The Philosophy of J.J. Abrams

Introduction

1 IntroduCtIon Patricia Brace and Robert Arp American auteur Jeffrey Jacob “J. J.” Abrams has a knack for creating the kind of twisty, densely plotted TV series and films that keep us on the edge of our seats and begging for more. His particular genius seems to be in the way he combines geek appeal and broader commercial and critical successes in TV shows like Felicity, Emmy-nominated Alias, Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning Lost, the critically acclaimed Fringe, and films such as the Godzilla-inspired Cloverfield, the reboot of the Star Trek franchise, and his Spielbergian ode to the late 1970s, Super 8. As writer, director, producer , and even composer, he puts his particular stamp on everything he touches—a stamp that at times is rife with philosophical themes. His name on a project promises that your heart, mind, and sometimes even your soul will get a workout. The Philosophy of J. J. Abrams is a collection of chapters by thinkers highlighting the philosophical insights present in Abrams’s television and film work. Using Abrams’s works as a touchstone, the book leads the reader through some basic concepts in philosophy, making it useful for an introductory philosophy course, but it also contains enough content on Abrams’s individual works to satisfy his fans, media and popular culture students, film students, and people who would like to dabble in a little philosophy. Philosophical themes may be found throughout Abrams’s continuingly popular works. As cocreator of Lost, Abrams melded the popularity of the reality show Survivor to the twisted concept of a living island with incredible monsters and a fascinating set of characters—many of them named for famous philosophers—whose interactions take place in the past, present, and future via flashbacks and flash-forwards. And if that wasn’t enough, in the final season we got flash-sideways into alternate pasts, presents, and futures! If any show contains philosophical analysis, it is this one. Man of 2 Patricia Brace and Robert Arp science or man of faith? Nature vs. nurture? Live together or die alone? The Island could be seen as a heavenly tabula rasa—or was it purgatory, or even hell? Would we ever get any answers to the show’s many mysteries? Continuing his pattern of having an overarching mystery move the action of a television story, Abrams next took on Fringe, with its “Pattern” mythology slowly revealed as we learned more about the heroes of the piece. As with his other works, relationships are central; in this case, those caught in the orbit of the unconventional and at times quite mad Dr. Walter Bishop, whose highly unethical medical experiments on young children allowed him and his partner, William Bell (played by Leonard Nimoy), to find and eventually travel to a second Earth. When Walter’s son, Peter, died as a child, the grieving father kidnapped his doppelganger from the other Earth—what parent wouldn’t at least contemplate it? That Peter grows up ignorant of his true origins and estranged from his father (who has gone slowly mad and been institutionalized) is just the sort of poignant irony Abrams’s work celebrates. Abrams’s film work champions the ability of ordinary people to undergo transformation and become, in their own ways, heroic. In Armageddon the least likely guys, a bunch of rough oil drillers, face their fear of death and save the world. On a more personal level, his script for Regarding Henry uses a sort of reverse flashback technique to show how a damaged man regains his simple humanity. In the wrong place at the wrong time (another common problem for Abrams’s heroes), Henry is shot in the head and loses his memory . His struggles to refill his blank slate reveal a portrait of a hard-driving, unethical corporate lawyer who was estranged from his family, having an affair, and ignoring his wife and child. It turns out that the damage was not the gunshot; that bullet to the brain was his salvation or a reset, bringing him into accord with his true ethical and familial center. This “resetting of reality” is found in most of Abrams’s work (in television , we see how 9/11 played out in two different ways on Fringe as well as seeing the alternate worlds on the final seasons of Felicity and Lost and Sydney’s missing three years on Alias) and most recently in his big-screen version of the classic Star Trek. Again, a framing...