Worst examples of deus ex machina

I don't get you, man. One minute you're quoting Nietzsche, now all of the sudden you're an engineer. I don't think I can spell trebuchet.
 
Behold the Yamaha Deus Ex Machina


AC_Deus_man_3.jpg
 
In the original Andromeda Strain, wasn't the virus kicking some major *** then suddenly it mutated to a benign, non-threatening subtype?
 
Very few of the movies mentioned in this thread are actually Deus ex machina. War of the Worlds is probably the best example.
 
Uh, yeah, Tesla invented it by accident. And the first scene of the movie is the multiple hats. Not exactly out of nowhere.
 
Star Wars is full of deus ex machina:

-When R2D2 and C3P0 escape in the pod, a gunner in the imperial destroyer has a lock on them, and some other dude stops him ("hold your fire...no life on board"). If they get blown up, there is no story. When the empire is on a destructive rampage, why would they just try to save bullets now?

-The biggest one I can think of: the death star will get blown up, but they need to save Vader for the future movies, so how do they do it? Vader, in the midst of the fighting, decides that he needs to get in on it, so he can be in his fighter at the moment the death star explodes. Most ridiculous contrivance ever.
 
I don't think either of those examples from Star Wars are "deus..." I agree they are contrived, but it isn't the same thing.
 
someone said Dodgeball with the treasure chest.

But I don't count that as the worst example since it was intentionally making reference to it being a deus ex machina.

The phrase "deus ex machina" is written on the side of the treasure chest. That turns it from a terrible plot escape to something else.


I nominate The Departed. Right when the elevator doors open and BAM.

uh, ok. So out of nowhere there is a second mole? wtf? It's like they just bailed on the whole damn story because they wrote themselves into a corner.
 
I think the airplanes at the end of Saving Private Ryan may qualify. It was the final comic book touch that transformed the film from a powerful war movie to an action/adventure war movie.

The captain gets a chance to utter his last words, Private Ryan is saved and the golden generation gets their salute from Stevie.

For me, the movie dropped from something special to something merely good by the end credits. Band of Brothers was so much better.
 
I don't understand why everyone seems to dislike for Signs...they at least set up the water theory early in the movie when M. Knight said he was going to the lake because none of the landing areas were close to water. Who knows, maybe the aliens picked earth to attack because we have the least water of any other planets?

Besides that, there's larger themes to the movie besides Alien Wars - themes like faith and dealing with loss, etc. Are those themes perfectly executed on the screen? No. But it's a very compelling movie, I remember lots of old fashioned horror film jumps when I saw it in the theater, and it does explore larger themes. It's a way better than average flick.
 
Gotta be Superman. I mean, they didn't know how to end the movie and save Lois, so they said "**** it, let's just have him go back in time".
 
Superman's time reversal is not a deus ex machina.

Jor-el had told Kal-el that it was forbidden for him to interfere with human history, so that obviously meant that he *could* interfere with human history. The movie just didn't explain how until the end.

Now, you might rightfully argue that turning the earth backwards wouldn't cause time reversal, but that's a physics/relativity problem, not deus ex machina.

Plus, it's the coolest thing Superman ever did.

For a real deus ex machina, I nominate the end of Jurassic Park, where the T-Rex appears out of nowhere to save all the people by eating the raptors. It was especially stupid because we knew that the T-Rex created massive loud impact tremors with every step -- how could it sneak up on anything?
 
Are we obligated to put spoiler warnings if it's a horrible movie? Anyway, spoilers follow.

The end of The Prophecy when the archangel Gabriel, previously unstoppable by humans or other angels, is suddenly destroyed by Lucifer, who randomly shows up and is interested in what is going on.

It's a literal deus ex machina. Or maybe the opposite of deus ex machina. Diablo ex machina.

I just blew your mind didn't I.
 
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