[[folder: Theories about individual characters]]
Every single event is a mental projection by Clear Rivers, who is in a psychiatric hospital the entire time after being unable to cope with the death of her boyfriend, being shown in order of her own imagined system of death that does not actually exist, and her own "death" ironically being in a hospital is a result of her own psychotic depression and delusional disorder combined with the death of her boyfriend. Everything shown, including the events leading up to the freak occurrence of her boyfriend's death, is nothing more than her way of making sense of things with an imaginary system, always with new details to fill in the gaps, so she can cope with her own despair.
Look at all the less-than-subtle odd references to her in every film. They're all over the place, most notably the "Clear Rivers" signs, and how so many places are, coincidentally, named "Clear Rivers". The constant occurrences could potentially mean everything is made up by Clear after she fails to cope with the death of her boyfriend—a chance happening—including her own death, which is what happens in Final Destination 2 as a result of leaving the institution while trying to save others, but is only her depression manifesting as a metaphor of her own death in even trying to accept the reality of it, which she is not mentally willing to do. In her attempt to "save" herself, she only causes the deaths of others, all of which die along with her. The ultimate Downer Ending and her own death in Final Destination 2 is her own conclusion that everything is completely hopeless regardless of her actions, so she chooses to hide inside herself, the only place where things can make any sense. The Final Destination prominently displays a place called "Clear Rivers", right by the site of where another death occurs. At the beginning of the second film, we see her in a psychiatric hospital, who is said to have voluntarily checked in to protect herself from Death, but is killed as a result of leaving the psychiatric hospital—ironically, in a futile attempt to prevent the deaths of others, along with herself and everything she's ever cared for. In other words, Death is just her own way of assigning blame for an accident that caused the death of her boyfriend. Clearly in a Despair Event Horizon after her boyfriend dies in Final Destination (and explained later in Final Destination 2), she makes sense of her own inner world and circumstances by inventing the system of Death and how it works, which is only a way for her to make sense of the death of her boyfriend by giving Death a sensible and logical "system" to which she consistently makes up new details with every story—a way to explain things which is only a single coincidence of her boyfriend's completely random and senseless death. She creates an entire imaginary timeline, with their own characters and added details and systems from film to film, filling in all the gaps in her own mind, with Final Destination 5 adding context she, herself, needs, in order for everything she has already created in the previous films to make sense. That's why it's a prequel: Clear needs the previous films, or stories in her mind, to make rational sense, at least to her.
Unable to cope with her boyfriend's death being nothing more than an accident, Death becomes her way of coping with the randomness of it and rationalizing it, with which she can't come to terms.
Jonathan Grove (the Cowboy) had a close brush with Death that none of the cast ever knew about.
The vision from FD4 has Grove dying before Hunt or Janet, not after. By rights, Grove should've died before Hunt's death or Janet's rescue. But if something the other characters did inadvertently prolonged Grove's life, then the scenario still matches up. So perhaps Grove nearly suffered a death by medical malpractice - the wrong drug administered, a heat monitor shorting out, etc - but was saved by a hospital staff member who wouldn't have been on hand to do so, had the main characters not unwittingly intervened.
For example, perhaps one of the doctors would have been treating one of Andy the Mechanic's co-workers for an on-the-job injury, except that Andy's death forced the shop to close early for the day and consequently the injury never took place. (Had the others not shown up at the shop, Andy would have lived until the end of shift, long enough for his colleague to be injured.) End result: the doctor had a few minutes to spare to check up on Jonathan, and discovered the error in time to save him. Then the surviving main characters' own alertness kept them alive, ducking a few close calls they didn't even register, until Grove's turn came up again.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: General Theories]]
All the events of the Final Destination series were really caused by a lot of coincidences.
Those who got premonitions had panic attacks/mental breakdowns and it was simply chance that what they were worried about happening actually happened. All subsequent deaths were freak accidents.
Hey, it's not impossible.
I don't know, there seem to be too many implausible, if not impossible things going on. Two examples from FD1: the toilet fluid returning to the toilet after making Tod slip in the bathtub and the power line that clearly was actively trying to off Clear. If they're all coincidences, they would still adhere to laws of physics. That is of course unless the science in the Final Destination universe is "different" somehow.[[/folder]]
[[folder: Bludworth]]
Coroner Bludworth is Death personified.
Think about it. He knows exactly how death works, and he gives the kids hints to figure out where to go next; but he is never specific enough to help them directly without their having to decipher his comments. This is because, as Death, he toys with his victims, making them think they have a chance to survive. Also, his name can be looked at as a corruption of "worthy of blood." Rather ominous name...Plus, he's played by Tony Todd. That helps a lot.
- You mean this isn't canonically true? Bludworth is CREEPY.
- Also, his line "I'll see you soon" is a hint. Sure, since he's a coroner and knows the score thus far, it could be excused as a case of morbid humor; but it makes you wonder.
- This troper has always thought this.
- Jossed. Craig Perry has confirmed that William Bludworth is not Death.
William Bludworth isn't death himself, but an envoy of death
His ominous behavior towards the survivors of the accidents and the hints that he gives them seem imply this, as well as his line "See you soon" It also seems like in the trailer for the 5th movie he is everywhere that death is happening to the characters.
Bludworth will die in Final Destination 5.
In the trailer, there's a shot of someone walking towards him while holding a knife. In connection with the above WMG, Bludworth will reveal to that someone that he is Death's Messanger. After a brief conversation, the person will then stab and kill him. You heard it here first, people.
- Nope. Like the first and second films, Bludworth only pops up in a couple scenes. After that, he just disappears, but he's still alive and well.
- Additionally, the film is a prequel.
Bludworth was one of the first to have precog powers, but became a ghost after Death came for him.
