A short time ago the trailer for the new J.J. Abrams movie “SUPER 8″ finally came out online. It was a fairly hectic couples of days for me so I didn’t see it until about 2 days after it surfaced. During those two days I read a lot of tweets and facebook updates from people hailing it as one of the best (if not THE best) trailer they’ve seen this year. Obviously I was excited to see it.

So when I finally saw the “SUPER 8″ trailer and realized it was in reality a pretty modest and fairly generic monster/alien movie trailer that was “ok I guess”, my first thought was that I was watching the wrong trailer. Perhaps this was an older trailer that I had missed and this “amazing” new trailer that so many people seemed to be gushing over was still out there somewhere waiting for me to see it. But no… that was the right trailer.

Don’t misunderstand me, there was nothing wrong with the trailer for “SUPER 8″. I didn’t dislike it. But that being said, there was also nothing remarkable about it. It was, as I observed earlier, a fairly generic monster movie trailer. That doesn’t mean the movie won’t be fantastic, but the trailer itself was… for lack of a better word… mediocre.

This left me a little bit confused. Why were some people hailing this average trailer as “wonderful”, “fucking sweet”, “bloody perfect” (real quotes)? The only conclusion I could come to was that people were just excited about it because J.J. Abrams’ name was attached.

I decided to conduct a little survey. I put the following message up on my Twitter account to see what kind of responses I would get:

“Question: If the SUPER 8 trailer stayed EXACTLY the same, but said “from director Michael Bay”, would people still be saying it’s great?”

My hypothesis was that certain people were just so looking forward to what Abrams would put out next, that it was a foregone conclusion that they would revere the fist trailer as a masterpiece regardless of its true quality. I got a lot of responses. Some sort of avoided the question altogether like this one:

“Don’t be stupid, Bay can’t make anything worth watching”

Thankfully most of the responses I got were a little more thoughtful:

“Damn I don’t know dude. That’s a tough one.”

“Hard to say. I might have tuned out as soon as I saw Bay’s name”

“people certainly wouldn’t be giving the Cgi shots such a free pass”

“It’s possible. But the name is a part of the trailer so it’s kinda pointless to imagine it without it”

In the midst of all the responses, a few of there hit the nail on the head like this one:

“I think that’s the point. It’s exciting and intriguing *because* it’s Abrams”

So for the purposes of the rest of this post, I’m just going to proceed on the notion that the “SUPER 8″ trailer was ok, but got over praised for what it was because of the fact that J.J. Abrams is directing it. You may agree or disagree, but that certainly appears to be the case from my perspective.

THE REAL QUESTION

Now we get to the real question. Why is J.J. Abrams so revered? Why does his name get people so stirred up and excited over a trailer that isn’t really all that special? Has his body of feature film work really been so incredible that our automatic assumption is anything he does will be great, and that upon viewing something less than extraordinary (like the “SUPER 8″ trailer) we will still credit it as such simply because his angelic name is attached to it?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: REVISIONIST HISTORY

I can’t remember what brought the discussion on, but I remember about four years ago I was at Comic Con and having dinner with about 8-9 online film bloggers and writers and the “Mission Impossible” franchise came up. The general consensus around that table was that MI:3 (the one directed by J.J. Abrams) was probably the best of the series so far, although it was still nothing remarkable or special. A few things were mentioned about the strengths and weaknesses of the film, and then we proceeded onto talking about something else.

It was an unremarkable discussion because what we talked about at that table was the commonly held consensus amongst most film fans at the time. MI:3 was a pretty good movie, and that’s about it. If you look back at the reviews for the film, RottenTomatoes shows that the movie got a 69% (meaning 69% of critics gave it a positive review and 31% gave it a negative review) which is not bad at all, but hardly mind blowing.

Here’s the interesting thing… in the past 12 months or so the way people (particularly J.J. Abrams fans) talk about MI:3 has begun to change. As the mythos of J.J. Abrams has inexplicably grown, so to has the mythos of past projects, like MI:3. Suddenly people are talking about that movie in terms that were NEVER used for it when it first came out (and before Abrams’ name grew to the level that it’s at now).

