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Uncover the truth about deus ex machina in movies & tv. In this video, we deep dive into this narrative device to figure out why it sometimes works well but other times totally breaks a story......
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00:00Deus Ex Machina is a plot device that's been contested ever since it was first used in ancient Greek theater centuries ago.
00:08And it's continued to pop up and confuse audiences ever since.
00:12It's Latin for God from the machine?
00:14I don't know what that means.
00:15Picture any time your favorite characters are at their lowest and all seem lost,
00:19until something miraculous occurs to turn the tide, like an unexpected savior,
00:25a convenient ability, or even literal divine intervention.
00:29Suddenly, the advantage is with our heroes, and the bad guys are no longer on top.
00:34This moment is often referred to as Deus Ex Machina.
00:38On your left.
00:39No matter where this device appears, viewers debate whether it's a clever twist or just a lazy way out for writers.
00:46Deus Ex Machina can be a good thing, like ensuring our beloved characters get the happy ending we want for them.
00:52Or it can feel unsatisfying and cheap, leaving viewers underwhelmed and disappointed.
00:58Is that it?
01:01Today, we're diving into all things Deus Ex Machina, when and how it was used well,
01:06when it was ineffective, and some of the most famous or perhaps infamous examples that use this double-edged device.
01:14Fair warning, major spoilers ahead for these movies and shows.
01:17First, let's quickly unpack where this term even came from in the first place.
01:22The first recorded use of Deus Ex Machina appeared as early as the 17th century.
01:27It began as a Greek term that literally meant God from the machine.
01:32Famous playwrights, particularly Aeschylus and Euripides, would use what became dubbed as Deus Ex Machina in many of their tragedies,
01:39using actors dangling from the crane, literally a machine, to represent the gods descending from the heavens and solving everyone's problems.
01:47Arthur, king of the Britons.
01:52Oh, don't grovel!
01:54One thing I can't stand is people groveling.
01:56Sorry!
01:57Using the Deus Ex Machina and the gods' representation on stage often elicited emotional responses from the audience, leaving a lasting impression.
02:05Not everyone was impressed, though.
02:07Aristotle, a famous Greek philosopher, criticized the plot device, arguing that
02:12The unraveling of the plot, no less than the complication, must arise out of the plot itself.
02:18It must not be brought about by the Deus Ex Machina.
02:20The Deus Ex Machina should be employed only for events external to the drama,
02:25for antecedent or subsequent events which lie beyond the range of human knowledge and which require to be reported or foretold.
02:32For to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things.
02:36In other words, Aristotle believed in consistency and maintaining the laws of probability by having any conflicts that arise
02:44be solvable by the characters, tools, events, etc. that we've been familiar with since the plot began.
02:51He asserted that any use of Deus Ex Machina was lazy on the writer's part and distorted reality,
02:57jolting the audience out of their suspension of belief.
03:00What just happened?
03:00Despite the criticisms, however, Deus Ex Machina has continued to appear in literature, film, and television over the years.
03:08Its definition has expanded from solely divine intervention to being more figurative,
03:13with different types of scenarios falling under the umbrella term of Deus Ex Machina.
03:17Let's start with the unexpected savior, which occurs when someone or something appears out of nowhere to save the day.
03:25In some cases, we've known about this savior all along, like the eagles in Lord of the Rings,
03:30or Fox in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,
03:33but we either forgot about them or never expected them to show up again.
03:37In other cases, the savior appears very randomly and jars the foundation of the story.
03:42In Lord of the Rings Return to the King, after Frodo and Sam have successfully destroyed the One Ring,
03:47they sit exhausted and trapped on the destroyed Mount Doom.
03:50I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee.
03:58Here at the end of all things.
04:00There appears to be no hope for them.
04:02Sure, they've accomplished what they set out to do,
04:04but we always hoped they would survive the ordeal in the end.
04:08Suddenly, the dark clouds above part to reveal Gandalf and the eagles bathed in sunlight,
04:14heading straight for Frodo and Sam.
04:15The eagles pick up Frodo and Sam and flee from the flaming wreckage of Mordor.
04:24The eagles descending from the heavens has clear similarities to how gods are commonly depicted,
04:30bathed in light and descending from above.
04:33The appearance of the eagles, and whether you'd call it a deus ex machina or not,
04:37has been hotly contested by fans ever since the movie was released.
04:41Even the actors are caught in the middle of this debate.
