Spoilers: Bad or Good?

[TServo2049]

Anyway, the director obviously intended twists to be kept secret, because it's a damn twist. Maybe you could argue then, that the movie relies on its twist too much, but still, imagine if the Se7en trailers showed the twist? Or the Sixth Sense?

I have two words for you: Robert. Zemeckis. If you haven't seen them, do NOT watch the trailers for Back to the Future Part III (there was even footage from the ending in the teaser that was attached to the end of Part II!), or What Lies Beneath, or the absolute worst offender, Cast Away.Cast Away is another one of those movies (like A.I. and Gravity) where I only saw the teaser before seeing the movie. And thank fuck for that.Looking back, I'm surprised that the trailer for Roger Rabbit didn't spoil that

Judge Doom is a toon.

Dean DeBlois may be a bit loose-lipped on the Dragon sequels, but oh my god, he has absolutely NOTHING on Zemeckis.

Edited July 3, 2014 by TServo2049

[AniNate]

There's also the issue of the expanding global market, where certain cultures actually prefer to be "spoiled"; at least if The Kite Runner is to be believed.

Edited July 3, 2014 by tribefan695

[75Live]

Yeah to me spoilers are just bad.

 

And to give my own examples of how trailers and spoilers can ruin a movie

 

The DaVinci Code trailers gave away the bad guy

Quarantine actually gave away the last scene in the film in all its spots and it was obvious it was the last shot of the movie.

 

Yeah you can say neither film was that great anyway   But my point still stands

[TServo2049]

There's also the issue of the expanding global market, where certain cultures actually prefer to be "spoiled"; at least if The Kite Runner is to be believed.

I can't figure out whether or not Japanese have a problem with spoilers. The Japanese trailer for Return of the King added spoilery footage into the regular trailer, including

Frodo saying "The ring is mine!"

And Godzilla vs. Destoroyah's TAGLINE was

ゴジラ死す (Godzilla dies)

Toho made that the singular selling point of the movie. That's some Search for Spock-level spoilage there. (If you've seen the trailers / heard Leonard Nimoy's unkind comments on the marketing, you know exactly what I mean.)

Edited July 3, 2014 by TServo2049

[Water Bottle]

Yeah, but he's an idiot. I'm sorry, but that's the one thing I disagree with in regards to his direction.

 

There is a wonder that pervades through the film and the reveal is pretty magnificent, but to know who was going to be revealed did take some shine off. They could have easily marketed it without spoiling that. In fact, I think I've already been spoiled for the finale, which sucks, because DeBlois, once again, was an idiot. Does he assume that everyone reads the books? Sometimes he should just shut up.

 

Anyway, the director obviously intended twists to be kept secret, because it's a damn twist. Maybe you could argue then, that the movie relies on its twist too much, but still, imagine if the Se7en trailers showed the twist? Or the Sixth Sense?

 

There's something intangible that makes your first watch something else, movies I'd seen none of feel even better. Like, going in and watching LA Confidential and Enemy of the State and Gattaca, it was really nice seeing everything for the first time. Most movies I see the trailer once, decide if I want to see the movie, and don't see anything else until I see the movie. New movies that is. Movies they don't convince me on the first trailer, I'll see a second.

 

So unless they do something stupid like HTTYD2 which you cannot forget, I forget most of what they show in the trailer.

 

You must have hated reading old books that spoil what happens in the chapter in the title. I knew it was the mom going into the movie and yet the spoiler didn't really rob the reveal of it's power. If anything, it changed my experience of the movie as I was anticipating it.

 

The anticipation of a plot point isn't necessarily a bad thing and if the director himself didn't consider it a plot twist-but a necessary part of enjoying the movie as he intended was knowing about it, then why is that a bad thing? You claim he's an idiot just because you don't want to know anything-and yet knowing something can sometimes be critical to reading the text in a way the director meant. The text in this case being a film.

 

People talk about a "virgin" movie experience where they get to see the whole movie from fresh eyes and not know what to expect but sometimes...that misses the point of the movie. Sometimes, the knowing what to expect of some plot details is actually supposed to be a part of the experience.

[TServo2049]

Good points. As I said, it's nowhere near as bad as Zemeckis. Seriously, why the fuck would you

show that Tom Hanks got off the island alive?

That is literally THE worst spoiler I have EVER seen in a trailer - I thankfully had only seen the teaser, so I didn't find out about the trailer until AFTER I saw the movie.

