How to RUIN a Movie: Deus Ex Machina - Troped!

Deus Ex Machina - Troped

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Literary devices aren’t actually devices… wait, this one’s named after a giant crane? Welcome to WatchMojo’s Troped - the series where we deconstruct the cliches, archetypes, and story devices that won’t go away. In this episode, we’re taking a look at ‘Deus Ex Machina’, its origins, and the most memorable examples of it in pop culture. We’ll be talking a lot about endings, so a SPOILER ALERT is now in effect. 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: ‘Deus Ex Machina’ - and it definitely wasn’t the first time. When a writer has written themself into a corner by creating a scenario so impossible to overcome or offering their characters little to no hope of survival, and then suddenly, from nowhere, something or someone new swoops into the action just in time to save the day, well you’ve got yourself a Deus Ex Machina. These days, people only ever use the term negatively, as a kind of shorthand for lazy writing or an anti-climactic ending, but that isn’t always the case, and it didn’t start off that way.

Origins

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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, deus ex machina, which translates from Latin to “God out of the machine.” Some of the biggest names in the Drama-writing game of that era– Sophocles, Aeschylus, and especially Euripides –these dudes loved to throw in some Divine Intervention in the third act. Audiences loved them for it; who doesn’t love a celebrity guest appearance, no matter how contrived? It was all gravy until Aristotle started cramping their style in his book Poetics telling everyone that the resolutions of conflicts in 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 has persisted in the Western Tradition: heck, even Moliere and Shakespeare are guilty of using it, and they are the greatest playwrights of their respective languages–fight me!

Deja Vu

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There are countless examples of this trope in modern pop culture, from the eagles in 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 Joe’s are presented with a chest of money after an intentionally convoluted plot point delivered purely through exposition about Vegas odds and company shares ensures a happy ending. I mean, the chest literally has the words “Deus Ex Machina” written on it! Another popular variation of this trope, which is commonplace in tons of comics and 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 tidiest way possible. Take for instance, the third and final film 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.

Alien Ex Machina

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There are many famous cases of this trope that are hotly debated, namely the ending of H.G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds and its many adaptations, including the Steven Spielberg directed 2005 film. One side will argue that the ending is a Deus Ex Machina: the alien race are smart enough to travel to earth with advanced weapons and technology but are ultimately defeated by bacteria, which they didn’t account for. 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 Aristotle in Poetics, tragedies hinge upon a moment of recognition in the hero, and the worst, least creative kind of recognition, he calls “Signs.” Well, in both of these cases, these plot points fix the seemingly unsolvable problem the characters are facing, are completely independent of the characters’ actions, and aren’t set-up earlier in the story, therefore 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?

Deus Ex Machina has become synonymous with disappointing endings, but for the Greeks, 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 west, this world view 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 to real people. When used 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. What are some of your favorite examples of Deus Ex Machina? For more informative videos about pop culture, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.