Donnies Little Sister

[tommy2ksi]

So no matter what she is going to die in the plane crash right? the engine falls off no matter what, so she is always going to die going to star search, but the mom is saved, right?

[ProvidencePortal]

If we assume Donnie's sister A) goes to Star Search [might Swaze's character's suicide have impacted the trip?] and B) the plane crashed because of the lost engine, then I believe we can conclude she dies in the end.

I'm not sure that either of those presumptions is certain, though.

[tommy2ksi]

how do you know that patrick swayze commits suicide?

[rightfielder21]

Donniedarko.com tells us...


Even if Samantha Darko does go on the star search trip at the end of October, which is not very likely seeing how her brother was killed by a jet engine falling into her house, there would probably be a long layoff from any "extra-curricular" activities...

Let's say she goes on the trip, nothing will happen to her....

The original plane lost its engine on Oct. 2 in the primary universe... The engine (the artifact), while falling, gets sent into a tangent universe (due to a "corruption" and crashes on Oct 2. in the Tangent universe...

Donnie is chosen to send an artifact back in the tangent universe...

In the Tangent universe, the FAA cannot figure out where the engine came from (because it was from the primary universe)...

At the end of the 28 days in the Tangent Universe, Donnie uses is 4th dimensional powers to rip the engine off the plane that Rose and Samantha happen to be on... Donnie sends it back, and corrects the "corruption"

The accepted theory is that the tangent universe takes place in matter of seconds when compared to the primary universe...

So the original engine (that we see the FAA take away in the tangent universe) is the one that kills Donnie on Oct. 2 in the Primary Universe...

So the FAA in the primary universe is able to identify the engine…

So, if Samantha does go on the trip in the Primary Universe, nothing will happen to her, because the engine would have already crashed on Oct. 2, when she was in bed…

Hope that clears it up a bit…. And please gretch, adam, prov, ect, please correct me if I am wrong…

[seb1234]

ok now im confused again - in the primary universe at the beginning, what happened to the plane that lost its engine? did it just crash? and so then donnie had to send the engine back to correct the imbalance yeh? why does it always happen that you think uve got it, but then something just creeps up to confuse u?!?!

[rightfielder21]

Planes don't always crash if they lose an engine... All I remember from d-d.com is that they were able to match the engine to a plane, I don't recall if it crashed or not...

[ProvidencePortal]

I believe what you've laid out is spot-on, RF ... though I'm getting a little turned around now. Here's why:

We believe the wormhole spans both space and time -- or at the very least, time, right? That is, it has one end in the PU on 10/02, and the other in the TU on 10/30. So, presumably, the engine that we see fall in the TU at the beginning of the movie is from a 10/02 flight. But is there explanation in the texts (movie, web site) that explains the fate of that 10/2 flight?

But wait, in fact no: the explanation is just the opposite. The plane with the engine matchingthe one sent from the TU by Donnie is intact in the PU, as explained in the final stage of the web site. So we're back to the "where'd the original engine come from?" discussion, which I believe most of consider inexplicable.

So, all that said, I think you're five-by-five, rightfielder21.

[ProvidencePortal]

tommy2ksi said:

how do you know that patrick swayze commits suicide?

This is part of the lore that comes from the web site. There's an obit on the site that demonstrates PU pedophile kills himself two weeks after Donnie's death.

[rightfielder21]

ProvidencePortal said:

I believe what you've laid out is spot-on, RF ... though I'm getting a little turned around now. Here's why:

We believe the wormhole spans both space and time -- or at the very least, time, right? That is, it has one end in the PU on 10/02, and the other in the TU on 10/30. So, presumably, the engine that we see fall in the TU at the beginning of the movie is from a 10/02 flight. But is there explanation in the texts (movie, web site) that explains the fate of that 10/2 flight?

But wait, in fact no: the explanation is just the opposite. The plane with the engine matchingthe one sent from the TU by Donnie is intact in the PU, as explained in the final stage of the web site. So we're back to the "where'd the original engine come from?" discussion, which I believe most of consider inexplicable.

So, all that said, I think you're five-by-five, rightfielder21.

Now I am confused... Should I be? Where's Gretchen when you need her ;D

[ProvidencePortal]

I see her on -- like always, right when you need her ...