Here’s an example: Last week I was engaged in a discussion with some online writers on the topic of J.J. Abrams. One friend of mine (who I respect very much) wrote the following:

“…even back in 2006 you could see a master’s hands at work with Mission Impossible…”

“…you can’t deny that the action, the pacing and the tension were near perfectly crafted…”

“…I would put it [MI:3] in the top 10 films of the genre of that decade.”

Now, there is NOTHING wrong with having a high opinion of a movie. However, as I dug back a few years in his archives, I saw that this same friend gave MI:3 a 2 1/2 stars out of 5 when he did his first review of it. So basically he gave the film a 50% rating. Somewhere between the time he wrote that review and last week, it evolved into one of “the top 10 films of the genre of that decade”.

But lest it look like I’m picking on my friend, the fact of the matter is you see this sort of Mission Impossible 3 revisionist history going on everywhere. I’ve witnessed a fair share of tweets, facebook updates and conversations where MI:3 is now being talked about in much more glowing terms than it was originally or deserves. Now not everyone is calling it one of the best films of that decade, but there is undeniably a more positive tone in general to MI:3 discussions that there were 5 years ago.

And so the cycle is born. The J.J. Abrams name grows which in turn rewrites history and inflates the perception of MI:3, which in turn grows the name of J.J. Abrams which in turn rewrites history and inflates the perception of MI:3… and so on and so on.

J.J. IS THE HEIR TO SPIELBERG?

The J.J. Abrams euphoria grows quickly like a groundswell of hysteria and rapidly spins out of control. There are people out there who claim that J.J. Abrams should be considered one of the greatest directors in Hollywood… not only today… but of all time. Seriously.

In one online discussion I was a part of on Facebook, one person even went so far as to say Abrams is the heir to Steven Spielberg:

“Time will tell if he reaches Spielberg level. Though out of all the modern day directors, Abrams is most likely to reach that level.”

Not Christopher Nolan (who has directed MEMENTO, INSOMNIA, BATMAN BEGINS, THE DARK KNIGHT, INCEPTION, THE PRESTIGE).

Not Darren Aronofsky (who has directed THE WRESTLER, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, BLACK SWAN, THE FOUNTAIN)

Not the Coen Bros. (Directing films like TRUE GRIT, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, OH BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, FARGO)

Not Paul Thomas Anderson (with films like THERE WILL BE BLOOD, MAGNOLIA, BOOGIE NIGHTS)

Not David Fincher (directing THE SOCIAL NETWORK, FIGHT CLUB, SE7EN, THE GAME, PANIC ROOM, ZODIAC)

No, the true heir to Spielberg is J.J. Abrams who has directed the aforementioned MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3, 5 episodes of the ALIAS tv show, 2 episodes of LOST, 2 episodes of FELICITY, and STAR TREK. Apparently that’s all you need on your resume to be considered the next true Spielberg.

CONCLUSION

Look, I know there are some dim witted people out there who will read this and try to claim that I am “slamming” J.J. Abrams. I suppose you could say that if you don’t actually read what I’m saying. I like J.J. Abrams very much. I absolutely LOVED Star Trek which (in my opinion) deserved at least an Oscar nomination for best picture over THE BLIND SIDE and DISTRICT 9. He was one of the creative forces behind a couple of very good (at least for a while) TV shows that I watched religiously (especially ALIAS) and overall I really enjoy the style and feel he brings to his projects. Thus my purpose here is not to besmirch or slam Abrams whatsoever.

The questions I raise and observations I have surround how we (not J.J. Abrams) have prematurely inflated the mythos of J.J. Abrams to the point that we rewrite history on his past projects, exaggerate the quality of even a simple trailer if his hallowed name is attached to it and crown him the next Spielberg (after one great movie) which skyrocket our levels of expecations to unrealistic and frankly unfair levels. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before people begin calling “ARMAGEDDON” a masterpiece of cinematic history since J.J. Abrams wrote the script.

Just a thought.