Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
Frank doesn't kill himself. Frank dies in the alternate reality and is sent back as a conduit for Donnie. In the main timeline, when Donnie lets the engine crush him, his mom and sister won't die in that plane crash and Frank will live because Donnie won't be there to shoot him.
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It is no measure of health to be well adjusted
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Ashmaele Title: Pastor of Muppets
Posts: 1,809 Registered: 2002-1-15 08:30:50
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
Yes, we are led to believe that Donnie is schitzo and that Frank is not real, but we discover later on that Frank is real during the climatic scene.
But I don't get, and the movie does not explain, why Frank is taking all these actions that will ultimately lead to his own demise. If he hadn't woken Donnie and called him out to that golf course at the beginning of the movie in the first place, there would have been no need to kill Donnie in order to save the girl at the end. It just doesn't make sense. As great as the film is, this is a huge hole that the writer never fills, nor even attempts to fill.
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I had a dream. It was an incredible dream. When I awoke, I had a huge mess to clean up.
Ashmaele Title: Pastor of Muppets
Posts: 1,809 Registered: 2002-1-15 08:30:50
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
B_Shinkicker posted: Frank doesn't kill himself. Frank dies in the alternate reality and is sent back as a conduit for Donnie. In the main timeline, when Donnie lets the engine crush him, his mom and sister won't die in that plane crash and Frank will live because Donnie won't be there to shoot him.
Yes but the only reason the entire movie happens is because Frank got Donnie out of bed and called him to the golf course to tell him that the world was going to end. If Frank simply leaves Donnie alone the engine crashes into his bedroom, Donnie dies and none of the subsequent events happen, or are even necessary (including Frank getting shot by Donnie).
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I had a dream. It was an incredible dream. When I awoke, I had a huge mess to clean up.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
I think I've seen it once.
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Ashmaele Title: Pastor of Muppets
Posts: 1,809 Registered: 2002-1-15 08:30:50
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
I read a review of the film once and the writer brought up a really good point: Unless you saw this movie on DVD (which had all the 'extras' including explanations of wtf was going on) there is really no way to have ever figured this movie out, because so much was left out of the original film that serves to fill in the blanks.
Quote: There are also three features that are absolutely essential for figuring out what Kelly was trying to achieve: A track of commentary featuring Kelly and Jake Gyllenhaal, those deleted/extended scenes, and pages from The Philosophy of Time Travel. Even the scene selection headers offer information not actually included in the movie itself.
Here's the metaphysical framework the DVD extras reveal. The moment Frank wakes Donnie at midnight, October 2, is when Donnie, et al, have entered a tangent universe. This tangent universe arises the moment the aircraft engine ("the Artifact" enters the universe via a wormhole. (Sparrow's book amplifies Monnitoff's conjecture that such a wormhole could only be created as an "act of God." Tangent universes are inherently unstable, lasting only "a matter of weeks," eventually collapsing in upon themselves, each one "forming a black hole within the Primary Universe capable of destroying all existence." (This is also a real, glaring scientific boner. This sentence is contained in Sparrow's Philosophy of Time Travel, supposedly published in 1944, but the term "black hole" did not exist until 1968.)
Here's all the remaining important bits from The Philosophy of Time Travel, all capitalization of Really Important Nouns sic.
Quote: "The Living Receiver is chosen to guide the artifact into position for the journey back to the Primary Universe." (Uh-huh.) "No one knows how or why a Receiver will be chosen. The Living Receiver is often blessed with Fourth Dimensional powers. These include increased strength, telekinesis, mind control, and the ability to conjure fire and water." (The last two are almost clever.) "The Living Receiver is often tormented by terrifying dreams, visions, and auditory hallucinations during his time within the Tangent Universe." (Check, check, and check.) "Those surrounding the Living Receiver, known as the Manipulated, will fear him and try to destroy him... The Manipulated Living are often close friends and neighbors of the Living Receiver. They are prone to irrational, bizarre and often violent behavior. This is the unfortunate result of their task, which is to assist the Living Receiver to return the Artifact to the Primary Universe. The Manipulated Living will do anything to save themselves from Oblivion. The Manipulated Dead are more powerful than the Living Receiver. If a person dies within the Tangent Universe, they are able to contact... [and] manipulate the Living Receiver using the Fourth Dimensional Construct." (Referring to the index it's apparent this refers to those "liquid spheres." "The Manipulated Dead will often act as an Ensurance Trap for the Living Receiver to ensure that the Artifact is returned safely to the Primary Universe. If the Ensurance Trap is successful, the Living Receiver is left with no choice but to use his Fourth Dimensional Power to send the Artifact back in time into the primary Universe before the black hole collapses in upon itself."
Let's face it: this is some truly wacky shit. (And I don't mean that in a good way.) It's not the worst metaphysical construct I've chanced across (for example, it makes a lot more sense than Scientology), but it's also far from the best. But that's not the central problem. The main problem, the huge problem, the rotting-elephant-carcass-in-the-middle-of-the-dining-room problem is that there is no conceivable way for even the most astute viewer to deduce Kelly's metaphysical construct from the film itself. The phrases "Tangent Universe," "Living Receiver," "Manipulated Dead," etc., never appear in the film. Kelly's version of reality isn’t ambiguous, which would suggest that it could be one of several competing explanations for the movie's mysteries. It's not even obscure, something that could only be gleaned from watching the film over and over again. Rather, it is impenetrable. It is opaque. You can't get there from here.
