JJ Abrams mystery box

Ah, so now I get it. (Why 'Lost' is so infuriating. Why the end of 'Alias' was so bad. Why 'Cloverfield' has so much viral marketing.)

I was having myself a quick trawl around the internets looking for more Cloverfield gubbings and found a link to this TED lecture from J J Abrams.

Go and watch it before you read the rest of this...

Now, I have a big problem with JJ and his blessed mystery box. Because his whole theory only works by supposing that the mystery of the story is always far greater than the end solution. Which is fine – up to a point. Certainly if you're a writer – who can never stop writing. But in his case - it's a form of laziness, a lame excuse – he's certainly got the goods as far as creating mysteries go but he just can't manage to go that extra mile to provide a good satisfying conclusions to his work. (Have you seen the finale to Alias?) He's in far too much of a hurry to get on to his next mystery box. I'll bet he never finishes any script or any treatment he does. I get the impression he couldn't even be bothered – I think he probably leaves that stuff for his janitor, or his cleaning lady, or the pizza delivery boy – just any passing stranger to write the last pages for him. Which could explain why they're usually so painfully rubbish.


'Cloverfield' Release Will Be Test of Online Hype

Now the mystery box as part of on-line marketing tool, as inter-active game, etc. Which is all very fascinating - it's a really nice idea and I can see how this approach might be fine for providing grist to the obsessive fanboy's mill – as they trawl the internet trying to find various clues... but the problem there is at the end of it all - there is emphatically NO worthwhile end solution to be had. It is bound to always end in some disappointment, the over-teasing and the over-hyping makes sure of that.

I remember a wildlife documentary that was all about grey squirrels and featured how intelligent and agile they were. Showing them grabbing food from a bird table in a garden which the experimenters made increasingly difficult to get to - with ever more complicated obstacles. The thrill was seeing how the squirrel managed to negotiate everything. But there always came a point where the squirrel just stopped coming. The effort required to get to the peanuts just wasn't worth it any more. And that's what I feel about watching 'Lost'. I know a lot of the audience stopped coming to the table a long time back. And if people do totally get the whole mystery box concept completely - they're gong to realise their own ideas, theories, storylines are going to be far superior than whatever J J can come up with -and he's going to be out of a job.