It makes sense since how Bludworth would know more then the characters? Because he lived through the stuff he'd went through and survived either by cheating Death or giving another life, but later on after his precog events, he died from Death and lives as a ghost, appearing to those who are next in line.
The Scary Black Man Is death
He appears in every movie!
- Almost. His voice is heard at the end of Final Destination 3, and he is not in The Final Destination.
- Close. He voices both the Devil's Flight rollercoaster as well as the voice on the train.
- It
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Death]]
Death's Visions
In Final Destination 5 there are still survivors alive when the vision ends. Since they didn't really die in the original accident proper they wouldn't have died if the protagonist hadn't intervened. In cases such as 4 and possibly 3 where they all needed to die elsewhere Death needs to send a false first vision.1 is a unique case because none of the main characters were supposed to die somewhere else, Death was in fact counting on Molly and Sam to leave, since it wasn't there time yet with Sam having Block's life span and Molly not having gone to Paris if it weren't for Sam. Since they didn't escape Death had to deal with the events of 1 and 2. Finally it got back on track at the end of 4.
Death's abilities...
Are the same kind as the ones seen in Ghost Trick. Why else would Death have to work such convoluted death sequences? In the end of Ghost Trick, it's revealed that having a time limit before you officially die was just a ruse, so don't get me there.
The visions come from that fate actually happening, but Death goes back in time 4 minutes and averts it, wanting to kill them in a certain way. Or perhaps he/she wants to kill them him/herself, for revenge.
Death is Rube Goldberg.
No evidence necessary. Watch ten minutes of any of the films.
Death is...
Here are the candidates:
- Light Yagami.
- Damien Thorn.
- Discord
- Zanza
- Nyarlathotep
- It
Death is Death from Last Action Hero
In Last Action Hero, the ticket that allows the characters to cross into the real world is lost and Death escapes into the real world, He is still around in the real world at the end of the Movie and being bored of the way people die here he is trying to shake things up a bit.
Death is a renegade Pantyand Stocking With Garterbelt.
Unlike the Anarchy sisters, he was thrown out of Heaven for being unbelievably bloodthirsty. Possibly being a rogue version of The Spectre]].
The Scary Black Man Is death
He appears in every movie!
- Almost. His voice is heard at the end of Final Destination 3, and he is not in The Final Destination.
- Close. He voices both the Devil's Flight rollercoaster as well as the voice on the train.
Death is trying to make the world a better place.
It occurs to me that everything in their world does not work like ours. Tanning beds lack safeties, school sign props are sharpened to lethal edges, roller coasters have completely different and inferior brake systems to ours. The entire world is a death world due to no OSHA compliance. Something must be done about this and Death knows it. So, he gives certain people visions to escape their deaths and a chance to avoid it. They can work together and make the world a safer place.
They just don't get it.
So, since they're still technically dead, they just haven't been collected he starts taking them back one by one. He still wants to make a statement about the dangers that everyone on the planet is just ignoring and since he's fairly limited in how he can make his point he has to take them by using the safety flaws against them. He's not playing a game, he's doing a protest and trying to make a statement.
Essentially what happens when you get a tragic evil can't comprehend good. Where "evil" in this situation is a frustrated death collector not comprehending the idiots who set the world up as one big suicide booth.
Coroner Bludworth: "I'll see you soon."
Indeed.
- this is also supported by the Death Note theory, only they person who has the note is a Kira, getting rid of the 'immoral people'
Death has a gore and Rube Goldberg contraption fetish.
The dude is likely moving stuff around with one hand and holding a box of tissues by the other.
The cause of all the horrible visions and deaths in Final Destination is Bernkastel.
Admit it, you know she'd do this.
The Grim Reaper is a sadistic bastard who is purposely giving the heroes visions of their upcoming deaths to ensure they and whoever they can save will die in more creative ways for his amusement.
How else are you going to explain why the protagonists get the visions in the first place? Then again...
- Pretty much confirmed in
Final Destination 4THE Final Destination.- And then retconned in Final Destination 5.
- Final Destination 5 is a prequel, so probably not.
- Yeah, they did. It's 100% established the characters cheat death and that they can beat it by killing someone else and taking their life. So no, the retcon is true. (That said, you could argue the vision in TFD was sent by death, but FDs 1, 2, 3, and 5 all featured protagonists who 100% cheated death)
- Furthermore Final Destination 2 explicitly contradicts Final Destination 4's theory. The fact that Death reverses an entire list indicates that there is indeed a rift in it's design and that it doesn't just want to kill people in awful ways for the fun of it.
- Why it can't be both? Here is my take: After untold aeons, Death has gained a sadistic liking to killing, but it is forced to follow the natural order much to its annoyance. Death would love to kill you in the most grisly ways imaginable, but if you are meant to die peacfully in your sleep at the age of 113, there is nothing it normally can do about it. At some point during human history some people started having promonitory psychic abilities, which would allow them to cheat the natural order, and thus Death was allowed to intervene in a much more direct to correct the issue. Death found that such a thing could be used as a loophole to have fun as it pleased and get creative in killing people, so from time to time it would send a psychic warning on purpose.
The Grim Reaper is the Master Hand.
Think about it.
- FOX ONLY! NO ITEMS!!
- Alternatively, the Grim Reaper is supposed to represent competitive elitists; the kids represent casuals. The kids escaping death alludes to them being able to create their own style of play, while their dying at the hands of the Grim Reaper alludes to elitists always attempting to get casuals to conform to their style of play.
- Off topic, but this is usually the other way around, believe it or not.
- Nah, Death uses way too many items in his kills to be a Smash elitist.
- Death was playing with some fellow human opponents, and one of them had the nerve to turn items on and pick Hyrule Temple. He came to the conclusion that Humans Are Scrubs and has set out to kill Scrubs as a warning to those who dare to have fun in video games.