[gretchen]

heeeeeeere i come to save the daaaaaay!

okay guys. i will break it down, since this IS my area of expertise you know

it's hard explaining one thing without explaining others so just bear with me, and remember, these are the theories i believe in most strongly.

samantha, and mom, let's not forget, do NOT die anywhere. brace yourselves, kids...

the wormhole opens on october second 1988. an tangent universe has begun. the tangent does NOT exist on it's own! it begins right when the wormhole opens and ends when it collapses. an artifact is deposited in the tangent U, rendering it unstable and capable of taking the PU with it when it collapses and destroying all life.

a LR is chosen to return the artifact, which he does. as soon as the artifact has pased through the wormhole at the same place it had before... the tangent is closed, it collapses, it's over. nothing else happens! it's like turning out a light switch, everything is there in the light but it just blinks out in the dark. just OFF! everything ceases to exist. no plane crash

even IF samantha goes to star search after donnie dies, it doesn't matter, she still won't die. because that is in the PRIMARY UNIVERSE! donnie pulled the engine from the TANGENT.

where does the engine come from? the first engine is from the PU as stated, which is why the FAA guys cannot find where it came from. what you don't see in the film but find out from the website that the engine donnie returns to the PU is actually matched with a plane from the PU, except this plane isn't missing any engines. where did the first engine come from? will we ever know?... nope. because the PU FAA guys will find it's plane, since it came from the PU... and we only see about 5 minutes of film in the PU.

questions?

(ooooh i feel so needed and desired )

[rightfielder21]

So I was 95% right...

It actually would have made more logical sense if it was done the way I described...

[gretchen]

basically... and probably lol i am very tired today! i just banged that answer out and probably didn't say it the way i wanted to. but your answer was great, and i just had to offer something different!

[Buu]

gretchen said:

where does the engine come from? the first engine is from the PU as stated, which is why the FAA guys cannot find where it came from. what you don't see in the film but find out from the website that the engine donnie returns to the PU is actually matched with a plane from the PU, except this plane isn't missing any engines. where did the first engine come from? will we ever know?... nope. because the PU FAA guys will find it's plane, since it came from the PU... and we only see about 5 minutes of film in the PU.

questions?

(ooooh i feel so needed and desired )

The first engine came from October 28 in the PU. There is no plane missing an engine because Donnie never lived to send the first engine back. That was his intention.

At no point will there ever be a plane missing an engine. The plane who's engine kills Donnie was destroyed with the tangent unverse. The engine that he avoids in the beginning never broke off from the plane because Donnie (Who's the one who keeps vandalizing these planes) never lived to send it back.

[Elwood]

gretchen said:

questions?

I have been searching through the old posts for days now, looking for "where did the first engine come from" threads, and from what I've read I think I understand the current board interpretation. But I just can't seem to get entirely comfortable with it. This thread seemed to address the first engine question fairly well (despite the thread title), and I have the impression that Gretchen's summary is a good representation of what the current board's wisdom is, so I thought this would be a good place to ask for clarification.

So, why is it that people think the engine that doesn't kill Donnie in the TU on 10/2/88 is from a PU plane on 10/2/88? What evidence in the movie/website/commentary/etc. leads you to that conclusion?

There's a nice closure to the idea - a PU engine gets sent to the TU and misses Donnie, and then he sends a TU engine back to wind up in the PU. There's been a swap of engines, and things feel a little balanced. I actually prefer that scenario, too, but I don't get the feeling that that's what Kelly intended.

Gretchen, if I understand correctly what you've written above, you're postulating that at some point after 10/2 in the PU the FAA will find either a crashed plane or a plane missing an engine (the engine that was sent to the TU and missed Donnie). The fact that we don't have any info on this in the film is because the film ends in the PU on the morning of 10/2, before the search for the missing engine has really begun. That reasoning seems fair enough to me so far.

The big problem I see is that the website gives us further insight into what continued to happen in the PU timeline after the film ends, and it seems to say that no evidence of a plane crash or missing engine is ever found. The Middlesex Times Dispatch article on the PU crash written the next day, 10/3/88 (from level 3 at the website) says:

"Dulles International Airport and Richmond International Airport received no distress calls, nor have there been any reports of a crash over a 10,000 mile radius"

Doesn't that seem to contradict the idea that a PU plane lost it's engine on 10/2? And there's also the link to "Fell's Opinion" at the end of the article. That was written three years later, on 10/2/91, and it still suggests nothing is known about the engine:

"Yet there is no evidence. There is nothing but Engine X, an artifact from that night"

You mention that "an artifact is deposited in the tangent U, rendering it unstable". But the way I read the PoTT, there is no need for an artifact to be deposited in the PU side of the wormhole/vortex for the TU to be unstable - it's inherently unstable. The Pott says "if a TU occurs, it will be highly unstable". It doesn't mention the need for an artifact to fall in.

So in the end I don't see either a motivation from the PoTT or support from the website for having a PU engine fall into the wormhole/vortex on 10/2 (For that matter, who's to say that the wormhole/vortex is a 2-way street? Maybe it only allows artifacts back from the TU 10/30 to the PU 10/2. Even if it does go 2 ways, why would it go from 10/2 PU to 10/2 TU anyway, instead of going to 10/30 TU? But I think I'm going off on a, uh, tangent here).