posted
I just don't get it. Why do people care so much about getting warned there are spoilers? Unless there is a lot of twists and turns in the productions, how does it ruin the enjoyment of reading or watching? Most of the "spoilerifics" are minor pieces of a story puzzle that don't usually distract from the actual experience.
As an example, when Star Wars Empire Strikes Back first came out I knew all about "that relationship." When Star Wars Return of the Jedi came out I read the comic book adaption. Yet, when I went to the movies it was as if watching fo the first time. My theory with spoilers is if the story is good then spoilers will only get you more excited. If the stories are bad, then spoilers don't matter. Again, the only time this might matter is if twists and turns are what make the story rather than characters or conflict.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Do you turn to the back of a novel to see how it ends before reading it?
An ill placed spoiler is like an annoying little brother grabbing the book you're reading and reading the last pages out loud in front of you.
OK it doesn't matter a great deal, but it changes how you immerse yourself into the story. Also it's a decision you are not free to make for yourself.
It think it's just courtesy to assume that someone hasn't read the book or seen the film until you check first, on a forum like this one the polite thing to do is flag spoiler info.
If you don't it's no big deal, it's just nice that's all.
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
You do realize, that opening this thread was a big risk. But now that my heart rate has returned to normal, I can tell you that for me, at least, it does take away from the experience.
If I know something ahead of time, whether or not it's a plot spoiler (because it can also be a special effect, or a cool tidbit), I don't get quite as much enjoyment out of the film. I like to make discoveries as I go. Some people might not care about that, but some people do!
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I like to get my surprises in the right places.
I like to wonder what's going to happen, until I find out in the way the author/writer/director intended me to.
If I know beforehand that someone's going to die, or not die, or is really a ghost the whole time, etc, it takes away a good bit of the suspense and the surprises aren't surprises. And then I find myself going, "Oh, yeah, there's that thing I heard about," instead of losing myself in the story.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Unless there is a lot of twists and turns in the productions, how does it ruin the enjoyment of reading or watching? Most of the "spoilerifics" are minor pieces of a story puzzle that don't usually distract from the actual experience.
I'm surprised you didn't realize this, but that is an opinion which is not shared by everyone. Many others would disagree with you.
You still have to respect their opinion. I'm not saying I mind spoilers terribly, but I can understand why those who do want to be warned of them.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by anti_maven: Do you turn to the back of a novel to see how it ends before reading it?
An ill placed spoiler is like an annoying little brother grabbing the book you're reading and reading the last pages out loud in front of you.
OK it doesn't matter a great deal, but it changes how you immerse yourself into the story. Also it's a decision you are not free to make for yourself.
It think it's just courtesy to assume that someone hasn't read the book or seen the film until you check first, on a forum like this one the polite thing to do is flag spoiler info.
If you don't it's no big deal, it's just nice that's all.
My brother told me about what happened to Dumbledore.
Lets just say my brother is sleeping with the fishes.
IP: Logged |
posted
do I jump on Blayne for the lack of spoiler warning or assume anything is fair game given the thread title? Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Knowing about a key twist or event in a story can ruin the experience. "The Sixth Sense" comes to mind, or "Unbreakable."
Other times, and I think "Empire Strikes Back" is a good example, the twist isn't really that important to the viewer/reader, but rather to the character. I can still appreciate how it tears Luke up to know about "that relationship" without actually being surprised by it whatsoever myself. (Anyway, appreciating Star Wars has just about nothing to do with plots and surprises, as far as I can tell. It's been too long since the first time I saw Empire, anybody remember whether they were actually surprised and whether it was important to them?)
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I always knew because I grew up hearing <James Earl Jones voice>"Luke, I am your father"</James Earl Jones voice?>. I know that's not the line and it's one of the most misquotes ever but it certainly made it hard to be surprised. Then again, the movie came out when I was very young(I was born in 84), and I didn't see it until the early 90s.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Knowing what's going to happen before you see a movie, or read a book, kills any build up of suspense.
For example, it's a well known fact that several major characters have kicked the bucket so far in my favorite book series. Reading this series is intense beyond anything else I've read, because when a character is danger, you believe that they could very well die, no matter how important they've been to the story so far.
If a reader was to already know which characters those are before they set in, this entire layer of experience has been stripped from them. No shock, so surprise, no tension.
A lot of people like this layer of experience, and when you reveal a spoiler, you've deprived them of it. It makes them especially angry, because you can never give it back to them. It's lost for good.
quote:Originally posted by Xavier: Knowing what's going to happen before you see a movie, or read a book, kills any build up of suspense.
I'm not sure if this is this really true. As I noted above, I actually will read ahead, often even the ending of a book before I've started or while I'm in the middle of it.
I also frequently read movie spoilers... Yet I don't find any suspense lacking in my experience of these stories. In my opinion, a well crafted story should provide suspense on a second or third time through even knowing the eventual outcome.
Maybe this is more of a person by person issue. I hate surprises, so I read spoilers.
All that said, I try to be respectful of other who don't want to be spoiled.
Posts: 382 | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I accidentally ruined Dumbledore for my brother and I felt awful. He was furious.
