Donnie Darko explained

The director later explains that Donnie has the power of telekinesis. He rips the engine off the plane himself and sends it back through the wormhole.

I failed to see the part where the director said about the telekinesis, however I like the above disection of the the movie for the most part. How ever I don't think donnie had telekinesis, so much as the ability to understand the worm whole and have the knowledge of the fourth dimension. In the directors cut it talkes about the chosen one who will have the most knowledge of this dimension, and surely his ability to communicate with frank shows this. Back to the question, I beleive donnie did not happen to have the ability to move the airplane turbine, it wasn't even in the same dimension as him. However, after seeing how things turned out when he got up to see frank out front and people died as a result, he did have the ability go back in time thru the worm hole to that night and decide not to get out of bed. Thus saving lives. It goes back to the Pre determined path. Yes he did have the ability to choose but since good is all knowing he knew what the outcome would be. That is the topic of the final conversation he has with his male professor. The one where he says he can't continue because he could lose his job.

I think you're over-complicatiing things, in that, the jet engine was not the anomally. The fact that Donnie was not killed by it was.

the first engine that fell was from the "future" that donnie sent back through time, if he hadn't sent the engine from the end back then that would have been the anomaly, two of the exact same jet engines in the same place/universe. frank had to save donnie from the first one in order for donnie to be alive and send the second one back through time, fixing the anomaly.

The jet engine goes through the first time because their universe slipped into a tangent universe, which is why Frank the bunny had to save donnie from getting crushed, because then the tangent universe would have had no way of becoming normal again and it would have been destroyed, and Donnie is also the living reciever.
The Jet engine goes through the second time because with donnie still alive everybodys lives wouldve been stuffed up ( The english teacher got fired because he flooded the school like in the book, charita was in love with him and was getting destracted from her work and if donnie died she could get focused again, Frank would not have been killed, Gretchen would have not been killed and his Mum and sister and all the girls in SPARKLE MOTION would not have died in the plane crash from which the jet engine came.) So the Engine had to come through the worm hole (which you see in the end) and kill donnie in his house to stop all of these events happening and to restore order to the universe.

Hope i explained youre question:)

I have a question.

why did frank have him do all this if he was just going to go back in time and kill himself. i think there is something im not seeing still?

somebody help me understand this please!

frank has nothing to do with him killing himself he do's this to stop the end of the world

frank dies in the tanget universe, but by donnie sending back the artifact frank is actually alive at the end of the movie, as is gretchen

that is because he go's through the wormhole back in time to stop all his doing to the people around him and end it easyaly by geting crushed by the jet engine

He burnt down the house and flooded the school because the manipulated dead (Frank) told him to. He claims he agreed because Frank saved his life and he "has to obey him". This allows the tangent universe to further repair itself in that further events can occur. As Donnie points out himself, if the school wasnt flooded he would never have had that conversation with Gretchin for example.

Not the artifact but the REPLACEMENT for the artifact came off his mother's plane. It is pressumed that he removed it via telekenisis and placed it into the wormhole he created. Philosophy of time travel said that he must return the artifact. This is how he does it.

She doesnt get home fast. We have now left the Tangent Universe and returned to the standard universe. Time/space has healed itself.

Yeah he was high ;)

I did take Donnie's death differently though. I though that he saw the pain and death that he could cause via the tangent universe and made the choice not to put everyone through that. Note that he remembers Gretchin's speech about taking back all the time and filling it with something better. Only then does he get in the car and drive home to die. I guess this is also the reason for him saying that there will be so much to look forward to when the word ends.

But this is just an interpretation of course.

You are mostly right about his death exept that he is laughing because he knows what is coming and he thinks that it is funny how hard everyones life is if he is still alive, But he is glad for everyone else and also that he has possibly found god.
But he is not high lol.

he may have taken alot of medication but incase no one noticed it couldnt of been cuz of the medicine because his physcitrast took him off his medication and he was stilling seeing everything witch would go with what every one else is trying to say about the tangent universe and living recievers it wasnt just a trip

I like to think of it with a third option. The idea that the movie was the dreams of a dying boy.
The ending of the film showing what truely happened. The rest of the film what Donnie dreamt.

May seem a little far fetched perhaps but I like the idea of this being an artistcly thought provoking film rather than a run of the mill science fiction.