The Grim Reaper is deliberately giving out the visions of death so that he can set up the Ultimate Kill.
Think about it: every time he gives someone a vision of their own death and they evade it, the Grim Reaper can set up an even more fantastic death, constantly one-upping himself. He's simply repeating this pattern over and over to hone his abilities; the final kill he sets up in this manner will be so awesome, even Kamina will have to look at it and say, "Damn, that is AWESOME!".
- Maybe he's bored, and (unlike Discworld's Death) there's no-one he likes enough to make watching lives worthwhile; exploiting loopholes to allow cooler deaths is his only form of amusement.
Death is a Mage.
Hey, even Nephandi need a vacation sometime, and that Qlippothic Entropy Sphere is just sitting there...
Death isn't The Grim Reaper, but an Eldritch Abomination
He either can't directly kill everyone and has to follow a strange set of rules, or he's bored and is causing disasters. When the disasters are stopped by visions (perhaps caused by latent psychic powers), he becomes interested in the people who escaped and decides to use them as part of a game of Disaster Dominoes. If he ever meets someone who manages to make it impossible to set up a fun chain of events, then he'll just give them an aneurysm or heart attack and move on.
- Death's "true form" in one of the spin-off books kinda supports this.
The Death in this series is the replacement Death from the climax of Reaper Man.
Discworld fans may recall that one of Death's berserk buttons regarding the Auditor-nominated replacement was that Death 2.0 wanted to rule over humanity.
Death: A crown? I never wore a crown!
Death 2.0: You never wanted to rule.
This may have been more than professional pride - Death could perceive something Very Wrong with his replacement, and knew he needed to act quickly to prevent disaster on a cosmic scale. So, after Death throws down and gets his replacement oustered, the Auditors get a the scolding of an eternity from Azrael and vanish. Where did they and their kingly nominee go? To the Destination-verse. But, after entering a world that was less dependent on magic and narrativium, their Death slipped his leash. In reality, the replacement Death was badly made and therefore insane, and the Auditors only discovered this too late - and imagine their horror upon seeing the chaos he sowed. The events of the movies are the result of the rogue Death messing up The Plan and the Auditors trying to clean things up.
Death is actually The Hero of the story
The villains are actually the humans that receive premonitions and try to avoid death, thereby disrupting the order of life and death, and we're supposed to cheer on how Death always gets his job done and preserve the balance. And Death is usually an Invincible Hero, since nobody can touch or avoid him. And he always wins.
- Everyone has to die some day.
- This could effectively make almost every human character in the series an Anti-Villain as they don't realize or understand they should follow Death's plan and only want to live full lives.
The Grim Reaper changes every movie
Or to elaborate, The Grim Reaper is really a person who has premonotions during the course of the Reaper's Game. (No, not THAT one) When said person dies, he/she replaces the previous reaper and begins to start his/her own Reaper's Game by giving another person premonotions, killing people in complicated ways, and so forth.
In other words: Who ever has the premonition powers in a Final Destination movie will become the Grim Reaper in the next. Alex Browning was the Reaper for FD2, Kimberly was the Reaper for FD3, Wendy was the Reaper for FD4/TFD, and Nick will be the next Reaper for (Hopfully) FD5. Although, it might be weird explaining how Alex and Kimberly become reapers in the first place do to them living. But someone might add to this thoery and make it make more sense.
- Actually, both of them died by the next respective movie. It's stated that Alex died in between 1 and 2 by... getting hit by a falling brick. Kimberly and the other survivor were sucked into a wood chipper in between 2 and 3. So this theory doesen't work.
- Who says that they have to be still alive to become the new death? In fact it would make more sense for them to become the new death after they themselves have died.
- Since ''FD5='' is a prequel of [=FD1, and Sam dies in the same accident that Alex Browning foresees, this theory doesn't hold up.
- Actually, both of them died by the next respective movie. It's stated that Alex died in between 1 and 2 by... getting hit by a falling brick. Kimberly and the other survivor were sucked into a wood chipper in between 2 and 3. So this theory doesen't work.
[[/folder]]
[[[folder: General]]
Someone is giving the protagonists visions, but The Grim Reaper has no idea who.
Not only does it explain the visions - without something like this, there's no logical reason for both the visions and Death attempting to kill them - but it also explains why Grimmy can prevent some characters from taking their own life (in the second movie, one tries to kill themself with a fully-loaded gun, and it misfires every single time) but not others (like the protagonists' "dying" from lethal injection to be taken off Death's list).
- The Grim Reaper should have infinite patience. Everybody will end up his guest eventually.
- Doesn't Death need people to die in the right order? Doesn't that mean that NOBODY should be able to die until Death finishes off the ones that get away? You'd think somebody might have mentioned if there hadn't been a single death between the first and second movies. Even if we limit it to the same incident, shouldn't even people who stayed in the initial death trap get away because those who were supposed to be killed in the middle of it aren't, which would screw up the order for everyone else?
- Perhaps there's more than one Death, like in Dead Like Me or Discworld; the Death stalking this lot just happens to be the Death of Amazing Freak Accidents That Defy Audience Belief. There have been at least a couple Absurdly Overpowered Fireballs, haven't there?
- If so, more people should be coming back. He's bad at pirate slang. And the Disc has only three Deaths.
- If whatever is giving the protagonists their visions is somehow opposed to the Reaper, then it sucks at its job; all its interference does is get its chosen ones killed in even more fantastically brutal ways.
- Perhaps it's Death playing a game of metaphysical Mousetrap with God. God keeps trying to stop the mice (the humans) getting killed in Death's mousetrap (the elaborate deaths), but God just sucks at Mousetrap.
- Hey, man, Mousetrap is hard.
