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but besides that, one of my favourite movies of all time. even more enjoyable once you fully understand the concept.
Shit, I was just having a conversation about this today with a friend.
It's funny because he was ranting about what he thought was 'the concept' of the movie. However my perception was completely different to his. Its funny to hear each person's take on what it's about.
What's yours?
yeah a lot of people shun the movie without actually getting to understand it.
but after watching the movie a few times and reading some faqs here is my opinion:
donnie is stuck in a time-loop from the moment the jet engine (which is from the past) hits his house. fortunately he avoids the jet engine by being led by frank, at that point he is already in the parallel universe. his hallucinations with frank are meant to lead donnie in the right direction, so he learns of what is truly going on, and it is meant to let him know about how he must save the universe. all of his encounters, (most notably grandma death), are factors which help learn more and more about the situation he is in. when he finally gets his hands on the copy of 'a philosophy of time travel', everything becomes clear to him and he realizes that he must guide the jet engine back to his house to stop the time-loop. if he doesn't the universe will be destroyed. he also realizes that he must ultimately sacrifice himself, in order to reset the universe back to its normal state. by doing all of this in the parallel universe, the 'ensurance trap' is fulfilled, making the universe stable again. the reason he had to sacrifice himself was to balance out the universe, the jet engine comes in to the primary universe so he has to go out.
i hope my opinion of the concept made sense to you, hahah, i typed it up quickly. but everything becomes more clear when you read 'the philosophy of time travel', which wasn't included in the original version. which is why i needed to watch the director's cut in order to fully understand the story.