The Final Destination series is a series of horror films created by James Wong, Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick. Distributed by New Line Cinema, the films are centered on the themes of determinism, predestination, and precognition, in relation to death (i.e. how to foresee, avoid or control it). In a more practical sense, each film portrays a series of elaborate, often gory death scenarios that can resemble Rube Goldberg machines in their complexity and convolutedness. The franchise has also spawned a related book series (published by Black Flame) and comic series (published by Zenescope Entertainment Inc).The premise to both the film and book series about death is essentially the same: A group of people are gathered together at a venue, when suddenly a member of the group has a premonition of a disaster that will kill all of the people present. Horrified and motivated by the vision of impending doom, the person with the premonition then tries to prevent the incident by alerting the others. The other members have doubts of the incredible claims but the visionary is persistent, fracturing the group in hostile skeptics, dubious believers, or those that had no choice but to accompany the visionary. Soon afterward, disaster strikes as foreseen, proving to the survivors that the visionary was right, and their opinions change drastically.
Over the next few days, weeks or months, the same survivors begin to die in a series of horrific and often improbable accidents until the same visionary notices a pattern and concludes that, while surviving the initial disaster, they are still destined to die. The visionary usually teams up with another fellow survivor of the opposite sex, and they are determined to once again cheat death; then the same group devises various plans to survive that usually fail until the protagonist visionary finds a solution to their fate, having salvaged two or three of the others. By the end, however, most or all of the survivors are dead. In the subsequent movie, the previous survivors are revealed to be dead, or die in the film. For example: in Final Destination 2, Clear returns from the first film only to be killed later in the film.
However, each movie would leave a legacy for new generations of survivors, such as each disaster was noted by the news, paranormal fanatics, and survivors who notice the similarities within these incidents. The survivors of each sequel would use whatever they learned from these past disasters, or enlisting the aid of a survivor of a previous film, of delaying their inevitable fates.
In addition, the series touches upon the idea of a ripple effect. Midway through the second film, the protagonists learn that they have not only cheated Death through the premonition of the main character Kimberly; each of them also would have died previously but were diverted from their respective destinies by the alternate death events of the first film.
Cheating Death
A recurring theme in each film is the concept of truly defeating Death. Constant intervention proves to merely restart the list from the beginning. When someone saves the targeted person, death immediately moves on to the next person on the list. Once the list of Death's Design runs through, it returns to the beginning. A key element of the films is that the protagonists always think they have found a way to cheat death; for example in the second film, it is suggested that a child born of a survivor will break the pattern. However, the ending always implies that there is no way to indefinitely cheat death.
The films have yet to explain what is sending the protagonists the premonitions and more importantly why, as it seems it does no good to escape the particular accident only for the entity of death itself attack the survivors.
Over the next few days, weeks or months, the same survivors begin to die in a series of horrific and often improbable accidents until the same visionary notices a pattern and concludes that, while surviving the initial disaster, they are still destined to die. The visionary usually teams up with another fellow survivor of the opposite sex, and they are determined to once again cheat death; then the same group devises various plans to survive that usually fail until the protagonist visionary finds a solution to their fate, having salvaged two or three of the others. By the end, however, most or all of the survivors are dead. In the subsequent movie, the previous survivors are revealed to be dead, or die in the film. For example: in Final Destination 2, Clear returns from the first film only to be killed later in the film.
However, each movie would leave a legacy for new generations of survivors, such as each disaster was noted by the news, paranormal fanatics, and survivors who notice the similarities within these incidents. The survivors of each sequel would use whatever they learned from these past disasters, or enlisting the aid of a survivor of a previous film, of delaying their inevitable fates.
In addition, the series touches upon the idea of a ripple effect. Midway through the second film, the protagonists learn that they have not only cheated Death through the premonition of the main character Kimberly; each of them also would have died previously but were diverted from their respective destinies by the alternate death events of the first film.
Cheating Death
A recurring theme in each film is the concept of truly defeating Death. Constant intervention proves to merely restart the list from the beginning. When someone saves the targeted person, death immediately moves on to the next person on the list. Once the list of Death's Design runs through, it returns to the beginning. A key element of the films is that the protagonists always think they have found a way to cheat death; for example in the second film, it is suggested that a child born of a survivor will break the pattern. However, the ending always implies that there is no way to indefinitely cheat death.
The films have yet to explain what is sending the protagonists the premonitions and more importantly why, as it seems it does no good to escape the particular accident only for the entity of death itself attack the survivors.
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