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After reading (and re-reading and re-reading...) The Philosophy Of Time Travel I tried to fit the movie into the book to help me understand it better and came up with the following:
The movie opens in the Primary Universe. Something happens to create the Tangent Universe (what?). It’s not really so much an event as just a point in time where the PU ends and the TU begins (not like a Parallel Universe where the two exist at the same time). A jet engine (Artifact) falls on Donnie’s house in the TU. The source of the jet engine cannot be explained. A TU is unstable and can exist for only a matter of weeks before collapsing on itself which forms a black hole in the PU that can destroy all of existence. Donnie’s job as the Living Receiver is to return the Artifact to the PU with the help or coercion of Manipulated Living and Manipulated Dead people (everyone else in the movie following the creation of the TU).
Donnie’s primary motivation for returning the Artifact to the PU is to save Gretchen’s life (and, conceivably, the world).
In the end Donnie manages to send the jet engine back to the PU. He either knows that the black hole is going to form or he causes the black hole to form over his house and he knows that his family will be on a jet returning home at that time. So the jet engine returns to the PU where it falls on Donnie’s house and kills him.
One troubling thing in The Philosophy Of Time Travel is the statement: “Those surrounding the Living Receiver, known as the Manipulated, will fear him and try to destroy him.” I can understand why they would want to destroy him because they are, after all, products of the TU and if Donnie is successful, he will destroy the TU. But in other places we are led to believe that the Manipulated are there to “help”, not destroy, him. Of course, in helping him they are actually destroying him and themselves as well. So which is it? Then again, they are called “Manipulated”....so maybe their natural inclination is to destroy the Living Receiver but are being manipulated to help him.
Rob, I think Donnie was sleepwalking as a result of his psychological issues long before Frank appears.
EDIT: As mentioned earlier, the web site is a good source of information, like the following:
Undersigned Affiant, Who After Being Duly Sworn By Me, On Oath, Makes The Following Statement:
I have good reason to believe and do believe that
Darko, Donald J. /M 05-28-72
On or About The 12th Day of January 1986, In the incorporated limits of the county of Fairfax and the State of Virginia, did then and there commit the offense of:
Attempted Escape - Class A
My belief of the foregoing statement is based on personal knowledge. On 01-12-86 at about 3:43am I was circling the perimeter of the Clearview Juvenile Detention Center when I discovered a white male, dressed in prison clothing, asleep in the fetal position in a grass field approximately 30 yards from the nothern perimeter fence.
On arrival to the location I noticed that the subject was regaining consciousness. His clothing was torn in several places and I could see several lacerations and bleeding from his hands, arms and legs.
Clothing fragments were clearly visible in the barb wire at the top of the fencing, as it appeared to me that the suspect had climbed the fence without regard for personal injury.
As I took the subject into custody, he was cooperative and apologetic. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am so sorry, I don't understand why this happens to me. I am so sorry."
Subject claimed that he did not remember the escape attempt because of his problems with sleepwalking.
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