the phrase is "Hand of God."

Overall,

I'd say that Donnie is Jesus. Frank is God. You can build off of that.

I didn't think much of the movie, frankly

soren wrote:

Lastly, I would not recommend watching the director's cut because it explains too much about the story and thus subtracts from the subjective experience of the viewer.

i agree with those who have expressed this sentiment. even on the non-director's cut version of the dvd, you can watch some of the deleted scenes and an interview with the director or some sort of "making of" feature. i wasn't particularly fond of the additional information. as you put it, my subjective experience watching the movie was better in my mind than what the director's full vision actually was. i recall there being much more of a religious angle to the director's vision.