Why Christopher McQuarrie is right about nostalgia: “Fan service, and fandom, is poison”
Fan service typically refers to the inclusion of non-essential elements into an existing piece of fiction – book or movie – for the sole goal of appealing to a specific audience, usually long-time, often rabid fans. The added element, like a callback, inside joke, or reference, is not integral to the plot or storyline and, when done too blatantly, can even be confusing to new viewers who don’t immediately understand the reference.
American filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie has some strong words to share about films that seek to cater to the audience through fan service. In a resurfaced interview from 2023 with The Filmmaker’s Podcast, the Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning director explained in no uncertain terms why fan service can be an absolute trainwreck from the perspective of a film’s quality.
“Fan service, and fandom, is poison,” said McQuarrie. “It’s deadly. It’s great when applied like a very, very strong spice, and judiciously. If you happen to have seen the other movies, great. I don’t count on it. Because what happens [by adding callbacks]—the danger of that—is I’m asking you to leave this narrative, and remember another narrative, and then come back.”
He continued: “Two things are certain to happen: One, if you know the movies, you’ve left the narrative, and I have to spend precious energy bringing you back [while] I’m trying to immerse you in a story so that you’re not aware the story is happening. Or you haven’t seen that other movie and you’re suddenly aware that everybody around you knows something you don’t. In either case, you’ve disrupted the narrative and broken the chain.”
McQuarrie is an established filmmaker as well as a frequent collaborator with Tom Cruise, and has written and directed many action films, including Jack Reacher and four Mission: Impossible films. As someone so active in the space, he is also likely well aware of the trend of self-references in big-budget action films.
The director’s comments speak to what may be a growing disillusionment with self-references and meta-references in cinema. Many popular films, such as those part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), contain references to other films, whether their own franchise predecessors or simply classic films with which many are familiar. Such references can offer a wink-wink, nudge-nudge variety of an inside joke for dedicated franchise fans and movie buffs alike. Yet they also possess a dislocating quality, wrenching audience members out of the present viewing experience and making them acutely aware that they are watching a part of a whole story unfold, as opposed to simply being immersed in the narrative progress itself.
McQuarrie is right, of course. Fan service can be fun and can even form a positive and creative addition to a film when executed judiciously. However, too often, it is prone to damaging the integrity of a new creation. Films fail when they seek to argue for their own worth by referencing or capitalising upon the popularity of past (unnecessary live-action remakes of popular children’s cinema). Films lose audience members when they require one to be an existing fan in order to ‘get’ what is happening onscreen or to understand the poignancy of a particular relationship or memory sequence, which are dropped as part of classic ‘easter eggs’ in franchise films. These ventures also come across as far less sincere or committed to their own stories when they are full to the brim with satirical, self-ironising quips and one-liners; almost as if they wish to convince their audiences that they’re not quite taking themselves seriously.
Such fan service can be funny at first, but it grows old quickly, making it easy to see McQuarrie’s point in believing that films can and should do better than being self-referential gimmicks.
