No one had to die in the end. Only Donnie did, and he was happy then because after fixing the anomaly in the universe he knew he would not have to die alone. His mother and sister die in the closed loop, but only in the closed loop. After time was fixed, they lived on.
The question is why his mother and sister are on the plane. I think this is connected to his power of insight and foresight. His whole world is destroyed, he felt love and he lost love. The two most important emotions to the human spirit - as the movie teaches us. When he sees the wormhole forming (Destiny or the universe is doing this) and he see a plane in the sky, then he envisions his mother and sister on the plane, and it connects everything for him, he then understands that he simply has to break the engine off to save everybody he loves (power of will or power of playing his part in the universe) .
Now back in the present he is laughing hysterically in his bed because he now knows that he brought balance back to the universe, and therefore he saved his mother, his sister, Frank and his love etc... he is not alone and by dying himself he also know that the future would not repeat itself as he was the catalyst to it all. His sacrifice is ultimately to him also his salvation.
Destiny is now happy because in the timeline conundrum, the future engine has now a cause it did not have before. The timeline has looped back, and will now continue in whatever way Destiny wants. The present accident has now a timeline that caused it. Donnie is dead, but Destiny doesn't care. All is well.
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[deleted]
6 years ago
So how can the jet engine come back through the wormhole in the future and his mother/sister remain alive?
The jet event still has to occur to ensure the loop.
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HAL 9010 (906)
6 years ago
Because it is a loop back in time, with a limited history in which his mother dies and all the other events happen... but it loops back, and through a wormhole connects to the past that can then continue in whatever way it may.... however, through this wormhole the engine falls effecting this "new" past.... so all the events (or most of them) that we see, happen only inside the loop, and this engine does not crash in the loop itself, as it falls through the wormhole to crash in the past instead, killing Donnie there.
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[deleted]
6 years ago
So in order for it to crash in the past, the event MUST still occur in the future ...
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HAL 9010 (906)
6 years ago
Precisely.
See it like this: The universe is as we know it; it is ruled by cause and effect and we all play our parts in the schemes of everything. Cause and effect equal balance. But sometimes an anomaly happens that should not have happened. In the movie this is the falling engine from a future not yet written - it is an effect without a cause and this is why Destiny tells us in the movie that the world will end unless ....
When these anomalies happen the universe will try and fix it. The universe will try to create or establish the missing cause - whatever it may be. Whether it is the mechanics of the universe, God, other advanced beings, time travelers or whatever matters not. Personally, I like to think of it as Destiny and I use this reference as you have noticed. Destiny is the player and we are the pawns.
The point is really to grasp that we are not seeing a bunch of strange and inexplicable and random events taking place. We see a careful mastered game of manipulation played by Destiny. Nothing is by chance, and all for the cold calculative purpose of creating a cause for the falling engine in a yet unwritten future.
And so.... Destiny makes events happen so this fallen engine now gets a future that actually produces it. Since the engine then falls to the past, this future is looped, it is limited within this loop.
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