An "all powerful" new character introduced in the last 10 minutes of the story.  The new character forces the protagonist to choose between two or three possibilities, most of which have somewhat vague or unpleasant consequences that aren't fully explained.
  
Has any of this ever worked in any movie, television program, book, or video game?

Even with just the "all powerful" new character in the last 10 minutes part, I can't think of any example of that working from any form of media.  Introducing a new character like that at the end of any story just seems like such an awful idea, but I'd love to hear if anyone can think of some examples that show otherwise. 
 
And as I say below,  I want to discuss the merits of the basic outline of the ending, not the full-on execution of the ending.  There are loads of other threads for talking about your personal opinion of the ending.  I just want to discuss historical precedence here.

I think it worked really well in Ghost in the Shell actually

I think it worked really well in Ghost in the Shell actually

@Commisar123 said:

I think it worked really well in Ghost in the Shell actually

Ghost in the Shell introduced the Puppet Master far earlier than ten minutes before the end.

As I recall, it worked pretty well in Mass Effect 3.

@StarvingGamer: BOOM!

@StarvingGamer said:

As I recall, it worked pretty well in Mass Effect 3.

Got a good laugh out of that one. Well played sir, patently untrue but well played nontheless.

It worked fairly well in Enslaved. They did hint at it a lot. However, the ending is still kind of the worst part of that game...

so i dunno i guess

Dragonball Z was pretty good at this, actually.

Yes. Now can we never have this thread again?

As I recall, it worked pretty well in Mass Effect 3.

Necron in Final Fantasy 9 and Ultimecia in FF8. Ultimecia may not have been the last ten minutes, but she was shoehorned in near the end and it worked.

Neither gave you options, but hey, last minute additions.

The ending of Contact the movie had the main character meet a god like alien in the image of her Father. It was pulled from her memories and took a familiar form to make it easier on her.

I imagine the little boy at the end of Mass Effect 3 as having done something similar.

Total Recall sort of had it with the reappearance of the doctor giving the option to believe the world was a fantasy, but there are two problems with that comparison: It was hinted at throughout the entire movie, and you had a very satisfying conclusion before the scene faded to white and you're left wondering if the protagonist was really a hero, or just died/went crazy?

Inception also has the ambiguous ending with the spinning top. Did he wake out or didn't he? It sort of applies because the nature of that unstructured limbo space was revealed at the last minute, but at least it felt consistent so I didn't mind.

What's interesting is that both of these endings also deal with perceptions of consciousness, just like the Destroy/5000 ending of ME3. The major difference here is that they build on those possibilities right up toward the end, whereas ME3 introduces the possibility of a dream state in literally the last 0.5 seconds of the game (excluding Stargazer).

Didnt one of the people in xenosaga for the PS2 turn out to be some almighty sentient being in the finale? He basically pushes a big reset button because humanity is not yet developed enough to fight the ghost/aliens.

They never released part 1 and 3 here in Europe so all i know is what i read up on afterwards

Me and a friend discussed this, and looked at BioShock at the same time. It is kind of the same premise, but turned the other way around.

Metron the New God froze time and came to Lex Luthor and told him where to find the Anti-Life equation which resulted in the defeat of Darkseid at the end of Justice League Unlimited the cartoon. Lex Luthor isn't really a protagonist per say, but whatever.

@Questionable said:

Didnt one of the people in xenosaga for the PS2 turn out to be some almighty sentient being in the finale? He basically pushes a big reset button because humanity is not yet developed enough to fight the ghost/aliens.

They never released part 1 and 3 here in Europe so all i know is what i read up on afterwards

Wilhelm was in the games from the start, he just wasn't given air time until the third.

Me and a friend discussed this, and looked at BioShock at the same time. It is kind of the same premise, but turned the other way around.

@Hailinel: true, but his real nature isn't revealed till the end of the movie and he still presents Kusanagi with several options. I think the comparison is apt, especially considering the subject matter, though it is not perfect.

@DonChipotle said:

@Questionable said:

Didnt one of the people in xenosaga for the PS2 turn out to be some almighty sentient being in the finale? He basically pushes a big reset button because humanity is not yet developed enough to fight the ghost/aliens.

