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Post by Teilhard de Chardin on Sept 14, 2004 15:56:37 GMT -5
Can we clear up this dilema, people are always talking about how and why Donnie time travelled etc etc, when in fact at no point does anyone time travel! The only item that traversed the boundaries of space and time was the engine which travelled between the two universes. At the beginning of the film, the arrival of Frank notes the beginning of the tangent universe, and all of this is destroyed as the engine travels back to the primary at the end, leaving no trace whatsoever of the tangent life that played out (aside from the engine). People dreamt about their tangent selves but no-one travelled between the two universes. Can anyone back me up on this?!
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Post by gretchen on Sept 14, 2004 16:09:08 GMT -5
i definitely back you up adam.
people get confused because of the conversations between donnie and frank the BR and monitoff about time travel.
finally someone else is going with my theory.
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Post by rightfielder21 on Sept 14, 2004 16:10:35 GMT -5
You are correct... I agree 100%...
Let's bring it a little further...
So Did Donnie ever leave his bed in the "Primary Universe"?
I say no...
So then what was happening in the Primary Universe when "Tangent Donnie" was figuring out his mission?
I tend to think that 28 days in the "tangent universe" is a minute or two (if even that long) in the primary universe...
So does that mean it was all a dream, as others have made the case for? I don't believe so...
I think that it all happened in a tangent universe, but happened very quickly in relation to the primary universe... But while in the tangent universe it took 28 days...
Does any of that make sense?
Edit: I didn't always think this way, until I was asked by someone, "well what happens in the primary universe, when the tangent universe is unfolding?" and my answer was, "Well, you see, its......hmmm...."
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Post by gretchen on Sept 14, 2004 16:14:27 GMT -5
You are correct... I agree 100%... Let's bring it a little further... So Did Donnie ever leave his bed in the "Primary Universe"? I say no... So does that mean it was all a dream, as others have made the case for? I don't believe so... I think that it all happened in a tangent universe, but happened very quickly in relation to the primary universe... But while in the tangent universe it took 28 days... exaaaaaaactly. you guys rock.
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Post by Teilhard de Chardin on Sept 14, 2004 16:25:05 GMT -5
Absolutely, and i think this tangent dream lasts different lengths for different people, hence the reason for Karen Pomeroy STILL dreaming in the montage sequence at the end. For Donnie, this tangent universe (in real time) probably lasted a few seconds, therefore timing the engine falling/ Elizabeths return home etc, correctly.
It would be interesting to theorize why Karen Pomeroy was still dreaming at the end. Has it got something to do with her idealist temperament? Was the tangent universe preferable to the real universe in her eyes? This is strange seen as it all went to hell in the tangent and she lost her job and justice almost prevailed, but not quite. Any ideas why shes still dreaming of her tangent life?
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Post by rightfielder21 on Sept 14, 2004 16:28:44 GMT -5
Any ideas why shes still dreaming of her tangent life? I remember Kelly saying that he wanted her to be the only one still asleep in the directors commentary, but don't remember if he said why... I would have to go back and watch it...
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Post by gretchen on Sept 15, 2004 12:29:48 GMT -5
hm.
i never thought of that... definitely will have to check it out...
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Post by justme314 on Sept 15, 2004 18:39:12 GMT -5
hmm i hadnt really thought of it quit that way, kinda but not that in depth i guess, glad someone talked more about it. I like these theories. Anyways, yall said yall thought maybe it only lasted like a couple seconds for "primary" donnie, so what about him laughing?(i always thought of this as him relizing about God and not being alone) So even though it was for a couple seconds do yall think he could have still relized all that he was suppose to(not alone, saving loved ones, etc.)? was he sleeping? i cant really remember. i remember him having a book, but i dont know if he was asleep or not. I hadnt really thought of this before, but elizabeth wasnt asleep when the engine hit and everyone woke from their "dreams" about the tangent universe. Neither was frank for that matter( if he was dropping her off, which makes me wonder how he was back at his house, when he had just dropped off elizabeth). So what about them? I know he obviously had some memory of the tangent universe( cuz they show him remembering with the others), but what about elizabeth? i dont remember her looking like she remembered anything, so did she not have memory of it?
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Post by rightfielder21 on Sept 15, 2004 18:50:37 GMT -5
so what about him laughing?(i always thought of this as him relizing about God and not being alone) I hadnt really thought of this before, but elizabeth wasnt asleep when the engine hit and everyone woke from their "dreams" about the tangent universe. Neither was frank for that matter (if he was dropping her off, which makes me wonder how he was back at his house, when he had just dropped off elizabeth). I still think that is why he was laughing... He was the living reciever, so in my view he remembered the most, if not everything... I don't think they showed any of the family members during that sequence... As for Frank, I don't think he needed to be asleep to "remember"
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Post by justme314 on Sept 15, 2004 19:23:20 GMT -5
yeah thats what i thought, that they dont need to be asleep to remember. but they showed elizabeth in the seqence, well the crash scene, not the one where everyones waking up(well she was in the scene right before it) i dont know, maybe she did remember, like alittle later(you know what i mean?). like they showed her surprised by the crash, but maybe that scene is right before she remembers anything and they just dont show it like they dont show grechen but we know she remembered something. (does any of that make sense to anyone but me )
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Post by rightfielder21 on Sept 15, 2004 19:27:48 GMT -5
I think so
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Post by gretchen on Sept 15, 2004 20:17:57 GMT -5
i think... not so much that they REMEMBER it... but perhaps they are hit with a truckload of deja vu....
