Back to the Future Darkly

It is a linear film, but it double-backs. In the Roberta Sparrow book The Philosophy of Time Travel [the book in which Donnie reads about time travel], you only see two of the diagrams, but I went and wrote like 12 of the chapters for the book, and we’re putting it on the Web site. I always wished that we could have delved more into the mysteries the book was helping him solve. It’s cool that we’re using the Web site as kind of the Cliffs Notes for the movie.

What is the mystery Donnie solves?

The mystery he solves is that his world is about to collapse. He sees this crazy image of this apocalyptic time portal, and in seeing that, he sees that there is a God, or that there is an order, and that’s why he’s laughing. He has this great faith now, and he accepts what’s going to happen. Or you could see it as if he thought it was all a dream, and he’s laughing, like, “Thank God it’s all a dream. I’m going to go to bed,” and doesn’t know the jet engine is going to fall on him.

I thought the mystery was that he realized that his girlfriend was the one who was going to die alone, so he rewound everything to give her the opportunity not to die alone.

That’s just as valid and true as my interpretation. When I was going around trying to sell this movie, I said, “He saves the girl. It’s all about saving the girl.” That’s easy for a studio executive to get.