They never released part 1 and 3 here in Europe so all i know is what i read up on afterwards

Wilhelm was in the games from the start, he just wasn't given air time until the third.

Xenosaga was also kind of an odd case, in that the developers had intended a six-game arc and were forced to truncate it into a trilogy after the publisher's meddling put a lot of fans off after the second game. I'm curious to know what the full story would have been if they could have told it as intended.

@SpaceInsomniac: It was more in the line of the indoctrination-theory actually, but anyway: You are controlled, then break free in BioShock. In ME 3, you break free only to become controlled (if you believe the indoctrination-theory). The new character 10 minutes before the ending is just the end-point of that; everything comes into this character at the end. And then it kind of works.

Yim Lau Wong in the original Fear Effect comes to mind.

As I recall, it worked pretty well in Mass Effect 3.

@DonChipotle said:

Necron in Final Fantasy 9 and Ultimecia in FF8. Ultimecia may not have been the last ten minutes, but she was shoehorned in near the end and it worked.

Neither gave you options, but hey, last minute additions.

Necron is literally the perfect example of this. A random god-figure that shows up five minutes before curtain call to explain that humanity is inexorably flawed, and therefore must be exterminated. I suppose it worked okay, if not spectacularly, because the writers remembered that FFIX was a character-driven story at the end. Plus you got to shove his stupid bullshit in his face via the power of friendship.

I'd disagree that Ultimecia worked, but that's a whole 'nother topic.

Even when books do this, its usually followed by some kind of epilogue. Though most of the stories people remember are the ones with consistency and direction. the Twist isn't a 10 min info dump before the end and not to mention this whole story felt like a bait and switch

Another good example that i keep bringing up from time to time in different places is the Nights Dawn trilogy.
The ending is basically the protagonist finding the godlike entity that helps resolve the problem.
 
It works well on several levels.
Firstly it's a culmination of efforts to find it and even meanwhile the actual core issue(s) still have to be dealt with by ourselves.
There is no sudden info dump full of plotholes, the whole ideology and concepts are presented and disected over the course of 6 books, so when the time comes the decisions that are made and actions taken it all works perfectly together.
There is an apropriate amount of epilogueishness. Not everything is doled out and neatly compertmentalised but some of the important stuff is touched on.

Even the "solution" that is the conclusion of the trilogy is not really a total solution, it's not just work done for us and all is peachy.
The core issues still remain and humanity eventually have to takle them and do the legwork.
None of the events are nullified, they are still very relevant post conclusion and are likely to affect how such above legwork might be tackled or done or philosophised about in the future.

2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of parallels between the ending of 2001 and ME3.

Doesn't matter Games are too different of a medium, player investment over 3 games just makes it completely different to 2 hour movie. I guess you could say a book could be comparable time investment wise but then there is choice, which is where Bioware dropped the ball with their fans.

@isomeri said:

2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of parallels between the ending of 2001 and ME3.

I would argue that 2001's ending is also a bad ending that makes no sense.

@MooseyMcMan said:

@isomeri said:

2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of parallels between the ending of 2001 and ME3.

I would argue that 2001's ending is also a bad ending that makes no sense.

I on the other hand think that the ending of 2001 is the best in movie history, and is one of the best justifications for considering cinema as an art form. Arguing that something is bad simply because you can't understand it or the creator has not meant for it to be completely understood is frustrating.

A large part of my enjoyment of both the 2001 and ME3 endings comes from the feeling of amazement and confusion I get from them. Especially the feelings of confusion and ignorance work great with the theme of space and science. The sense that that in the end you can never fully understand the workings of the cosmos.

@MooseyMcMan said:

@isomeri said:

2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of parallels between the ending of 2001 and ME3.

I would argue that 2001's ending is also a bad ending that makes no sense.

I on the other hand think that the ending of 2001 is the best in movie history, and is one of the best justifications for considering cinema as an art form. Arguing that something is bad simply because you can't understand it or the creator has not meant for it to be completely understood is frustrating.