- Unless it takes advantage of the disruption in ways we can't perceive or simply aren't informed of. This other entity doesn't necessarily care about saving people; it may just be using them to further its own supernatural ends.
- Jossed. In the fourth movie, it's been revealed that Death's been giving them the visions all along.
- Perhaps it's Death playing a game of metaphysical Mousetrap with God. God keeps trying to stop the mice (the humans) getting killed in Death's mousetrap (the elaborate deaths), but God just sucks at Mousetrap.
The Grim Reaper and the source of the visions are the two warring entities from Tru Calling.
Final Destination shows a later stage of the conflict, when they've stopped using Jason Priestly and Eliza Dushku as proxies and are fighting more directly.
In the Final Destination series, Death's place has been usurped by the Anti-Christ.
That's right: Damien Thorne. Think about it: his M.O. is identical.
- Not likely: he died in part 3.
- his son/daughter on the other hand...
The events of the film are the direct result of someone in America who has found a little black book.
Furthermore, he's a fan of gory movies, so he clearly wants to see how much he can get away with. Those visions were clearly exactly as planned.
- The reason that all the victims previously escaped fatal accidents: The first time was either a case of psychic ability or a fluke. They then get mentioned on the news; the book wielder, who also possesses an extremely warped sense of humour, decides to use them as his next victims. He has so much fun doing so that the subsequent accidents are engineered by the note wielder via the simple method of writing things along the lines of 'X dies from Y, having previously escaped Z'. Whoever has the black book in question is a very sick puppy and might be someone who knows the victims, which would explain why he's so fond of this particular routine - that is, he finds the panicking entertaining in some way. (While one little black notebook ended up in the hands of someone who possesses some standards, twisted though they may be, this one ended-up in the possession of a total headcase.)
- Alternatively, the visions were unrelated to the notebook in question. But its owner has been using it for so long that they've developed a death god-complex and have taken the idea of a group of people escaping death as a personal challenge or affront, which they respond to by trying to inflict maximum terror on their victims before killing them.
Most of the events of the films are caused by a Kira who went to the high school in the first movie.
He targeted his bullies on the plane. The survivors are all people whose names he didn't write down; he took the idea that that incident was survivable as a personal affront, and so went sadistic on the survivors. Each subsequent movie's initial "accidents" originally targeted, and killed, specific people whom he hated; he only went after the survivors afterwards.
The kids are all descendants of the Belmont family; hence, Death is after them.
Because this isn't 1691 or 1476, the kids don't have access to awesome Holy Water.
- So, Hsu and Chan have Death after them from killing Dracula? That explains EGM and 1up.
- Uh, could you please explain EGM and 1up?
There is no more Clear Rivers, and everyone is an immortal
The upcoming movie is a reboot, but there was no continuity in the previous movies. The only things linking them together were Clear Rivers and the concept of Death. Since the Retroactive Canon must erase something, that means both of those things got erased. That means:
- Clear Rivers has been wiped out from existance
- There is no more Death. Nobody ever dies. Everyone is now an immortal.
Exactly how this affects the plot of the reboot is uncertain.
- None of the movies have been reboots.
The visions are people time-travelling to the past just before their death.
It's Mental Time Travel, natch.
Final Destination happen in the Dead Like Me universe
In Dead Like Me, when a reaper prevent the death of someone on his list, the Gravelings get angry and cause all sort of painful accidents to the reaper. In Final Destination, the deaths are prevented by the 'dead to be' themselves, and so they are the ones the Gravelings blame. Since mortals don't have a Healing Factor, the accidents are far more dangerous to them than they are to the reapers.
In addition, the visionaries become reapers after their deaths.
If you were a reaper, wouldn't precognition and sign seeing be a useful tool for your trade?
The cast is already at their Final Destination.
In other words, they're all dead and being tortured for various sins. The ones 'blessed' with visions are the worst of the lot, but they don't remember their past lives any more than anyone else. They think they can escape their fate and help others in the process, but...
Kira got REALLY bored.
This is what he does on a rainy day to screw with people.
Final Destination 's Death caused the Titanic disaster.
If you really study the whys and wherefores of the Titanic disaster, it becomes clear that there were dozens of minor things eversoslightly not quite ideal with the design and the voyage:
- The rivets on the bow of the ship were made of iron rather than the much stronger steel due to the inability of the riveting machine to deal with curves.
- The compartments in the belly of the ship were not quite up to the ceiling as they should have been.
- The planned route would have taken them much further south, allowing them to completely avoid any risk of icebergery.
- Had the ship been travelling at a more sensible speed, they would have been able to avoid icebergery even on the new route.
- The Titanic 's radioman cursed out the radioman of the California (the nearest ship at the time of impact) for sending iceberg warnings while he (Titanic 's guy) was trying to send out his own messages, leading California 's guy to shut off his radio and go to bed, leaving them unable to receive Titanic 's S.O.S.
- There weren't nearly enough lifeboats because investors were concerned that they would mess up the "look" of the ship.
- The night of the sinking was the night before the new moon, giving very little moonlight to help see the iceberg.
- There was virtually no wind the night of the sinking, making the iceberg harder to see without breaking water.
- There were no binoculars anywhere on the ship.
If any one of these had been different, it is quite likely that either the ship would have gotten to the States completely unscathed, or else not nearly as many people would have died in the disaster. Instead, over a thousand people drowned or died of hypothermia in the resulting Disaster Dominoes. The route change and the push for more speed caused them to encounter and fail to avoid an iceberg, which punctured the hull, causing water to rush in and over the incomplete compartment walls, causing the iron rivets to give way, causing the whole thing to ultimately fold in on itself while they tried in vain to raise the only ship within range to evacuate to, and half the passengers were left SOL when many of the (already inadequate number of) lifeboats were launched to safety only partially filled. While I don't generally invoke Diabolus ex Machina in Real Life...
