DONNIE DARKO: Is It Deep or Dumb? - Wisecrack Edition

[@jacoblawyer9562]

I always interpreted it as far less grand; "the end of the world" was just the end of Donnie's world, not everyone's. The rabbit saves him in order for him to live out the things he wants to do: understand the future, rebel in school, expose bad people, fall in love, etc. Once he's lived it all out and realized the impacts of being alive: mother and sister dying, gf dying, killing someone, he opts into dying himself but he's happy because he knows that everyone else is going to be okay.

[@gabrielgerhard9122]

same

[@Brendan-Black]

YES!

[@JuanCortesgivememoneyplease]

You got it man this is it!! My interpretation as well 😂

[@viktrois]

thank you

[@destyrian]

Yes well said, I also thought this. I'll add that Donnie is such a nihilist that he's glad that he's going to die.

[@karldrackert973]

One thing I noticed was that, as dismissive as Donnie is about the idea that fear and love are at the center of human emotion, fear and love are the key motivators in his journey. Donnie at first doesn't want to save the world because he is afraid of dying alone. And so, the tangent universe creates the perfect opportunity for him to fall in love. He's told to do things but is never told why, but here's why he did them. The tangent universe made him flood the school so that he could walk Jena Malone home and form a relationship and fall in love with her. He was then made to burn down the pedos house so his mom could be away from the house so he could throw the party, which lay the foundations for what would amount to Jena Malone's death. It's his love of her and realizing that he can save her that overpowers his fear of dying alone and encourages him to save the universe. The movie isn't about how he'll save the universe, but why he should

[@SlipperyBannana]

Yeah thats def true. Awesome comment. I get it now

[@silentandcliche]

I'll give it to you, never heard this concept explained quite so eloquently before.

[@thekernahankid5045]

I think that those emotions play into it, but in the ending, I don't think he does what he does because of 'love', I think he saves the universe because why not? He wanted to see what would happen - as is inferred earlier in the film when he explains the motivations for the kids in 'the destructors', he allows his own destruction to create. Undoubtedly he does have feelings for some of the characters that die, but not all of the characters. I think he just appreciates what can be made, I think that both love and fear are concepts that we create through interaction, and I believe this is why Donnie Darko also rejects the simplicity of the ideology that is presented to him by Jim Cunnigham's theories. The power of interpretation and differences of ideas is vast and incomplete, fear and love are just not that simple in my opinion (and also Donnie Darko's opinion). I think that this is part of the film's theme - life and its functions can't be put into simple terms, the structure, the plotline and his motivations for his actions all reflect the theme of aggression towards complex individual concepts being reduced to only one person's interpretation. I'm not saying that love and fear don't play a role but I feel the message in the film is not to reduce the existence of time and space into a cage, but to free it, he's laughing at the end because death is but another state, and he doesn't know what's going to happen, whereas in the rest of the film he does know what's going to happen in 28 days, 06 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds - which turned out to be correct. Death is something he doesn't know and after the sorrow that he endures at the ending, he wants to know what will happen as now time and space is no longer predetermined for himself. But this is my interpretation in a sea of many. Please bear in mind I'm a bit of a superfan of the film so my argument is very subjective and is my own opinion - I think there's probably a lot of people who can relate to Donnie Darko and the points he argues throughout the film, maybe not so much in terms of the sci-fi aspect, but definitely the emotional processes that Donnie Darko goes through. Sozzles massive waffle. As I said I have a very subjective opinion.

[@fuzzylumkins001]

Close

[@99nej]

@@thekernahankid5045 Totally agree

[@stuglife5514]

Donnie wasn’t laughing because he traveled, he was laughing because he finally understood it all and sometimes the only reaction to such things is to laugh. His laughing is him accepting that he is to die and how futile it was to be afraid of dying alone because now he understands you never really die alone. His laugh is at fate, he was laughing at it as he accepted it. He literally accepted death with a smile

[@lancegoodthrust546]

That's how I understood it too. On a second viewing it made more sense.

[@Adamnme01]

I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion Wisecrack

[@kellenbrent]

check the booger @ 17:08

[@FrancisGoForever]

Yeah. They didn't even watch the 'Directors Commentary' with Kevin Smith. What Donnie Darko thinks of as God is actually a future version of humanity.

[@samringwald]

One of the great lines of cinema.

[@pollypocket79]

he told me to forcibly insert the lifeline exercise card into my anus

[@johnnydub237]

^^^ This guy.

[@walrider2133]

Can we all agree on Jake's great acting?

[@AzazelZaphorOmega]

See him in Nightcrawler or Nocturnal Animals...

[@duderama6750]

@GM H Semper Fudge.

[@kodakboppin7679]

AzazelZaphorOmega zodiac ??

[@andrelunaisatuna]

Yeah it's almost like him and the girl that played his sister are actually siblings

[@andrelunaisatuna]

wow

[@illiteratethug3305]

"I'm afraid I can't continue this conversation" "Why not?" "I could lose my job" Gotta love that US education system.

[@books2569]

illiterate thug it’s a private school

[@aderyn7600]

@@books2569 even worse

[@tompratticus8890]

I interpreted that as him not wanting to encourage what may be Donnies' Pchizophrenia

[@Opomax]

I believe it’s not allowed for teachers to express religious or atheist beliefs to students.

[@Asdfghjkl-pb1ir]

Opomax sort of, it’s a Christian school so they can promote Christian beliefs all you want but they can’t promote anything that could be construed as an atheist belief.

[@laurenzollamas2324]

One thing to note too that you're sort of picking up on but just wanted to add on to... Donnie Darko came out after the wave of teen-focused movies of the late 90s / early 2000s (She's All That, Can't Hardly Wait, 10 Things I Hate About You) and it completely flipped the whole thing over. Instead of high school being where you found your romance and identity, most of the students are confused, bullied, and feel outcast. The teachers aren't wise sages that know exactly how to interact with the kids in funny ways; they're frustrated, authoritarian, or constrained and rejected by the system. And in the end, Donnie's romantic interest isn't some wallflower waiting to bloom into the Prom Queen - it's a scared girl that also comes from a dysfunctional family and ends up dead. Even the protagonist isn't some quirky, perky, misunderstood kid who ends up being accepted by his peers, he's schizophrenic and possibly suffering from a massive breakdown. In case "Mad World" and the use of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" didn't translate it well enough.. Donnie Darko is the reminder that High School is Hell and then some.

[@laurenzollamas2324]

also - hah, I'm dumb - Love Will Tear Us Apart is itself a pointed barb at Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" so it's a barb song in a barb movie *~Subverted Expectations~*

[@dogfuntom]

So, in short, it's a deconstruction.

[@laurenzollamas2324]

@@dogfuntom Yep. Exactly. But it surprised me that they hit the suburban aspect but not the quirky high school movie part.

[@snoookie456]

Well it's just a lot in the genre and spirit of Fight Club... it's a rebellion against tropes. To me one of the biggest reasons for the dumbing down of Hollywood movies is that the 90s were a peak for classic formulaic blockbusters. They were actually cool but at some point, at the end of the century, people began to realize how formulaic they really are. So people started breaking the stereotypes. And it's obvious. It may be perceived as wanting to be edgy, but in fact it just does the complete opposite of what any movie producer wants to show you. To me 90s movies are great, but a lot of them just give you the answers to questions you never even asked, while 2000+ movies tend to do the opposite... you end up having more questions than you answered for yourself. For instance... Fight Club, the book, ends up with the realization that the narrator never got to stick it to the man and is in fact in an insane asylum, imagining it all. But what David Fincher does with the ending of the movie is to make us ask ourselves some serious questions concerning the world we live in - is what we see real? Are our role models perfect (including the author of the book and the director of the movie)? Can we really destroy the bad stuff in our heads? Can we really stick it to the man? Won't the collapse of the banks be the collapse of civilization? Isn't blowing up these buildings and destroying all of this property an act of terrorism? Are we the good guys in all of this? Those are all questions that Donnie Darko in its own way also brings up. That is why they are so good. Because, unlike many of the movies alike that followed and are still made to this day, they are self-aware in the fact that while breaking stereotypes, they too don't have the whole picture. Which is cool cause a lot of Hollywood cinema done until the 90s is pretty much one version of the truth somebody wants to sell you. Of course this always comes with an afterthought in the line of these movies... posing the question what exactly is truth and was there ever any truth in the first place. And also my favourite one, especially about Donnie Darko - is there a huge possibility that every one of us is actually insane and incapable of a single pure logical thought.