A large part of my enjoyment of both the 2001 and ME3 endings comes from the feeling of amazement and confusion I get from them. Especially the feelings of confusion and ignorance work great with the theme of space and science. The sense that that in the end you can never fully understand the workings of the cosmos.

The problem with Mass Effect 3's story was that it didn't elaborate enough beforehand on the possibility of a higher power that was controlling the Reapers. There was only one conversation I recall where they predict this. So in the end the Catalyst appeared more like a deus ex machina than it should have.

Someone mentioned Contact. The whole premise of the movie was to find a way to build a means to contact this alien race. The alien race (who is certainly a higher power) in this case doesn't change the course of the story, it merely answers the questions you were asking throughout the character's journey and it was ever-present throughout the entire story, just without an identity.

As for Inception, the entire movie is built to make you question whether or not what you were seeing was real or just a dream, there were no characters introduced as far as I remember to change the circumstances of the ending.

Some appropriate examples in video games are in Super Metroid where the baby comes to Samus' rescue just before Mother Brain is about to destroy her. Also in Half Life 2 where the G-Man freezes time just before the citadel explodes. They are both "SUDDENLY, _______ saved the day!" moments.

The best uses of deus ex machina IMO are for comedic effect such as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The unexpected deployment of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, and then the sudden and untimely death of the animator before the heroes were devoured by the Ravenous Black Beast of Arrrgh. Another example is in Futurama where the Gargoyle Pazuzu comes from nowhere to rescue Farnsworth from prison.

@Tennmuerti said:

@isomeri said:

@MooseyMcMan said:

@isomeri said:

You'r right in that most of the credit for 2001 of course goes to the original book by Arthur C. Clarke. I still regard is as an accomplishment for cinema because Kubrick was able to translate such a concept so well on film.

@selbie said:

The best use of deus ex machina IMO is in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The unexpected deployment of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, and then the sudden and untimely death of the animator before the heroes were devoured by the Ravenous Black Beast of Arrrgh.

I got a laugh out of just thinking about the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

@isomeri: No, I mainly didn't like it because the last "act" of the film felt so weird and illogical. I love the part where they're on the ship and HAL is slowly falling apart and starts killing all of them. But then how the hell does Dave wind up in that fancy room? What even is that fancy room? It makes no sense, and feels completely disjointed from the earlier part of the film which is about the stresses of flying through space.

The problem with Mass Effect 3's story was that it didn't elaborate enough beforehand on the possibility of a higher power that was controlling the Reapers. There was only one conversation I recall where they predict this. So in the end the Catalyst appeared more like a deus ex machina than it should have.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

An "all powerful" new character introduced in the last 10 minutes of the story. The new character forces the protagonist to choose between two or three possibilities, most of which have somewhat vague or unpleasant consequences that aren't fully explained.

This is exactly the ending to The Matrix Reloaded. Of course, opinions vary as to whether that ending worked or not. But I liked it.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

An "all powerful" new character introduced in the last 10 minutes of the story. The new character forces the protagonist to choose between two or three possibilities, most of which have somewhat vague or unpleasant consequences that aren't fully explained.

This is exactly the ending to The Matrix Reloaded. Of course, opinions vary as to whether that ending worked or not. But I liked it.

@Dylabaloo said:

I guess you could say a book could be comparable time investment wise but then there is choice, which is where Bioware dropped the ball with their fans.

"Shepard stood there, on the citadel, having just been given the three choices. Shepard thought for a moment, but soon understood what was the right thing to do."

"If you want to kill yourself to gain a vaguely explained ability to somehow control the enemy force you've been fighting for over 90 hours by now, turn to page 173."

"If you want to arbitrarily sacrifice yourself so you can use space magic to drastically alter the DNA of every life-form in the universe without their consent or knowledge, turn to page 173."

"If you want to Destroy the Reapers, the Geth, EDI, all the Mass Relays, and strand the Normandy crew on some random unknown jungle planet, turn to page 173."

But seriously, I find it a little telling that nearly every example given so far has either been Japanese in origin, or something from a comedy (2001, of course, being an exception).

