we must have a talk about the MacGuffin it's in almost every movie but no one bothers to explain why it's there you might not pay it much attention it's the briefcase from pulp fiction the tesseract from The Avengers and Monty Python's Holy Grail so what's a MacGuffin the MacGuffin is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock for a classic plot device it's an object or objective driving the action of a movie which by apt three fades and importance the thing itself doesn't mean much to the audience but it matters greatly to the characters within the story it's always called the thing that the characters on the screen worry about but the audience don't care even before Hitchcock named it the plot device was a cornerstone of dramatic storytelling with The Maltese Falcon from 1941 probably being the most iconic in Hitchcock's Psycho the MacGuffin is the $40,000 that Marion crane steals from her boss leading her to run away and check in for her ill-fated stay at the Bates Motel the money was the catalyst for the early events of the film but by the time Marion's killed not even halfway through the story we have other things on our minds like homicidal creeps who dress up as their mothers and the MacGuffin the $40,000 seems almost irrelevant Hitchcock first popularized the term MacGuffin with his 1935 film the 39 steps which is about an innocent man who gets caught up in the world of British military secrets surrounding the mysterious 39 steps even most of the film's characters don't know what the thirty-nine steps means they and the audience just know that it's important other MacGuffins and Hitchcock films include the government secrets and North by northwest the uranium sand hidden in the wine bottles in notorious Harry's true cause of death in the trouble with Harry and the mysterious reason that the birds are attacking in the birds a MacGuffin you see in most films about spies it is a thing that the spies are half done outside of Hitchcock some examples of pure MacGuffins the kind that Hitchcock would approve of include the letters of transit that the characters seek in Casablanca the unobtanium the government wants an avatar and the rabbit's foot the arms dealer pursues in Mission Impossible 3 in Hitchcock's view the best MacGuffin is as vague and almost meaningless as possible but in the years since Hitchcock some have reinterpreted the MacGuffin George Lucas has said he considers r2d2 or more specifically the Death Star plans that r2d2 has a MacGuffin the modern MacGuffin as described by Lucas works better when it's so powerful that the audience cares about it almost as much as the characters on screen this way we get wrapped up in the characters quest even though in the end the MacGuffin still turns out to be a plot driver that wasn't ultimately of the most central importance to the heart of the story even characters can be MacGuffins Apocalypse Now is Colonel Kurtz Saving Private Ryan Private Ryan and a third man Terry Lyme are all people who exist off screen for the first act of the film as ideas that drive the plot when we meet each of these characters the idea we had is undermined and our focus shifts to a larger mission or new objective between the Hitchcock camp and the Lucas camp the modern understanding of the MacGuffin is so complex that it can be debatable whether the label fits thank the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone this is arguably a true MacGuffin because it could be replaced by another plot driver and our investment in the story would still be the same the one ring in Lord of the Rings is also sometimes called a MacGuffin as it drives the plot and motivates the characters but the ring carries solid importance throughout the story we care very much whether it's destroyed so it could be too important to be a MacGuffin rosebud in Citizen Kane can be called a MacGuffin because the mystery of what rosebud means is the big question driving the story in the end it's far from unimportant the symbol of Kane's lost childhood is a crucial thumb attic reveal but its significance shifts from what we previously thought all of these supposed MacGuffins are important to the audience and thus don't fit perfectly into Hitchcock's definition but like a traditional MacGuffin they drive the plot into the third act when the primary focus of the story changes on a narrative level a good MacGuffin keeps us grounded in the immediate action of the story on a deeper level the unimportance of the MacGuffin reminds us to shift our focus in life as in the movie away from small particulars to a wider view when watching a film most viewers care more about the big picture than the little nothings or details the MacGuffins but our day-to-day lives revolve around preoccupations that at the time seem momentous like stressful conversations commuting finances symbolically the triviality of the MacGuffin represents to us that like life imitating art we spend a great deal of our time worrying about the wrong things so where does the name MacGuffin come from fittingly the words origin is itself kind of a MacGuffin because it has no intrinsic meaning it's a placeholder what matters is its function giving the characters purpose and driving the story without the MacGuffin or whatever you call it the most beloved plots in movies would never exist is it what is a MacGuffin is it well it's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands when super there are no lines in the Scottish islands it's a then that's no MacGuffin I'm thank you for clearing that up for it