[@fredorpaul]

@Instrumentality1000 Yea I think what made Donnie Darko unique is that it approached it from a more beautifully nihilistic point of view. If you look at a lot of the cult classics from this time period, that seems to be a very consistent theme. Finding beauty in the meaninglessness of it all. At least that's what I took away form the film, every thing else was set dressing, to the story of this disenfranchised broken kid, getting to live fully if only for a brief time and come to terms with his own death.

[@mrshrooms3980]

That moment where Gretchen and donnies mother share a moment of deja vu, made me realize what deja vu really is.

[@nobodyim9277]

Maybe we already been in tangent universes, and having a deja vu and sometimes dreaming its a confirmation of what happened

[@alexmonza2823]

@@nobodyim9277 reality is much more prosaic

[@vvthetalentlessduo6976]

Yep

[@nuclearcatbaby1131]

What’s deja vu for me is that I dreamed about a piece of exploded plane crashing into my house and killing me just a little while before discovering this movie

[@hoodedsmoke]

"Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?" "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?" "Frank. When's this gonna stop?" "You should already know that. " Just a couple of my faves. This movie is epic 😊🥰

[@OS-dd1bn]

"He had... emotional problems." "Ooh I have those, what was up with him?"

[@samlund8543]

“What happened to your eye?” “…I’m so sorry.”

[@LuminescentStare]

"...I'm so sorry," was taken out of the director's cut, and I also feel that was perhaps the most interesting and a very important lines of the movie.@@samlund8543

[@mackenziesosa]

“some people are just born with tragedy in their blood” is mine !

[@NeverLoveNiila]

I think it is a brilliant film drawing on a multitude of topics and is not meant to be deeply scientific. It is art. Created for the atmosphere. The feeling of being lost of things being overwhelmingly complex, not knowing what is the point in everything. Feeling like all the people around you are holding on to shallow, one-dimensional ideas of what is right or wrong or good and the wish to rebel, not really knowing how to make things better. It is art and it does a fantastic job of using all the assets of a movie to connect to a feeling that most people will recognise and understand on a very deep level.

[@thoughtworn]

This comment expresses and explains exactly the feeling I had after watching the movie, I felt so fucked up but I couln't point out why in my own words

[@nobodyim9277]

Exatly!! Very well said

[@asapouya4506]

🤣🫵🏻

[@explicit187lyrics1]

Here to sum up ur take on the movie in two words ... "philisophical uncertainty" ... thats a sum up of the entire movie ... take it how you mind interprets it ... Not brillint ... just clever because it plays with your mind because of so much unexplaind reasons lol

[@user-md3is4dq2d]

Donnie darko is amazing You can't just group everything into two categories

[@chris7span]

⃠ I see what you did there😂

[@brandonjones3113]

⃠ underrated comment

[@qqqfuzion2582]

Yes☝️see this, this is gold.

[@alistersvenschoff1885]

Thats awesome haha

[@karaa7595]

Nice! And I concur.

[@jordanevans3735]

Sure this will get buried, but I think the combination of theoretical physics and the mystical is intentional; in addition to side-stepping giving definitive answers that haven’t been scientifically established, it allows enough room for the viewer to fill in their own blanks, while establishing enough structure to foster our imaginations.

[@shannongerbes]

Exactly.

[@jackasschicken5922]

It is eerily similar in it's literally sense of time travel as science fiction monsters are literal to real life. Vampires: political leaders sucking the soul's out of the civilians. Zombies: mindlessly banging on doors protesting legitimate legal processes Witches: another form of vampires creating and controlling zombies Frankenstein's monster: formerly under the control of witches and vampires now seek to expose them in daylight and soak them with truth, thereby exposing the evil within. Time travel: vessel, water, etc. are all literally brought to light as the story goes. Maybe time travel is that simple. As simple as witches casting spells to control people.

[@wariyoshidirector]

I think that's supposed to be the fun of this movie, really. It's looking at magic from a different angle. Kind of revolutionary for a film made in its more optimistic time period, honestly.

[@ri29ful]

just like Interstellar does

[@madlenox]

Didnt get buried ! Over 200 likes !

[@rvrundead8342]

I always read the movie as Donnie being stuck in an infinite loop. Him surviving the jet engine crash caused a paradox in which he was supposed to die, so he was stuck forever reliving those days. I think he’s aware of what’s happening and is struggling to find meaning in his existence and the movie itself is just a depiction of the final loop in which he finally found a reason for him to finally die like he should have. It’s like he knows he’s the one forcing these people to relive this days and everyone is like slightly subconsciously aware of it, as if the universe is trying to push him to fix itself. It’s more of like him knowing he has to die but not wanting to die without a purpose.

[@TheOsamaBahama]

Same interpretation I had when I first watched it.

[@Colonel_Flanders]

THIS!!! I have always prescribed to the theory that Donnie is living in a Groundhog Day style loop.

[@thetrueandrightfulkingofan5797]

Same here, I think Wisecrack missed the core mechanic of the film's plot. Him leaving his bed in the first place caused the paradox and he had to return when it was going to loop or the 'world would end' causing a collapse of some amount of the universe around him, possibly a parallel universe or a pocket universe.

[@phantomprism7659]

There's only one issue with that. The whole reasom Donnie leaves his bed and avoids death is because Frank wakes him up. The whole reason Frank wakes him up is so Donnie can be set on the right path to save the universe. So it doesn't really make sense. If Donnie has to do die to fix everything than why would Frank lead him out of his room?

[@LudiusQuassas]

@@thetrueandrightfulkingofan5797 Donnie in fact COULD have survided. He's not the first living receptor nor the last. The previous one was the old woman who wrote the book about time travel, she survived at the cost of being the most sane person in a world of partially insane people and became a social outcast. I think Donnie figured it out and chose to die anyway, like most living receptors.

[@nohbody369]

Donnie Darko is a reverse "It's A Wonderful Life”

[@merryharrypop]

I have to ask, how?

[@SadieMage]

Noh Body woooow. Good point.

[@kaitlnwhite6809]

But in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, George sacrifices his happiness constantly for the greater good. He gave up his hearing, his childhood dreams, got a beating, missed out on his honeymoon, and passed up being Potter’s partner and a crazy amount of money all for the greater good. He suffered, but he didn’t die. But then again, the whole reason he almost jumped off the bridge anyways was that he was going to sacrifice himself so the bank and his family could get the insurance money, while dealing with more than a few tinges of a selfish desire to end his pain. So in a weird way, it still kind of is.

[@blusafe1]

@@kaitlnwhite6809 People don't get that "It's a Wonderful Life" is much darker than its sunny surface.

[@scifislack]

I haven't thought about it that way but in many ways you're right (especially with the ending in mind). Makes me love this film even more now.

[@yototrash]

This movie is like a good poem. You can find yourself in it's meaning, and therefore you can shape the meaning by your own standards. It is beautiful :)

[@bertoasaber]

I think Donnie sat on his bed and saw the future through the wormhole that was about to drop a jet engine on him and after considering that future he decided to stay and sacrifice himself for the benefit of everyone else

[@olsonbryce777]

bertoasaber False. The tangent universe did exist. Donnie travelled back in time using telekinetic powers

[@galvinatrix1984]

Donnie Darko is a remake of The Last Temptation of Christ.

[@WithLoveK.]

bertoasaber well haha the director's cut explains that donnies destiny was to save the world btwn two alternate universes and using telekinesis. it's all about fate

[@ROUGHNECKACTUAL]

Nothing they show says he has to die for him to save anyone. It shows us he can choose to change things, but the only thing he chooses to change is himself staying in bed to die. He could have got out of bed and changed his actions saving the lives of nearly everyone.