The ``all powerful character`` wasn`t the point of Mass Effect 3`s ending, only the representation of it. The ending did not present anything new, only things which players have seemingly ignored i.e. the entire conflict that caused the trilogy in the first place.

You guys know what I just thought of.
 
What about the hamster or the fish. What about the robot dog. Do they all suddenly become half-organic, half-synthetic?
 
If the synthetics will always rebel against the creator, why haven't the Reapers rebelled? And if by letting the Geth keep that Reaper code, isn't it safe to assume they will never rebel from here on out?
 
If I can take control of the Reapers, can't I just tell them to rebuild the Mass Relay's?
 
If the EMP blast wasn't able to harm anything, how did it almost destroy the Normandy?
 
Why did Joker look back as if he were checking the distance between the Normandy and the explosion when there is no window? What was he doing?
 
If Shepard wasn't indoctrinated, why did he kill Anderson?
 
If Godkid said he was controlling the Reapers, and the Reapers were controlling The Illusive Man, why was the Illusive Man trying to kill me, when the kid suddenly had no ill will toward me?
 
If the Citadel has such powerful seals in place to keep sections completely protected against explosions(Like the one in the red ending), how was this not enough to keep The Reapers out of the majority of the Citadel?
 
Mass Effect 2 showed what happens when the Reapers take control over a whole species, by turning the Protheans into the Collectors. And in Mass Effect 3 it's revealed that one of the options is to synthesize all living things. How do we really know they won't just do that to everyone? Is Stargazer the supposed "closure" we're supposed to get, knowing that no matter what happens, there is at least peace in the future? Maybe so, but why was he on the same planet that the Normandy crash landed on? And why was he standing inside of " Winter Space"?
 
Why can't I believe it's not butter?

@isomeri said:

2001: A Space Odyssey. There are a lot of parallels between the ending of 2001 and ME3.

Exactly what I was thinking of. Both show an evolution of a species (well, with the 'green' option in ME 3) through an all-powerful force realized at the end of their stories.

The ``all powerful character`` wasn`t the point of Mass Effect 3`s ending, only the representation of it. The ending did not present anything new, only things which players have seemingly ignored i.e. the entire conflict that caused the trilogy in the first place.

@DonChipotle said:

Necron in Final Fantasy 9 and Ultimecia in FF8. Ultimecia may not have been the last ten minutes, but she was shoehorned in near the end and it worked.

Neither gave you options, but hey, last minute additions.

completely ruined FF9 for me. it was so random and weird.

i still sometimes read "oh FF9 was my favorite" and i'm just like "the last boss ruined it"

@Tennmuerti: Synthetics vs organics isn`t the main conflict.

@Tennmuerti: Synthetics vs organics isn`t the main conflict.

@N7 said:

You guys know what I just thought of.

What about the hamster or the fish. What about the robot dog. Do they all suddenly become half-organic, half-synthetic?

If the synthetics will always rebel against the creator, why haven't the Reapers rebelled? And if by letting the Geth keep that Reaper code, isn't it safe to assume they will never rebel from here on out?

If I can take control of the Reapers, can't I just tell them to rebuild the Mass Relay's?

If the EMP blast wasn't able to harm anything, how did it almost destroy the Normandy?

Why did Joker look back as if he were checking the distance between the Normandy and the explosion when there is no window? What was he doing?

If Shepard wasn't indoctrinated, why did he kill Anderson?

If Godkid said he was controlling the Reapers, and the Reapers were controlling The Illusive Man, why was the Illusive Man trying to kill me, when the kid suddenly had no ill will toward me?

If the Citadel has such powerful seals in place to keep sections completely protected against explosions(Like the one in the red ending), how was this not enough to keep The Reapers out of the majority of the Citadel?

Mass Effect 2 showed what happens when the Reapers take control over a whole species, by turning the Protheans into the Collectors. And in Mass Effect 3 it's revealed that one of the options is to synthesize all living things. How do we really know they won't just do that to everyone? Is Stargazer the supposed "closure" we're supposed to get, knowing that no matter what happens, there is at least peace in the future? Maybe so, but why was he on the same planet that the Normandy crash landed on? And why was he standing inside of " Winter Space"? Why can't I believe it's not butter?

