have you ever been watching a great
movie only to have it ruined by a
completely unbelievable ending welcome
to watchmojo.com and story devices that
won’t go away
before we begin we publish new videos
every day so be sure to subscribe for
more great content in this episode we’re
taking a look at Dave’s ex machina when
a writer has written himself into a
corner by creating a scenario so
impossible to overcome or offering their
characters a little to no hope of
survival and then suddenly from nowhere
something or someone new routes into the
action just in time to save the day well
you’ve got yourself a deus ex machina
causing the alien ship to come to our
aid was a very effective font
development Oh chef deus ex machina is
an outdated literary device remember
walking out of the theater after the
last Lord of the Rings movie and
thinking wow those giant Eagles really
came out of nowhere and what great
timing well you were witness to one of
the oldest and most overused narrative
devices in the history of storytelling
and it definitely wasn’t the first time
[Music]
these days people only ever use the term
negatively as a kind of shorthand for
lazy writing or an anticlimactic ending
but that isn’t always the case and it
didn’t start off that way so with the
trope originated the term like so many
story devices that still persist today
got its start in Greek theater where a
big wooden crane delivered what may have
been the world’s first special effect
the crane used a pulley system to hoist
actors playing gods into the air to give
the illusion of a God descending from
above hence days ex machina which
translates from Latin to God out of the
machine Sophocles Aeschylus and
especially Ripa teased these dudes love
to throw in some divine intervention in
the third act and the audience’s love
them for it it was all gravy until
aristotle started cramping their style
in his book poetics telling everyone
that the resolution of conflicts and
stories should arise internally through
character actions not just from deities
who show up out of left field to make
everything right again despite the
criticism the trope is persisted in the
Western tradition hey even Moliere and
Shakespeare guilty of using it and they
are the greatest playwrights of their
respective languages
so where have we seen this before there
are countless examples of the strophe in
modern pop culture from the Eagles and
Return of the King to the Wicked Witch
of the West inexplicably melting when
splashed with water in The Wizard of Oz
or in a more self-aware example the
ending of dodgeball when the average
Joes are presented with a chest of money
after an intentionally convoluted plot
point delivered purely to exposition
about Vegas odds and company shares and
shares a happy ending and hey wait a
second the chest actually says deus ex
machina on it
how much more self-work and yet another
popular variation of this trope which is
commonplace and tons of comics from
superhero movies is when the writer
suddenly grants a character a new
ability which has never been shown or
explained that fixes everything in the
tiniest way possible take for instance
the final films in the Matrix trilogy
when neo suddenly has the ability to use
his powers outside of the matrix or the
often parodied scene from Superman the
movie when Supes discovers Lois Lane’s
dead body and goes faster than a
speeding bullet around the earth
reversing time itself to fix everything
and undercutting a lot of what happened
earlier in the film to do what you’re
asking I’d have to turn back time so
prepared it there are some famous cases
of the stroke that are hotly debated
like the ending of HG Wells’s novel the
War of the Worlds and its many
adaptations including V Steven Spielberg
directed 2005 film one side will argue
that the ending is indeed at deus ex
machina the alien race are smart enough
to travel to earth with advanced weapons
technology but are ultimately defeated
by bacteria which they somehow didn’t
account for from the moment the invaders
arrived reads out an eight and
they were doomed the other side will
argue that it isn’t a good example
because there’s an internal logic and
science propping it up rather than just
a God showing up to magically zap the
aliens away going back to ancient Greece
for a second Aristotle in poetics says
the tragedies hinge upon a moment of
recognition in the hero and the worst
least creative kind of recognition he
calls signs well in both these cases
these plot points fix the seemingly
unsolvable problems the characters are
facing are completely independent of the
characters actions and aren’t set up
earlier in the story thereby surprising
the audience when they come up all the
ingredients for a classic God out of the
machine moment but does that
automatically make these bad endings for
the creek it was actually an accurate
depiction of how they saw life the gods
do what they want and we mortals are at
their mercy in individualist societies
like most of the Western world this
worldview just doesn’t stand up but
there are some times where a deus ex
machina ending is so self-aware or so
fun that they’re forgivable and
enjoyable and just maybe there’s a
certain truth to them sometimes life is
random and unexpected for every
unbelievably unlikely deus ex machina
ending that a writer deploys to get out
of a corner there’s an even more
unbelievable and less likely story that
really happened if you can’t find that
stuff in life then you my friends don’t
know crap about life when you as well
deus ex machina reminds us that life is
often really strange unexpected and
convenient coincidences happen all the
time
so this trope can’t always be chalked up
to lazy writing just most of the time so
what do you think of the ending of war
of the world and what are some of your
favorite or least favorite examples of
deus ex machina do you agree with our
picks check out these other great clips
from WatchMojo and subscribe for new
videos every day