[@mattday7337]

@@ROUGHNECKACTUAL I always figured he remembered the events of the tangent universe and assumed that if he lived he would again cause the deaths of Gretchen and Frank, with everything in the tangent universe happening again in the primary universe but this time without Frank's interference, or perhaps due to Donnie actually being schizophrenic

[@dannewman7405]

'Destruction is a form of creation'. This Graham Greene quote, and indeed the whole message of The Destructors is the point of the film. The whole plot is pointless, and that's the point; it's all destroyed in the end. The entire movie we've watched no longer exists after Donnie is killed by the jet engine. But the movie we've watched was still enthralling and beautiful, despite not being the typical hero's journey - despite it being destroyed, rather than created. Humans naturally attribute meaning to everything, which is why Donnie Darko is so prodigious - we so desperately struggle to apply meaning to the meaningless that we find meaning where there is none (irony).

[@vixxcelacea2778]

In otherwords, it's just a movie that in itself for being worthless and devoid of meaning creates it because humans can't fathom things not having meaning. This is not to say the movie isn't good. Things don't have to have a greater purpose to still be entertaining or even thought provoking, clearly. This also totally explains why art can go for millions when it is a mere dot on a blank canvas. People infer what they want to infer. Music, movies and especially drawn art works all have this. It ends up not even mattering what the creator intended and often whatever they did intend is read in a reverse of what they wanted. This is why I actually like to hear from the creator what the intention was. If there is even a single modicum of ability for personal interpretation, people will run away with that being the "true meaning". I find artists of any form of artistic expression pretentious when clearly they want their piece to mean something, and they obviously have an idea in mind but won't clarify, as if their particular way of expressing said meaning they intend is so pure, so obvious that others should get it. Humans can't even always agree on if a fact is a fact, let alone universally be able to understand anything that is inherently a little objective in its purpose. Open to interpretation should be just that, but artists that thing the value is inherent and obvious can go suck an egg.

[@jakeunderland5258]

That’s some deep Camus shit

[@ChrisPTenders]

Interpretations like this are why I love this film so much.

[@mattd8725]

So you are saying it's like Superman '78? Superman changes history to try to satisfy the human desire of his adoptive parents for meaning and purpose in life?

[@Slaytounge]

I don't think meaning strictly relies on the creator's intent. It's early in the morning and I don't know how to phrase that differently. What I'm trying to say is that if you write a story about X and I say the meaning is Y, just because you created it doesn't mean Y isn't correct too. You can't just decide something has no meaning.

[@nokk__]

“explain donnie darko” scientists: ummmm..... film critics: i dont know... bioshock infinite fans: hold my beer

[@tony.aces1991]

Are they similar?

[@youraverageplayer4725]

Lol I remember the mind fuck of an ending

[@clashblox1096]

Tony Ace yeah they both deal with multiple coexisting universes and the characters role in the fate of said universe.

[@canti7951]

Lmao you really think scientists can't explain it?

[@sy2590]

@@canti7951 it’s a joke.

[@LacedWithOreos]

Well...what this movie meant to me was the idea that no matter how small or nonessential your existence is, it matters that you're alive. You would be miss. Your family, friends, peers, would feel the emptiness of the tiny, tiny spaces in their lives that you once filled.

[@meranaamsweetgirl]

Depends on the point you quit this reality tho... For example, the love os his life will never remember him as they did not meet in this reality after he's dead.

[@remove_marko]

"the dead know one thing - it's better to be alive" Full Metal Jacket (1987)

[@colehartel7206]

I remember seeing this for the first time when I won a ticket to a pre-release screening. Having heard nothing about the film, I went in with absolutely no expectations, and I loved it. As a teenage schoolboy at the time, I found the setting relatable, and I thought the soundtrack was fantastic. Most of all, though, it appealed because it was unlike any other film I had seen. It wasn't your typical Hollywood bullshit, with some hyper-masculine hero that always gets the girl. It was obscure and confusing, and to me, that made it honest.

[@plaguemouse5549]

Donnie Darko works as a film and that's all that is important, really. If you are looking for deeper explanations then that's on you and the director has put a shitload of information in a form of "viral" marketing, in the website, where we can learn about Roberta Sparrow and the other characters and understands the functions of his fictional universe. Here's how Donnie Darko works in the universe established by the director: Fourth dimensional anomalies are extremely rare. Something, or things, are performing an experiment and something they do backfires and causes a mistake, which results in an anomaly, an object ends up travelling through time from a rupture, the object is the plane turbine that would kill Donnie. Whether these superior things are aliens, god, gods, extradimensional beings or whatever is never explained, we only know their means of working through the book of Roberta Sparrow, where she describes how They fix things in case of such anomalous event. First and foremost, when the object travels through the rupture the beings pause that universe and create a secondary temporary universe called the "Tangent Universe" Everything we see in the movie from the point where Frank tells Donnie to wake up to the point he's back in his bed laughing and about to die is set in this Tangent Universe while the original universe is frozen in time. The solution to the rupture They created is that They need to send the object back again, but instead of going through a rupture it needs to go through a wormhole, as it is "an accepted path" by nature, and not an anomaly. If the object isn't sent back in 28 days, which is when the airplane will fall, then the original universe is going to destroy itself. Now, They know They have to send the object (which in Roberta Sparrow's book is called "The Artifact", which is usually the thing that caused the first error and it's usually made of metal), but They can't do it directly because They can't interact with our 3rd dimensional objects. So, the solution They work, and Roberta Sparrow has described in her book, is the following: - Make a Tangent Universe; -Select a living individual that was closely related to the event to become the Living Receiver. This person is chosen by Them as being Donnie, because he was the closest to the Turbine's anomaly location; -The Living Receiver will often have nightmares and visions of things and the process will cause great mental instability for him. He will also have superpowers that he isn't aware of while in the Tangent Universe, like super strength (which is how he gets a fire axe stuck in a solid bronze statue at school) and he also has control over some matter like water and metals, as these are necessary to create the wormhole (these aspects are hinted and mocked when Gretchen asks "Donnie Darko, is that like a superhero name?" and Donnie unkowingly replies "What makes you think that I'm not?", because in the end it is a superhero story about saving the universe with superpowers); -Everyone else in the Tangent Universe are called Manipulated Livings. They don't know but they will guide Donnie's actions to the point of sending the Artifact turbine through a wormhole by pretty much everything they say to him. The teacher talks about Cellar Door, which will make Donnie and his friends enter the cellar door at the last night, which will make them see the two bullies robbing the place and in the end will cause Gretchen's death. The books they talk about will shape Donnie's mind and the male teacher will tell him about the theory of time travel. The only Manipulated Living aware of it's job of guiding Donnie is Grandma Death, who somehow knows she'll eventually be selected as a manipulated living and knows she needs to go to check her mailbox to guide the Living Receiver, but she has no idea when this is going to happen so she goes insane by doing it all the time to make sure the Universe doesn't end. Eventually her going to the mailbox makes Frank almost hit her and dodge, but killing Gretchen in the process, which was as intended; -One person that will die during the events of the fixing will be selected to become the Manipulated Dead. The Manipulated Dead is much more special than the Manipulated Living, as he can travel through universes and he can guide Donnie directly. The selected person is Donnie's sister's boyfriend Frank. Frank tells Donnie to flood the school, which cancels class and makes Donnie meet Gretchen and walk her home. Frank tells Donnie to burn Jim Cunninghan's house so his pedo stash is found, which will put him in jail and will make Donnie's religious teacher have to stay in town to support him, so she can't fly with Sparkle Motion (Donnie's little sister's dancing group) to a talent show, which will make Donnie's mom take her place and take the kids, which will leave Donnie and his Sister free at home, so she can throw a party, so Donnie and Gretchen can have sex and strengthen their bond and so his sister's boyfriend Frank go get beers and on the way to their house dodge Grandma Death and kill Gretchen. Some people also think Gretchen is a more subtle Manipulated Dead, as she also will die in the events and is the main instigation to Donnie besides Frank; -By having the Manipulated Living and Dead guide everything Donnie ends up meeting Gretchen, falling in love, learning about Roberta Sparrow's book and slightly learning about his place in all this, learning about theory of time travel, learning philosophical thoughts such as the thought of the inevitability of dying alone, having Gretchen die and then, so he can save her, tore the engine from the plane and use the metal and water to make a Wormhole, send the engine through it and fix the universe; -Once he does that the Tangent Universe ends, everything goes back to the Original Universe, where things were paused. Donnie is on his bed and is laughing, perhaps because he knows what he has accomplished. He knows he'll fall asleep because that night his mom made him feel guilty for not taking his insomnia medicine, so this night he took them. He knows this time Frank is not going to wake him up to save his life. But he still does it anyway. Perhaps out of fear that if he leaves the bed and survives he might end up hurting Gretchen somehow. Perhaps he thinks this is "God's intended path" that They set for him. Whatever the reason is he decides to sleep and dies; -Everyone else will still get feelings about things that happened in the Tangent Universe and things that they have done in ti and will forever remember, thus making sure their lives will forever be affected by Donnie's actions. The end. That's the actual explanation for Donnie Darko from the Director's perspective. Take it for what it is, some people hate it because it's much more sci-fi and far fetched than they'd like a little suburban noir movie to be, while others can appreciate it for that. There is no schizophrenia, even though Donnie is a mentally unstable teenager all of the events seen in the movie did in fact happen.