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Post by rightfielder21 on Sept 16, 2004 6:49:45 GMT -5
I could agree with that for most of the people ( deja vu ) but it is still my belief that Donnie actually remembers and is enlightened because of it...
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Post by gretchen on Sept 16, 2004 11:47:57 GMT -5
well yeah... i think donnie as the LR remembers a great deal if not all of what happened. he knows that when he dies, he will be with 'god', he won't be alone. so he is happy to die. he accepts and embraces his fate.
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Post by ProvidencePortal on Sept 24, 2004 10:35:29 GMT -5
This is a great discussion, everyone. Some thoughts on the questions raised:
What time travel, if any, occurs in the movie? Adam says, "at no point does anyone time travel!", and I think I agree, with the exception of a character that may very well not count as "someone." It looks to me like we have two occurences of time travel in Donnie Darko: the engine and Frank.
Based on the POTT, it seems the vortex through which the engine is sent "back" to the Primary Universe traverses both time and space. It has one end in the Primary Universe on 10/2 (from which the engine falls, killing Donnie), and the other in the Tangent Universe on 10/30 (through which Donnie's telekinetic powers push the engine). It's water and the engine is metal, meaning the requirements for time travel are met -- and so the engine, with Donnie's influence, is able to travel through 28 days of time into the past.
In addition, the Manipulated Dead, Frank, travels back in time from the point of his death (his trip is 28 days, too, right?) to ensure Donnie fulfills his responsibilities as the Living Receiver. This idea also is supported by the POTT, which says both the MD and the LR are vested with 4th Dimensional (time-related) powers as part of their roles in the closure of the TU. It doesn't appear MD Frank travels between universes, though (see below). His work seems to take place only in the TU.
Does anybody leave the Primary Universe? This probably depends on your definition of "leaving." It sure doesn't seem likely anyone bodily departs from PU and into the TU for their experience there. Instead, most on the forum agree that everyone near the epicenter of the corruption is transported in their minds to the TU, where they are manipulated to bring about closure of the rift.
It might be worth exploring (and denying) some other potential angles in support of this claim. First, the only certain physical bridge between the two worlds that we know of in the movie is the vortex, and that doesn't appear to be a gate usable by people. Since the vortex traverses both time and space, and we know that a metal vehicle is required to travel through time, we might conclude that, to use the vortex to go from PU to TU, the folks in Donnie's life would have had to have been gathered together, placed aboard some metal vessel, then shuttled over. Even were that to happen, we still don't know whether the vortext works in that direction (PU --> TU) ... and the idea is further complicated by the fact that being transported by the vortext gets you transported in time, too.
So, I think we can rule out physical transport via the vortex. I also think there's some situational/circumstantial evidence suggesting noone was bodily sent from PU to TU, and that's the "awakening" at the end. The coming back as though from sleep, the foggy memories and, as Gretchen has called it, a shitload of deja vu ... all of that suggests to me that the experience -- or, at least, the transport -- occurred on some mental/spiritual level. Plus it's just a nice conceit: we travel to other worlds in our dreams all the time ... how do we know we're not actually somewhere else, impacting the world, when we're dreaming?
So if noone leaves the PU, how do they have 28 day's worth of experiences in what seems like moments? Like rightfielder21, Adam, Gretchen and others, I believe the time that passes in the PU during the participants' experiences in the TU is infintesimal ... it's, for practical purposes, an instantaneous experience. The other "givens" we've accepted seem to demand this interpretation, and there's enough in the logic of Donnie Darko to make it plausible. We have a rift in space/time, divinely-guided (probably) characters with super-powers derived from the 4th Dimension (time) and a instances of time travel. There's no hard evidence for it, but it doesn't seem a stretch to suggest that time passes far differently in the TU; it might even be a stronger argument to say that time seems to pass differently in our dreams, during which we are residing in Tangent Universes.
When we're traveling in spirit, which seems to be how the folks in Middlesex got to the TU, our perception of time is hyper-acclerated compared to the PU. Maybe this is part of God's (or whomever's) grand schematic, a necessary component of the rift-TU-repair-dead LR process. For if time passed normally during the events of the TU, the whole thing would fail.
Very thoughtful thread, folks. Thanks for working through these ideas!
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