1. Yes

2. Can't rebel against god. He's god. Also no.

3. They probably don't have the technology

4. Because the Normandy was traveling at several times the speed of light when it was forcefully ejected out of matter-free space. It's a miracle it wasn't atomized.

5. Neck exercises

6. He didn't. He just shot him.

7. Because you're Commander fucking Shepard. Also indoctrination is not a perfect control system.

8. Because the Citadel is the "bad guy." Why would it protect itself from the beings it controls?

9. Because Shepard's consciousness merges with everyone. He controls the synthesis. Yes. Because that's where he was born. Because it was winter. Because it tastes very similar.

Any other questions?

@Tennmuerti said:

@Brendan said:

@Tennmuerti: Synthetics vs organics isn`t the main conflict.

And what is then prey tell? What is the main conflict that everyone is ignoring? Synthetics vs. Organics is the core of the main confilct, as far as I can tell or at least that is what the game tells us.It the reason for the Reapers to do what they do in the first place. It is also in effect still synthetic life cleansing organic life so that both get a chance to flourish. They are part of this core conflict. Both its solution and ironically embodiment. If you are going to say something isn't the thing you are talking about, then state the actual conflict. Otherwise it's just trolling.

The problem is that you are looking for the source of the fiction through what the game is actually telling you, and that is not the case with most fiction.

The main conflict is: The universe vs. the reapers. It's actually the most obvious one.

Why did this conflict happen? The easy test is: Would the reapers have arrived, or not arrived, because of it? And is it attributable to the species involved in this specific conflict?

So it it a diversity issue? No, because even if all species were hunky dory with no problems, the reapers still would have come and the main conflict would still exist, even if it may have been easier to deal with. Is it the ageless and infinite, multi-civilization spanning synthetics v. organics issue? That is beyond the scope of the players involved in the conflict, (the current species) and is out of their control, so is not the direct cause and source of the conflict.

What is the source of the main conflict in the Mass Effect trilogy, the universe vs. the reapers? Hint: It's in the title.

If the galaxies species had understood their technology completely, plumbed it's secrets and learned how to take apart, build, and even improve upon all of the stuff they relied upon that bases this universe would the reapers have come? This includes the Mass Effect relays, the Citadel, and even the crucible (which is the most important part). No. If the galaxy understood exactly what the Mass Effect relays and citadel and all that other tech were capable of, in every way, they would not have been slaves to it, and subject to the possible consequences of using it i.e. the reapers. Thus, we come to the main theme, the source of the conflict, the universe vs. the reapers.

People used technology they did not fully understand, therefore unintended consequences followed.

People used, and relied upon, the Mass Effect technology (including the Citadel) without fully understanding what it did. They were subject to it, and suffered the consequences for it, those consequences being the main conflict. There are numerous examples of this throughout the trilogy, but I'm going to focus on the one in the third game that is banged over our heads throughout the course of the game leading up to the conclusion.

The crucible. Do you remember what we are constantly reminded of the entire game? That we don't fully know what the crucible will do once it's done. That we are relying upon it, and that we hope it will do what we think it will do. There's a specific reason this is brought up dozens of times throughout the game, and that is because it connects to the main source of conflict for the entire trilogy.

What happens at the end?

Some people seem to think that the ending should have been about the characters. I think that is a valid point, that what people wanted was an ending to their personal experience. That isn't, however, what Bioware chose to do. They chose to focus on the underlying conflict rather than a players personal experience. I'm not sure which side I'm on, but they spend so much time wrapping up relationships before the end that I don't think the path they chose to go down is a heinous crime.

Some people think the endings were poorly done. I agree. More clarification is needed, and the disparate endings are not visually realized enough to be effective. They look lazy, in short.

However, to the specific complaint that people have, that the ending does not represent the main conflict underpinning the Mass Effect trilogy, that is false.

@N7 said:

Dragonball Z was pretty good at this, actually.

dragon ball z has an end? every time i catch the show the same battle is still going on.

after a month of dragon ball z my guess is 30 minutes of their time in their world has passed.

I think it worked really well in Ghost in the Shell actually