For all the talk of Hawking, wormholes, and Einstein-Rosen bridges, Kelly has failed to grasp the conceptual constraints that gives science fiction much of its unique power. It isn't just about nifty skiffy concepts, it's also about the science, mechanisms and rules governing them. You can break the rules only if you've provided a logical, internally consistent framework by which your exceptions work. You can take a taxi cab to Mars via a warp gate, but if you fail to mention said gate, even by inference, you've broken the unwritten social contract that underlies science fiction. By contrast, Kelly's metaphysics is like the house dealing poker cards from the bottom of the deck, never showing you the cards, announcing you've lost, and then burning them. It's like reaching the end of an Agatha Christie novel and finding out that the wildebeest did it, except there was no wildebeest in the book. It's a cheat.
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I had a dream. It was an incredible dream. When I awoke, I had a huge mess to clean up.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
Ashmaele posted: I still don't get why bunnyplug essentially kills himself in this movie, and I've never had anyone explain it to me.
The weird bunny that wakes Donnie up and "saves" him is not the sister's boyfriend.
The movie tells us the rules it's operating under the main one being "every living creature dies alone."
In the real world Donnie died when an engine of a plane slammed into his room while he slept. This movie is about what happens to us all when we die. Donnie experienced an alternative timeline that only belonged to him. His mind is given a grand finale in which he plays a part in bringing about his own death by, rescuing the girl, protecting his loved ones, exploring his own deepest fears, exacting his judgement upon the wicked ect ect ect... The movie seems to say that all of our lives are given meaning individually before we pass. We get our OWN death.
On the surface it looks like Donnie changed the past and corrected a mistake in time but deep down it's simply a giant conversation with God as he readies you to leave your body.
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Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
But we don't know that Donnie didn't get out of bed even if Frank didn't intervene. After all, Frank was already there to warn him, so that leads us to believe that Donnie DID originally get out of bed before the engine him.
The Last Temptation of Christ was a huge influence on this film, and Donnie and his GF even go see it during the film. Donnie is offered his own survival, he gets a GF, he outs Patrick Swayze as a pedophile, stands up to bullies, but all at the cost of half of his family.
In the end, he decides that the price is too high, and decides to let fate take it's course and save humanity at the cost of his own life, just like Jesus.
MY ironic take on the whole thing is that I thought of Bunnymud as Frank a couple of years ago, but now I realize that Bunnymud was Patrick Swayze all along!
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It is no measure of health to be well adjusted
to a profoundly sick society. - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
Ashmaele posted: Let's face it: this is some truly wacky shit. (And I don't mean that in a good way.) It's not the worst metaphysical construct I've chanced across (for example, it makes a lot more sense than Scientology), but it's also far from the best. But that's not the central problem. The main problem, the huge problem, the rotting-elephant-carcass-in-the-middle-of-the-dining-room problem is that there is no conceivable way for even the most astute viewer to deduce Kelly's metaphysical construct from the film itself. The phrases "Tangent Universe," "Living Receiver," "Manipulated Dead," etc., never appear in the film. Kelly's version of reality isn’t ambiguous, which would suggest that it could be one of several competing explanations for the movie's mysteries. It's not even obscure, something that could only be gleaned from watching the film over and over again. Rather, it is impenetrable. It is opaque. You can't get there from here.
Kelly's metaphysics is like the house dealing poker cards from the bottom of the deck, never showing you the cards, announcing you've lost, and then burning them. It's like reaching the end of an Agatha Christie novel and finding out that the wildebeest did it, except there was no wildebeest in the book. It's a cheat.
I strongly disagree. I got there from here. There are clues. There are very subtle oddities that, if explored and wondered about, end up making sense out of other oddities. The critic you're referencing sounded like someone who was butt hurt that the movie didn't teach him how to time travel.
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Hold up your opinions and I'll tell you which one is my favorit.
Date Posted:1/1/00 12:00amSubject:
My gf saw Donnie Darko for the first time last night
B_Shinkicker posted: But we don't know that Donnie didn't get out of bed even if Frank didn't intervene. After all, Frank was already there to warn him, so that leads us to believe that Donnie DID originally get out of bed before the engine him.
Donnie was dead before we ever saw frank on the lawn. How can I put it? hummm... God C+P Donnie's character file and imported it into a computer program that lets people die in a respectable way that prepares them for a higher level of understanding.
Sort of like if we see a car accident where a young child is killed and think about how tragic it is except for that child life goes on and there was no car accident. It solves the big question "why is god so cruel."
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Hold up your opinions and I'll tell you which one is my favorit.
enters the universe via a wormhole. (Sparrow's book amplifies Monnitoff's conjecture that such a wormhole could only be created as an "act of God."