- Problem with this one: Death doesn't seem to be able to manipulate people's conscious decisions in the films, else the characters could just be made to walk directly into traffic or whatever, and Clear couldn't have decided to lock herself away from danger. All the factors you mention except the weather conditions were a result of human bad judgement, not the kind of unthinking carelessness or one-in-a-million mechanical glitches that the films' Death is into.
- True, but if Death makes it so that there are no better rivets available, then the weaker ones have to be bought, or if death uses a freak gust of wind to conveniently knock Binoculars out of someone's field of view so they forget about it, then he could be behind it all. He does things like that - activates things that CAN'T be activated, moves things so they hit you, etc. He could, presumably, just as easily move things away from you so they're not in a position to be used... thus leading to everything going wrong with Titanic.
Final Destination is actually a video game series along the lines of Deception.
'Death' is the player, whose goal is to kill NPCs in the most over-the-top fashion possible (the more complex the death, the more points gained from it).
Alternatively:
Final Destination is just a badly played game of The Sims.
Death gave the kids a second chance at life, all they have to do is survive.
Kind of like Gantz, wherein Death is Mr. Dudeball. Death saved the kids, either to fight aliens (probably what's really killling them) or was just kind and wanted to give them a second chance (and this one splits: he either kills them to to test their will to live, or is striking down those he feels are not deserving of his gift.)
- If the latter... My God...
It is true that only "new life" can stop Death. The people in the films just didn't understand what "new life" meant.
C'mon. You know what I mean. They had a choice to Mate or Die. They chose the wrong answer.
- Original Troper returning from FD wiki: seems it was in an alternate ending. Does it mean this WMG is canonical?
It is true that only "new life" can stop Death. But what they meant was a life added to death's list
If a person saved by someone who is on death's list is also put on that list, a person who is on the list can save themselves by killing someone who is meant to live (not on the list). Death's books must be balanced, after all! Hopefully they'll realize it at the end of the fifth movie.
- That's rumored to be the driving twist of the 5th movie.
- And that rumour was correct! Confirmed as of movie five.
Pigeons work for death
Because they've managed to involve themselves in a good three deaths so far: Tim's in 2, Erin's in 3 and Janet's almost-death in 4.
- Maybe Pigeons are just angry at being scared all the time and seek revenge?
Death just wants attention.
Death sends the premonitions that save them because he wants them to praise him for giving them a second chance, but they all give credit to the guy having the premonition or completely ignore it, so Death starts killing them in horrible ways as a sort of childish rage. Likewise they may get killed off because big brother Life makes Death kill off the people he saved because he doesn't want to deal with the extra lives that Death put on his plate.Of course this is a complete crack theory spurred by horror movies and sugar, so it shouldn't be taken seriously.
Final Destination 5 is a prequel
This is a bit of a stretch here, as this is being concocted after watching the available trailers. There are no mentions of the previous disasters, at all. This can also explain how Bludworth knows just so damn much about how Death works in later movies, due to him experiencing it firsthand previously.
Also, the ending has been rumored to tie in with Final Destination The last two survivors are supposed to die on Flight 180, the disaster from Final Destination. Also, if this happens to correct, The Final Destination would be canonically the last movie of the series.
- Confirmed. At the end of the movie, the two remaining survivors (Sam and Molly) board Flight 180, and witness Alex Browning and Carter Horton fighting before being thrown off the plane with the survivors of the FD 1 cast. When the plane blows up, Molly gets sucked out of the plane and bisected by the plane's wing while Sam burns to death.
Final Destination 3 and 4 take place in the Happy Tree Friends universe.
The deaths are nearly pointless and comedically over-the-top, and everyone just seems to come apart too easily for it to be otherwise.
The main "heroes" of the story are actually Kishin whom Death must destroy before they spread Madness.
Because, hey, why else would they be able to cheat death in the first place?
Kira got really really drunk one night and the events of the film were the result of him writing their names while on a bender.
Well, it all started that night L got Light really drunk at the karaoke bar in the hope of getting him to confess to being Kira. Gorn and hilarity ensued.
Death perceives humanity as being disrespectful of the idea of living.
Death was once a normal god, doing its duty of collecting souls ready to pass on. But, as centuries pass, it sees how humanity treats themselves through war. Bit by bit, this irks on his nerves, that people want to shorten their already short (by an immortal god's standards, anyway) lifespans. So, Death begins giving humanity what it believes humanity wants - short lives and brutal demises. Things began small, simple accidents here and there. But, a dark, cruel streak is born in the god, and the deaths slowly grow more and more brutal and sadistic as time goes on. But, despite all well-intentioned efforts, man's reverence for their own lives becomes less and less apparent. Feeling as though the world spurns the idea of Death and what it does, the maddened god goes to further lengths, setting up the figurative chess board for mass accidents. For a time, this worked. Then, somehow, people got these mysterious visions, and a few manage to escape - like Flight 180 and the other movies. This pisses Death off immensely, how dare these humans stand up to him! So, he goes after the survivors, to ensure those that meet him know he exists, and will always be there waiting.
- In that logic, other gods involved in this Universe would be the ones giving the humans visions. Think about it, this figurative Chess Board, needs two players. The second player would be another god equal too, but the opposite of death. Whom believes no matter what humans deserve a chance at life. These two are probably buddies, they can't kill each other because of their duties and their immortality. The Life God proposes that the humans deserve a chance at life. Though Death disagrees he is intrigued, and makes the game. The rules are simple. No direct contact on both sides. (Hence why death is never seen in the movie. As well as the deaths being domino style.) They would also have a referee (Bludworth) who is allowed to help but only in riddles. The Ref agrees and to insure that nothing happens to him he is granted eternal life. Natural life and death (babies being born and old people on death beds) still apply do to their duties. However each game has to begin with a major disaster. Death has it set up in order to make the disaster. The Life God draws a random name to pick as its visionary and the game begins.
