The jet engine


A couple of things make no sense:

First of all, the jet engine is shown falling on their house at nighttime. But at the end of the movie, when they show the mom aboard the plane that's supposedly losing its engine, it's daytime.

Secondly, that engine would not have crashed through their roof and come to a rest on the floor of Donny's room which was on the second level of the home. It would have gone right though his floor and all the way down into the basement assuming they had one.

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You're absolutely right Pepetoony (Good points by the way), but there are a helluva lot more things about this movie that don't make any sense than just those-2.

For example, how can a guy who has been shot and killed go back to the past when it's not even 100% certain that he's even gonna be shot and killed in the first place?

Donnie could've decided not to kill him, or shot and missed, or shot but not killed him, or shot and killed someone else by mistake.

It kinda takes the whole excitement out of living your own life and making your own choices when it's all been pre-decided, and you have no say in the matter.

"Yep, I'm gonna have to kill this guy because if I don't, he won't be able to go back in time and save me, and therefore I wouldn't even be alive right now."

It doesn't get any more nonsensical than that!!!

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This video might help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZrPYryNhWs&t=2s


😎

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It is not the guy who goes back. It is the mechanics of the universe that use him as a vessel of communication to Donnie.

I know man, it is a strange flick. I have an explanation her:

https://moviechat.org/tt0246578/Donnie-Darko/58c768a46b51e905f6861c7d/Movie-EXPLAINED-without-any-outside-knowledge-and-it-fits-quite-well - and I think it all fits pretty well like this.

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The engine is falling from a future event into the past through a wormhole. Meaning the those two events can happen at different times on the day. The wormhole could in principle exit on to Jupiter 50000 years ago...

Regarding your second point: yes I believe you are right. Probably a spoof, plot hole or an incredible strong floor.

The movie is really strange. I have tried to explain it here and I think it all fits pretty well:

https://moviechat.org/tt0246578/Donnie-Darko/58c768a46b51e905f6861c7d/Movie-EXPLAINED-without-any-outside-knowledge-and-it-fits-quite-well

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Secondly, that engine would not have crashed through their roof and come to a rest on the floor of Donny's room which was on the second level of the home. It would have gone right though his floor and all the way down into the basement assuming they had one.

I had assumed that the engine was ment to fall and despite darko's meddling the engine went ahead and rescheduled or the flight got delayed or I don't know.

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The engine fell because of Donnie's meddling. In the end it went according to plan.

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The premise of the movie is that the universe is as we know it; it is ruled by cause and causality and we all play our parts in the schemes of everything. Cause and effect equals balance. But sometimes an anomaly happens that should not have happened. In the movie this is the falling engine from a future not yet written - it is an effect without a cause. When these anomalies happen the universe will try and fix it. The universe will try to create or establish the missing cause - whatever it may be. Whether it is the mechanics of the universe, God, other advanced beings, time travellers or whatever matters not. Personally, I like to think of it as Destiny and I will use this reference hence forth. Destiny is the player and we are the pawns.

The point is really to grasp that we are not seeing a bunch of strange and inexplicable and random events taking place. We see a careful mastered game of manipulation played by Destiny. Nothing is by chance, and all for the cold calculative purpose of creating a cause in a yet unwritten future.

The Anomaly:
When the plane engine from an unwritten future falls through the present sky

The Plan to fix the anomaly
Something *beep* up, it is unexplained and we just have to take it as $hit happens. All we need to understand is that when it happens Destiny has to fix it somehow to keep balance. So, to make sense of this event Destiny has to make sure that the future (which has not yet happened) will cause an engine to fall off a plane and hit a wormhole to the past. In a world where everything is relative, the engine falling from the future re-establishes order to the universe. If there is no future where this engine falls, there is no sense to the present and this will destroy the universe as we know it (this is directly told to us). Destiny simply has to make sure the universe makes sense..... and then we see how Destiny manipulate Donnie and all the others, to create this crucially required future.

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So not only Donnie, but the Mum and Daughter must die in the future as well?

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No one had to die in the end. Only Donnie did, and he was happy then because after fixing the anomaly in the universe he knew he would not have to die alone. His mother and sister die in the closed loop, but only in the closed loop. After time was fixed, they lived on.

The question is why his mother and sister are on the plane. I think this is connected to his power of insight and foresight. His whole world is destroyed, he felt love and he lost love. The two most important emotions to the human spirit - as the movie teaches us. When he sees the wormhole forming (Destiny or the universe is doing this) and he see a plane in the sky, then he envisions his mother and sister on the plane, and it connects everything for him, he then understands that he simply has to break the engine off to save everybody he loves (power of will or power of playing his part in the universe) .

Now back in the present he is laughing hysterically in his bed because he now knows that he brought balance back to the universe, and therefore he saved his mother, his sister, Frank and his love etc... he is not alone and by dying himself he also know that the future would not repeat itself as he was the catalyst to it all. His sacrifice is ultimately to him also his salvation.

Destiny is now happy because in the timeline conundrum, the future engine has now a cause it did not have before. The timeline has looped back, and will now continue in whatever way Destiny wants. The present accident has now a timeline that caused it. Donnie is dead, but Destiny doesn't care. All is well.

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So how can the jet engine come back through the wormhole in the future and his mother/sister remain alive?

The jet event still has to occur to ensure the loop.

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Because it is a loop back in time, with a limited history in which his mother dies and all the other events happen... but it loops back, and through a wormhole connects to the past that can then continue in whatever way it may.... however, through this wormhole the engine falls effecting this "new" past.... so all the events (or most of them) that we see, happen only inside the loop, and this engine does not crash in the loop itself, as it falls through the wormhole to crash in the past instead, killing Donnie there.

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So in order for it to crash in the past, the event MUST still occur in the future ...

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Precisely.

See it like this: The universe is as we know it; it is ruled by cause and effect and we all play our parts in the schemes of everything. Cause and effect equal balance. But sometimes an anomaly happens that should not have happened. In the movie this is the falling engine from a future not yet written - it is an effect without a cause and this is why Destiny tells us in the movie that the world will end unless ....

When these anomalies happen the universe will try and fix it. The universe will try to create or establish the missing cause - whatever it may be. Whether it is the mechanics of the universe, God, other advanced beings, time travelers or whatever matters not. Personally, I like to think of it as Destiny and I use this reference as you have noticed. Destiny is the player and we are the pawns.

The point is really to grasp that we are not seeing a bunch of strange and inexplicable and random events taking place. We see a careful mastered game of manipulation played by Destiny. Nothing is by chance, and all for the cold calculative purpose of creating a cause for the falling engine in a yet unwritten future.

And so.... Destiny makes events happen so this fallen engine now gets a future that actually produces it. Since the engine then falls to the past, this future is looped, it is limited within this loop.

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He was dead the whole time, none of it has to obey the laws of our "reality".

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[deleted]

Nothing of this caliber, no.

He went on to write Domino which is pretty excellent. Directed by Tony Scott.

Then he spoiled the magic of Donnie Darko by making a "Directors Cut". The theatrical cut is superior in every way.

Finally he made the perplexing Southland Tales. It's entertaining, and it's worth a watch or two to try and figure out wtf is going on? But it's just a little bit too disjointed and bizarre. Word is the studio didn't like the way it was going and interfered? Possibly causing it to be somewhat unfinished and not cut or narrated quite the way Kelly wanted?

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[deleted]

Southland Tales is a hard movie to "like". But I still say it's worth a viewing for it's unique vision of the future from that point, just before the smartphone. It actually is pretty entertaining too, if you just go with the weirdness.

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