Dues ex Machina was introduced by Euripides in his tragedies. What is its modern way counter part?

Answer 1

Deus ex CGI :) The classical meaning of Deus ex machina was that at the end of a play, when the action could not resolve the plot, a god would suddenly show up via stage machinery (a puff of smoke and the actor coming up through a trap door, or flying in on a winch and crane) and set everything to rights.

Nowadays it rarely has anything to do with gods (unless you were watching a movie where everything was going wrong, but suddenly The Rapture occurred and all the good people were saved), but instead refers to a totally unprepared for plot resolution in a play, novel or movie--like the Martians dying off in WAR OF THE WORLDS due to a minor infection. It's similar to the kind of unexpected resolution like the Tyrannosaur suddenly killing off the Velociraptors in JURASSIC PARK that often ends stories, but the key difference is that the Deus ex machina ending must come totally out of left field to the extent of introducing new characters or revealing a difference in the situation which could not be predicted from any information previously available to the reader/viewer. Lots of times in horror movies--suddenly the older woman reveals she has a long lost son who was an axe murderer, you know the drill.

It's really considered a lousy device to use.

Answer 2

In a western, the Deus ex Machina might be the cavalry arriving in the nick of time. In broad terms, the Deus ex Machina is the author solving a problem for the protagonist, through some plot contrivance, rather than the protagonist solving the problem him/herself. #SPOILER ALERT# In "The Bad Seed," the little girl is killed at the end of the movie by a bolt of lightning. That might be considered a Deus ex Machina. In "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too," the narrator rescues Tigger from the top of the tree by tilting the book sideways and letting him bounce down the text. In Ancient Greece, they looked to the Gods for deliverance from tribulations. Today, we'll take whatever help we can get from whatever source is available.

Answer 3

Deus ex machina was the actor playing a god who was suspended over the stage with wires to give the impression of being a god. In movies, often a shaft of sunlight passing through clouds is shown to represent Heavenly presence.

This is probably not a law & ethics question. Try reposting it in the movies or drama section and see if you get better answers.