Donny Darko: I Think We Should Buy Him A Moped

There is much debate in the science community over whether time travel is possible or not.  If you approach the speed of light time is believed to slow down.  So if you travel at the speed of light for say fifty years you will not have aged, yet everything else will have progressed the fifty years.  Is this traveling into the future?  Does it count?  What is you travel faster than the speed of light?  Did that neutron recently pull this off?

There is also a scientific theorem posing that if you were to time travel, the universe would make it progressively more difficult, even impossible, to change anything.  This is the universe's way of ensuring that no impossible paradoxes ensue such as killing your Grandfather (if your Grandfather is dead how could you have ever been born to then kill him?).  There go your hopes of preventing World War II.

One of my favorite movies is Donny Darko (the director's cut of course, not the compromised initial edit).  This movie is infinitely debated all across the inter-webs and by stoned film students alike.  If you have a lot of time you are looking to waste do a search up and read away.  Unfortunately much of the debates focus on what is or is not possible and the symbolism behind every tiny detail. Why is that fat guy in the track suit staring at them? i find that most of the conversations centered around such things has caused people to completely miss the point.

This is not uncommon in science fiction movies.  In Star Wars (another one of my other favorites) i constantly see the same thing.  Could there be explosions in space? People pointing out incongruities between the original trilogy and the new trilogy.  Again, all missing the point.  If George Lucas and Richard Kelly wanted to establish scientific precedent they would be submitting to scientific journals not making movies.

Art, at it's finest, conveys emotion.  It helps you to feel less alone in the world.  Maybe others feel like i do.  Maybe others think like i do.  Art combines colors to make you feel sad. Art combines words to inspire you. Art combines images to make you feel at peace.

Donny Darko is the story of someone who is different.  Someone who thinks and acts differently than the average person.  By the end of the movie he has come to find peace in the fact that he was not meant to fit in to this world.  He also gets to see that although he may not fit in to this world he still has a significant impact on it and effects other peoples' lives, often for the better.  As someone who often feels different, i have found this movie very comforting.

Do not get caught up in the process.  It is a means to an end.  A method of conveying the intended message.  Thank you Donny Darko.

Oh, but all English teachers are like Drew Barrymore's character (or at least think they are).  That part is true.