movie only to have it ruined by a
completely unbelievable ending welcome
to watchmojo.com and story devices that
won’t go away
before we begin we publish new videos
every day so be sure to subscribe for
more great content in this episode we’re
taking a look at Dave’s ex machina when
a writer has written himself into a
corner by creating a scenario so
impossible to overcome or offering their
characters a little to no hope of
survival and then suddenly from nowhere
something or someone new routes into the
action just in time to save the day well
you’ve got yourself a deus ex machina
causing the alien ship to come to our
aid was a very effective font
development Oh chef deus ex machina is
an outdated literary device remember
walking out of the theater after the
last Lord of the Rings movie and
thinking wow those giant Eagles really
came out of nowhere and what great
timing well you were witness to one of
the oldest and most overused narrative
devices in the history of storytelling
and it definitely wasn’t the first time
[Music]
these days people only ever use the term
negatively as a kind of shorthand for
lazy writing or an anticlimactic ending
but that isn’t always the case and it
didn’t start off that way so with the
trope originated the term like so many
story devices that still persist today
got its start in Greek theater where a
big wooden crane delivered what may have
been the world’s first special effect
the crane used a pulley system to hoist
actors playing gods into the air to give
the illusion of a God descending from
above hence days ex machina which
translates from Latin to God out of the
machine Sophocles Aeschylus and
especially Ripa teased these dudes love
to throw in some divine intervention in
the third act and the audience’s love
them for it it was all gravy until
aristotle started cramping their style
in his book poetics telling everyone
that the resolution of conflicts and
stories should arise internally through
character actions not just from deities
who show up out of left field to make
everything right again despite the
criticism the trope is persisted in the
Western tradition hey even Moliere and
Shakespeare guilty of using it and they
are the greatest playwrights of their
respective languages
so where have we seen this before there
are countless examples of the strophe in
modern pop culture from the Eagles and
Return of the King to the Wicked Witch
of the West inexplicably melting when
splashed with water in The Wizard of Oz
or in a more self-aware example the
ending of dodgeball when the average
Joes are presented with a chest of money
after an intentionally convoluted plot
point delivered purely to exposition
about Vegas odds and company shares and
shares a happy ending and hey wait a
second the chest actually says deus ex
machina on it
how much more self-work and yet another
popular variation of this trope which is
commonplace and tons of comics from
superhero movies is when the writer
suddenly grants a character a new
ability which has never been shown or
explained that fixes everything in the
tiniest way possible take for instance
the final films in the Matrix trilogy
when neo suddenly has the ability to use
his powers outside of the matrix or the
often parodied scene from Superman the
movie when Supes discovers Lois Lane’s
dead body and goes faster than a
speeding bullet around the earth
reversing time itself to fix everything
and undercutting a lot of what happened
earlier in the film to do what you’re
asking I’d have to turn back time so
prepared it there are some famous cases
of the stroke that are hotly debated
like the ending of HG Wells’s novel the
War of the Worlds and its many
adaptations including V Steven Spielberg
directed 2005 film one side will argue
that the ending is indeed at deus ex
machina the alien race are smart enough
to travel to earth with advanced weapons
technology but are ultimately defeated
by bacteria which they somehow didn’t
account for from the moment the invaders
arrived reads out an eight and
they were doomed the other side will
argue that it isn’t a good example
because there’s an internal logic and
science propping it up rather than just
a God showing up to magically zap the
aliens away going back to ancient Greece
for a second Aristotle in poetics says
the tragedies hinge upon a moment of
recognition in the hero and the worst
least creative kind of recognition he
calls signs well in both these cases
these plot points fix the seemingly
unsolvable problems the characters are
facing are completely independent of the
characters actions and aren’t set up
earlier in the story thereby surprising
the audience when they come up all the
ingredients for a classic God out of the
machine moment but does that
automatically make these bad endings for
the creek it was actually an accurate
depiction of how they saw life the gods
do what they want and we mortals are at
their mercy in individualist societies
like most of the Western world this
worldview just doesn’t stand up but
there are some times where a deus ex
machina ending is so self-aware or so
fun that they’re forgivable and
enjoyable and just maybe there’s a
certain truth to them sometimes life is
random and unexpected for every
unbelievably unlikely deus ex machina
ending that a writer deploys to get out
of a corner there’s an even more
unbelievable and less likely story that
really happened if you can’t find that
stuff in life then you my friends don’t
know crap about life when you as well
deus ex machina reminds us that life is
often really strange unexpected and
convenient coincidences happen all the
time
so this trope can’t always be chalked up
to lazy writing just most of the time so
what do you think of the ending of war
of the world and what are some of your
favorite or least favorite examples of
deus ex machina do you agree with our
picks check out these other great clips
from WatchMojo and subscribe for new
videos every day
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