04:43Well, Corey, maybe we can use this particular platform right now
04:47to put to bed a question that gets asked to me every time I do a Q&A.
04:53Why didn't they use the eagles to fly to Mordor?
04:56If the eagles had just taken the ring to Mordor,
04:59that would have been a very poorly done and ineffective deus ex machina.
05:03No, Frodo!
05:05Well, that was incredibly easy.
05:08However, when provided with more context,
05:11we're led to understand that the whole point of walking the ring to Mordor
05:15was because of the immense secrecy of the mission.
05:18So the eagles don't play as big of a role until the very end
05:21when they save Frodo and Sam.
05:23Another hotly contested example of the unexpected savior
05:26occurs in Avengers Endgame.
05:28Thanos has just ordered his followers to rain fire,
05:32unleashing a torrent of missiles that beat our beloved characters down.
05:35Hey, nice to meet you, oh my god!
05:39Right when we're not quite sure if our Avengers can survive this,
05:42the missiles suddenly turn their attention to something descending from above.
05:46What the hell is this?
05:48Friday, what are they firing at?
05:49Something just entered the upper atmosphere.
05:51Captain Marvel appears, effortlessly plowing through the enormous ship
05:55and stopping the missiles from raining down.
05:58Captain Marvel had been strangely absent from the movie before this moment,
06:01except for one scene where she gave her excuse for her absence.
06:05Listen, fur face, I'm covering a lot of territory.
06:09The things that are happening on Earth are happening everywhere,
06:13on thousands of planets.
06:14And then, of course, she shows up at just the right moment,
06:17turning a seemingly unsurvivable obstacle into a much less dire situation.
06:22Herein lies the fault with this type of deus ex machina.
06:26Did the Avengers really need Captain Marvel?
06:29They could have resolved the conflict themselves, right?
06:31Well, they had been taking care of things for the entire film.
06:35And in the end, Captain Marvel wasn't even the one to resolve the conflict.
06:39It was Tony Stark that saved the day.
06:41I am Iron Man.
06:50So was Captain Marvel's entrance, no matter how badass, really necessary?
06:55The fact that deus ex machina often pull us out of the story to ponder these kinds of questions
07:00is one big reason that people feel that they distract from stories overall.
07:05Another category of deus ex machina involves instances when a tool or ability
07:10is suddenly revealed that solves the conflict.
07:13Batman, in 1989's Batman, miraculously pulls himself out of tricky situations
07:18by having the exact right tool on his utility belt.
07:22Harry, in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,
07:24discovers that his touch alone causes Voldemort's skin to burn and turn to ash.
07:29In Star Trek Into Darkness, after Kirk dies from radiation,
07:33the crew discovers that Khan's blood has magic healing properties.
07:38Huh?
07:38Well, that's good to know.
07:39Stop! He's our only chance to save Kirk!
07:43With Khan's blood, they're able to bring Kirk back to life.
07:46It seems a bit too convenient.
07:49You'd think something like that, something that can cure death,
07:52would show up again in the franchise,
07:54but it's almost immediately forgotten and disregarded
07:57after it has served its purpose of reviving Kirk.
08:00Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You were barely dead.
08:03This category can also cover moments when something commonplace or mundane
08:07actually saves the day, such as in War of the Worlds and Signs.
08:10In War of the Worlds, we follow a father who, to put it lightly,
08:14is in way over his head.
08:15Take care of our kids.
08:18Man, you got nothing to worry about.
08:20As he's taking care of his children while his ex-wife is away,
08:23aliens invade Earth, blasting their way through cities and its citizens
08:27in enormous, seemingly invincible tripod ships.
08:31The film follows the father, Ray Farrier, and his children
08:34through horrible event after horrible event
08:37with no way of knowing whether humans could possibly survive this.
08:41Ray figures out ways to run, survive, and fight back.
08:44But we soon learn that he didn't really need to fight back,
08:47as the aliens were doomed from the moment they landed on Earth.
08:51Ray and the other humans discover that the aliens have gotten sick
08:54from the bacteria on Earth, bacteria that humans have adapted
08:58and become immune to over their extensive existence.
09:02Excuse me, excuse me, what's happening?
09:03Did you guys take it down?
09:04No, sir, it's behaving erratically, walking in circles,
09:07and it went down on its own about an hour ago.
09:09Some people argue that this was way too convenient of an ending
09:13and an example of underwhelming deus ex machina.
