andrewducker | Spoiler Discussion

Spoiler Discussion - (spoiler free)

In the last couple of days I've been in discussion with a couple of different people about spoilers. One of them about BSG season 2 (now two years old) and the other about HP:Half Blood Prince (now four years old), with them considering that as they'd experienced them years ago, they couldn't possibly be considered spoilers.

Which is the exact opposite of how I feel about it. Because there are movies I still haven't seen fronm the 1950s, where discussion of the twist in the tale would spoil the movie for me. And I'm very aware that the majority of people who go to see the new HP movie won't have read the book.

To me, spoilers are all about politeness. If you tell someone the end/twist of something they didn't know, and will possibly experience in the future, when they didn't want to know, then you've spoiled that experience for them. I remember the feeling of watching Empire Strikes Back and discovering that Han and Chewied were lovers. The shock and surprise at the moment of reveal was an integral part of the experience for me, and taking it away from people that haven't seen the movie yet is just plain rude.

Now, you can argue that it being years old, the chances that people on your friends list haven't seen Empire Strikes Back is low. Which is true if you're posting friends-only and have nobody under the age of 20 on your friends list. But it's not like the olden days, when a movie would appear, and then vanish again, when TV that had made the rounds was lost. Nowadays I can go out and buy box sets for TV made before I was born, and watch it entirely fresh. There are more hours of TV and movies out there than I have time to watch in my whole life, and the chances are that some will be watched years out of synch with their original release. And I'd really appreciate you not telling me the details before I do!

Obviously I consider all of the following to be spoilers. I'm curious whether you do too. If you don't then I'd love to know why...

[Poll #1430090]

Also: NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS!

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I think they are all spoilers, but there comes a point when you can't discuss anything you've seen or heard without a warning, which seems daft. I tend to cut things just for simplicity anyway, but it should always be apparent that if you are reading someone's review/thoughts of something - it may be a spoiler! I think it's down to the person avoiding spoilers to not click on cuts etc containing that title.

I also think people who deliberately spoil people are horrible.

I agree, to a point, but then it gets to the place where you can't read anything for fear of being spoiled, and that can ruin your search for discussion/speculation/whatever, which is part of the fun of watching new media and stuff. I think putting spoiler warnings for things is just polite, and not that much of a hassle, so why not?

If you go searching for discussion and speculation and get spoiled, I reckon that's pretty much your own fault hehe. You must *hide* hide from these things if you want to remain unspoiled hehe.

You certainly shouldn't be reading reviews and things if you don't want to be spoiled - just seems like the easiest way to spoil yourself.

I'd hope not. I'd hope that someone writing a review would refrain from mentioning a major twist as far as possible.

It depends what the review is for really. If it's of a new film that most people who are reading would want to see then yes. If it's of anything else then frankly no - If I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's for example, I would feel fine talking about any plot twists there were. Although I often find reviews that simply recount things terrible, and so would concentrate more on my feelings/ideas surrounding the plot twists.

All reviews should pretty much be avoided if you don't want to be spoiled. It's your own fault really if you go looking.

You need to be very careful. Reviewers of new movies avoid spoiling -- but they all avoid it in different ways. It's not uncommon to read through three or four reviews of a new movie and deduce what the spoiler must be through triangulation. (especially true where the twist occurs part way through rather than at the very end).

There was a film a couple of years ago of a much-loved children's book, Bridge to Terabithia. Only time I think that I can recall a massive outcry about not spoiling -- lots and lots of parents would have liked to have known the massive twist in advance and picked another movie for their sensitive darlings to see. Personally, neither I nor my sensitive darlings were much troubled by the twist but would have liked to picked a better movie to see.

I was wondering whether to mention Bridge to Terebithia. IMO (which I recognise is stricter than some), just saying that it has a major twist and that it's something arguably unsuitable for sensitive darlings is more of a spoiler than I'd have wanted to encounter before seeing it. It's the kind of film where you almost can't have a meta-discussion about spoilers without spoiling it.

...reviews really shouldn't mention spoilers... what's the point of wanting to find out if a movie is any good before you go see it and getting spoiled for it by the review? I guess it's one thing if it's just someone writing it up on their journal, but even then I'd hope they would cut the spoiler-y bits so as not to spoil everyone else's fun.

...reviews really shouldn't mention spoilers...

I think if they need to discuss the spoiler-y part to explain a good deal of why they felt that way about the film then they *have* to mention them.

