MacGuffin

History and use

The technique of using a MacGuffin predates the name. The Holy Grail of Arthurian legend has been cited as an early example, as it is essential to initiate and advance the plot, but its final disposition is never revealed. An even earlier example is the Golden Fleece of Greek mythology, which remains a mystery despite being the raison d'être of the quest of Jason and the Argonauts.

The World War I–era actress Pearl White used the term "weenie" for objects that impelled heroes and villains in silent film serials like The Perils of Pauline. In the 1930 detective novel The Maltese Falcon, a small statuette provides both the title and motive for intrigue. The name MacGuffin was coined by English screenwriter Angus MacPhail, possibly derived from "guff" meaning anything trivial or worthless.

Alfred Hitchcock popularized the term and technique with his 1935 film The 39 Steps, where the MacGuffin is incidental military secrets. Hitchcock explained the term in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University, telling a story about two men on a train discussing a package called a MacGuffin, which is an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands, though there are no lions there, so it is nothing at all. He also said, "The MacGuffin is the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care."

Further examples

The briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994) motivates several characters during major plot points, but its contents are never revealed. In the 1998 film Ronin, the plot revolves around a case whose contents remain unknown; at the end, it is said to have led to a historic peace agreement and an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

George Lucas used a MacGuffin in a January 1975 draft of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, then titled Adventures of the Starkiller, Ep. I: The Star Wars, involving a mystical Kiber Crystal that intensified the Force; this was removed by the fourth draft. Decades later, the franchise reused the term "kyber crystal" in a non-MacGuffin context. In John Carpenter's Escape from New York, the protagonist Snake Plissken must rescue a cassette tape whose contents are never revealed, though hints are given.