Lost theory -- is this Donnie Darko?

[Xanderman]

In Donnie Darko, a "tangent universe" is created after Donnie avoids death due to an airplane engine crashing into his bedroom. People who die in this universe became "the Manipulated Dead", and act to help Donnie make the right decision(s) and set things right, and avoid a paradox that would destroy both universes.

We have multiple universes on JJ Abrams' Fringe as well, in which we learn only one of two parallel universes can ultimately survive. I'm almost positive only one universe will ultimately survive on Lost as well (as maybe only one can possibly exist, and the two co-existing is unstable). I'm wondering which one is meant to survive--the one where they crash or the one where they don't.

As mentioned, as with Donnie Darko, we have the "dead" speaking to people/influencing people on Lost as well, pushing people/events in specific directions (as did living Jacob and "the Island" itself presumably). I'm guessing everything on Lost is similarly connected to saving the universe (or the world/humanity) from ultimate destruction/doomsday.

So, is Lost copying Donnie Darko? Can't say for sure yet, but the similarities are really starting to pile up.

[CallMeClark]

I think it's obvious that the alternate universe we are seeing with everyone safe and sound will be the universe that is the real one in end. That's my opinion.

[Tabularasa]

To be fair, it's not like Donnie Darko was the first movie or story to have the tangent universe. I'm also not sure that it's all connected to stopping doomsday. We haven't been introduced to a global threat since the button issue but with the hatch destroyed, there doesn't seem to be a threat.

I have no idea what they're going to do with these two universes. They even seem to be teasing that a few characters have some kind of idea what's really going on, especially Jack, who has had a few looks on his face like he knows where he is and he knows what's about to happen.

[Xanderman]

I think it's obvious that the alternate universe we are seeing with everyone safe and sound will be the universe that is the real one in end. That's my opinion.

Could be. I personally think the 1st will be the survivor, but it needs a little help from the 2nd (from people in it who are no longer in the 1st--ie. who have died). As I see it, since the 2nd is without the island, it is doomed to the fate that I think Jacob was trying to prevent for the 1st (ie. mankind will destroy itself). So the opposite of what Jack wanted will happen--instead of saving everyone, his actions will lead to a much worse future--if not for the whole world, then for the losties at least. But regardless of the fate of either world, doomsday or not, I think the 2nd universe will be used to "resurrect" important or "necessary" people, to be returned to the 1st one by the island's power. People like John Locke maybe.

To be fair, it's not like Donnie Darko was the first movie or story to have the tangent universe. I'm also not sure that it's all connected to stopping doomsday. We haven't been introduced to a global threat since the button issue but with the hatch destroyed, there doesn't seem to be a threat.

I realize Darko wasn't the first to do AU in sci-fi, but I'm putting together more similarities than just that here. Also, I think the "end of the world/mankind" idea is ongoing. The numbers which Hurley saw as cursed were supposedly variables in an equation scientists used to predict when mankind would destroy itself. The numbers occur repeatedly in the series in different combinations, like with Flight 815. Also if you remember the convo between Jacob and Smokey in the season 5 finale, Smokey talked about mankind this way: "They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same." This connects with the idea of mankind destroying itself. As per their conversation, Jacob is apparently trying to prove Smokey wrong about humanity. And of course he's helping things along, "weaving the thread" so to speak, putting certain people together at the right times and the right places, toward some end he clearly can foresee. The question is why Smokey is so clueless about Jacob's "prophetic" abilities, seems sort of plothole-ish to me. Smokey seemed to actually think he got the better of Jacob when Ben stabbed him. But Jacob clearly foresaw that event as well--he didn't try to fight it. He made it easy and even helped it along, by saying the exact wrong thing to Ben. (Even Ben found it odd that Jacob didn't fight. To which Smokey just arrogantly replied that he knew he was beaten. I really don't get how Smokey can be so dumb after living as long as he has... Then again, he IS just a cloud of smoke. heh)

All this said, you are right that there doesn't seem to be any global threat currently looming. Perhaps the threat will present itself soon though.

They even seem to be teasing that a few characters have some kind of idea what's really going on, especially Jack, who has had a few looks on his face like he knows where he is and he knows what's about to happen.

I haven't gotten that impression about Jack myself...he seems just as clueless as ever to me. heh But seriously, to be clear do you mean our Jack or AU Jack? I'm assuming you mean ours. Can you give me an example of one of those looks?

[Xanderman]

Maybe this was Donnie Darko all along, afterall... One of the interpretations of Donnie Darko was that everything was a dream of Donnie's in his last moments before death. Support for this comes from the song playing at the end, with lyrics:

"I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had"

Along with the fact that everything that happened was very fantastical and weird, with him at the middle of it all as a superhero figure with superpowers, ultimately sacrificing himself to save the world. Donnie wasn't ready to die yet (he was afraid of dying alone), and the idea is he was "given" this dream just before he died so he could come to terms with it.


And for Lost, the way they ended the series with Jack dying, makes it possible nothing we saw actually happened, and all literally happened in the "blink of an eye". (ie. both the island events and the flash sideways/"purgatory" universe were just figments of his own dying mind) In the moment before Jack died on the airplane, he experienced a fantasy world/dream life that would allow him to accept his coming death, to let go. Support for this comes from:

- the fact that the Island and its many mysteries were really quite absurd and nonsensical when it comes down to it. A cave with a mystical light and a cork covering it to stop the release of "Hell" on Earth. Smoke monsters and magic wheels and ghosts. The list goes on.

- the smoke monster in Jack's "death dream" could represent the looming death that was upon him, something that he couldn't face. So it was always in the shadows, in the background, an unwelcome presence that would rear its ugly head from time to time (more and more toward the very end of his dream/experience, when Jack finally had to face "Death" and was ready to).

- the other people on the island with him were just people he saw or met in the airport or on the plane, and his dying mind made up stories/lives for them. The names of some characters, like Locke and Hume, are of famous philosophers. Jack being an educated man would have probably read their work in his life at some point.

- Jack had daddy issues. And so many other characters had them as well. Jack transplanted his own issues on to all his "creations" (which were really just parts of himself, his own strengths, weaknesses and flaws, fears and desires, and things he wished he could do or be).

- Jack had a thing about fixing/helping people. And basically all the losties were "broken" in some way. And in the end, he literally "saved the world"/saved everyone, sacrificing himself in the process. This was his dying wish/fantasy, for his life to have meaning and to have lived a life that not only mattered, but to have mattered in the most ultimate and extraordinary of ways.

- the last thing we saw was Jack's eye closing/dying (and the series started on him as well) -- telling us he was the central figure of the story. Possibly telling us a bit more, that this entire series was just the final seconds of Jack's life, a "flash before his eyes", his own personal last-second struggle to come to terms with a life, to hopes and dreams, all about to be dashed away.