This is the only comment that really jumped out at me, because the idea is really plausible.

It would also explain why he laughed before he died.
This is my thought on your interpretation, so we may not agree, but just before the jet engine falls, he wakes up, thinks about his dream and finds it amusing, then laughs manically and then dies.

He is laughing because he has found God. He no longer has to fear death, which he has the entire movie long. All the talk about "dying alone" are what Donnie bases his sadness upon (Dr. whats-her-nut brings this up). Donnie believes in god, loses his fear, and is overcome by joy at his freedom.
Thus making this the only religious movie I ever liked.

There should be some acknowledgment that this movie was influenced by a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold." Check it. it will blow your minds...

yes it is a dream beacause he sees the that the end of the world is comeing he will sufer all the people owith his existince so he kills him self so in the second movie (s.darko a donnie darko tale) she has to go the end of the world

Nope, the artifact is merely a consequence of the problem. The origin of the problem is natural and left unknown. The artifact represents simply a tangent timeline that comes to an end and folds on itself.

There isn't any real loop that goes on and on. It's just the tangent universe that returns to its origin and then is closed. The artifact is the seal.

i watched the movie on shrooms so i might have missed parts when i lost consiousness...but i saw it like he didnt kno wat was going on...he just kinda did all the things frank told him cuz he was overwhelmed by the fact that he was told the world was going to end...i dont remember being told that he knew he had powers and he knew that he wood die if he went home...to me he was just an ordinary guy in an extraordinary circumstance

You're wrong in saying that pre-determination is evidence of the existance of a god:

If one takes the parallel universes view, then in every universe whatever happens was always going to happen (for that universe). This is because every possible possibility is taken, and so then for one universe there is only one possible set of actions, as everything affects everything else in a chain reaction, resulting in only one possible outcome - hence pre-determination.

I'm surprised there is this much debate after the Director's Cut was released with the writer/director comments.

I think that with Darko as the "Living Receiver," he had to die.

Secondly, I believe the main debate should be who pulling the strings. Was it "God" in some traditional sense of an almighty being or "The God in the Machine" as some sort of technology (future, etc.)? The numbers that he sees with his eyes closed and the Deus Ex Machina" suggest that it could have been technologically based. A secondary debate "could" be, did Darko have any free will or was he basically screwed from the moment the wormhole opened? I believe he was always screwed because Frank was the one who got him out of bed and kept him from being killed. He did this because the god had a plan for Darko. God needed Darko to live for 28 days in the Tangent Universe. If I'm wrong, then how would Frank have ever been there to get Darko out of bed?

I also think that the bottom line is that this is a movie, written by one person. It's a product of his imagination and should be viewed as nothing more than that. It's a great movie, but calm the hell down, because it's just a work of fiction.

hey, this is the guy who did the post you're responding to.

I dont know about anyone else but im not yelling or getting worked up im just looking for answers about the movie and seeing what other people think about my ideas.

i think your point about it being a movie written by one guy is a good point. this guy obviously wrote this movie so it would make people think about it but he probably plan for the kind of thought people put in to it and the places they took it. i posted my previous ideas a while ago and after thinking about it awhile i think that its not supposed to make complete sense because if it did then people would stop talking about it altogether.

i still think my opinion is right and i think im entitled to it. although im surprised that nobody on this website has brought up the loop theory i saw on imdb. i personally dont agree with it but since its on a respected website like imdb (in the faq's) i thought more people would be writing about it.

