My opinion of J.J. Abrams is well-documented on here. It’s not positive.
Nonetheless, I sat down and gave Revolution an hour of my time because, first of all, it’s only fair and second of all, I liked the concept. A world without electricity is physically impossible, but it’s pleasingly silly, a thought experiment that will never happen but is nice to think about.
I should have realized that this is J.J. Abrams, and thought was the last thing I was going to see.
Update: It is true that Abrams is not credited as writer or director for this episode. That said, my understanding is that Abrams was heavily involved in the conception and the overall direction of the series, which is where the bulk of my problems lie and something I didn’t make clear. That was my mistake, and I’ve edited the piece accordingly to spread the blame out a little bit.
That said, some commenters have said that I should dole out some blame to Eric Kripke, the series creator and writer of the pilot, and Jon Favreau, who directed, and leave Abrams out of it, since he’s “only” an executive producer. The truth is neither do their best work here, but on a fairly basic level, it’s competent television. My problems are with the overall arc and direction of the show, and at best, Abrams either did not see these problems, which it is his job to do… or, considering they have the hallmarks of his writing, is actively at fault for.
#5) Contrived Contrived Contrived
One of the things that sticks in my craw about Abrams and the productions that he works on is that to be blunt, he can’t write a plot for crap, and he can’t see a bad one on paper. Everything relies on ridiculous contrivances, most of which are papered over by a time jump. Apparently now we live in a world that’s reverted to the eighteenth century, and is full of fascists because hey, the people need a bad guy! Why? Because f*** you, that’s why.
#4) Forgot About… Damn Near Everything
One of the things about this show that drove me crazy was the whole “ooooh no electricity or Internet means we’re all suddenly retarded” theme. We can still read. It’s not like we’ve always had electricity as a species, or that we haven’t been working on and refining non-electric technologies or that militaries and governments haven’t been working on living without electricity for lengthy periods of time. We don’t have more refined survival or farming techniques, there have been no advances in chemistry, certainly medical doctors have not studied the medical benefits of traditional remedies, we certainly couldn’t refine gasoline or biodiesel or use basic cars, I could keep going but you get the point.
A world without electricity is compelling, because it raises the question of how modern and sophisticated humans would deal with that problem. Revolution rushes through the answer, and worse, the answer is boring.
This is what drives me crazy about Abrams. He never cracks a book, he never sits down and tries to seriously think out the implications of his ideas or the idea of others, like an actual science-fiction writer. He comes up with a plot and then smashes it against his setting until he makes the two fit. If the show was going for a pulpy air, I could forgive this. Instead it’s going for a preachy one.
#3) The Unbearable Smugness Of The Opening
The overall message is that the Internet is making us less connected to actual people and losing it would be a good thing. Leaving aside for a minute that this is generally an opinion held by old people scared the computer will eat their soul and crazy people who live in the woods and eat bugs, it’s also a bit hypocritical coming from a TV writer who heavily relies on Internet hype to sell his shows and in fact has had the pilot to this anti-Internet show sitting hopefully on the Internet for months. The underlying theme here is that technology is eeeeeeevil, and it gets grating fast.
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I find it ironic that you’re trashing a show about a life without lazy ass people bitching about TV shows from their computers while being a lazy ass bitching about a TV show from a computer.
I’ve often thought about this. What would happen to all the bloggers, celebrities and other non-productive people in this world with no discernible skills other than snark and sarcasm, do without electricity, without the society they know today. Could they build a house? Could they farm without machinery? Could they hunt? Could they fish? Could they kill someone to protect their family, let alone fire a gun or use a bow-and-arrow? Could they survive without technology?
In Revolution, they pretty much state that all these people died because they had no skills that would have allowed them to survive.
As opposed to, say, un-self-aware commenters and television writers, who are all possessed of crucial skills.
That actually reinforces my point. Most of us, laborers or bloggers, take technology for granted and are not equipped to live without it. People in isolated areas with no electricity would be in just as serious trouble as any iPhone wielding urbanite. All food systems are gone, all communication is shut down, transport has suddenly become much more expensive and risky. At a stroke, everybody gets the rug yanked out from under them.
You cannot tell me that would not make a great story. Instead it’s “OK, PROBLEM SOLVED LET’S MOVE ON.”
Because what you listed up there are such important and useful skills to have for people living in modern society. Where does this smugness and arrogance come from? Like you get to decide who’s useful and who isn’t, what’s a skill and what isn’t. What’s really ironic about it is that I think that some of those survivalist types would actually welcome such an apocalyptic scenario so they can finally justify having no discernible skills beyond the ability to hunt and build gun racks.