[@ffejpsycho]

I always saw Donnie's laughter as his experiencing the strange "jemais vu" feelings that all the manipulated living, and dead will feel from their time in the tangent universe. He doesn't necessarily "know" an engine is gonna fall (because he himself doesn't travel time, the tangent universe living receiver Donnie knew, but he's gone now tangent loop closed.) He dies because this Donnie has no specific knowledge of the future thus no reason not to just go to sleep., just this weird feeling he can't put his finger on and laughs it off... Because even in Sparrow's book it tells of a previous living-receiver who was killed by an Arrow head that hadn't yet even been made falling from the sky. To me implying the living-receiver is chosen and manipulated so that he dies in the aftermath of the artifacts return. because the magnitude of his level of manipulation in the tangent universe, would be catastrophic for the main universe.

[@pilkb7293]

You're stupid

[@sana-cm7oc]

Plague Mouse The director should have put a shit ton more work into the film.

[@romera27]

Deep and dumb.

[@eleodm]

Thank you that makes a lot of sense !!!

[@PurpleJuiceProd]

I feel like - for a movie which makes a point of the lead character either taking or neglecting to take high doses of medication, and includes therapy sessions as a key plot arch - you're trying to analyse the wrong element of the movie. What does the film say about a lead character going through a manic episode, coping with schizophrenia, or just generally interacting with the world through the lens of psychosis? That pretty heavily effects the philosophy of the movie. How much of it is entirely real? How much of it is partially coloured by the lead characters psychosis? We definitely see the film through his eyes. I think this becomes an even clearer tangent in the director's cut.

[@mechakumquat9426]

Yep. I've always seen this movie as a story about an extremely mentally ill and intelligent teenager who was failed by his family, teachers and doctors. Delusional psychosis and a psychiatric break on Halloween.

[@scifislack]

Spot on with that, it really does change the presentation of the film's message and story.

[@star88wars]

But with that analysis it also undercuts what the films it’s telling. Yes, maybe at the end it’s all in it’s head, but whats on the film was also real; he did time travel and he did save the world. Both analysis are valid because the information of the film are equally possible. Other wise they wouldn’t spend time stabilizing all this ideas and philosophies for just one outcome. Like in the film about parallel universe, Both things are the theme of the movie. He has mental illness and we are seeing from his eyes but at same time the world was going to end and he did save it by going back in time.

[@MrCuriousk]

@@star88wars I dont see how it undercuts the story at all. The Time Travel story doesnt undercut the commentary on middle income suburbia, why would the analysis of his mental illness undercut any other theme? I think the counterpoints of the bizzare encounters Donny has with things that we all think are surreal/un-real and his reaction to day to day boring life both speak to his (potential) mental illness and add an important element that this video doesnt cover as even a major idea/theme. Hell even if it is all "real" who wouldnt get thrown for a loop as a result?

[@SirMikeys]

When you realize how delusional medicated paranoid schizos can be, the film begins to make more sense if you interpret it as "What would have happened if Donnie Darko didn't die that night?" Plus some bonus parallel universe stuff such as being able to see alternate realities in your dreams. None of this saving the world/the world is going to end stuff. Schizos tend to believe in these grand overdramatic impending doom events and they frequently credit themselves as the cause of such events or as the savior.

[@gingerchew9468]

Step by step guide to understanding Donnie Darko: Step 1: Consume psychedelic mushrooms Step 2: Yup

[@NewAgeSlaves]

"It all makes sense now"

[@heter0flexual623]

step 3: arbies we have the meats step 4: wake up in the bathtub

[@Chasstful]

I understand it perfectly...its a love story

Step by step guide to understanding how the script was written: Step 1: Richard Kelly consumed some 'shrooms.

[@myartprocess6003]

This is one of my all-time favorite films. I see it as a time-travel film, more an end of Donnie's world rather than the end of all things. I love the fact that no matter how many times I watch it, I see something new. Great acting, great story that makes you scratch your head.

[@Chasstful]

More about extra-dimensionality than time travel, because in the 4th dimension, there is no time in the sense we understand it. So, if you can tap into the 4th dimension, you can move to any moment from the past. This is what Donnie did, he didn't travel back in time. He was in a corrupted and failing timeline that was collapsing on itself and he saved all existence by removing the artifact (the jet engine) from it this timeline back into the real one

[@LeahIsHereNow]

I always saw it as he sacrificed himself to save Gretchen, who was at the center of HIS world, so it’s hard to say whether he was going to save the entire objective world or not. Maybe I’m overly romanticizing it.

[@julianacrutchfield5382]

I’m in LOVE with this movie. For the past 5 years, I’ve watching this movie everyday on my birthday as a tradition. Idk what it is, but this movie never fails to leave me feel kinda fulfilled ❤️

[@Chasstful]

Yes, people say its dark but its a love story like none other. In the 4th dimension, I'm watching Donnie Darko...I've always been watching it and I always will be watching it.

[@arturorobles5401]

I LOVE THIS MOVIE TOO!!

[@kateb6893]

We watch it every October as a family tradition.

[@JohnSmith-ww2mg]

All around me are familiar faces

[@BlackShardStudio]

Worn out places.

[@Dethmaster64]

Worn out faces

[@fisharepeopletoo9653]

Bright and early for their daily races

[@RafaelRodrigues-rx9ry]

Going no where

[@kriskater]

going nowheeere

[@vorpal997]

Great video. The ending of the movie is especially important because everyone still remembers the events of the tangent universe. By reversing time, Donnie made them aware of what was wrong in their lives, and gave them a second chance to change.

[@allamericanslacker2378]

I don't know if it was deep or dumb, but it was a great film. In addition to the very theme of it, the dialogue was great.

[@sarahowen2292]

20 years later my siblings and I still quote it back and forth to each other. "What's feces?" "Baby mice!" "Aww!"

[@GangiFilms]

yes the dialogue is so good!!!

[@ワラッセまけんし]

And a great soundtrack

[@ScaryMason]

The directors cut gets bogged down in world building. The theatrical cut contains an outstanding story with just enough science fiction to service the story. We are left to fill in the gaps and that adds to engagement on repeat viewings.

[@jeronimotamayolopera4834]

FREE WILL IS AN ILLUSION.

[@JThePlante]

he used the tornado at the end to time travel back AND summon the engine. Sparrow's book described that rapid velocity was needed to create a wormhole, thus the tornado worked. A tornado was also perfect because water was a necessary element

[@onipot9639]

It would have been great if you mentioned the Manipulated Dead and Manipulated Living, they push Donnie to his 'destiny'. He is terrified of sacrificing himself and dying alone, so the world is then 'manipulated' so that he falls in love with Gretchen. Thus is able to overcome fear due to his love, he would sacrifice himself to create a world where Gretchen is alive. This is also referenced in a strange way by "Cellar Door " being the most beautiful word, it's the last place he sees Gretchen alive, and it's the moment that will push him to overcome fears of dying alone, and do a sacrificial act of 'love' that you could see as the most 'beautiful' thing.

