Genre and Spoilers

[andrewducker]

I was just discussing good SF movies with a friend, and he suggested an example which is both SF and very good, but where knowing that the movie is SF is a spoiler for the movie. (I'll name the movie in comments.)

Can anyone else think of a movie where knowing its genre is a spoiler?

Obviously, of course, I expect the comments to have spoilers in...

Comments

[andrewducker]

The movie is The Prestige. In which you will have no idea how one of the characters is carrying out their secret plans unless/until you know that you're actually watching science fiction, not a historical drama.

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

Yeh, there's was definitely a point when I watched that film where I started thinking - oh this is about something totally different than I though it was.

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

i've seen prestige, i wouldn't have classed it as sci fi

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

I sceened that for my kid brother a couple of weeks back: he really enjoyed it.

I'd suggest Abre los ojos as another movie where knowing it has an sf angle spoils the ending.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, of course. I was wondering about The Matrix - the first half of that is probably just about SF enough that calling it SF isn't a spoiler. Similarly The Island.

There are quite a few movies which have a Big Revelation halfway through, and in occasional cases this will switch the genre. Anything which has been using magic, but the magic turns out to be based on science, would fit your description: I'm sure I've seen 2 or 3 of those, but can't bring them to mind right now.

[andrewducker]

If you think of any examples of those I'd be delighted to hear :->

The Matrix I was prejudiced about, by having seen the trailers. And you see impossible things from the start, because you see Trinity running from the Agents, but I can't remember quite how impossible they were.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Dark City.

[andrewducker]

Good point, insofar as we know something barkingly odd is going on, but we don't know quite how barking it is for a while.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Knowing by the same director has an SF from nowhere ending.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

That was going to be my suggestion too.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

How about Rodriguez and Tarantino's From Dusk Till Dawn, which starts out as a heist/road movie and unexpectedly turns into a vampire horror film halfway through.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Ah, you beat me to it.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

The Abyss is pretty much a cold war / drilling drama until Lindsay actually sees the first alien when outside the rig - but you know they're coming at some point cos it's SF and not a Tom Clancy.

(although the fact that the wake of "something" took down the original sub does lessen my argument slightly I guess)

[opusfluke.livejournal.com]

Psycho. It's so famous now it's hard to imagine the shock of the audience when they start out thinking that this is a film about a bank job and then the star who they've all come to watch just gets killed for no apparent reason!

[andrewducker]

Very good example!

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

Vanilla Sky. It's not a good movie, but apparantly the original (Abre Los Ojos) is great.

[supermatt41.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of Vanilla Sky too, and Abre Los Ojos is so much better.

[andrewducker]

I haven't seen the original, I really should.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Franklyn is the opposite, a film where knowing it isn't SF is a spoiler.

[andrewducker]

I avoided Franklyn. Was it actually worth seeing?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Not quite, but Vanilla Sky is close (and was surprisingly good, and IMHO was surprisingly better than the original Spanish version Open Your Eyes)

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Audition. If you know how that movie turns out, it totally doesn't work. I remember watching it for the first time. I knew it was a Takashi Miike film, but that in itself is no clue, since he makes all sorts of movies. For the first 60 minutes or so it is a fairly second rate romantic comedy. And then from out of nowhere - oh my fucking god. If anyone doesn't know how the last 30 minutes of that film go, you should rent it on DVD.

[andrewducker]

I saw that at the cinema. So many uncomfortable people in the audience...

I forgot the best one...

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

The Passion of the Christ.

Most people expect a gruesome religious drama. It's such a shock when you realise that it's actually a Naked Gun-style slapstick comedy.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, you could also make an argument for Life is Beautiful / La Vita E Bella. It's got a more dramatic genre-shift halfway through than almost anything I've seen, but writing about it tends to let people know of the genre of the second half because a lot of people who'd appreciate the film as it is might not appreciate a film that's just slapstick comedy.

[andrewducker]

Oooh - great example. Well made film, not what I was expecting, and I'm glad that people made the effort to talk me into it :->

[soon_lee]

"Book of Eli".

Went in expecting "A Canticle for Leibowitz", or "Max Max" or even "The Postman". It's not any of those (it's much worse) & the "Sixth Sense"-style twist ending is what turned me off completely.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Argh argh argh argh the worst part about the ending is that it's completely physically impossible.

Leave aside the impossibility of *Americans* eliminating the Bible so thoroughly, or the impossibility of them eliminating it so thoroughly and *not* eliminating the Koran. Leave aside the impossibility of them eliminating everyone who knew it well enough to do "Sword Drills", who could write the book down from memory. ALL of that requires direct and very real incontrovertible divine intervention - as well as, I note, that the apocalyptic event that broke the world more perfectly matches The Rapture than it does a nuclear war.

But, hey, it's a Rapture Movie. Okay, it lies about it to get you into the theatre, but once you realise it's a fucking Rapture movie, you can accept that and move on.

But that twist? PHYSICALLY impossible. Braille is many things, but compact and light it is NOT.

We see the edges of the book repeatedly during the movie. They are gold-gilt onionskin. If they were Braille, they would have long-since been smashed flat into unreadability.

At the end of the film, Gary Oldman opens the book and we can see that it's standard Braille, in perfect condition. Okay, sure, they screwed up the prop earlier, fine, right? Well, no.

Because we know several things about this Bible.

First, it's KJV. Which is to say, MUST contain the New Testament.
Second, Eli starts with Genesis 1:1, so we know it MUST contain the Old Testament.
Third, we know it's a single volume.
Fourth, we know it's in Braille, and we're handwaving the "squishing flat" issue and assuming that was a prop fuckup, and that this book is actually real Braille.

The book should be roughly 6 meters thick. If it was on standard Braille paper, which would have made it more than twice as large horizontally and vertically. On paper the size of that book, more like 15 meters.

This?



This is a Braille copy of the New Testament alone.

Braille is REALLY REALLY REALLY BIG.

Gah, I hated The Book Of Eli *so much*.


But yes: Knowing that The Book Of Eli is "Left Behind, But With Denzel Washington", knowing that it's a Rapture Movie, is a spoiler. It is a spoiler that absolutely everyone should know.

[broin.livejournal.com]

The novel Only Forward, definitely. And Michael Faber's Under The Skin.