What I find really great about this article is that you bitch about J.J. Abrams constantly but he is not credited as a writer OR creator for the show on IMDB Pro. He’s an Executive Producer, but to blame an EP for a show sucking shows you clearly don’t understand how television hierarchy works. He gets mailbox money for putting his name on something, that’s about it. I highly doubt he was even consulted on the project and just used his name to get the project through the flaming hoops of development. If you don’t understand how TV is made then how can you criticize it?
Because the idea was his, he was the one who raised the money, and he’s the one who approved the script. More to the point, Eric Kripke’s previous work (“Supernatural”, for the most part) doesn’t have these problems.
So rather than state that maybe Kripke fired off a shite idea, you still want to blame Abrams, who again (and as now stated below) IS NOT LISTED AS A CREATOR. You know, the guys who come up with the ideas.
So I watched the show, and whether or not Abrams had a heavy hand in it or not, it is still rife with the problems of wasted potential. To me, its a lot like Prometheus, in that it hints at being something deeper than it is, but might be long in the delivery. Also, keep the marketing in mind. For months now, we’ve had “From JJ Abrams, the producer of Lost!” as a selling point to build up hype. Though it may be true that Abrams might not be as involved as Dan might think, it doesn’t excuse the fact that the show is just not very good in its opening. Nasal, your snarky fact-checking elitism is so damned tired, and maybe you should regard people’s opinions as opinions, not condemn them with facts about the entertainment process that nobody cares about. But, hey, if that’s too much trouble, I guess you can always go fuck yourself.
To be fair, Church, “From JJ Abrams” is also how they promoted Person of Interest and Abrams is just a EP on that too. The guy is a name now and studios want to throw it around.
You know what else might help this article? Research. You know, that thing people with computers can do. A quick check of IMDb reveals that this series was created and written by a Mr. Erick Kripke, and directed by Jon Favreau.
There is a tremendous amount of vitriol spewed at JJ Abrams for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The man is an Executive Producer on the show and had absolutely nothing to do with the narrative defciencies or plot contrivances discussed here. But, hate against JJ generates pageviews, and hate against Eric Kripke doesn’t.
It’s always easier to blame the person whose name pops up on screen rather than the person actually responsible for it. Like all the articles on Uproxx talking about how Steven Spielberg is the reason Transformers totally sucks….wait…those don’t exist?
To be fair, perhaps they will show flashbacks to the “first days” in future episodes. Can’t fault them for getting to the meat of the story with our attention span these days.
To be totally unfair, I decided not to watch the show based on seeing an airplane spin like a goddamned top as it crashed in the commercials. Not saying it isn’t possible, but come on…
Executive producers in television are directly related to the creative process and content on TV shows than they do in say the making of a movie.
And honestly, I couldn’t give a shit. I want good shows regardless of who is responsible for them. But this is not a good show. The holes in the story render it un-watchable. Ignoring reality to kick start your show is something I can’t just shrug off. You lose electricity? Fine, but in no way does that mean everything grinds to an immediate halt. Internal combustion engines that were already running when the shit hit? Sparks are electricity right? So a striking a flint won’t do anything now? And what about the electrical impulses in our bodies? Too many holes that could never be parsed out. Fuck it.
Executive Producers on television are usually only involved with the creative process of a TV show if they come up with the idea or worked their way up from Writer to Producer and so on. This is an honorary title given to Abrams. Also sparks from flint are not electricity, you are trying to compare the arcing of electrical current to the smashing together of a combustible item. As for internal combustion engines, they rely on cranking amps of batteries to turn the engine over. The distribution cap on your car then takes electricity and sends it to your spark plugs, which creates the combustion, no electricity, no combustion, the engine dies. As for people, who knows? But I can tell you that we register less voltage in our bodies than an average alkaline battery, maybe the charge is too small to be affected? Or the show simply focuses on mechanical electricity (generated by a motor).
There are 2 parts of the body that produce electricity – the Brain and the Heart. If the show ever explains why not all electricity has stopped (if it did every animal would be dead small animals could still survive, but these you would barely be able to see – microscopic). Then the show could very well become something great as it stands now it has many many holes ranging from amazing conditioned clothes to no damage to their weapons after use (swords – no blood on swords). May be nitpicking but these are issues that have to be resolved to make this show better than anything above annoying. (for me) It seems like they never thought of a way past the general concept before shooting or have it hidden away somewhere (seen crazy theories that there is an object on each person that allows electricity to be made and stopped them from dieing).
Dan Seitz: the first person on earth able to prove that opinions can be wrong.
I haven’t seen this show nor will I waste time trying to defend JJ Abrams I just can’t help but note once again that I’ve never encountered a human being such as Dan that I am so diametrically opposed to in every way.
Every single article he writes I come one step closer to leaving a site I’ve been following for years.
I agree with you Dan, I’m not a JJ Abrams hater but the show looks absolutely ridiculous. I at least hope that this show inspires someone else to make a better story with the same concept somewhere down the road.
