andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2009-07-15 10:49 am
andrewducker) wrote2009-07-15 10:49 am
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!
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!
no subject
My view of what counted as spoilers in the list above was partly coloured by what I've seen and what I intend to see ...
... I was slightly annoyed when someone on the Redemption convention mailing list started going on about how much the last episode of Blakes 7 affected her the first time she saw it years ago as she hadn't expected [SPOILER] and since I intend to watch B7 one day, saying what the ending was was annoying to me ... but as it's a mailing list for B5/B7 fans, and the show is a billion years old, it's not a safe space.
I've not read the HP book so spoilers for the film/story would be annoying (I read the first four and just haven't gotten around to reading the fifth yet, but probably will one day).
BSG I've got on AVI files on my machine at home and am waiting for a few quiet weekends to watch vast amounts of it, so *any* BSG spoilers are really not welcome around me.
I watched all of B5 (well, I might have skipped a couple of S5 episodes) so talking about the end of S2 would not be a spoiler to me, but at the same time, if it's a major point, then I don't think it should be waved under the noses of people who may be about to start watching B5 (at least two groups of friends have been watching B5 from the beginning in the last year and posting up their thoughts and reviews on LJ/their blog ... and begging people to not spoil them for the rest of the episodes)
If I watch old Doctor Who or The Avengers now, I don't want to be spoilered for them either, because I've probably not seen those episodes (or so long ago I don't remember) and want to let the story unfold and the plot twists to be unexpected.
no subject