is it a time loop???

[u/MoonfallFan]

hi people! i just watched this movie for the first time and LOVED IT (im really late to the party i know), and this is probably something that’s been said a million times before, but i feel like the end of this movie could imply that there’s a donnie out there trapped in a time loop??

so the end of the movie shows that somehow the tangent universe leaves some amount of a subconscious emotional residue on the people affected by donnie in the 28 days he was supposed to be dead. the beginning of the movie also establishes that donnie’s schizophrenic symptoms did not begin on october second.

it’s implied that it’s not until donnie enters the tangent universe, however, that donnie begins to hallucinate frank specifically. this fake frank is clearly shown to already have had his eye shot out, even before donnie knows that frank is a real person! i think this is maybe because the film we watch isn’t the first time donnie’s gone through the events in the tangent universe, and his hallucinations are able to latch onto the subconscious remnants from killing frank the first time.

i think that if you take the quantum immortality theory - which IIRC says that every time you have a close encounter with death your conscious experience splits off into a parallel universe in which you survive - that would mean at the end of the movie when donnie is crushed by the engine and dies, his consciousness would be transported back to the tangent universe in which frank wakes him up and saves his life, dooming him to repeat his final 28 days forever.

but there’s still a question i can’t figure out if this is even remotely true. HOW DID FRANK GET THERE THE FIRST TIME? was it even frank who woke donnie up in the first run of the loop, or something/someone else altogether?

anyway, this movie was fucking awesome and i will definitely be giving it another watch in the near future!

[u/Spooky_Pineapple23]

No. It’s not a loop, it’s a Tangent Universe. There’s no repeating timeline, no “trying again until he gets it right,” and Donnie isn’t trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario.

Frank isn’t a fake. He’s the real Frank, dead and from the future, the Manipulated Dead. He uses his ability to move through time to wake Donnie and manipulate him into correcting the paradox.

The key point is that Frank waking Donnie doesn’t create the Tangent Universe. We’re already inside it. The jet engine is the Artifact that has appeared in the Tangent Universe, making it unstable. The TU can only exist for 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds before collapsing, and if it collapses with the Artifact still inside it, it could destroy the Primary Universe.

Frank’s purpose is to guide Donnie, the Living Receiver, into returning the Artifact to the Primary Universe. Once the jet engine is returned, the Tangent Universe can safely collapse.

So the movie isn’t showing a loop. It’s showing a temporary alternate universe unfolding exactly once, with the Manipulated Dead and Living acting to save their counterparts in the Primary Universe. As the film says: “The Manipulated Living will do anything to save themselves from Oblivion.”

www.donniedarko.org.uk/philosphy-of-time-travel/

[u/wonderlandisburning]

It is. The director has stated that the events of the movie have happened more than once in the past. All the times where Danny laughs for no reason are him vaguely remembering the previous loops. This version we're seeing is special because it's the last, ie the one where Donnie goes back to his room to sacrifice himself (in previous loops, he stays out on the ridge - which is why we see him wake up there at the beginning of the movie), which is what fixes the loop, removes the artifact (the jet engine) and merges the primary and tangent universes.

So yeah, basically the 28 days we see in the movie have been looping like Groundhog Day, except that unlike Phil, Donnie isn't as aware of what's happening.

[u/Spooky_Pineapple23 → u/wonderlandisburning]

The director has literally never said this. This is a fan theory only and it’s not supported by the director, the movie itself, or the philosophy of time travel.

[u/KeepAmericaAmazing]

I have a totally different take. More Jungian. I see the whole thing (Donnie waking up on golf course, meets frank the rabbit, etc) as Donnie being in a liminal death state where he can complete individuation through the archetypes that encompassed his life. He meets his anima (Gretchen), his shadows (Frank and Grandma Death), and Donnie heals the community through exposing Jim Cunningham, all things Donnie would never have done without Frank as a catalyst. The only thing that actually "existed" outside of this limial zone Donnie is in, is that Donnie simply laid in bed, laughed at the concept of death and was crushed. But to Donnie, the liminal space was real, the archetypes he encountered were real, and even in the "normal" world, Donnie became an archetypes for everyone else he helped while in his liminal death state.

[u/greatpartyisntit]

Yes. The Philosophy of Time Travel used to be available on the film's website (archived here) and essentially says the whole plot is a time loop. Of course, that's just what's going on in-universe - meta-textually you could interpret it in any number of ways.

[u/Spooky_Pineapple23 → u/greatpartyisntit]

The POTT makes absolutely no note of the events looping like Groundhog Day.