Actually I think Occasional used the best example in the OP. Vader in Empire has been described by almost everyone I've talked to who was alive to see it as the biggest shock of their cinematic lifetimes. When I first saw it, it blew me away, and that was decades after it first came out. It was maybe the most closely guarded secret in cinema when it was being filmed. Even the guy playing Vader didn't know what was going on. Only Lucas, Hamill and James Earl Jones knew what was going on.
Most of the fun in a movie for me is watching it unfold and not knowing what's going to happen. In some cases, like if it's a book adaptation, reading what will happen before hand is totally different because I already like or love what I'm about to see, and watching on the big screen is exciting. Though I'm often disappointed by dramatic license taken with the source material during the adaptation process.
Other than Stargate, there are no shows or movies that I like to read spoilers for. I think it's different for everyone, but the thing about spoiler warnings is who gets to choose when you read plot details. If you don't put up a warning, then you're the one that gets to choose, and there are potential landmines everywhere. When you put up a warning, I get to choose if I read the spoiler or not. It's just common courtesy.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read spoilers to alleviate a stressful plot or to get to the end of a story I want to finish but I don't really want to invest the emotional depth or time in.
However, I need to know when spoilers I don't want to see come up and so I think it's only respectful and courteous to warn people about spoilers ahead of time.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:I accidentally ruined Dumbledore for my brother and I felt awful. He was furious.
You mean the part where he turned out to be Harry's father, or the part where he revealed his past steamy relationship with McGonagall?
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I accidently ruined Dumbledore for my cousin while telling him the story about how I accidently ruined it for my friend. Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
My sister went to church and had it spoiled for her. She came home crying. I told her it would happen.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote: For Harry Potter, the real fans have read it already.
This was the day after it was released. He had read it online and blurted it out to me as I was half through the book.
porteiro_head, The image is familiar to me, luckily I am a severe movie enthusiast and nothing new is revealed. Shame on you though, shame on you.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Do I read the end of a book or watch the end of a movie?
Not really because I don't have to, unless as I say there is a twist in the end that I wouldn't have thought about. Reading the back of a book or watching a movie trailer pretty much gives away most of the details, especially the way the movie trailers are made these days. One of my favorite things I used to do was tell a lot about a movie when someone asked what it was about. They then asked if I ever saw it and they seemed a bit surprised when I said no, although later when I did the information was correct. I can think of only three times knowing the end would have been horrible, and two of them are about dogs; the movies "Where the Red Fern Grows," "Old Yeller," and OCS's "Lost Boys."
Besides, sometimes here at Hatrack I find out the spoiler information ends up interpretation. Someone will talk all about an event and it ends up not what I think took place. I know that some interpretive discussion is reliant on spoilers, but there are times when it is stated as fact.
Actually, didn't even think that my post could be an experiment. I might have to think of putting in a spoiler warning in the title that this doesn't start off with spoilers. I also think that coming up with "spoilers that never were," as some here posted would be fun. Did you know that Darth Vadar and Obi Wan were brothers? Neither did I.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
memeyou, When I read a book or watch a movie I don't do it just for the act of dragging my eyes across the page or watching the moving images. I do these things because I want to experience the story and follow it along as it leads me to where it's going. How much joy can I have if I already know where it's leading me? Someone has hidden a present for you and they give you a map of clues to follow, how likely are you to enjoy the hunt if you already know what the present is?
As Blayne says "yes, it does"
Posts: 247 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Fair warning: By nature of the discussion, this posting contains a spoiler for the movies "The Dark Knight" and "My Girl".
**SPOILERS FOLLOW**
It seems like there's an increasing number of spoilers coming from movies' own advertising campaigns. I never really expected James Gordon to be killed for real in "The Dark Knight", for example, but I *knew* he hadn't been killed because the previews feature the Joker saying "Good evening, Commissioner"... And at the time of his staged death, Gordon hadn't yet been promoted.
Someone really ought to slap the people who make trailers. Or take away their ability to portentiously use the phrase, "Now...", which would probably be more painful.
Entertainment Weekly, I recall, got an earful because they blithely mentioned that McCauley Culkin's character in "My Girl" gets stung to death by bees in an article a short time after the movie's release.
Warning about spoilers is a matter of politeness. It doesn't matter if you don't expect to be surprised or care if you go into a book or movie with a clean slate; you shouldn't assume that everyone else goes about the process the same way. Some discussions are going to be impossible without mentioning important plot details, and some people recognize they're never going to see a particular work, but everyone should be able to choose whether to participate for themselves.
And quite frankly, some spoilers are anything but minor.
It's been fairly frustrating trying to avoid media that mentions the computer games "Bioshock" and "Portal" because I hadn't yet played them. If losing a chunk of being able to experience a $9 movie fresh is annoying, such a loss is even more frustrating for a game that costs three or more times as much (and takes five to twenty times as much of one's time to complete.)
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:It seems like there's an increasing number of spoilers coming from movies' own advertising campaigns.
Oh, this is driving me crazy. Some of the TV series we like to watch show "coming next week" bits at the end, and I've gotten to the point where I have to skip those bits entirely. Rather than make me excited to see next week's episode, they end up spoiling it!
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
