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This clip of J.J. Abrams talking about storytelling and Star Wars is excerpted
from a 2007 talk at the annual TED Conference. In the clip (watch it below) Abrams talks about “the mystery box,” the key information that’s withheld in a story that makes the story intriguing and compelling. As he puts it: “The intentional withholding of information is much more engaging.” The talk was a big hit today on the social media site Reddit when someone dug it out and pointed to it as evidence Abrams will be a terrific director of the next Star Wars, which he was assigned last week.
In the larger presentation (you can view it on the jump), Abrams ranges widely on the nature of storytelling, with clips from his own show Lost as well as Jaws. He references his childhood Super 8 camera, a never-opened box of magic tricks from his beloved grandfather, the biggest mystery box of all, and one of the three rules of the universe: Don’t hurt Tom Cruise’s nose.
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Mystery Box – JJ must mean that part of the story that he hasn’t figured out and never will but which permits the leaps of story logic and inconsistent character behavior that animate all his series.
There’s a fundamental flaw to his Mystery Box logic, especially in regards to LOST.
When you start stacking mystery box on top of mystery box on top of mystery box without opening any of them (no pay off at all for the audience), you end up with a whole bunch of crappy boxes sitting around.
So… what’s in the box?
love the fact everyone is dog piling the very thing i was thinking looking at this. it’s the thing i can’t STAND about JJ Abrams story telling and films. it’s all about the stringing along of the audience and there is never anything that makes you feel fulfilled walking out of the film. just empty, temporary joy riding. Lost was a several year long jerk off. the mystery box only works if there’s something worthwhile when you open it… kind of frightening he’s so overly confident about it as well.
Promethus is a big example of how this doesn’t work. (yes i know it was only a disciple of his)
Total fast food, this guy. Just don’t give him your money.
I am with you, on that.
Ahhhhh. Shud-up.
The talk was dead on point. A point that most writers get and, unfortunately, most producers don’t.
This guy is one of the most intelligent film makers and story tellers ever, and a hell of a director to go with it. If you didn’t get it. It wasn’t JJ’s issue.
Maybe, just maybe JJ is just trying to force imagination on the audience’s part.
Does he mean intrigue? If any screenwriter needs to be told that intrigue is important, then I don’t want to see a film they’ve written.
JJ Abrams is sci fi king. No one made more for sci fi genre than Abrams in last two decades. Period.
I like the love and respect that JJ show to Steve Jobs. If Jobs is greatest mind&creator of our time Abrams is greatest mind&creator in hollywood.
I don’t hate JJ Abrams. I think the pilots for “Alias” and “Lost” were incredibly exciting.
I have faith he will do a good job on “Star Wars” because he’ll get good performances from all the actors who sign on. Something Lucas was unable to do with the prequels. Everyone in that trilogy looked uncomfortable as if they had a gun pointed at them off camera.
But JJ does earn his critique of this “Mystery Box” formula. I know he left Lost early on, so it’s all over the place mysteries aren’t his fault. But he is totally at fault for ruining Alias. The Rambaldi nonsense was hyped up to the point you expect something really good, but then you get a huge red water balloon floating over a city, and a real crap ending to a show that started off great.
Super 8 showed he has grown as a story teller. Hope it continues.
Super 8 DID NOT show that he has grown as a storyteller. It showed that he tried to combine two good Spielberg movies to produce a bad one, with cliched plotlines re-use a creature from a previous film, get a couple decent performances out of some children, as well as some bad ones. Star Trek could have been great, the music puts it over the top and the performances are good, but storywise, he needed a gimmick so he and the writers could take over the Star Trek universe. Plus, it’s a carbon copy of Star Wars, or haven’t you seen the link? He may be the most over-rated filmmaker in the last 30 years. The mystery box thing is just another gimmick. The thing is, there’s NOTHING in the box, and we as audiences need SOMETHING in the end. If you can’t deliver, the promise only makes people more frustrated. No one EVER talked about Spielberg GROWING as a filmmaker, the language and pseudo-film criticism wasn’t in the vernacular back then. (As well as this ridiculous worldwide forum for every armchair Pauline Kael to voice their opinions, worthless and otherwise.)
The box concept burst in LOST. Such a wank…
WHO’S IN THE BOX?!?
- Mills
if you look at the films he’s made it’s hard to even call him a filmmaker. He’s a pinch hitter for established franchises. he’s good at making money but has a pretty big safety net considering the franchises he gets looped into… super 8 was empty and silly and yes another meshing of someone else’s style.
Hey you’re the guy that directed the 3rd, 16th and 7th versions of already successful movies! good for you…… not a filmmaker.
Lost was a fluke with no satisfying resolution. The promise of which was the only captivating thing about the show.
I don’t agree with this idea at all. let’s not confuse Macguffin with Mystery box. i remember in MI3 the “rabbit’s foot” was confusing and since it was so vague it added nothing to the intensity of the character’s quest to find/stop it.
Or as Hitchcock put it in his quote about “suspense” vs. “surprise”:
“There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise,” and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean.
We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!”
In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
At least we know what’s in the box,for fuck’s sake.
Greg, your post is entirely brilliant. But the last phrase is simply the perfect conclusion to all this jiberjaber that represents “the mystery box’s philosophy” by Mr. JJ.
I just read these posts… for the most part you’re saying JJ’s a hack but the truth is he’s extremely successful. I mean, outta this world successful. You can all have your opinions but it doesn’t change the fact that HE MADE IT… BIGTIME.