Some other events that were likely a Final Destination style disaster, or caused by one:
- World War I resulted in massive casualties all across the globe, and directly lead to even more gore and death in World War II, and was all started by a suspiciously narrowly successful assassination attempt in which every single thing that could have gone wrong did, yet the attempt succeeded.
- The Silver Bridge collapse in The Film of the Book of The Mothman Prophecies. Possibly in reality as well.
- Which bodes ill for Connie, Victim #37. Perhaps Indrid Cold is the one giving the visions?
Death Is Actually A Really Nice Guy
- There is no fate. Death is just someone who kills people who deserve it. The people who he killed were all going to live really crappy lives/cause the deaths or misery of others, so he killed them for the greater good.
- Alternatively, Death was just doing it's job killing people when they were supposed to. You know, like Real Life.
Bludworth is a relative of a man named Richard Hallorann and death is an Eldritch Abomination, who was roosted from a town called Derry
- Death itself is just a natural phenomena, but there is something out there setting up The Plan so that It can feed off of the death and fear It creates. Bludworth, and all of the precognitive characters, have "The Shine" which causes them to see that they may die. This Psychic energy draws It to the survivors, and It kills them off, feeding. Bludworth has survived multiple encounters with It because his family has encountered It, and because all of the Halloranns/Bludworths are so damned meta.
The characters are caught in a game of I Wanna Be the Guy.
Some of the deaths, you can almost hear the "Press R To Try Again" theme.
Everything is a result of two entities playing cosmic Xanatos Speed Chess.
Entity 1 sets up the disasters. Entity 2 gives the visions. Entity 1 sets up counter-disasters. Entity 2 sets up counter-visions. And round and round it goes.
Death is actually a nice guy. It's Fate that's being an ass.
Death is doing his job. He has nothing against any of the people involved, and as an outside observer, he finds is fascinating how creative people can get about their own survival if you give them little hints about what's going to happen. Fate thinks this is cheating and has a tantrum, but he can't exactly take his toys and go home, so he's teaching Death a lesson about not getting too close to the mortals.
Meanwhile, Death plays poker with William Bludworth on Fridays.
The Final Destination franchise takes place in a form of hell based on Vancouver and some other bits of the world
Death, in fact grew up in Vancouver BC and always remembers his chilhood there. Ergo, he decided to put all the people who have pissed him off into his personal twisted version of Vancouver as a form of hell. To screw around with his little...pets...he decides to rename various bits into other names (ie Vancouver International Airport becomes "JFK Airprot", the "Corkscrew" is renamed "Death's Flight" and Lion's Gate Bridge is now "North Bay Bridge". When the miserable souls die, their minds get wiped and their souls are forced into a time loop by going back to their birth in this world.
The film series itself is actually a project of the Grim Reaper's to remind people that he's way scarier than random fake horror movie villains because in the end, you can never cheat death.
Consider - the Ambiguously Evil Mr. Exposition is played by an actor whose name is itself the German word for death.
This is all leading to the Apocalypse
Notice how in almost every single movie, there are loose ends that need tied up? The visions are being planted by some kind of Anti-Christ in order to bring about the End of Days. Death, furious that it seems these mere mortals have thwarted its plan, begins killing them all. Unfortunately, their very existence is bringing the world down around their ears. Just by existing, they change the outcome of things, by way of the Butterfly Effect. Death is trying his very best to keep the natural order of things. People have to die when they have to, otherwise things just get screwy. Death is just doing its job. But, like dominoes, things are starting to spiral out of control. Death, obviously not all powerful-
(Or everyone would just drop dead when they failed to die appropriately ((So what if a ton of people drop dead of heart attacks after narrowly averting death in a terrible car accident, or plane crash? The people died, and there is nothing that can say it was anything but a heart attack. What are they gonna do, arrest Death?)))
-, cannot just rewrite an entire plan that has spanned billions of years on a whim. Rather shortsightedly, Death is just killing people who are effected by the premonitions. Remember the butterfly effect? Everyone will eventually be effected by the premonitions. It's all just a matter of wiether or not it happens prior to 2012.
Death is just really, really, really bored
Think about it, people cheat death all the time, so why these individuals? He's bored. He simply thought "You know what? That car tire is going for her head. No questions dammit."
There is no 'force of Death'
The films just take place in a universe where things are a little different... where either engineering is a poorly understood science, or where the people who should be carrying out maintenance have far too good of a union, or where OSHA laws never came into existence... or perhaps most likely, where the laws of physics tend towards entropy rather more than they do in our world. In any case, it's continual poor engineering and system failures that cause the accidents, not any kind of supernatural interference.
The Final Destination series takes place in the same universe as the Supernatural tv show...
A universe where Death and Fate are two separate entities that try to do their jobs but are occasionally thwarted by the other. This would explain the visions; one entity is sending them as a warning while the other is trying to do their job by killing them off.
- Supernatural has Grim Reapers and has had quite a few rouge ones. It also canonically has telepaths. All it would take is one Reaper just cleaning up after a death gone wrong.
Death is a Reality Warper.
How else do you explain the massive liberties the movies take with human anatomy and physics?
Death respects those who do not fear it.
- If one of the survivors were to treat their numbered days as a means to do everything they were otherwise afraid of, Death would not disgrace them with a painful and pitiful death. If a survivor were to spend their last days living out their dreams, then instead of some contrived, painful demise, death would more likely visit in the night and take them quietly with a sense of reverence.