09:16If it weren't for the bacteria, the aliens probably would have defeated
09:19the humans and taken Earth for their own.
09:21Others argue that this revelation is perfectly in line
09:25with the themes of the film,
09:26as well as H.G. Wells' original 1898 novel, The War of the Worlds.
09:30While the humans were practically harmless when compared to the aliens,
09:34the aliens ended up being quickly destroyed
09:36by something that is generally considered to be harmless to humans.
09:40Look at the birds!
09:41I can't hear you!
09:43Look at the goddamn birds!
09:46Don't steal!
09:48Don't steal!
09:49The story plays with the idea of power dynamics
09:52and how despite our hopes and beliefs
09:54and our sense of our own importance in the world and universe at large,
09:58our existence and actions made no difference against the alien threat.
10:02In this, we can see how, similar to the issues we talked about
10:05in our video on plot holes,
10:07sometimes things get labeled as deus ex machina
10:10even when they do make sense within the full context of the narrative.
10:14In Signs, we see another example of aliens invading and spreading fear across the planet.
10:20So the aliens can't read our minds.
10:22These aliens seem to be more dangerous than humans.
10:25They can blend into their surroundings,
10:27their ships can turn invisible,
10:28and they can spray poisonous gas from their wrists.
10:32How could the humans possibly win?
10:34Well, fortunately for them, and us,
10:37our characters discover that the alien's ultimate weakness happens to be water.
10:42The climax involves one of the characters, Meryl,
10:45hitting an alien with a baseball bat and splashing water on it.
10:48Over the radio, we hear that aliens have departed Earth
10:51after the water scared them off.
10:53Viewers have been debating this weakness and its effectiveness
10:56within the story ever since the movie premiered.
10:59Why would these aliens, supposedly intelligent and dangerous beings,
11:02try to invade a planet with a surface that's 70% water?
11:07As with the War of the Worlds example,
11:09there is an argument to be made that it's a thread within the larger theme,
11:13something innately human.
11:14We are around 60% water, after all,
11:16overcoming this alien, otherworldly threat.
11:19But to many, it does just feel like an out-of-nowhere deus ex machina
11:23to wrap up the story in an easy, triumphant way.
11:27Finally, moments where the unspoken rules of a movie are bent or broken
11:31can be labeled as a deus ex machina.
11:34This type of deus ex machina occurs when unspoken rules
11:37like the laws of physics or the permanence of death
11:40are suddenly broken to advance the plot and favor our heroes.
11:44I'll be right back.
11:47We're definitely naming our kids Cher!
11:49Woo!
11:51One striking example of this is in 1978's Superman the Movie.
11:56While Superman was busy mending fault lines,
11:59redirecting missiles, and saving thousands of people,
12:01Lois Lane suffocates after her car becomes trapped during an earthquake.
12:06Upon discovering this, a grief-stricken and enraged Superman
12:10shoots off into the sky.
12:13He decides to use the full extent of his powers,
12:16succeeding in breaking the laws of physics and reality
12:19by flying so fast around the Earth that he turns back time,
12:23undoing all the damage down below and bringing Lois back to life.
12:28In under two minutes, it's like the entire third act never happened.
12:32The problem with Men of Steel, there's never one around when you want one.
12:35You know what happened to me while you were off flying around?
12:38While the moment reveals just how powerful Superman is
12:41and how he'd do anything to save the ones he loves,
12:44it feels like our time was wasted watching the third act unfold
12:47since none of it mattered in the end.
12:49We've also seen writers break the rules for comedic or satirical purposes.
12:53The Monty Python comedic troupe was well-known for breaking the rules of cinema
12:58in their comedies, resulting in some pretty hilarious deus ex machinas.
13:02In Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
13:06King Arthur and his knights are running from a terrifying beast.
13:09Instead of dispatching the monster with some heroic or action-packed fight scene,
13:13the movie simply does this.
13:14The escape for Arthur and his knights seemed hopeless,
13:17when suddenly the animator suffered a fatal heart attack.
13:22The cartoon peril was no more.
13:25In Season 3, Episode 8 of Monty Python's Flying Circus,
13:29a group of soldiers is ordered to take out a happily oblivious cyclist.
13:33But something always happens to postpone the execution.
13:36Now, I was really for it.
13:44How could you miss?
13:45Every time we expect the cyclist to perish,
13:48the soldiers miss him completely.