[@alex13taylor]

Ugh yes thank you

[@Tychoxi]

I'm voting for Dukakis.

[@unlinedwork]

You can go suck a fuck.

[@delsinwheeler6701]

How does one suck a fuck?

[@MiguelAXFlo]

Chut up!

[@cginsane22]

What else!? Principal Cole, I'll show you what else!

[@yasha12isreal]

"You're such a fuckass!"

[@rpmartin92]

Jared 2024 Channel your middle-class edge lord angst.

[@laytonyon5965]

Rob Martin Why wait? Jared 2020.

[@jeronimotamayolopera4834]

FREE WILL IS AN ILLUSION.

[@Musewhisperer]

Because Trump 2020. That's the joke.

[@Aadam711]

@@Musewhisperer Or Kanye 2020 :D

[@waywardhero1177]

thats a ticket I can get behind

[@kurtsimon7530]

One night in my early 20's during that fake insomnia phase some go through. I wanted to sleep and decided to put on Donnie Darko cus yeah I'm bored and this slow paced movie should put me to sleep. I jumped out of bed pissed as the credits rolled....I had watched the entire thing straight through...thanks for reminded me of that night.

[@mischr13]

fake insomnia phase? if you can't sleep, how is it fake?

[@ravioliravioligivemethefor5882]

The first time I saw it the ending fuuuucked me up.

[@oof-rr5nf]

Exactly! I was looking to frame properly how I liked the film so much despite understanding very little and it is just that: it fucked me up. For which I am grateful.

[@joemoment-o1275]

This movie made me wanna try hallucination causing drugs... I did. Twice. Never again.

[@GS42SCHOPAWE]

Pete Strebendt why not again?

[@Liam-rn1qb]

@ravioli ravioli give me the formuoli Your profile pic and username fucked me up

[@GeorgeChatzifotis]

true!...true :)

[@thespookylocker]

Can you do a Mr nobody video

[@espoppelaars]

Yes please!

[@jesse1086]

Ayuhhht

[@mirrorzone5224]

Yes! While it may be frustrating to watch yet ANOTHER Wisecrack philosophy video on nihilism, it'll be refreshing to see more optimistic take on the subject rather than the miserably pessimistic viewpoint that so many shows and movies like Rick and Morty come to.

[@vicentemorales2533]

Everyday is a getting closer

[@icarussbungeecord7779]

DEAR GOD YES it’s one of my favorite movies but no one I talk to seems to know it exists!

[@YOVOZOL]

I like this movie because it gives a profound explanation for the cause of dreams and deja vu. The whole movie is like a collective dream, where each character had a small perspective in it and each woke up from the dream/nightmare at the end with something to take away from it. It's like our brains construct entire alternate universes where which we all experience a tiny slice, and deja vu is our awake states momentarily collapsing in on itself because our brain already experienced this possibility sometime before.

[@jdnelms62]

Love this video, loved the movie. Donnie Darko is at it's core, both a great science fiction story and period critique on American upper-middle class suburban values. Duality is a key theme that plays throughout the entire film. The main story and subplot are both parallel and intertwine to the point where it is difficult to tell which is the actually main story and which the subplot. Like Schrödinger's cat, it appears different to each viewer, which is the beauty of the film. The main character, Donnie is both, a terribly confused schizophrenic teenager with delusions of grandeur, and an accidental time traveler who can observe and interact with parallel universes. The other characters in the film view his differently as well. Some see him as brilliant but deeply troubled, others treat him as an undisciplined smart aleck in need of control. Science fiction is undercut with fantastical mysticism as Donnie seeks make sense of what he sees, and to find truth from those who surround him in a polarized suburbia. Whether it a movie about an mentally ill teenager with a god complex, or a mystical time travel paradox story, depends on the viewer.

[@TenYearTexan]

Similarly, he is both the savior of the universe with superpowers, the only sane character in a twisted world (very 80s), the cutest kid in class while at the same time being a weird misfit mental case, picked on by bullies and his sister, making his mom cry over him.

[@kemosabeusmc]

12:21 "if you're thinking we're reaching here, physicist Kurt Gurdel PROVED that HYPOTHETICALLY..." that statement is ridiculously worded.

[@csbears]

Donnie Darko is a triumph of telling the Heroes Journey....Donnie's inner struggle with apathy, despair, spite, angst, and fear of death into a story of hope, inspiration, selflessness, and a willingness to die to save others. Its a very tragic and bitter tale in and of itself but its a very heartfelt message to live for the ones around you and not just for yourself. What most see as a depressing movie i see as a selfless hero rising to the challenge to die to save the ones he used to hate. It goes from a Heroes Journey to a Heroes Sacrifice....and nobody will ever know of his suffering or pain to get to that point of laying in that bed waiting for death.

[@AmericanNerdLife]

Idk you mentioned what I took from it but only lighty talked about it. You stated that it has all the pieces to make it philosophical but doesn't decide to make the connections. it's meant to be almost like a picture taken in the dark. There may be some outlines and shadows but it's really up to you to state what you see in the image.

[@flightofthebumblebee9529]

Donnie Darko is probably the most unique and beautiful film I have ever seen. Parts of it leave me teary eyed. The music and journey are so dark and beautiful. Donnie Darko is definitely one of my top 3 (if not number 1) favorite films ever made.

[@souldigger3D]

*Okay but the director's cut doesn't include the song, The Killing Moon, in the intro for some reason despite it being the best song in the movie.*

[@madanacast6988]

Uhuhuh

[@MichelLamblin]

It's not just the best song in the movie (though Tears for Fears' Head over Heels is tied for that, with one of the best high school sequences ever put the film), it's also the best bit of foreshadowing by a song's lyric in any movie: "The killing time"

[@WithLoveK.]

Vending Machine Bud i think it's just because in the directors cut everything's thoroughly explained so it's not as needed. but i definitely agree.

[@saramecoolsuper]

Not to mention how on the nose the name of the band ties up with the film

[@jamespuleo3269]

If the director's cut eliminates one of the best musical cues of the film, (V.M.B.) *AND* "everything's thoroughly explained," (thanks for the warning K.S. !!), then I *never want to watch the director's cut of Donnie Darko.* The ambiguity and room for interpretation is part of what makes the film engaging !!

[@paraglide01]

When I saw this movie when it came out in theater, I thought it was about Donnie being in a sort of limbo when he was killed and then he accepted his death.

[@sabornisaha8962]

same! or more like the film being a metaphor for Donnie's struggles with paranoid schizophrenia

[@Arkonservative]

This is my favorite movie of all time.

[@arenkai]

My favourite movie is Donnie Darko. My favourite game is NieR:Automata. Only now do I see the obvious connection of loops, purpose and creation through destruction...

[@RJ_Ehlert]

When I watched this (the theatrical release) as a teenager I interpreted the moral question of the film being "what would you do if given an impossible choice," hindging on the phrase "you can see the future and make choices if you follow God's channel." What the film came to mean for me is that the first night Donnie wakes up from the dream he has a prophetic vision of the future as it will play out "Gretchen dies, Frank dies, and Donnie's mom and sister die." The impossible choice comes at the end of the film when Donnie realizes that these are the events that will play out, unless he chooses to let himself die in bed the night of the vision. If he follows Frank and the vision of God's channel he knows the future but cant change it and lives but loses many loved ones, if he accepts the option of never waking up from the dream to follow Frank he dies, but his death is a sacrifice which saves those he loves. Donnies choice of sacrifice is complemented with Gretchen's words "What if you could go back in time, and take all those hours of pain and darkness and replace them with something better?" I never knew how deep the philosophy and science behind the film as revealed in this video, however I always thought of it more as an emotional drama than a think piece, and Donnie being offered the choice to change the future and save lives by sacrificing himself resonates with some deep ideals.

