The Abrams's Genre

Recently Dan and I watched the first three episodes of J. J. Abrams's Alias. Because we don't have a TV, we watch most TV shows on DVD long after they've aired. It's great in the sense that we can watch as many episodes as we want without commercials, but last February we finished watching all of Season 1 of Lost, and it's been tough waiting for the second season to come out on DVD. I know that I can download episodes from itunes, but I'm too cheap and it takes too long with our internet connection. And I know that there are other ways of getting copies of the shows, but I haven't figured them out yet. Dan tries to be above it all, constantly telling me "I'm over Lost." Well, I'm not over it, so Alias seemed like a good way to pass the time waiting for season 2.

Only there's one other consequence to watching these two TV shows and Abrams's latest movie Mission Impossible III. J. J. seems to be a bit short on creativity. When I first saw Mission Impossible III, together with my brilliant husband, we (okay, mostly he) recognized several scenes in the movie that seemed to allude to other action flicks including MI 1 and MI 2. For example, Ethan Hunt floats with his arms spread out like he did in MI 1 and the adrenaline shot given to Felicity is reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, or so I've been told. Tom Cruise chases the mysterious vile around just like Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There are lots of other little allusions to great action flicks that I can't remember just now, but it's sort of fun to try and pick them out. How clever, I thought. Just like a sort of pastiche. Or as Dan says, it's like Abrams realized that it would be tough to make an entirely original action flick, so why not incorporate scenes from some of his favorite movies since most of his audience won't recognize them anyhow. And we had fun picking them out. But the CPR scene didn't strike me as very clever since it seemed to be pulled directly out of Lost (I think it's episode 11, "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues").

Then we started watching Alias and a few scenes (and possibly more, since I've only seen three episodes) for MI 3 were pulled from that series too. For example, both Ethan Hunt and Sydney meet their handlers in a convenience store (probably the same set was used for both). Both MI 3 and Alias pilot also begin with the main character being interrogated. And have you noticed how both Jack and Sydney have issues with their dads? Both followed in their fathers' footsteps, choosing a similar career, but following their father actually causes problems between them. Then there's the fact that originally J. J. intended to kill off Jack in the pilot and have Kate be the center of the show, just like Sydney and her dead fiancee.

I like the way J. J. plays with genre and form, the way he toys with what we expect to happen. Although it's sort of annoying when I don't have all the episodes on hand to watch when I want, I like the fact that he tends to frame the character development in the first three episodes of Alias with the spy action, starting in the middle of the spy adventure and ending each one with a cliffhanger rather than resolving each adventure in each episode. He's a creative guy and he's brought something new and exciting to television. But I'm also miffed by all the repetition I'm starting to see. Is he really that low on ideas? Or could it be that Tom Cruise picked out all his favorite scenes from J. J.'s TV shows and insisted that they be worked into MI 3? It's possible. At any rate, in challenging our expectations, J. J. seems to be creating his own genre: strong, independent character (typically a woman), who has problems with her father, resists expectations and becomes a leader to those around her. There are also lots of twists and turns to the story and your favorite character could die at any moment.

For now he's got me hooked. And I guess I can continue to look for other scenes in Alias that appeared in MI3 and Abrams's future movies. I hear he's doing a new Star Trek movie. As long as no one needs CPR, I'll be sure to check it out.