13:49Or he has a dream where he's escaped, but hasn't, and so on.
13:53At the last moment, after multiple hilarious blunders and distractions,
13:57well, this happens.
13:58This is a terrific and hyperbolic example of a bad deus ex machina
14:09that the Monty Python writers use to their advantage and make it work.
14:14Randomly including a scene-missing frame,
14:17rather than actually showing the miraculous escape,
14:20pokes fun at other films, shows, and literature
14:22that use ridiculous means to achieve a specific end.
14:25The scene also continues the episode's theme,
14:28building up the tension, only to let it fizzle.
14:31There are plenty of other deus ex machina moments we didn't go into,
14:35like when Tony Stark solves time travel in no time at all.
14:39Can't be that easy.
14:41It's that easy.
14:43Allowing the Avengers to get the Infinity Stones.
14:46Or in Signs, when Graham notices that Morgan's lungs were closed,
14:49so he didn't inhale any of the poison,
14:52which he then attributes to divine intervention.
14:54Or in George of the Jungle 2,
14:57where we get one of our most literal interpretations
14:59of divine intervention of all
15:01in the form of a giant hand called the narrator.
15:05What are you gonna do about that?
15:06Huh? Huh?
15:08Come on!
15:10That hurts!
15:11Wait!
15:12Oh!
15:13That's one way to get rid of the villain.
15:15And what about in The Matrix Revolutions,
15:17when there's a supercomputer literally dubbed the deus ex machina?
15:21What do you want?
15:24Peace.
15:25We could go on and on.
15:27Not only do people continue to debate the effectiveness of the deus ex machina,
15:32but also whether anything is actually a deus ex machina or not.
15:36Deus ex machina!
15:42Oh, it was all just a dream.
15:46For example, some argue that if there isn't any literal divine intervention,
15:51then it isn't really a deus ex machina.
15:54As for its effectiveness, that typically depends on three things.
15:57One, context.
15:59In War of the Worlds, some can argue that it doesn't use a deus ex machina
16:02because the microbes and bacteria played a role the whole time.
16:06Or if the deus ex machina doesn't make a whole lot of sense within the movie itself,
16:11but it does draw from fandoms or use nostalgia, it may work well.
16:15For example, in Avengers Endgame, Captain Marvel's sudden entrance may not work,
16:19but when the portals appear and every single hero we've ever met arrives to fight,
16:24this could be seen as working better
16:26because it's bringing so many beloved characters on screen
16:29and engaging in fan service.
16:31Avengers!
16:38Assemble.
16:39In Jurassic Park, the writers know that the audience loves the T-Rex,
16:43so why not bring it back?
16:44Two, genre and recurring themes.
16:47Viewers are more forgiving and accepting if a comedy compared to a drama bends the rules.
16:52In the SpongeBob SquarePants movie, David Hasselhoff randomly appearing to save the day
16:56doesn't feel cheap because the whole movie is full of wacky, funny moments.
17:00Oh no, how will we ever get back to Bikini Bottom now?
17:06I can take you there.
17:07As for recurring themes, when Dorothy accidentally defeats the Wicked Witch of the West by splashing
17:12water on her, it aligns with the movie's theme that Dorothy is just a kind person completely
17:18out of her element.
17:19She's dead.
17:20You killed her.
17:21I didn't mean to kill her.
17:23Really, I didn't.
17:24If she had purposefully killed the witch, the twist wouldn't have felt as effective or believable.
17:29Which brings us to...
17:31Number three.
17:32If the resolution feels believable.
17:34No matter how shocking the twist is.
17:36Otherwise, it can feel lazy or rushed and no one likes a bad ending.
17:40The endings are the best part.
17:43From the unexpected savior to bending the unspoken rules, an effective deus ex machina
17:48can provide a shocking twist to carry the narrative forward in a way no one could have predicted.
17:53An ineffective deus ex machina can leave audiences feeling unsatisfied and annoyed, wishing for
18:00a different outcome.
18:01Oh, brother, this guy stinks!
18:04What do you think of the deus ex machina?
18:07Are you a fan?
18:08Or do you think it's the easy way out?
18:10Should writers avoid it at all costs?
18:12Or use it more often?
18:13Did we forget any shocking deus ex machina moments you loved?
18:17Or hated?
18:18Make sure to let us know and leave a comment below.
18:21That's the take.
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