[@phantomprism7659]

Good theory but it has a lot of holes and leaves out many of the most important aspects of the film

[@toastpoppin]

I agree man

[@zeos386sx]

fools! There are only two universes our universe and cowboy universe.

[@karawithgun8148]

But what about ninja universe? And pirate universe? That second one has to still be there. Please.

[@aaronheaton2606]

@@karawithgun8148 ninja universe and pirate universe are both misnomers for they arent universes but rather forces that transcend universes. Same thing as the robot universe. Thats why there are ninjas, pirates and robots in both our universe and the cowboy universe. Before you call me out and say "hey, cowboys also exist in both universes so wouldnt they be a universe transcending force as well?" I suppose i would have to answer your question with another question. Have ever seen a real cowboy? Mere folklore my friend. The fact that we even know about cowboys is because once in a while our universe collides with the cowboy universe and overlap occurs. I do disagree with OP however. He forgot vampire universe. Edit) have you ever noticed how humans, cowboys and vampires can never be in the same place at once? Its because a three way universe overlap is basically imposible from a statistical standpoint. Something like 1 in 100^100^100

[@imjustherefortehlulz]

This is a Futurama reference

[@duderama6750]

@@karawithgun8148 Unless you're talking Teenage Mutant Ninja Universe, you're talking shit!

[@DarrenSemotiuk]

I CLAPPED BECAUSE I UNDERSTOOD THAT REFERENCE!

[@kaneaquino8295]

Is it possible to be deeply dumb or dumbly deep?

[@MrBassmann15]

According to this movie, the answer is yes.

[@g.w.7893]

Do you see me?

[@_texas_pete_beats_the_meat4500]

Is it possible to have four kids by six baby-mommas?

[@karawithgun8148]

Yes.

[@TS-qq7vr]

Dumbly dumb.

[@damasterme]

I love when Donny asks frank; Why are you always wearing that stupid bunny suit? and he says: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit? this movie lets you think about life and death, that we are just traveling in vessels true time. and about the choices you make and consequences.

[@duderama6750]

Frank knows that Donnie is Christ, but Donnie doesn't.

[@toddgarver5397]

It sounds like something Jim Carrey would say nowadays. Kinda cringey

[@WatchDog-wr9kd]

@Roy G Biv I'm a teen, but to me...Donnie Darko was just depressing, and not even close to deep to me. You want deep? Check some Death Cab For Cutie or Flatsound, that's music that will rattle you. Or Modest Mouse.

[@PrincessDesert]

... Deep...

[@bingboompow8861]

@@WatchDog-wr9kd you HAVE to be trolling or joking right ? God I hope so

[@kenhotte9193]

The evolved term for the given parallel universes in such scenarios is 'pocket universe'. the proposed 'science' in the film, at 13:17...regarding vortexes is not unevolved in origins and direction. Richard Kelly did his research. The script has depth. Which is part of why it has such staying power.

[@ChrisBoogie17]

I always thought it was a movie of someone's life passing before their eyes and choosing death in the end...

[@piercearrow8860]

I was 16 in '88, so it was very authentic to the time, and people seem nostalgic for tge 80s even if they didnt live through them. My experienxe was something between Donnie Darko and Repo Man. Another great movie with a time machine and awesome soundtrack.

[@3RAN7ON]

If you like Donnie Darko check out a movie called "John Dies at the End"

[@lucota90]

Usually I don't comment but that part about particle superposition bummed me out a little bit. I think you guys should be more explicit of what means to observe a particle, explaining that this means to measure the particle and that implies interfering physically on it. I'm saying this because there was an infamous film called "what the bleep we know" which explained the superposition collapse with an eye looking into the particle and THAT being the factor that changed the experiment result, which kinda gave the ideia that what changed the behavior was a sentient being looking into the electron, not the interaction of the measuring equipment. Anyway, love you guys, just becareful as quantum physics is already easily food for mysticism.

[@lucota90]

​@@thotslayer9914 no

[@lucota90]

@@thotslayer9914 Or is there? *cue VSauce BGM*

[@regardtvanniekerk6399]

The thing about quantum mechanics is that the results is theoretical and there are many interpretations of these results. Some say that the act of observing or measuring causes the wave function to collapse while other interpretations the collapse is indepentendent of the observation.

[@mooglywoogle4264]

It is just a beautiful, poetic film. The beauty lies in the complexity, realism, and metaphor of the story's universe.

[@Chasstful]

The best film ever made, a love story to humanity

[@AkinokazeHaruichiban]

You: possibly deep stuff. Me: He never left the house in the first place, he died at the start of the film and everything else was a form of "your life flashing before your eyes." Subconsciously, his mind new he was dead and how long it would opperate for and constructed everything to pad out the running time, as it were.

[@WithLoveK.]

Akinokaze Haruichiban this can't be right, every single hard hit in this movie would go against it.

[@melodymedia466]

I think the whole thing is about a person coming to terms with the fact that he is going to have to die to save everyone, and not knowing what is going to happen after death, but knowing that death is coming is a very scary thing. Donnie knows he has to die and starts to understand early in the movie but the whole thing is him coming to terms with that world ending count is really the world ending for him.

[@jamesblackmon2395]

It would be great to see a philosophy of "Sorry to Bother you" just watched the movie and there is so much meaning in it i dont even know where to start its crazy weird but i love it

[@Cross_Bones.]

I honestly thought that it was a lot simpler than that. I believed that sure a lot of weird crap happened but I think that it was actually him going through purgatory and he accepts his death when he travels back in time and is killed.

[@MforMovesets]

It's both. But it's acceptible because the movie feels like an art student project. The same movie with a Michael Bay budget would come off as way worse.

[@carolfromhr9900]

Hence...The Southland Tales.

[@vandolmatzis8146]

I question your commitment to Sparkle Motion. kidding,great content.

[@yoshidinono8095]

"Parallel universes aren't going to collapse into each other" *Doctor Doom:* Hold my beer, FOOL!

[@08bourquem]

props to you for rocking the weird theater kid haircut late into you 30's

[@marcotuliohernandez6139]

As one will make regretful decisions throughout life, the power of Preventing regrets, conversations are distrustful, destruction can be diverted. A clean conscience can be achieved through understanding chances, and taking it.

[@exillonred]

I thought the point of donnie darko is choice. At every turn he is given an option. Choice is what collpses the world line into something he can observe, and change. The ending is his acceptance of his own death, choosing to die so others can live. It works into the conservative criticism, the christ allegories, and the pseudo-understanding of quantum mechanics the movie shows.

[@ededdynedd]

exillonred it is a choice. I have a better analogy than wisecrack. It’s a grocery list. Just because it’s already set what you’re going to buy, and you’re just going through the motions buying them at the store, doesn’t mean there was no choice involved in that process. On the contrary, it was your choice and will that made it so. It was your hand that wrote the grocery list. You are enacting your choice the same way your brain processes a thought for an action first and then sends the command signals for your body to follow through.

[@BackBeater]

Donnie was saying everything has it's own set path so Hypothetically speaking You can't Change anything because at the end of time you will end up back on your set, path set by life.

[@Brokencardoorhandle]

I think y’all should call this segment “Depth Perception”

[@MiSambra]

Donnie Darko is like "The Catcher in the Rye" of movies, in that it just hits different when you consume it as a kid/teen.

[@hellbenderdesign]

I thought it was deep, until I listened to the director's commentary. When you hear what he intended this movie to communicate, you'll like the movie less. For instance, did you realize he gets superpowers from water? I didn't either.

[@StarboyXL9]

Just goes to show you how stupid people are. The director was obviously nuts, like, not right in the head, missing a few bolts somewhere, and thus created a movie that would only make actual sense to insane or drugged people and a bunch of low IQ wackos projected their thoughts and meaning onto it. Sometimes shit exists for it's own sake, for the sake of existing. But that's not enough for some people.

[@christopherramos2009]

People draw separate conclusions from the directors intentions, but this fact is rarely be brought up in film analysis.

