Odd End Phenomenon: Portal, Donnie Driving

[PyramidHead]

This may seem like a naiive observation to add to the mix, but look at the leaves...they're flying INTO the hole, not being propelled out of it. So whatever it is, it's drawing matter into itself, suggesting the black hole interpretation. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the Philosophy of Time Travel says pretty clearly that the all-consuming black hole will form at the "tangent vortex," which is identified elsewhere in the book as the spot where the artifact first appears.

Here's the part I'd like to add: Donnie definitely creates the time portal. He says to Dr. Thurman, "I have the power to create a time machine." He's sitting on his car, muttering to himself "28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds"...it's like he's setting the timer! That's why Frank was so specific, and wrote the numbers on his arm in the first place, so Donnie would know how far back to set the portal. Think Marty McFly setting the dial in his car...same deal. Therefore, in this analysis, the time portal isn't created until Donnie goes up to the ridge. So the black swirly cloud thing is something else, in my opinion the "storm" everybody's talking about, gathering intensity until it swallows the planet in itself.

EDIT: About the car, I get the impression that Donnie has gained a sense of humor about the whole ordeal, and is symbolically shifting gears as if to acknowledge to himself and Gretchen: "Here we go."

[Shakesbeer]

So then by that reasoning, if donnie did indeed set the time for the portal, that doesn't necessarily mean the TU would end when the engine goes into the portal, right? So maybe he's starting the car to get out of there so the cops don't catch him.

But then again, you would think that once the engine goes through the portal to the PU, the TU would cease to be.

gurrr

[schizophrenia]

I think at the end he would have to be fully aware of his abilities. Someone said earlier that it takes Donnie approx. 8 hours from Gretchen is killed to when he has to go to the ridge and guide the engine into the vortex. The question has been raised what he was doing all this time. Could he have talked to Sparrow or Monitoff? Maby MDGretchen could have shown up, now that he probably won´t be freaked out by seeing his mangled girfriend, and there is no reason, that I can see, that MDGretchen needs to visually manifest herself to communicate with him. Maby this is why he carries her corpse everywhere?

Now that she is dead and communicates to him from the beyond so to speak. If he knows nothing more he at least know that he won´t die alone.



I have been considering the possibility that Donnie, hurls the engine back in time in the TU. This would have meant that the Donnie who was laughing at the end and died, would also be in TU. By doing this he would´ve created a the paradox that would destroy the tangent universe. (Killing himself in the past.) The wormhole is now closed and the engine in the PU is never torn. Any other way and we end up with one enginge to many in either universes. Of course this is not a possibility since we see people mourn Donnie at the end. And a bunch of other problems as well, but theres no need to go there I guess.

But if Donnie kills (or dies by any means) himself in TU he would become a MD with Gretchen presumably able to trverse time. This way he could´ve sustained the TU, from his point of view, forever. But concidering the weird behaviour of MDFrank, the level of conscioussness of MD´s seems rather limited if any.

This theory probably isn´worth much since it practically denies everything in the PoTT an the GAIME, but I found it intersting. And it eventually led me to the theory of the TU´s end in my "Time travelling Frank and everything else" thread. In wich the TU actually survives. (As a stable paralell universe, preferably without superpowers.) This also contradicts the PoTT quite heavily, but not nearly as much, so it´s possible that Sparrow jumped to conclusion out of...ooh FEAR! Or something..

[ProvidencePortal]

schizophrenia said:

it takes Donnie 8 hours ... what he was doing all this time? Maybe MD Gretchen could have shown up ... at least he knows he won´t die alone.

I'm totally intrigued by this idea. So, if we play with it, we might interpret Sparrow's comment to have this emphasis:

"Every living thing on this earth dies alone."

We might then suggest Donnie spends the eight hours between Gretchen's death and the conclusion of the LR cycle with the one person he loves most: Gretchen, in her MD form. Is this part of his reward for following through, that he gets to see her from beyond the grave?

No, we don't see it. No, there's no direct evidence. But, yes, the logic of the movie's universe at least allows for it. And I rather like the idea of Donnie, who's essentially a dead man walking, and Gretchen in MD form talking away the eight hours to "the end of the world." It's just the kind of thing teen-love might dream up.

[theawesome]

I understand that everyone thinks that Donnie has to be there to rip the engine off the plane, but why? If Donnie had to rip the engine off the plane for it to fall off, why did the engine fall off the first time in the primary universe? Wouldn't the engine just fall off in the tangent universe like it did the first time in the primary universe considering that the flights in both of the universes would have been replicas of each other?

[theawesome]

I may have just thought of a new theory that could explain a few of the questions that have been bothering me about the plane. When the corruption originally took place, the engine was still attached to the plane. This corruption then sent just the engine back to October 2nd. Because of the corruption, a tangent universe was immediatly formed. In the Tangent Universe, Donnie then has to rip the engine off the plane with his mind to make it fall into the wormhole. If he doesn't do this, the plane would end up staying on the same route because the engine would not fall off.
This also explains why the plane doesn't crash in the "new" primary universe (The Primary Universe that the events after the movie will occur in). We know it ends up not crashing in the primary universe because of the last conversion about the plane in the puzzle on www.donniedarko.com. Therefore, In the Primary Universe the plane will not crash because the Corruption happened while the engine was still attached to the plane. Since there is no corruption the engine will stay on the plane and it won't crash.