If it's something in a magazine aimed at getting people to go and see the film then I agree, but most reviews I read are not that, they are the personal opinion of others, for which they may have to mention this kind of stuff.

I think if they need to discuss the spoiler-y part to explain a good deal of why they felt that way about the film then they *have* to mention them.

Indeed, but there are ways of mentioning spoilers without actually giving them away so that people who have seen the film know exactly what you are talking about and people who haven't won't get spoiled. Or just stick it behind a cut if it's that spoilerrific. It's just courtesy, and makes it easier for the people who are actively trying to avoid being spoiled to do so.

I think cuts are easy to do, no argument there, but what I would say is that if that person clicks on a link marked 'xyz' if they are trying to avoid xyz spoilers, it's kind of counter productive. Even if it doesn't say spoilers, I wouldn't click it.

you can't discuss anything you've seen or heard without a warning, which seems daft.

Why does this seem daft?

If I was about to talk about Empire at a party I'd ask first if anyone hadn't seen it and cared if I spoiled it.

Because if I'm going to talk about a play I've scene or a book I've read, I expect the other people to speak up upon hearing the name mentioned, and say 'I'm going to see that... Don't tell me', or something similar, at which point I would censor my conversation to make sure it didn't contain spoilers.

The onus is on the one not wanting to be spoiled imo.

It depends on how quickly I'm going to get into spoiler territory. I'd be fine to start with "I saw Terminator 4 last week, I liked it." and see if anyone said "Aieee! I'm off!".

But that's frequently not the case with spoilers online, where people will suddenly say "I was thinking today that my life is like The Sixth Sense, where Bruce Willis is an alien spy plotting to take over the world." - by which point it's too late to do anything.

This is true of course, real life is much easier.

I don't think any of them are really spoilers but I ticked the first one just to be nice.

Why don't you think people's enjoyment would be spoiled by knowing the ending in advance of these things?

You'd have to have a pretty mechanistic way of consuming art if the only thing that held your interest was wanting to know what happened next. Equally if that it is all there is to it then it would be a pretty lousy work of art (for example, the work M Night Shamalyan). Don't you ever re-read/re-watch things?

Sure surprises are nice but there is lots of other stuff. I mean, I know the ending of BSG and I've only seen the first season but I don't consider the programme "spoiled". There is more to a journey than a destination.

Fear of spoilers seems to have gotten a bit out of control on the internet. Where any mention of plot - where even casting news - is considered spoilery, I think people need to take a step back.

I agree that some people can be over the top (and casting news is beyond my line), but a strong part of any narrative work _is_ the plot. I've seen things with little-to-no plot and I don't enjoy them nearly as much.

And, for instance, with films with a massive twist part of the joy of watching them again is seeing how it was constructed so that you got suckered in the first time.

Nobody is saying plot is the only important thing - but it's definitely a major component of the enjoyment most people get.

I agree to an extent. There are a class of spoilers that radically reconfigure everything that have preceded them. I wouldn't want to be spoiled for, say, Use Of Weapons or Fight Club or The Prestige. However, I don't think BSG or Empire or Harry Potter fall into that category and neither do the majority of works that people cry spoiler over.

I disagree about BSG. A strong reason for me to watch it was the "What on earth is happening next?" factor, along with the "Who is a cylon?" factor. Tuning in to see what thing is happening to your beloved characters strikes me as one of the most common reasons people watch TV. Knowing that this week Baltar turns out to be an alien is taking that away from people.

I mostly agree with this--Andy has a point about the surprise factor, but if the movie is reliant on one or two key points, then it's not very good in the first place, for the most part.

There are exceptions (the ones you list below would be in my list), but they're a lot more rare than people make out.

Then again, I've read a complete plot summary of the last series of BSG despite not having seen it yet and being a fan overall--I'm generally the opposite of spoiler averse.

Well put - I'm similarly of the opinion that the journey is often more interesting than the destination, at least as far as the narrative arts go.

I agree with this to an extent but it's still nice to be nice.

Sure. At the same time there are a lot of irrational prejudices in the world. I am not going to go round Andy's house and shout spoilers through his letter box but his beliefs are not going to influence what I write in my own space even if I know there is a chance he will read.

To take another example, I know a few people on my Flist strongly object to the c-word. This means I don't use it on their LJs but it doesn't effect what I do on mine.

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andrewducker - 2009-07-16 08:57 (UTC) - Expand

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