[@joeodonnell921]

@@christopherramos2009 I'm sure someone said that of the original 'king Kong' that they may not have intended it to be a film representing slavery but that's exactly what they made.

[@joeodonnell921]

Think the sci fi element of it is just window dressing, the subtext is mostly dealing with mental illness and the main character looking for something to believe in.

[@BlueRabbit35]

@@StarboyXL9 What crawled up your ass lmao

[@TimD86]

The movie that started my DVD/Blu-ray collection

[@agranero6]

At 12:20 he states; "Physicist Kurt Gödel...". Well Gödel can be called mathematician, more specifically logician, even philosopher if you wish, but hardly a physicist. He made a beautiful work with Einstein's field equations showing a possibility that never was thought before. Maybe influenced by his friendship with Einstein. But is that. He didn't think of him as being a physicist nor the others thought of him as one.

[@seymourglass26]

This has been one of my favorite movies (Emphatic note: Not the Director's Cut) since high school. It's definitively both dumb and deep. It's also open-ended enough to let the audience have a say in the ultimate meaning. There's also just enough memorable scenes, charismatic (and creepy) performances, and great music to watch it even if you think it's dumb.

[@anthonychesko6636]

I'd love to see earthling cinema for Donnie Darko 👀

[@DanJMW]

One angle you've not tackled here is the exploration of mental illness. As a young person suffering from severe depression at the time Donnie Darko came out, I found something in it which I connected to deeply - yes I was not experiencing the supernatural (or possibly delusional) elements shown in the film, but the sense of dislocation, isolation and strangeness was absolutely spot on. Donnie Darko was a huge help to me and without it I may have waited much longer before recognising my illness and seeking professional aid.

[@ikarosouza9505]

wow, i've never paid attention to that part of the movie, i was too busy trying to understand how all the time travel jizz works

[@allamericanslacker2378]

The travelling back in time paradox doesn't just apply to doing something that ends your own existence. It would apply to any deliberate change in the past. If you go back in time with the intent of changing the timeline, it means that the event you were trying to change never took place in a way that would result in you trying to go back in time, which means you never went back in time to change it, resulting in that event occurring, and you going back in time to alter it, ad infinitum. Basically, in a world where there's only one timeline, going back in time to change that timeline just results in you being trapped in a neverending loop.

[@KaitlynArgyle]

Isn't this called the grandfather paradox or something?

[@allamericanslacker2378]

@@KaitlynArgyle The grandfather paradox pertains to someone going back in time and taking actions that would bring about the end of their own existence. What I'm saying is that in a world where there's only one timeline, you can not go back in time to deliberately alter the timeline at all. Doing so just results in you getting trapped in an infinite loop. It's actually one of the things I love about the original Back to the Future. There's only one timeline in it, and Marty's travelling to the past is entirely accidental, thereby leaving him entirely unbound by that paradox because nothing he changes will alter his motivation for travelling into the past.

[@glitchygear9453]

The general alternate logic people use for time travel is that if time travel is possible then it's not possible to change the past. If you're in the past then you're in *your* past and that's just that.

[@__sigh]

Wow this can turn into a good movie about guilt regret and self sacrifice, with suffering tone ofc.

[@allamericanslacker2378]

@@glitchygear9453 That's what I said. In fact, I said it twice already. : ) You can't go back in time with the goal of changing the past because then there would have been no reason for you to go back in time, so you wouldn't have gone.

[@unfire]

This movie was one of the key factors of me wanting to be a movie critic, and seeing EVERY single movie on release for almost 10 years straight. FYI have not become a movie critic, but learned A LOT about movies. Including sound mixture, editing, cuts, lighting, directing etc. And this movie.... always hit me as an juxtaposition of everything. I loved it. It was a huge testament to self-sacrifice and selfishness. The director and actor in the director's commentary literally said they don't know what they made. But all the technical elements of this movie, sincerely, were prefect.

[@carlgrimeseyepatch27]

I like this movie more when it isn’t being explained 😂

[@mercce6750]

Understandable, have a nice day.

[@singlikeyoumeanit3261]

Well, if it's any consolation, this video isn't very good at explaining the film

[@davidtharp2125]

Why partake in watching then?

[@mischr13]

you know you can have your own interpretation right?

[@simonbright2975]

@@singlikeyoumeanit3261 I disagree. I think it did a great job, and it falls quite close to the original vision put forth by the director himself.

[@DarkBykeTwitch]

The movie was about self-sacrifice.

[@snail_viXen]

just like in the Butterfly Effect , Evan sacrifices himself for the girl he loves to have a good life :)

[@Pontificate]

I disagree , Grandma Death was a living receiver aswell and she was able to live on, it also never mentions that a living receiver has to die. If the artifact was a gratuitously large object falling from the sky, how exactly would it kill the receiver? Unless Grandma death was a 3rd kind of Manipulate or even the Manipulator. But with that I feel Donnie still could have saved himself for he had tried.

[@goranmilic442]

@@Pontificate I don't think he sacrificed himself, because his only alternative option was to do nothing in Tangent Universe and therefore die when it collapses. He saved others, but he didn't sacrifice himself, he was going to die anyway.

[@KokoRicky]

A note on photons: They're not necessarily a duality of particles and waves. The *appearance* of a point-like structure (a particle) is really just a variation of a wave. The collapse that occurs during observation is not so much a literal collapse so much as, the waveform becomes very narrowly defined when we use our observational tools to gather data.

[@Redsauce101]

I always thought the whole thing was from Donnie's perspective as a schizophrenic.

[@BBoyMokus]

I agree. There are no tangent or untanged universes, no spooky rabbits, just Donnie on the roadside at the end of the film with his dead girlfriend on his hands.

[@Redsauce101]

@@BBoyMokus Personally I think Jake does an excellent job with capturing the 'look' when Donnie starts seeing the Rabbit, especially in the mirror scene. Ive seen it before, it kind of hit a nerve.

[@Dza2K12]

@@BBoyMokus Now this fucked me up. With all the deep thinking I did on this. And I read this simple explanation. Damn lol

[@LucBoeren]

That's the nice little narrative device used here - both interpretations are equally feasible, which does away with the film's authorative meaning and reinforces the dissonance people experience when presented with true ambiguity :)

[@yatexasnycaflnvnigga]

Yup

[@shawniscoolerthanyou]

Philosophers using quantum to explain stuff often goes awry. This is no exception.

[@colina1330]

Donnie Darko is the first movie that I ever picked apart and REALLY tried to figure out back when I saw it for the first time when I was like 15. It also caused me to appreciate independent cinema. I love everything about it. The dark/creepy vibe, the music, great performances, and, of course, Patrick Swayze. When I watch it now, I still get the same feelings that I did when I first saw it. It might not make a whole lot of sense, but it's got a special place in my heart and is definitely one of my all-time favourite movies.

[@samuelcochrane2245]

Video starts at 1:40

[@TheJoeSwanon]

I watch this movie on acid and it made complete sense

[@sir313jonsson]

@Sagar Tewari 42

[@neuralmute]

@Sagar Tewari That's the thing - you need to be tripping balls for it to make sense. Then it's the deepest movie ever made.

[@rishikeshp.5610]

@@neuralmute An idea, no matter how profound, is worth nothing if it can't be conveyed.

[@neuralmute]

@@rishikeshp.5610 My comment was a drug joke, and little more. I'm saying that the only way for this movie to make sense is to watch it when you're higher than a kite. Then all the pseudointellectual surrealism will make perfect sense to you.

[@rishikeshp.5610]

@@neuralmute I understand. I'm just saying while it may make perfect sense to oneself, if you can't convey what you understood from the movie after the trip then there was no point to the experience(unless it changed your perspective or something).

[@solluna1919]

When things observed though they do, indeed, collapse into something definite. When we define things in our mind literally, change the way it will play out. What we notice tends to change how things play out. Its so impossible to explain but what we pay attention, determines our journey on earth.