This is also why the FAA has the engine (that landed on Donnie's room and killed him) matched to a plane that has never been damaged and was not flying over Donnie's house the day of the crash.

[ProvidencePortal]

theawesome said:

why did the engine fall off the first time in the primary universe?

It's my personal perspective that this is one of the central mysteries of the movie -- that is, "where does the first engine come from?"

It's spawned a whole series of theories and debates, each of which you can find around the site. I believe there's even a "where does the first engine come from?" thread. I'd be interested in what you thought about the engine's origins and your theory above based on some of the things others have suggested.

[David]

I believe the plane engine lands in the primary universe in a time earlier then it landed in the tangent universe. The way I see it Donnie must have done something diferent to erase the tangent universe and the way i see it he does this by killing himself. Think about it, if Donnie died there is not a single scene in the movie that would have been the same. On the subject of donnie's super powers, i dont buy the "ripping the plane's engine off with teleknieses" bit. A book in the director's cut tells us that the Living Reciever gains the powers to "conjure fire and water, listen to thoughts and teleknieses" but during the course of the movie Donnie obeys Frank's instructions in a logical and rational way. When asked to flood the school he breaks a water main, when told to burn Cunningham's house to the ground he picks up a can of petrol and some matches. Each of these events lead to a plane which wasn't there in the primary universe (we no this from the phonecall on the DD site) to be directly over his house. He didnt need teleknesis, he brought the plane to exactly where it needed to be and opened a portal in time to bring in back in time to before he went sleepwalking that night, killing himself, returning the artifact and erasing the tangent universe all in one go

[Bigboy]

But then he DID demonstrate superhuman strength - have you any idea how difficult it would be to bury an axe that deeply in a bronze statue?

Also the phonecall on the DD site does NOT show that the plane was not there in the PU, just that did not lose an engine.
If the PU and TU are equivalent and the planes belonging to the respective engines are also equivalent, then the message tells us that the engine in the TU did not just fall off. If this is the case something in the TU MADE it fall.
Since the PoTT and DC make it clear that the LR has telekinetic abilities it is only reasonable to assert that Donnie removed it himself.

[David]

That same page states that he can "conjure" fire and water but it didnt come shooting from his hands! Leaves were being sucked into that portal, showing that it had a gravatational pull of it's own. The plane was charterd as a red eye, if donnie's sister had of been unable to preform (due to prehaps grief over the death of a close family member) perhaps the passenger requirements would not have been met and the plane would have been charterd to another location? 4give me if im getting this wrong but DD takes place in virginia yes? And the phone puzzle says that the matching plane in the PU was chartered 4 San Francisco rite?

[Bigboy]

I stand corrected on the location issue . It's chartered status is a little nuance I hadn't picked up on (had no idea what a Red-Eye was before the movie - we don't have them here, not by that name anyway!)

However, assuming that the plane is structurally sound, it seems odd that the 'gravity' of the vortex would only take the engine and not the entire plane. Why would it break off so easily, if not by some external influence.
Another question here is the origin of that particular vortex:
Frank tells Donnie "I can do anything I want, and so can you", later he conjures a vortex/portal at the cinema, and later still Donnie claims he can build a time machine - these all seem to point to Donnie conjuring the portal to the PU himself.

NB "Conjure" doesn't necessarily refer to the paranormal. In the sense of "bring forth", he does just that.
In places the PoTT seems to be worded somewhat prophetically; maybe in another incarnation the LR would be able to shoot fire from his/her hands...

[Reed]

1)The jet engine goes through a portal at the end of the movie, and as that would be the end of the time loop, it would also make the end of the universe. How would the collapse of the tangent universe look, from within that universe? Black and tornado-e, I guess...

2) It could be that Donnie just thought that Carpathian ridge was a cool place to wait out the end of the world. Or, since it's where the entire movie started, maybe that's the place where he's supposed to be, to give feedback for the next time loop or whatever. Remember when Donnie told his doctor that Frank showed him the future? What future did he show him; the 'future' that was the movie, or the 'future' from the previous 28 day time loop? (That is, if you believe that the time phenomena might have been a repetitive, converging time loop, which I think likely.)

[thepretender]

bigboy said:

I stand corrected on the location issue . It's chartered status is a little nuance I hadn't picked up on (had no idea what a Red-Eye was before the movie - we don't have them here, not by that name anyway!)

This reminded me that once my son was telling me that he was sitting in the nose-bleed section at a Sonics game...
I tryuly thought that he was sitting in the best seats of the house...the ones close enough where if the ball came over you just might get a nose-bleed.

We learn something new every day!!!

I love what Provi said about Donnie going around with Gretchen.

"""We might then suggest Donnie spends the eight hours between Gretchen's death and the conclusion of the LR cycle with the one person he loves most: Gretchen, in her MD form. Is this part of his reward for following through, that he gets to see her from beyond the grave?""""


That just points out what I love most about this movie...
people can come up with great hopeful ideas of what happened and they are quite possibly true.
It could also explain his laughter at the end...esp. if he had some great hope after being so worried about 'dying alone'.