8 Ridiculous Coincidences That Made For Happy Movie Endings

6. The Quest's Timing Couldn't Be Better - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Okay, I'm cheating with this one a little bit. Those who have read the book will know all turns out well for our favourite company of dwarves... and hobbit. They take back the Lonely Mountain from Smaug (at great cost) and Bilbo returns to the Shire. But looking at the first film in the series, it takes an awful lot of coincidences to conquer their quest. A personal favourite, if you can call it that, is when the dwarves arrive at Rivendell. As usual, Hugo Weaving nails his role as Elrond, but the timing of his meeting with the company has to go down as one of the most convenient plot points in the Middle-Earth universe. Thorin cannot read the map and the task is left to the elf. He says:

"Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them, not when you look straight at them. They can only be seen when the moon shines behind them, and what is more, with the more cunning sort it must be a moon of the same shape and season as the day when they were written. The dwarves invented them and wrote them with silver pens, as your friends could tell you. These must have been written on a midsummer's eve in a crescent moon, a long while ago."

What are the odds? They have come to Elrond on a midsummer's eve. During a crescent moon, no less! Lucky, lucky dwarves! But wait, there's more. Elrond transcribes the riddle on the map and discovers that the door to the Lonely Mountain can only be seen during the last light of Durin's Day which, you guessed it, falls coincidentally around the same time our heroes embark on their adventure. Tolkien and Jackson... hang your heads in shame.