When I first saw the movie it confused me like hell. I usually like movies with twisted story lines like saw or sixth sense because I analyse the story line so much and figure out all these alternative endings. but donnie darko confused the shit out of me. i felt stupid watching the movie. i'm guessing most people had that reaction. the movie's something that needs multiple viewings. it's an acquired taste. I watched it twice over and read all these blogs and stories about it, trying to understand. now I've always thought of myself as well versed in literature and theoretical physics and that I have a brain capable of understanding the complex nature of the human body (I'm a medical student) but the truth about donnie darko is that it does have many interpretations. And you can read as many of them as you want but only the interpretation you come up with will suffice for you. I've learnt a great deal about the various ideas people have about the story. but my personality is that of someone who believe's in the inherent nature of humans to follow hope and good will overcoming bad destiny. i have my own interpretation of dd, and it's a mix of many other people's. there are parts of it that still confuse me and there are parts of it I will be revising and wanting to look at from a different angle until the day I die. But I see donnie as a hero. I like the interpretation of the space-time dilemma that created the time-loop as a means to cut off the time loop created. it kinda reminds me of the time travellers wife. the story will always continue in time, repeating itself over. there will be many donnie darkos in many tangent universes. but his existence in that loop brought him happiness even thought it brought others pain. i'm a weird sort of atheist. i'm the type that ignores the idea that god might exist by telling myself that i'll never know. hence making myself a religious atheist (i can see the paradox). but if we want to be purely logical here, space-time does not have to be a manipulation of god's. the death of donnie darko could be the catalyst of the time loop continum. before the accident and the tangent universe donnie is a normal kid, albeit his mad tendencies. he isn't a super hero but he has free will and knowledge of space and time that he may manipulate. but his death happens so suddenly that his mind redeems the right to hallucinate a tangent universe in which he can become a super hero and justify his inevitable death. to him, this is the creation of his perfect world. this is why he dies laughing because he believes his schitzophrenia to be his understanding that his life existed as the memories he created in his tangent universe, even if they didn't exist in real time. it's ironic. that he's a hero but no one will ever know. because if they know, he is not a hero. his destiny is to die alone. he is a living creature because he has the free will to chose not to die but he does. his dying justifies him knowing about his death. when you understand how time flows in this loop and how easy it would have been for donnie to give up those memories and continuing living without having died you can begin to truly appreciate his sacrifice.

Basically, it all comes down to the creation and the destruction of the Tangent universes (TU). See, DD is meant to save the universe my sending the artifact back from the TU to the PU (primary universe). It is implied in the movie, when DD wakes up on the road at the beginning of the movie, when he looks at the sky and laughs, and when the class is reading the story "the destructors" (when DD gives his explanation that destruction brings creation, and that they just wanted to see what would happen when they tore the world apart, that he had undergone the experience of the TU before, but had failed to (Or by free will chose not to) send the artifact back to the PU, thus resetting the time loop. This would also explain why Frank is there to help DD, even though the Frank of that TU is still alive, he was killed in the previous TU. That is why DD implies he is a super hero, because he has figured out in previous TU's of his 4th dimensional powers, and although he might not consciously remember them, he subconsciously knows he does.. This also explains Why Mrs.Sparrow walks back and forth to and from her mailbox each day, awaiting the letter she has received from DD in TU's past

What we're trying to do here is analyze our own conclusions about a movie we see as being great because of its complexity, and its openness to many interpretations.
What does Hobbes mean when he says that a sovereign is necessary? What does Nietzsche mean when he says that Christian dogma is a weakness perpetuating paradigm? What does Kant mean when he says that respect for personal autonomy is paramount? Who cares, right? It's all fiction. Ergo there is nothing to learn from it.

Go watch Fast and Furious again, and be satisfied with an plot you never have to analyze.

this is the best explanation i've read on the net so far, and i agree with almost all of it. great piece of writing!
what is bothering me is, why doesn't donnie recognize frank? he must know him--frank is his sister's boyfriend, they went to the same school (although frank is gretchen's age), he was at the halloween party, however briefly...for some reason, this bugs me. he would have to know him, wouldn't he? and when donnie's psychiatrist asks his parents if they have heard of a "frank", they say no...do they not know who their daughter's boyfriend is, even though she is on the phone telling him that the reason she skipped college for the semester was partly for him?? i know there must be some easy answer to this, and maybe it doesn't even matter...but it just bothers me. like, if seth was the bunny...would it make a difference?
i'm rambling...HELP ME!!! lol...
again, excellent interpretation...i'm with ya...

I would also like to find out about Frank - not the bunny -
It can't be a new boyfriend that no one knows about if she skipped College for him

I have one BIG problem:

What will happen after Donnie's death in Primary Universe?
Will airplane crash next time (30 Oct)?
I know that Universe Corruption is a random accident but I have no proof
that It will not appear once more time. Then will be needed another
Living Receiver?

