That story device where everything explodes at the end to restore the status quo (spoilers)

[terrifel]

I'm sure there's a questionably witty name for it on TVTropes if I could be bothered to look for it. I just call it "status quo ex machina." It seems to occur with great frequency in cheesy movies and Crichtonesque airport novels: if the main plot concerns some sort of fantastic discovery or hidden treasure, then that extraordinary element must be completely, unambiguously destroyed and the ground salted before the story can end.

We're all familiar with the related scenario from TV, where the status quo must be reinstated if the series is to continue. That million-dollar inheritance won't be there by the end of the episode; Gilligan isn't ever going to get off that island. But the same scenario seems weird and pointless in apparently autonomous movies and novels.

This problem struck me when I recently encountered a couple media riffs on the basic "Treasure Island" plot. Some years ago, Disney produced an animated feature adaptation of "Treasure Island"-- IN SPACE! Treasure Planet was an almost point-for-point retelling of Stevenson's novel, only with rockets attached. There was one interesting departure, though; as you may recall, at the end of Treasure Island, the characters actually keep the treasure.

Now, this seems like a natural, sensible ending for a treasure-hunt story. But for some reason it has fallen out of favor. Instead, in Treasure Planet, the entire vast fortune is snatched away at the last second when the planet explodes, leaving only just enough treasure so that the characters can pay back the cost of the adventure.

This same basic scenario crops up in Riptide (the novel by Bill Preston and Lee Child, not the late-'80s TV show starring geeky character actor Thom Bray and his wacky pet robot). The novel is a sort of dubious techno-thriller version of Treasure Island, with all the cheesiness that implies; but it is nonetheless fairly readable with an interesting hook. Then at the end, the treasure is snatched away by the dumbest device imaginable:

it seems that the pirates just happened to bury their treasure right over the largest, nigh-bottomless abyssal cavern imaginable, so that when the treasure hunters pick up a box of treasure, it pulls out a keystone and the entire treasure is literally flushed away into the earth's crust.

Now there is no good reason why this has to happen. It is like a reflex, and you see it again and again in this sort of adventure story. Michael Crichton pulls it at least twice, in Congo (lost city of fabulous riches and monstrous hybrid gorillas, discovered just in time to be destroyed by a volcano), and Jurassic Park (in his original novel, the dinosaurs are all killed when the Air Force carpet-bombs the island).

Stephen King was another prominent exploder, at least early in his career. From The Shining through It, practically every story he wrote had to explode at the end, often for no apparent reason at all. I don't know what he's doing lately, or if he's managed to shake the exploding. Actually I did pick up Cell the other day. That was extremely bad. And there was an explosion at the end. So apparently not.

Why is there this seeming need to ultimately destroy all traces of whatever fantastic subject your story happened to be about? I fully appreciate the basic need to have a big explosion at the end of your summer movie, but this seems like something more. Why does it happen in novels? Are they, perhaps, just using the most 'movie-like' plot elements in the hopes that Hollywood will come calling? If so, Jurassic Park should serve as a lesson: Crichton blew it up in his novel, but Spielberg knew better.

In summary, there seem to be two related principles at work:

1. fantastic story hooks cannot be allowed to survive the story's end; and

2. characters cannot be seen to profit in any way from their adventures, excluding personal relationships; the guy gets the girl, the teenager is reconciled with the parent, but none of them get any other reward apart from just getting out alive.

Is this really a phenomenon, or am I just imagining it? I was inspired to post this thread after reading a fascinating "lost world" adventure novel. Then at the end, the lost world gets blown up TWICE.

At the same time.

[Zuul]

I've noticed the exact same thing you've described. I've usually called it "pushing the cosmic reset button." In some cases, I think it's an attempt to keep things grounded in the real world. You've just discovered alien life is real! The world will never be the same! Oh, wait, no. The alien just left and took all the evidence and the world is going to be exactly the same except some kids will have crazy stories to tell. I assume that's what drew Crichton to make all his various weird reset endings. He was also quite the latter day Luddite, so it made sense.

Preston and Child are definitely following in Crichton's footsteps there, too. MASSIVE WORLDSHAKING EVENTS! ...wait, no, everything's back to normal.

The ones that are really baffling is when it doesn't change the world at all (like somebody getting treasure). What was the point of that reset button?

[What Exit?]

Crichton was a very successful writer whose not very good novels had a knack for being turned into exciting films. But I think in quality he was basically a TV hack. Reading Jurassic Park before the movie, I was really surprised by how much better the movie was. Actually maybe that is Spielburg's lost knack. He did the same with Jaws. Movie is much better in both cases.

The movie cosmic reset sometimes makes sense. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was suppose to have happened for real in the semi-recent past and was covered up. So for movies with elements of conspiracy and cover-up it is a legit plot point. But as you mentioned it is a stupid idea in many movies and probably most where it was used.

An odd example where it finally stopped was that for the longest time Doctor Who kept doing the reset until I think the writers and fans both got so completely sick of it that they finally had people flee London before Christmas.

[Rube E. Tewesday]

One possibility is that the writers think that it's "hacky" just to have a happy ending where everyone's rich. The problem is, of course, that any ending to "Treasure Planet" is going to be hacky, and you've annoyed the audience on top of it.

[parzival]

The mention of Spielberg and Treasure Island made me think of Goonies, which is one case where I think it's handled rather well. It's one of the few times things that it seems appropriate that no one ends up with the treasure. You're actually happy when that event occurs, because it was all about the adventure, and the ending just adds to that.

There also seems to be the related trope with respect to treasure or fantastic magical discovery - the "just enough" or "memento" ending where what seemed excessive gets trimmed down to just a little bit or maybe one single item discovered in the pocket afterward, or some message sent afterward. It's not enough to have the same impact as the full thing, but enough to let them remember it.

[Zuul]

And in Goonies, there was that "just enough" ending. The marble bag had jewels in it that would pay for them to all keep their houses.

I did find that much more satisfying than if they'd been able to keep all of the treasure, because the point was that they wanted things to stay together, not be fabulously wealthy.