Death makes lists for every single living thing
- Death isn't bored, he's just doing his job. Not everyone can have premonitions so when people die in a normal way it goes unquestioned. Some people (our universe included) can find synchronicity everywhere. The people who are able to have these visions are only MORE LIKELY to see the signs and whatever. So even if someone died in their sleep or from a disease there is still a chance they could've been warned in some way. Basically, everyone is born with a talent but not everyone has the same talent (in this case, visions). Hope this makes sense.
The reason Bludworth knows so much about Death and it's motives…
… is because he has seen the other side, meaning he died for a period of time, and was subsequently revived, with the knowledge of everything Death is going to do buried in his mind. When Bludworth died, Death came to take him, but met resistance. Bludworth fought back, and saw Death's list in the process. Bludworth was revived with the list branded in his brain, along with an ultimatum: if he tells anybody about who will die where and how, then Death will come for him, with extreme prejudice.
As a result, he decides to become a mortician, and gives cryptic advice to survivors because it's all he can really do, while staying alive himself.
The series takes a Hindu approach to death.
Think Karmic Jackpot on a massive scale. Death makes these people's final moments all the more agonizing so they can be reborn into a life where they know no pain, fear, sickness, or despair. Basically, if you make the list, you'll be rewarded greatly when you're reborn. As for the premonitions, they're a Secret Test of Character: if one survives the opening incident (Flight 180, the rollercoaster derailing, etc.), they die much more horribly. If they choose to act on this vision, then they, and anybody else who believes them, are rewarded even further on rebirth.
William Bludworth made a Deal with the Devil.
Far from being the mysterious mentor he appears to be in the films, Bludworth knows about the "kill someone to get their remaining time" thing because he's done it himself. Repeatedly. He sets up huge mechanical disasters (in the style of Mr. Glass in Unbreakable) to have lots of people die him his place, giving himself functional immortality. And since nobody who escapes survives for long, nobody is in any position to figure this out and try to stop him.
The Ripple Effect will eventually put everyone on Death's list and induce an apocalypse.
If the Butterfly Effect of cheating death is really as powerful as we see in Final Destination 2 and people cheating death really is as common as we see in Final Destination 5, then it's only a matter of time before it starts overtaking the world. What if the person who would have invented a cure for cancer or some remarkable vaccine cheats death, putting millions of people on the list? Eventually Death will probably just decide to call it a day and kill everyone with a meteor.
Bludworth is some kind of superintelligent robot-like creature.
He knows a lot about Death because he was programmed with that information inside him. He was designed to share this information and help those fighting against Death. He has no feelings, that's why he can talk about it without feeling fear or pity. However, he can't further help the characters because he isn't programmed to do it. However, and most importantly, he can learn things: that's why he stopped talking about the "kill to save yourself" rule after FD 5 (the first film in chronological order), where he did it and it resulted in one of the survivors trying to kill another one of them. This outcome is pretty predictable if you are a human and you know human nature, but maybe if he's some kind of robot he didn't see it coming until it happened, thus allowing him to stop talking about that rule in the future. This possibility could also have something to do with his voice being heard in Devil's Flight and the subway.
Billy and Mandy Have finally drove Grim off the deep end and these movies are being used to traumatize them.
Well one troper likes to believe this is what happened.
Hypnos (Greek God of Sleep) and Hades(Greek God of the Underworld) noticed that Thanatos(Greek God of Death and Hypnos' twin) seemed to be getting a bit bored with it all.
He, in essence, is just checking off lists all day every day forever. So Hypnos has his son Morpheus send visions of their coming death to various people. Then they show Thanatos what they've done and Hades gives Thanatos full rein to take back these lost souls. Kind of like your boss given you a free pass to an amusement park. Soon all the deities of the Underworld are sitting in a cavern watching the master at work while eating pomegranate flavored popcorn and cheering Thanatos on. I always watch the movies from this perspective. It greatly adds to my entertainment.
Aldis Escobar (from Final Destination: Dead Man's Hand) is the final survivor from an unseen Death's List
Sometime before the start of Dead Man's Hand Aldis was at a place where someone (who was a stranger to him) had a premonition of an accident and Aldis was one of the people who were saved. The visionary (and possibly some others) managed to track down Aldis and explained to him about Death's Design, and then saved him from whatever was going to kill him then (thus placing him at the end of the list), but Aldis brushes it off as a coincidence. The remaining survivors (including the visionary) all die, and Aldis continues with his own life, when (at the start of Dead Man's Hand) Death comes for him again and tries to kill him with the elevator, but fails (but he is not skipped, as he is the only survivor left on the list) - he notices the song on his iPod and remembers what the visionary told him about looking out for signs, and finally starts to believe, at list a little, and then dies in a car accident, which is again orchestrated by Death, finally closing that list.
"Death" is actually the God of Good
Death is a natural part of life. It allows new life to be formed and gives what life we have meaning. Imagine a world without death: all the pain and agony of age would continue. If someone was decapitated, his body would continue functioning in a state of perpetual agony. If someone was disemboweled, he would continue feeling that same agony. What could even be eaten? If plants and animals can't be killed, how would they be eaten?
The visions aren't sent by Death, but by a cosmic force, "Anti-Death," who is constantly trying to undermine Death's plan. The brutality of the deaths of the survivors is either Death is mistakenly believes the survivors are working with Anti-Death and is attempting to punish them, or he genuinely doesn't understand how much pain and terror he is causing.
Essentially, Death is trying to stop Marvel's Cancerverse from taking hold.
The photographs from FD3 do not predict the future.
Rather, Death peeked at the photos, noted their contents, and devised deaths for the people depicted that reflected them, purely to troll the characters.
The souls of Death's previous victims try to help any new group of people who cheated Death's initial design.