I have seen this movie about 6 times and still after reading as many threads, blogs and bits and bobs it still does not really help.
Every explaination I have seen that sounds plausible seems to contradict both itself and all the other's.
It is my firm belief that this film was intended for no other reason than to cause confusion and discussion.
I like to believe that Donnie has been given a second chance at life. The reason Donnie can see the future is because he has already lived it. Donnie had the chance to change what he did but didn't. For what reason i dont know, however I think he is laughing before he dies because he lived his life and chose not to change it he was content and accepted his death.
Killing Frank is the reason Donnie was given a chance, Perhaps there is an underlying theme of religion in that god has sent Fank back to give Donnie the chance, I dont know. I just cant accept all this uuber complicated physics stuff. However thought provoking the fiilm it is not constructed in such a way that only uuber intelligent physics majors can understand it. No one can.
In my opinion the whole movie contrdicts itself. Like what's been said before, how did Donnie not recosnise frank. It's not possible. Frank makes reference that he may have travelled back in time "do you believe in time travel?". Frank died before Donnie (Donnie killed him) all these things happened before Donnie died. How could Donnie not remember the person he killed.

Thats just my take on it,

I just read it back to myelf.... Almost as hard to understand as the movie.

Anyway top move

no the plane wont crash again in the restored primary universe because it was donnie who returned the artifact (being the jet engine) to his room in the tangent universe. Also, one could argue that the plane crashed because of the stormy hurricane like vortexes that were created as the universe was collapsing. Therefore, no donnie = no world collapsing = no plane crash

Its a confusing movie and not many people get it, so dont stress too much if you still dont understand :)

peace out

I personally believe that the majority of the movie is actually a dream. If you remember, Donnie doesn't hallucinate this "Frank" until right before the jet engine--or whatever it is--falls through his room. I believe also that the Director meant to use the hallucination of Frank and all of the schizophrenic events to rationalize his own death. Donnie probably also rationalizes the meaning of life, finding love, and "setting things straight" in a flash before his death. As for the jet engine, the incident in which "no one knew where the jet engine came from" may have further been a rationalization of Donnie.

If donnie was smart how he should of ended it :
after sending the plane engine back, sprint the fuck outa his room and not get squished, meet and fly off to cancun with his new girlfriend where he screws the shit outa her for about a month so they miss halloween, that way he's alive, she's alive, he doesn't send another plane engine back yet again to restart the loop, and the dumbass will get some tail.

Same person as above, I just realised myself that the issue of beauty ties into the public school critic. It can be noted in the scene with 'sparkle motion' and Cherita Chen's dance that Cherita is ostracised due to her appearances as being asian and fat. The only people that realise this problem are the english teacher and Donnie

Love everyone's comments! Here's mine.

Why did nearly everyone wake up frightened at the end except for the "big boned" eastern girl?
This kinda tells me it was NOT all a schizoid fantasy/dream... Something did happen and everyone affected by it, felt it.
There was a wormhole that connected two points in time. A plane narrowly misses the one end of the wormhole (future) but not entirely. It's engine gets sucked through the wormhole and exits the other end (past).
One plane, one engine. one freakishly random accident. The plane crashed anyway.

My initial thought was why Frank the rabbit did not save everything by just letting Donnie die the first time round. Of course then we wouldn't have had a movie to watch. :D
The post on February 11, 2010 answered this and gave the last piece to my personal view of the puzzle.
Donnie would have originally died "by-falling-engine" without knowing God, so he was given the chance to learn by talking to his teacher about time travel etc. basically, as was said, losing his fear of death/dying alone.

I kinda tend to draw comparisons with the movie "butterfly effect" in the reasoning behind Donnie deciding to die in the end. He realized his death would save the lives of the ones he love. His Girl wouldn't get run over by Frank, his mom and sister wouldn't be on the plane that crashes due to a loss of engine cuz they would still be mourning his death and not gone on tour with Sparkle Motion, etc.
In the end he accepted and understood "God's master plan"... as was said here earlier.
Perhaps Donny was laughing at the end simply because he was happy that he successfully went back in time.

As I hope you can see, most of what has been said here by others before me, is incorporated into my interpretation. I wrote too much already without quoting all of your comments.

ATB!

Becuase Frank/God wanted Darko (the hero/ carrier) to believe in him and understand that he was not alone. God cant just kill a person. He didn't want Darko to die, as explained in earlier comments and articles. Darko chose to die because he had nothing to live for. He knew he was hurting the ones he loved so therefor, killed himself to protect them.