Ok I just rented this movie and watched it. Someone please explain to me what happened in the end? <div align=center>SPOILERS AHEAD</div>
No idea. Haven't seen it, but I'll watch it tomorrow. It came in the mail through Neflix the other day.
Alright, I'll take a stab at this. Here's my opinion: *SPOILERS!!!!!!* You see, Donnie was "supposed" to die on October 2, with the crash in his room. Somehow, Frank, a character existing only in Donnie's mind at the time, persuaded him to leave and avoid his doom. Through this, I think he travelled outside of "God's channel" which was mentioned later on when he was talking to the science teacher. Because of this, Donnie would go on to have a dramatic effect on the people and things he came into contact with. This whole time is sort of an alternate reality going on...all what WOULD have happened had Donnie survived the crash. Frank tells him when the "world will end" in his dream. This is the end of DONNIE's world, signifying that he will die. Since he travelled outside of God's channel, he is doomed to die alone, meaning his world will end. Now, there are two theories as to the happenings of the meat of the movie. Some think that it's all a dream of what would have happened had he survived, others think it's an actual reality that takes place until "time" or "God" work itself out. This is argued through a series of events that show how he will die. Through exposing Jim Cunningham, Mrs. Farmer couldn't be on the trip with the dance team, which led to Donnie's mother going, which led to the plane's engine being consumed by a wormhole in the end. Since the plane's engine got taken by the wormhole, it travelled through time and crashed into Donnie's room in the past (October 2) to kill Donnie. And because of that, none of what happened post-initial crash ever really happened, you'll note this by Gretchin's cluelessness as to what's going on.
Omar: Go to your local drug-dealer. Buy some Acid and/or LSD. Because that's the only way you'll be able to fully understand Donnie Darko. Same thing for Pink Floyd's The Wall
Film, actually. The album isn't hard to grasp, since you don't have to watch it. The film is a total brainfart.
Isn't there already a topic about this? I remember trying to figure out how the hell was Frank Elizabeth's boyfriend...
yeah, there was a donnie darko topic but i dunno if it counts as necroposting or whatever so ill just copy and paste the explination heres the time line explination: The Tangent Universe/time line in the movie works in a straight line, and not a loop. The jet engine opens the Tangent Universe on October 1st. Everything that then happens in the movie is within the Tangent Universe. Donnie has to close the universe to stop the world from being destroyed. The Tangent Universe is closed by sending the original artifact (jet engine) back through the black hole created by the Tangent. So when Donnie sends the engine back, when it finally crashes into his bedroom for the second time, the Tangent Universe is closed. The time line goes back to Oct 1st and carries on in a completely different time line. Everything that happened in the Tangent Universe is "cancelled". The engine won't crash again, people won't be killed. his relationship stuff things/reson why he did all that crap: okay, so you know that whole jet engine crash right? it actually triggers a parallel world at would end in 28 days blah blah blah, so Frank is like a premonition from the future warning him. so he makes him do all this bad stuff. 1. he makes the flood in the school 2. the flood leads to him talking to gretchen for the first time 3. he burns down cunnighams house 4. burning the house leads to making his mother go on the trip with his sister on the plane 5. gretchen gets killed so after all that, he learns that he has to close up the black hole. so he sacrifices himself (and he wasnt afraid to die alone anymore because me met gretchin) to prevent all that stuff happening to the people he loves (i.e. gretchin dying, his mother going to the plane instead of the other mother, etc.) oh, and i have the dvd and just in case you wanted to know, he died from an impalement (there was a wooden plank that went through him). it was part of the deleted scenes. and the supercool diagram i made because im a loser..
Heh, I just bought this movie. It is excellent, it is one of the movies that I think everyone should see.