This is stupid. While I agree the show takes a fun premise and beats it to death with brutal acting and plot holes….but I’m not sure why you’re blaming JJ Abrams for something he obviously had minimal imput on. I mean, you don’t blame Michael Jordan if the food is bad at Michael Jordan’s Steakhouse, do you?
I heartily disagree, sir. *record scratch nut shot fart sound*
I’m going to assume NasalCactus is or works for J.J. Abrams.
That said, he or she is defending “executive producer” as being some sort of powerless position created to make people feel better about themselves. It seems to me that the credits for that specific position tend to be prefixed by “assistant,” not “executive.”
It’s my amateur, uninvolved, but as well-read-as-I-can-get-without-paying-premiums-for-insider-journals position that the producers control the money to varying degrees, with “executive producer” generally meaning the person or people who control the largest ration of that money. So, you know, the boss.
That said, they might just go ahead and give the writers and directors (or, their direct employees) run of the mill. Sometimes, that might be the right call. A good boss knows where to make that call. An artistically concerned producer makes sure the best product reaches audiences, even with the impending threat of no return. An average producer pushes out anything they think will make a profit, even infinitesimally small. A commercial producer makes sure as many people as possible see whatever has the best cost/benefit ratio from their analysts. And analysts undoubtedly said that x-percent higher viewing population would watch anything that had J.J. Abrams in the credits somewhere. At any rate, it’s the EP’s fault.
And I did like Star Trek. I thought it was entertaining, and not insulting. I don’t think it quite had the originality of the original run, but, in general, people like Harlan Ellison (“The City on the Edge of Forever”) aren’t just offering up screenplays anymore. It’s hard to hit a good sci-fi script that’s also entertaining.
I might be a little hard to please, I loved Moon, Children of Men, and 12 Monkeys.
I’d love to make a general TV counter argument, but I just can’t think of a sci-fi series I liked, post season six X-Files. Movie-wise, Children of Men is the subject of one of my favorite drunken arguments.
Mostly because, “Modern-day Blade Runner my ass!” is a sentiment I completely agree with.
I always assumed producer was just a throwaway credit they gave to people who supported the show financially so that they could feel important without actually influencing the show. But then I’ve watched too much Simpsons.
Also, from what little I saw of Lost, that particular Gilligan’s Island remake was pointless and doomed from the start.
agreed with some of the problems Dan listed in the article (especially the wasted opening and sudden 15 year time jump – WTF?!).
I’ll probably watch it again though, to see where it goes… if it doesn’t get any more interesting in the next few episodes, I’m out. am I the only one that doesn’t think it’s as important to find someone to point the finger at? JJ Abrams, the director, the writer… whatever, man. it’s obviously a combination of everyone who’s names are listed in the credits.
now here’s the real question: is Falling Skies any better? how come television can’t come up with a GOOD post-apoc show? (aside from The Walking Dead)
The Wire was a great post-apoc show. Oh that was just Baltimore? Nevermind.
I dunno if I agree with Dan’s hatred of J.J. I can’t comment on just how much work Abrams contributes to his various projects, if only because they’re all so goddamn different. This isn’t Tarantino or Whedon, where each project has the creator’s similar touch that persists throughout all his work. To Abrams’ credit, all of his stuff is pretty varied in terms of tone.
I agree Revolution looks like shit that not even Gus could save, but whether I’d slam Abrams for it? I dunno. But then he’s still riding on Lost cred for me (why does Locke always get screwed over????).
Although that show was great because it was Lindelof and Cuse doing most of the writing.
If something has an effect on electrical fields then it has an effect on magnetic fields. If the Earth’s magnetic field was turned off, the atmosphere would drift into space and Earth would become Mars 2.0. It’s science.
Even though I think the reasoning is kinda vague here, I have to agree with #1. This show could have been really exciting if they had just gone with the cause and effect of the blackout. The pilot seems to be almost self-conscience of the fact the story sucks and so makes up for it visually.
Self-conscious*
I understand newer cars and other machinery not working because of electrical systems in them, but why did older cars etc. stop working. Also what about steam powered trains. Clearly guns still work. It was too inconsistent with what worked and what didn’t.
Are we ragging on Pittsburgh or pointing out that one post apocalyptic place is like another?
This is a ripoff of Vonnegut’s novel Slapstick. And Vonnegut got it right.
My main comment about this show is that it’s an utter insult to science. ELECTRICITY CAN’T GO AWAY!!! It, with Magnetism, is what’s called a ‘Fundamental Force’, specifically the Electromagnetic Force. You can suddenly ‘Take Away’ Electricity as much as you can ‘Take Away’ Gravity! Besides, even if you could EMP the Entire World, AND The Entire World had NO Shielding, All You have to do to have electricity again is this: Take A Magnet (Bar Preferably) and a tight coil of Copper and move the magnet back and forth through the coil. BOOM!! POWAH!!