[@boldsword1]

Observing a particle has no magic properties. The act of observing on the scale that quantum physics talks about means that you have to interact with the particle, whether that is by bouncing light off of it, or electrons, or by using magnetic fields, it doesn't matter, all of these things are incredibly forceful on that scale. This is the whole problem with mythologized quantum physics, people think of observing as passive because that is how normal life works. But observation on these scales is akin to looking around your room with your eyes shut using a baseball bat swung at full force, hitting a lamp then deciding whether or not it was on by the sound of it smashing.

[@thegrapefruitheart]

Boldsword Yep, it’s like smashing a car into a truck to figure out how fast the truck was going

[@dionmcgee5610]

Bravo. Excellent example.

[@karawithgun8148]

Helga: 28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...And 12 seconds before you *DIIIIEEEEE!*

[@johanes119]

AND, AND, AND, this movie was also a gate way for many kids to discover bands like joy division, Ecco and the bunny men etc etc. The soundtrack is just so brilliantly put together with the mood of this film.

[@neoepicurean3772]

I watched this 20 years ago when everyone told me it was amazing. I couldn't work it out then. I guess there was nothing to work out. It's just art.

[@T0xXx1k]

Please don't listen to this analysis it's missing the whole thing. On The Take (another KZbin channel) they did a video on Donnie Darko and that guy not only got it he was able to also explain it very clearly. I rly think it's worth looking into. ~🧡🦇

[@neoepicurean3772]

@@T0xXx1k Well I'm a smart guy - I'm familiar with relativity and space-time and other aspects of time travel - in my analysis I couldn't find any coherent explanation.

[@singlikeyoumeanit3261]

@@neoepicurean3772 The book Grandma Death wrote is called "The Philosophy of Time Travel," not "The Science of Time Travel." It's only carries a SciFi paintjob; at its core, it's about Mental Illness. All through the film, there are examples of how mentally ill people create pain and destruction. The only way for Donnie to save his friends and family from getting caught in the tidal wave of his illness is by letting himself be killed. Think "It's A Wonderful Life", but from hell.

[@neoepicurean3772]

@@singlikeyoumeanit3261 I'm sure you're reading more into this than is there. Philosophy also deals with science too! Time travel is a philosophical topic as it deals with logical inconsistencies and paradoxes.

[@transamination]

I don't think it needs to be 'got'. I like it just for the vibe, the atmosphere.

[@jasonvoorhees895]

I thought of the Joker's scene in The Dark Knight when he mentioned creation through destruction and burning the stack of money. I watched this movie once many years ago on video and didn't really care to give it much thought. It was weird and trippy and mildly entertaining, but I figured "was it dumb or deep" was a fair question. Personally, I was of the opinion that regardless of all the time travel and visionary elements and how "true" they might be in the story, Donny was mentally ill. Maybe all the mystical stuff really happened, but I felt that all that stuff was happening to perhaps a budding schizophrenic. I think I was reading some stuff about shamanism/schizophrenia at the time.

[@ONFIREYO]

Also, Interstellar dealt with wormholes and time travel. And Inception was literally about dreams. Did we just crack Christopher Nolan?

[@aitchpea6011]

My hot take? Frank is a causal loop, and all the subsequent events, good and bad, are part of the loop. He only exists because Donnie causes him to exist, but Donnie only causes him to exist because Frank set in motion the chain of events that cause Donnie to create him. It's just like if I see plans for a time machine on my doorstep, follow the plans, build the time machine, travel back and leave the plans on my doorstep, where do the plans come from? Where does Donnie's knowledge of the timeline come from? The causal loop. The end of the world is just the point where the loop resets, so the world effectively dies because it can't pass that point. When Donnie rides the loop back to the start, he decides to stay in his bedroom. No more causal loop, so the world gets to continue along its path.

[@Virgil-Arcanum]

That that so many people have so many theories, shows how well made the movie is and how the story is open to huge amount of interpretation

[@loneschachwolff8506]

My best friend and I would skip class in High school to go watch this at the library on his laptop. And I have to agree 100% that our love for it was mostly because it fed our #edgelord fantasies. the time travel, alternate universe was just the sprinkling on top.

[@br00talbr00skeez]

First time post, long time fan of wisecrack. Donnie Darko has been my favorite film since I had viewed it in its original years. Over the years I have analyzed one of the most important plot element (aside from escapism) is Donnie Darko as the unexpected “hero”. The reference to the hero’s journey is made on Donnie’s whole experience through the film. Examples like; -Leaving home to unexpected call to adventure. (Sleep walking) -The travel to a “new” or “other” realm/world -Lessons from the master(s); ie, Frank, his teachers, Roberta Sparrow. - The “return” journey, that is literally aforementioned in the end. .. and not to mention the ultimate hero reference he gets from Gretchen in the tangible universe. On top of the philosophy, science theories, and suburbia escapism; it all revolves around “our hero” Donnie Darko.

[@cptnraptor]

Jokes on you, I have *lower* class edgelord angst

[@bradrusselburg7553]

What wasn't touched upon in this essay was how perception is reality. How Donnie sees things that no one else does, which is just checked off as a mental disorder (Schytsophrenia). The ambiguity of realization that he may just be crazy stays in the back of all of our minds. It's only until he does turn back time that we learn that just because no one else sees what he sees, doesn't make it any less valid. And once time is shifted, the saddest part imo, is that he knows that his existance caused so much pain, and that he must be a martyr for his own cause, and ultimately the world. Donnie lays in bed laughing, knowing that his death will end suffering. Que Gary Jules. Mad World plays and we see that his death didn't end suffering, but only supressed it. In my eyes the movie can teach us alot about mental health and suicide as well.

[@bradrusselburg7553]

Please like so that the guys of wisecrack might see this

[@AzazelZaphorOmega]

That was a much better read. In more capable hands, the mental health issues would've been better realized and depicted.

[@wariyoshidirector]

I think that idea of the main character knowing that the right thing to do transcends what other people see as normal and sane is kind of the lesson here. It's like an extreme and roundabout way of saying, "Do what's right even if nobody else agrees"

[@kodakboppin7679]

i have a feeling we watched this movie on the same frequency

[@TheVirgil3000]

When i was younger i used to feel something akin to the worm things that pop out of donnie and his dad leading them to the direction they were going. Idk it was weird they used to fluctuate and stuff, they would be attached to everyone aroumd me, and i lay/sit there just watching it. Not saying it means anything but when i 1st watch this movie i got a big hit of nostalgia of those moments.

[@aftergood]

i have plagued your comment section for YEARS asking for a thung notes on Paradise lost, and STILL NOTHING. WHATS UP WITH THAT?

[@lightpoint4426]

If they're working on one...They're probably deciding between the 2 most common interpretations of PL: Milton's intent was to show the seductive power of evil and to recreate the Fall in the reader by making Satan the primary POV character (you're supposed to initially sympathize with him and be intrigued, while all the heaven stuff is stilted and boring...and then he goes and effs everything up and show you just how wrong you were). The other one is that Milton wrote Satan to be genuinely sympathetic.

[@AliensAnonymous]

Quit being so needy and do ur own work.

[@g.w.7893]

If you want something done right then.....

[@aftergood]

@@AliensAnonymous ahh alas i have read it a couple times.. first was for a class and then a few years ago for leisure.. but no theirs no work to be done on my part, i would just like to hear a thug notes on it. i doubt you will believe me but it doesn't matter. if i made my own video it would not be anywhere near the quality though i'm sure i could provide.. a similar delivery.. but i doubt even that.

[@danielwilson6529]

Gretchen says “ there’s a fat guy staring at us “ the same guy appears outside the house at the party , any explanations ? Anyone ?

[@untitled3313]

He's the FAA agent, also seen in the crash site

[@allykayyy2683]

@@untitled3313 you mean the FAT agent m i rite

[@ayushchaudhary7331]

The person was a FAA agent and he appeared 3 times in movie And it i think symbolises that someone is watching us observing us

[@MistorDi]

It's more about breadth and depth. People frequently use word ‘deep’ for both and literally attempting to dig or dive down, while in fact it's thematic richness, multitude of interpretations and beautiful interconnection of numerous simple layers, is that makes something great.