“You're never getting out,” says Hunt. Shot-reverse shot combos begin. “It's up to you to let them out,” Hunt tells the villain. “Gonna find her and hurt her. Your girlfriend,” says Hoffman, beginning to get the shit kicked out of him. All tied up tautly, he has no way to dodge the fists, so all he can do is threaten. “Code name, Rabbit's Foot,” Hunt radios out to his superiors. Hoffman, meanwhile, is still threatening Hunt very sinisterly. “Gonna kill her right in front of you,” he states firmly. Whack! He's hit. Then all of a sudden, Hunt has the villain right where he wants him, and a trap door opens on the floor of the plane. Hoffman's chair falls into it, so that Hoffman is hanging upside down. The hatch under the panel opens, and Hoffman is now reeling from the air blowing in. End scene.

That was just one of two scenes J. J. Abrams shared with the crowd at the SF WonderCon on Saturday. The other was an exciting chase scene on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, which spans the Bay over about 89,760 feet (total length); 79,200 feet (bridge length), This featured lots of explosions and action you'd expect from Abrams, who's gotten used to exciting chases and the like from working on Alias , just one of his popular TV series.

Abrams looked at the two Mission: Impossible already existing, and realized that little of Hunt's home life existed in the two. Thus he looked at making M:I:3 as a new film, one much different. He could finally, he decided, give Hunt a home life, asking us to ponder how it feels to be facing 40 as an active secret agent. After all, all we know about him from the first two films is that his mom is dead and he likes rock climbing. “The franchise never reached its potential,” said Abrams, saying he saw it as a chance to make something better, something he himself would want to see. From what I saw, he succeeded. This film, he claimed, exists in its own right, and maybe should be called Mission: Impossible: 0 . The entire crew was supportive and finished early and the film reflects what attempt was. Scenes are what they should be—intense when intense, romantic when romantic. Abrams, in talking about directing his first feature, said it feels like TV is greatest training time for it; to go to the set and focus on one scene is terrific.

Cruise was very eager to have Abrams write and direct the film, so much so that production was delayed a year so Abrams could helm. And Cruise was, apparently, a director's dream. “Tom was the most focused professional collaborative guy,” he told the crowd. Tom is also so desperate to do stunts, and he did some. When he slams into a car in the scene on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, that is really him, running full on, whacking into the car. This, claims Abrams, infuses the scene with reality. Cruise apparently is such a gifted actor, he could “do stunts day after day then do real emotional, informational scenes that most actors would need to prep days for.”

Abrams also said that someone said this will be a disaster – the star is producing the film. But his gut said it would work out. “Going to set every day is a lesson for how is should be,” he added. He was amazed, additionally, to work with Laurence Fishburne and happy to have some of the people he knew and worked with before. For example, Keri Russell of Felicity fame appears in the film. He was thrilled to be working with Russell again, and when the perfect role for her appeared in the script, he got her. She is so good in the film, he said. Of Felicity , he added humorously, she was always crying and was great at that too. He also was excited to find the perfect Asian woman to play the role of Ms. Kari, Bahar Soomekh.

Abrams said his first directing role came with Felicity , in season one when a guy gets run over by a bus. That proved challenging, as in the script, the guy was supposed to survive. But his head got chopped off in rigging up the accident scene, so Abrams went with it. Since then he's directed Alias and Lost , the show everyone – including folks at the WonderCon – is talking about. “Is the island Jesus?” asked someone in the audience. “Yes,” he replied, laughing heartily.

Stay tuned to the IESB for further updates!