J.J. Abrams, the man behind the new reboot of the “Star Trek” franchise (and the amazing new issue of Wired magazine, which is one big puzzle), gave a fascinating and entertaining TED lecture about the use of mystery and the intentional withholding of information a while back. Coming from one of the co-creators of ABC’s “Lost,” it should come as no surprise to hear this strategy. What was interesting to me, however, was hearing how George Lucas’ “Star Wars” was an influence on the man who is charged with making “Star Trek” a valuable movie franchise again.

“Look at Star Wars. You got the droids, they meet the mysterious woman, who’s that? We don’t know—mystery box. Then you meet Luke Skywalker, he gets the droids, you see the holographic image, you learn, “Oh it’s a message, she wants to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, he’s her only hope,” but who the hell is Obi-Wan Kenobi—mystery box. So then you go and he meets Ben Kenobi. Ben Kenobi is Obi-Wan Kenobi—holy shit, you know?”

Another highlight: What are stories but mystery boxes? The withholding of information intentionally—“Jaws,” “Alien,” “The Graduate”? You’ll have to hear his explanation of “The Graduate” for yourself. Watch the video.

About that , he says: “Don’t rip off the shark, rip off the character—that’s what makes it interesting.”

Having seen “Star Trek” this past weekend, I can assure you that the “mystery box,” as Abrams calls it, is alive and well and goes a long way towards building a sense of wonder in the new storyline of the Enterprsie and its crew.

Tags: Alien, graduate, influence, j.j. abrams, Jaws, magazine, mystery box, Star Trek, star wars, video, wired

To showcase how freaking cool our sitegoers are, we decided to do something different for our “Star Trek” screening contest. We asked you to send in your own homemade “Star Trek”-related videos to win tickets to the IMAX advance screening on May 6 in Kansas City. The only stipulations were that entries mentioned “Star Trek” and Scene-Stealers, and that they kept it PG-13, like the movie. One entrant, who you’ll be able to find on Page 2, took that last one particularly to heart.

We got a lot of great submissions. Congratulations to all of you! Each and every person who submitted a video has won free tickets to the IMAX screening and will receive some cool “Star Trek” memorabilia at the show. In addition, we will hold the first and second place winners’ seats in the theater, so they don’t have to get there two hours early like everyone else! Those of you who entered the drawing for tickets without submitting a video will be emailed today and notified that your passes are in the mail.

Part of the fun of doing this contest is showcasing everybody’s efforts on the site, so without further ado, here are the winners and runners-up of the Scene-Stealers 2009 “Star Trek” Contest. Great job, everybody!

The winning entry was from Trey Hock, and is a bizarre public service announcement for the Vulcan Adoption Alliance. It’s short, but it’s very funny and worth watching more than once, because it leaves you more than a little confused. Like any PSA, the acting and editing is both a little suspect. Perfect.

The second-place entry came from Hai Nguyen. Hai won gift certificates to Paisano’s Ristorante and Pachamama’s restaurant in Lawrence, KS. He made an animated video for an actual Leonard Nimoy recording of “If I Had a Hammer” that’s eerily up to date, asking the important question: “Is MC Hammer responsible for swine flu?”

RUNNERS-UP (and more to follow on next page!)

All of the other submissions get free tickets to the screening as well. Here’s one particularly funny video created by Seth Iliff and starring Trey Hock. It’s a spoof of the “Star Trek” teaser trailer where Chris Pine, as Captain Kirk, drives up to the camera purposefully on a motorcycle. Seth’s character has a different, although equally noble purpose.

Theresa Kester filmed a funny quickie video about an excited father that is apparently “based on a true story.”

There’s more where these came from.

Tags: 2009, early, giveaway, IMAX, j.j. abrams, kansas city, pack, prize, scene-stealers, screening, Star Trek, submitted, user, video

Here are some more of the winning videos from our 2009 “Star Trek” screening contest. Congrats again to the winners, and to everyone else—enjoy!

Johnathan M. Reeves put together a cool “Star Trek” tribute that uses the classic theme song and superimposes the old and new actors in the series over the top of it:

Andrew Tomb shot a self-described “awful film” for the contest, but I thought it was really funny. It may not have any budget to speak of and the actors may be reading their lines from a computer, but Andrew is the only entrant who decided to push the envelope and go PG-13 with his language.

David Fike’s video is all about how awesome Captain James T. Kirk and the rest of “Star Trek” history is. It also has some very funny inter-titles. Check it:

Nick Colby showed how easy it is to make a crappy-ass video by doing some quick impressions of popular “Star Trek” characters and filming it on a cell phone camera:

Amber Sisco interspersed her “History of Star Trek” video with memorable quotes from the movie and TV series’ characters:

Christopher Swanson may be the biggest “Star Trek” fan out of everybody. He wrote this about his epic tribute film: “Throughout its 40+ year history, Star Trek has celebrated the hope of humanity. This video is a celebration of that hope!” It looks like he’s going to be making the drive from Springfield, MO to KC for Wednesday night’s screening! Congrats to Christopher and everyone else who submitted a winning video.

Tags: 2009, early, giveaway, IMAX, j.j. abrams, kansas city, pack, prize, scene-stealers, screening, Star Trek, submitted, user, video

This giveaway should be fun. We’re giving everyone advance notice on this because it involves shooting video!

We have 50 ‘admit-two’ passes to see the Kansas City advance screening of J.J. Abrams’ reboot of “Star Trek” in glorious IMAX on May 6, 2009 at AMC Barrywoods (8101 Roanridge Rd.) at 7:30 pm. We also have one very cool “Star Trek” prize pack (including prizes to be named at a later date!). But we’re doing things a little different this time at the request of Paramount Pictures, who know that we have the coolest movie freaks on the Internet.

We want you to make a video.

It can be anything you want, as long as it has something to do with “Star Trek.”

Upload it to any user-based video site and send me the link, your name, and your address at eric@scene-stealers.com.

Some ideas to get you started:

- Recreate a favorite scene from any incarnation of the TV show or movies using yourself, friends, animation, action figures, whatever!
- Do an impression of any familiar “Star Trek” character.
- Speak Klingon.
- Describe why you deserve the prize/tickets more than anyone else.
- Create a mash-up using clips. You DON’T have to appear on camera

Rules:

- Just so we know that you’ve made this video specifically for this contest, make sure that Scene-Stealers is mentioned either out loud or onscreen in your entry and also in your text description of the video.
- Videos cannot be more than 5 minutes in length.
- Let’s keep the raunchiness to a minimum. We’re talking PG-13 here, just like the movie.
- Remember: “Star Trek” and “Scene-Stealers” in one video!

I will pick the winner personally. I’m looking for a video with that intangible “Star Trekiness.” Quality doesn’t matter. Use your cell phone (or someone else’s) if that’s all you got! Funny is always good too. The best videos will be posted on the site!

The winner (whether he/she is from Kansas City or not) will win the “Star Trek” prize pack. If the winner is local and can attend the KC screening on 5/6 at AMC Barrywoods, they get VIP passes to the screening as well. We have VIP reserved seats for 2 other runners up. The other 47 winners will be chosen at random, starting with the people who made videos.

You may enter with the form below if you’re not going to make a video and hope that less than 50 other “Star Trek” fans make them.

All entries must be received by Thurs. April 30 at noon CST. We’ll post winners on Friday May 1.

Good luck. Live long and prosper!

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Tags: early, giveaway, IMAX, j.j. abrams, kansas city, pack, prize, scene-stealers, screening, Star Trek