The ghosts of people who were previously on a Death list send each new protagonist visions and signs of Death's impending strikes from the afterlife. Why them? who knows. Maybe it's because they're able to perceive their messaging on some level. The fact that they're trying to help suggests that there may be a legitimate way for the survivors to get a chance at a "full life"...or at least they think there is one. They do this mainly because, as it turns out, Death isn't the only one who decides where, when and how someone dies. Having seemingly gone off the rails, it starts taking lives that possibly were not even supposed to be taken yet and they're doing everything in their power to level the playing field.
Or alternatively...
The force that sends mortals signs and premonitions is simply Death's Arch-Nemesis,...Life.
Or rather would it be "Birth"?
Death in the series isn't the actual Grim Reaper, but a rogue, evil, supernatural impostor attempting to usurp it's role.
The imposter is the now-demonic spirit of a deceased, homicidal maniac who may have found a way to take the reigns of Death's controls in the afterlife. Ironically, it's the REAL Death who's trying to keep the survivors alive while trying to take back it's job.
It's not that Death LIKES to do what it does... it's that it HAS to do it to avert an even worse fate
What if the reason Death is so obsessed with balancing out the books is that with each successive error, we bring the universe one step closer to crashing? Also just like the Butterfly Effect WMG mentioned above, if enough people break sequence, will the machinations proliferate uncontrollably, beyond what even Death intended?
Death usurped the original Death throne that used to be co-seated with him and Peaceful Death
There are actually two kinds of death: Peaceful death (death by old age, for example) or violent death, which this series has aplenty. The Death we see here is the one who managed the latter, but didn't like the more peaceful Death, thinking that Peaceful Death's job was... BORING. So he knocked Peaceful Death out and took over his job, and made sure that in the FD-verse, every deaths shall be complicated and violent. People don't die out of being old anymore; people die because Death wanted a sadistic show.
Which leads to...
There will be some sort of heroic spin-off where a group of able individuals discover a way to punch Death in the face and then restore the existence of Peaceful Death
Spin-off because it's starting to LEER from the premise of Final Destination.
Eventually, perhaps the audience may want the people of the FD-verse to earn some happy end. Some individuals would learn on how sadistic this Death is and did their best Samuel L. Jackson impression: "Enough is ENOUGH! I HAVE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKIN' VIOLENT DEATHS ON THIS MOTHERFUCKIN' WORLD!" This led them to discover the existence of Peaceful Death on how it was usurped by the current Death, and work around a way to wake it up, thereby granting them enough power to materialize the violent death and beat the crap out of it or obliterate it. Peaceful Death takes back its place and stated that a new Violent Death deity will eventually come and hopefully be less sadistic than this one.
The movie then ends with one of the heroes having a chronic heart attack and dies after being sent to the hospital. Because hey, Peaceful Death gotta do his job, Death is a natural part of life, but this time, there won't be some asshole deity manipulating it for lulz.
Death isn't a sadist, just OCD and angry
You are on his list, it's neat, it's tidy, some people go in their sleep or in illness, some people get into horrific accidents, that's just the way it goes, but if you cheat his list and, in essence, mess up the order, he gets nasty, you will note that most (not all) of the initial disasters the characters die rather instantly, usually asshole characters get nasty ones (the bosses death by tar as an example) but everyone else gets their heads smashed in or crushed or splatted, all instant, painless, maybe not clean but still pop and you are out, for cheating his list Death gets angry and constructed more prolonged and painful deaths, the more you cheat him or actively try to, the worse it gets, but if you accept it is happening and you can't stop it, he relents and gives you a quicker death (Rory & Nora from 2), the only reason most of the characters get a horrible death is because Death is actively angry at them for cheating him.
Death as an entity played a direct hand in human history — but not in the way that death as a natural occurrence has played a hand in history
Sure, freak deaths happen in real life, but the ones in these films are often partially a result of technology which seems to have been designed to help facilitate horrible accidents. There also seem to be much lower safety standards. Judging by such things as the design of the tanning salon and by many characters—characters whom one would assume to be competent—who make mistakes that one would think would be avoided by anyone (such as Eugene being left alone without any supervision), it's also possible that human instincts were influenced by Death's will.
Ian predicted Wendy's (possible) death.
In Final Destination 3, Ian's last words to Wendy were "You see? I'm not gonna die! It's you, Wendy! YOU'RE DEAD!"; later on in the movie, Wendy actually did (possibly) die. So... Yeah...
- That's a very loose connection by nature. Additionally, the point of that line was premature celebration.
Disasters in future films
- A helicopter crash
- An earthquake
- A flood
- A factory or warehouse accident
- A mass shooting
- A fire
- A building collapse
- A science lab accident
- A yacht capsizing
- A nuclear meltdown
Disaster locations in future films
- A school or university
- A factory or warehouse
- A political rally
- A political protest (March For Life, March For Our Lives, etc.)
- A military warzone
- A stadium
- A wedding
- A funeral
- A science museum
- A zoo
- A yacht
- A remote island
The deaths were in the hands of the Immediate Murder Professionals
The survivors of the disasters happened to be on the I.M.P.'s hitlist. They initially tried by causing a disaster based on where they happened to be, not caring who else gets killed as long as the targets get killed. But since the survivors survived, they decided to take them out one by one instead. Who's giving the premonitions? Either Alastor the Radio Demon or Charlie. Alastor because it's simply fun to him, Charlie because she's a nice girl and/or wants to slow down the influx of human sinners. Both have the power to do something like that, since Alastor is so powerful to topple century-old hell regimes, and Charlie is, you know, the princess of Hell.
Final Destination 6 will explain Bludworth's connection to Death.
Plot summaries have listed the group of survivors as “first responders”. Now, obviously a coroner/mortician wouldn’t be among those, but perhaps Bludworth could have been a paramedic, or something similar. After all, coroners are like doctors, only they operate on the dead*.
A character will try to kidnap or kill Bludworth