Why Rose & Samantha's plane?

[Abi]

I apologise profusely if this has been discussed elsewhere, but I had a look and I couldn't see it anywhere. I just wondered if there was any reason why the plane that the engine was ripped off at the end was the one Rose and Samantha were on. Is there a particular reason why to save the world Donnie had to sacrifice his mother and sister?

[Omnipotent]

Good question, my opinion is that it's just part of the film I really can't forsee some deep meaning behind it but some people on this board could and probably will nullify this. After all theres symbolism in the trampoline and mailbox apparently.

[abhorsen]

My idea is that its just another way of ensuring that donnie will make the engine go into the wormwhole and take everyone back to the original universe that way his mom and sister wont be on the plane and they wont die.

[gretchen]

i am agreeing with abhorsen... it is the "ensurance trap" in a way.

also he needed the replica engine from the plane passing overhead at the precise moment.

[Elwood]

Actually, does Donnie even know that his mom and sister are on that plane? Doesn't his mom leave a message on the home answering machine in the middle of the party, without the film showing us that anyone picks it up?

How do you guys see this as part of the "ensurance trap"? Even if Donnie knew his mom and sister were on the plane, knowing that fact doesn't make it more likely in my mind that Donnie will rip the engine off their plane, probably causing it to crash.

It's true that the engine has to go through the wormhole to save the world, but if that doesn't happen, everyone will die, regardless of whether they are on that plane or not. He's not "sacrificing his mom and sister" for anyone - they're all about to die in a few moments anyway as the Tangent Universe becomes unstable.

Gretchen, why do you think that needing that specific engine motivated Donnie? I agree with you that he needed to send the same engine back to the Primary Universe, but I don't think he knew which engine that was, or even which plane it belonged to! Even if he knew which plane, there is going to be more than one engine on it. How did he know which one to pull off?

My impression is that he just knew he had to send an engine back, and that was the only plane in the sky when the time came to do it. It doesn't seem to me that he even knew his mom and sister were on it. I think that's just a bit of irony in the film.

[Omnipotent]

Elwood said:

Actually, does Donnie even know that his mom and sister are on that plane? Doesn't his mom leave a message on the home answering machine in the middle of the party, without the film showing us that anyone picks it up?

How do you guys see this as part of the "ensurance trap"? Even if Donnie knew his mom and sister were on the plane, knowing that fact doesn't make it more likely in my mind that Donnie will rip the engine off their plane, probably causing it to crash.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

[Abi]

Elwood said:

Actually, does Donnie even know that his mom and sister are on that plane?

I don't think he necessarily knew his mum and sister were on it, I just wondered if there was a reason why that plane was the one the engine came off. If practically everyone else in the film is manipulated living, any plane could have manipulated to be at that point in the sky at that point in time. Why the one with Donnie's family on it (assuming he didn't know Rose and Samantha were on it)?

[ProvidencePortal]

It's a great question. Maybe it's not a direct influence on Donnie, but it is a key thematic element. Could it be that it doesn't play much of a role in Donnie's experience in the movie, but it does play an important part in Kelly and Donnie Darko showing us how interrelated and interlinked our fates are?

[Elwood]

I think that it's certainly true that it does show that all our fates are interrelated, but something about that interpretation is just a little unsatisfying for me. I think it is that the theme of everyone's fate being interrelated is such a general one - almost every part of the movie could be seen to support it (Frank affecting Donnie, Donnie killing Frank, Grandma Death's postal obsession causing Frank to kill Gretchen, Elizabeth's getting into Harvard leading to Donnie and Elizabeth's party, leading to Donnie and Gretchen having sex and Donnie's realization of Frank's beer run, etc.). It leaves me wanting to look for a message more specific to this scene.

I said earlier that I thought it was just irony, but now that we're discussing it more, could this be seen as an example of the act of destruction also being an act of creation? By destroying the engine/plane/passenger's lives, he is creating the opportunity for the world to go on the way it's supposed to in the PU.

Of course, ultimately the movie is so rich in symbolism and opportunities for interpretation that all three of these themes and no doubt more can be valid messages here.

[ProvidencePortal]

Elwood said:

could this be seen as an example of the act of destruction also being an act of creation? By destroying the engine/plane/passenger's lives, he is creating the opportunity for the world to go on the way it's supposed to in the PU.

I find that reading just as plausible as the one I posed ... and also just as general. Yours is certainly validated by recurrances: the flooding of the school, shooting Frank and Gretchen's death are all destruction-as-creation or, put another way, destruction as the door to a new set of possibilities.

One thing we may be unknowingly agreeing on is that we're both wise to avoid trying to make the fact that mom and sis are on the plane into a situation like the other "coincidences" that are part of the ensurance trap. Because the facts in this coincidence would seem more likely to dissuade Donnie from completing the cycle than they would to motivate him to do his LR duty, if he knew them.

My preference is to make plot points fit the progression tightly, too ... but I think in this scenario, doing so runs dangerously close to forcing it. It just doesn't feel like it fits. I feel that way about much of the final ten minutes, in fact: it seems Kelly turned the pathos-generator up to 20 in those closing minutes, looking to create as much sympathy and emotion as possible ... and in doing so, he might have cut some corners on the rationale, which is why we end up with questions about why Donnie died if he didn't have to, why Frank beeped and the like.

[gretchen]

Elwood said:

Gretchen, why do you think that needing that specific engine motivated Donnie? I agree with you that he needed to send the same engine back to the Primary Universe, but I don't think he knew which engine that was, or even which plane it belonged to! Even if he knew which plane, there is going to be more than one engine on it. How did he know which one to pull off?

i will answer this. i promise.

sorry. i am being flaky this week.

[crackur]

easy it was the one flying over the same area

[mooseboy]

Exactly. He knew precisely when the Universe's time was up, he knew where the rip would be (over his house)... all he had to do was find the plane that was in that spot at that time.

[Abi]

Guest-mooseboy said:

Exactly. He knew precisely when the Universe's time was up, he knew where the rip would be (over his house)... all he had to do was find the plane that was in that spot at that time.

No, no I get that. I just mean, why is it his mum and sisters' plane that happens to be in that spot? It could be a coincidence, but everything seems to have a reason in this film...

[Elwood]

Abi, I don't think we have any great answers for you yet. Some people have suggested that it may be part of the ensurance trap, but I don't personally see how that fits. I suggested it might just be an element of irony in the film, or maybe it's meant to echo the theme of creation from destruction; ProvidencePortal suggested that it might be meant to show that all our fates are interlinked, or perhaps it was just Kelly turning up the "pathos-generator" at the end - making us feel more sympathetic towards the characters. Those are all possibilities, but it still seems to me that this could have been any plane, without Rose and Samantha, and it would have had no real negative impact on the plot.