The Downfall of Cloverfield & Abrams' "Mystery Box"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0O2RplTKIc
shareI do not respect the whole "mystery box" concept, in ESB we had no idea a twist was coming so when it did it took us by surprise and shocked us, that's what made it so great. However Jar Jar Abrams has been building his twists up so much that if he doesn't produce something really good it is going to be very disappointing. The only directors I know of who can do a twist well are Christopher Nolan and Alfred Hitchcock.
shareAgreed, twist endings only work when the audience is so invested in the story that the twist is not expected. This is the same reason m night shyamalan films went downhill; audience came to start expected twists in his films.
Abrams is even worse though because within the films themselves he is laying on "a twist is coming" so thick you can cut it with a butterknife. It makes the twist itself never as satisfying as the build up and anticipation.
In short the "mystery box" gimmick is a cheap magic trick with a crap prestige.
Once as a prank I gave a mystery box as a Christmas Present that had nothing in it. I got my inspiration from JJ Abrams.
sharecruel prank; not as insulting as what JJ does though. He takes a mystery box wrapped in franchise (Star Wars/ StarTrek) wrapping paper, tells you there is a great item inside all the while knowing he didn't put anything in it. He is basically the film making equivalent of a con man.
shareIt goes back to the fundamental problem of the sequel trilogy (and the one for which Disney owns the blame, because of their greedy rush to deliver Episode VII) -- they aren't telling a story in three parts; they made up three stories as they went. I'm sure he's going to pay off some of what was set up in VII and VIII, but it's basically just damage control at this point and the audience knows it.
shareExactly, there was never any kind of actual vision for the story; it was a corporate head (Kennedy) that gave some checklist (things like 'powerful female lead') for JJ to make a movie around. He followed the checklist exactly and filled in the blanks with rehashed material. Because of the lack of vision no one really seemed to care about telling a story and the final product reflected that.
shareTrue. More and more people are seeing it as the gimmick it has always been. One minor mystery box is okay as even Tolkien once said it's always nice to have at least one mystery in a story (this was in response to a question about Tom Bombadil). Creating entire stories around mysteries you have no interest in solving is just hack writing.
shareTrue. It is too bad it took too long for people to realize and Star Wars is now so poisoned by the hack writing it cannot recover.
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