Sure was handy of the aliens in Independence Day to have all their warcraft’s shield governed by a central software program. I’ll bet there’s not an army, navy or Air Force in the world that’s set up that way here on Earth … in fact, the very program I am using to send this message was the stepchild of DARPAnet, designed to provide decentralized computer communication in the event of destruction of central computing sites in the event of global warfare. Spooky.
Eh. . . How about that scene from “Life of Brian” with the alien spaceship???
Is there such a thing as an unDeus ex Machina? Like when the detective/police officer gets the bad guy based on something we, the audience, were previously unaware of? I guess you could say it’s a Deus ex Machina of sorts (for our hero), but is there a term for a similar plot twist that ends up being the downfall for some?
Or maybe I am just complicating things way too much.
Do the aliens in the Nicholas Cage film “Knowing” count as Deus ex Machina?
I don’t know if there’s a special term, but that reminded me of a short story that really bugged me: Bruno by Dean Koontz. It’s been about 15 years, but the way I remember it is the protagonist, a normal human cop named Bruno, is chasing after a bad guy who is some kind of alien with special abilities that I can’t recall. Anyway, Bruno uses regular cop methods of hunting the alien all throughout the story, but, at the end, the bad guy has Bruno on the ropes and everything seems hopeless. But then Bruno reveals that he, too, is an alien, after spending the entire story as a regular joe, and he uses his magical alien powers to win the day. Up until that point the story had actually been really suspenseful, and I was excited to see how he’d escape his situation. With a lame deus ex machina that I’m convinced Koontz let his dog write in.
Actually, I should re-read that story as an adult and see if there’s any forshadowing to Bruno being an alien that I missed when I was younger.
And for another literal deus ex machina, don’t forget The Stand. Of course I can’t really call it a favorite, unless by favorite you meant “most egregious.”
Well, that and you had a force of the best-of-the-best commandos right there behind enemy lines.
-Joe
Annie X-Mas:
But that didn’t really make a difference in the battle, so does it count as a DEM? The battle was turned by Brainiac 5 freeing the Infinite Man, which was certainly foreshadowed and planned.
Quite frankly, Rond Vidar’s FIRST appearance, and his rescue of selected Legionnaires from Universo’s trapping them throughout time, is more of a DEM than his presence in the Time Trapper showdown.
The ultimate Deus ex Machina has to be the climax of Time Bandits, when the Supreme Being Himself shows up to save the day.
Re: definition of deus ex machina
It may not be the technical definition, but I’ve always thought of deus ex machina “the person with the power to fix things comes back to clean up the mess”. In Greek times this would have been a god; in modern lit, it might be the boss. I’m not imaging this common plot, am I?- the Guy In Charge goes away, the protagonists try to do his job in the meantime, everything goes wrong, and just when all hell is about to break loose, the Guy In Charge comes back and has everything fixed up in five minutes.
DT, I think Simplico is talking about the movies, not the book. I don’t think the trilogy makes Sauron’s dependence on the ring clear.
The alien spaceship is only there as a joke. It doesn’t affect the plot in any significant way, for good or ill.
Ah, but if no one actually called the cavalry, then tvtropes at least still considers it a deus ex machina. It’s not the person’s appearance that is considered the trope, but the fact that they knew when and where to appear.
The books too, at least from my memory of them. They say Sauron thought the Ring might’ve been destroyed, suggeting that he didn’t need it to survive. The emphisis is always on destroying the ring so Sauron can’t get it, not because destroying it will also kill Sauron. And they say Sauron needs possession of the Ring to use it to conquer the world (and to keep someone else from using it) not because its destruction will kill him.
I don’t really get DT’s response. It just seems to reiterate what I said, he needs to have the ring to use it. SInce he never has the ring, it presumably isn’t whats keeping him alive, yet in the end its distruction kills him, causes his army to bolts, and basically saves the day.
The fact that the destruction of the ring not only keeps it away from Sauron but also totally wipes him out seems kind of an important fact. Boromir, for example, might’ve liked to know that chucking the ring into Mt Doom not only destroyed it but would also save Gondor, for example.
There’s the example of The Pit and the Pendulum, where the French army shows up, right out of no where, and saves the day.
Offshore artillery? A better (and still believable) ending would have been if Teddy Roosevelt showed up and started beating the crap out of everyone via his fists.
Hell, Teddy could beat the crap out of people with his mustache!
Second reply, since I didn’t realize there was a second page.
That is one of my favorites scenes of all time.
Something kind of like that happens in Terry Pratchett’s Jingo where: Lord Vetinari, knowing that the island would sink, shows up in Klatch to sign a peace treaty with the Klatchians. Of course, I’m not sure of that counts, as we saw him traveling to that point.
Also there’s what I like to call the techno-Deus ex Machina. That’s where the heroes save the day by inverting the polarity on the technobabble, thereby overloading the enemy’s nonsensoleum reactor.
On preview:
Yes. Yes he could.
Ah, but when one’s Deus is Sir Ralph Richardson, it’s really quite propah.
Why would TR bother to use his mustache when he always carried that big stick around with him?
Just what I was thinking of. Totally cracktastic ending.
In James Thurber’s childrens novel “The Thirteen Clocks” a character materializes out of thin air and proclaims that he is, “…the only Golux in the world, and not a mere Device.”
He then proceeds to Deus ex Machina it up like nobody’s business. It’s a wonderful book all around.
(Serenity spoiler)
However…
If you’re talking about the Reavers, they don’t actually defeat the Alliance. Notice that after River takes on the room full of Reavers, there are no more coming in from outside. There is however a shitload of Alliance troops standing by ready to kick some ass. The Alliance won the space battle and wiped out the remaining Reavers who didn’t make it into Mr. Universe’s complex.
I always thought that War of the Worlds had a cool deus ex machina. All is hopeless, the aliens are killing everyone, leveling every city. And then, they just… stop, leaving everybody speechless.
Later it is of course revealed that simple Earth bacteria did them in, but the first time I say it I really went WTF? And even if it doesn’t make for a great story, it’s cool because it is actually very plausible. On the other hand, what kind of technologically advanced alien race are you if you can’t anticipate another world’s virusses and bacteria…