Originally posted by: BigJ
Originally posted by: Shawn
Originally posted by: mchammer187
i dont think that the tangent universe was created because he cheated death
It had to have been. Because if he did not die the universe would be distroyed. By not dying he created a tangent universe. According to the book he read, all tangent universes are unstable and if whatever caused them is not corrected the primary universe will collapse as well.
This is just one theory from numerous sites I've visited.
The tangent universe wasn't created as a result of him cheating death. Something happened in the future that sent the jet engine back in time. If you read The Philosophy of Time Travel, you would know that the person closet to where the vortex through which the object that has time traveled opened up is most likely to correct what went wrong. This person is somehow "gifted" in the sense that they have special powers.
So Frank, in a sense, is a premonition that Donnie gets as a result of being closet to it. It is Donnie's job to set things right, and to correct the tangent universe. People within this universe are unknowingly there to help Donnie along the way. Roberta Sparrow, his teacher, etc. So Donnie, using whatever power he actually has, corrects the Tangent Universe by sending the Jet Engline through the black hole again. This basically seals off and corrects the Tangent Universe.
Now the reason why he dies, nobody knows the exact answer. Notice in the movie how everyone was awake and had a deja vu like occurence? Maybe this happened to Donnie, and he didn't think he had to get out of bed. Maybe he knew what was going to happen, but finally had a feeling of euphoria that he would never experience again in his life, so he decided to die. Who knows?