[Water Bottle]

Well sometimes the marketing ruins things the director meant to keep a secret. Directors have very little input into the creation of trailers.

 

I imagine the marketing people got scared that if people didn't know he got off the island alive, then they wouldn't show up to see the movie.

[CoolioD1]

^zemeckis films specifically giving away a bunch of spoilers in their trailers is entirely deliberate and it's partially his idea. hasn't worked out badly for him tho. forrest gump, cast away, what lies beneath give you everything in their trailers and they're huge hits.

[TServo2049]

Well sometimes the marketing ruins things the director meant to keep a secret. Directors have very little input into the creation of trailers.I imagine the marketing people got scared that if people didn't know

he got off the island alive,

then they wouldn't show up to see the movie.

Nope, apparently it's Zemeckis' call. He said in an interview:“We know from studying the marketing of movies, people really want to know exactly every thing that they are going to see before they go see the movie. It’s just one of those things. To me, being a movie lover and film student and a film scholar and a director, I don’t. What I relate it to is McDonald’s. The reason McDonald’s is a tremendous success is that you don’t have any surprises. You know exactly what it is going to taste like. Everybody knows the menu.”Bob's a great filmmaker (when he's not playing around with his digital Children of the Damned) but I think he's mistaken on this. Sometimes you want a twist, you want something people will talk about. The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, The Crying Game (bring that movie up to anybody, they won't remember what it was about, but they will remember THAT TWIST - which wasn't even at the end of the film!!!)And even when you don't have a twist, why NOT tease instead of showing everything? Though on the same token, don't be like Abrams and TELL everyone there's a secret but play keep-away with it, especially if the reveal is anticlimactic. Months before STID released, many people had already figured out that

Cumberbatch's character was Khan.

Edited July 3, 2014 by TServo2049

[Jessie]

If I watched The happening without reading any spoilers prior then I would have been very pissed off.

[Dementeleus]

You only get one chance to experience a story for the first time. I'd rather it be from the direct experience of that story, instead of cobbled-together suppositions, hints, or flat-out reveals.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Telemachos

[Dark Jedi Master 007]

You only get one chance to experience a story for the first time. I'd rather it be from the direct experience of that story, instead of cobbled-together suppositions, hints, or flat-out reveals.

I agree with you; however, if I happened to be spoiled, I wouldn't freak out like some people do. I suspect Todd, the author of the The AV Club article, received many emails throughout his career as a critic deriding him for giving away a plot point that might not have been the biggest deal. He was probably responding to those people.

[Water Bottle]

You only get one chance to experience a story for the first time. I'd rather it be from the direct experience of that story, instead of cobbled-together suppositions, hints, or flat-out reveals.

 

Ah, but what is the experience? The story or how the story is told? Gravity isn't an amazing movie because of it's plot but how it executes the plot. In fact, without any real style then even a good story gets no rewatchability.

[Dementeleus]

Ah, but what is the experience? The story or how the story is told? Gravity isn't an amazing movie because of it's plot but how it executes the plot. In fact, without any real style then even a good story gets no rewatchability.

It's both. That's why your first experience should be so treasured. You can examine or endlessly rewatch the style later, but your first time is precious and should be an emotional, visceral one. You're hamstringing yourself and the storyteller if you willfully learn random moments or events without context or setup. Obviously some of these are very minor or so vague or broad as to not immediately impact the story (knowing what genre it is, for example). But others aren't, and the problem is you don't necessarily know beforehand.

[BK007]

Ah, but what is the experience? The story or how the story is told? Gravity isn't an amazing movie because of it's plot but how it executes the plot. In fact, without any real style then even a good story gets no rewatchability.

 

Addressing two points here, the first, apparently DeBlois didn't intend to spoil the mother, but Fox/DWA, one of them fucked up and did so, so he had to address it now that it was out there. Really, just watch the trailer and it's pointless why they would build up just to spoil in 2 seconds and move on again. Bad trailer.

 

Anyway, to this quote, I don't know what you really want to argue about. If I were given the choice to read the script before watching the movie, I'd always watch the movie, unless of course I was an actor, director etc. As a member of the audience, my interest is being entertained. I'm not entertained by reading scripts unless I want to read it to perhaps play the part, or stage/film it, then I don't really care about what's already out there, since I want to make it my own. Maybe that's where you're coming from.

 

I don't think the director intends for everyone (unless you're Zemeckis, I guess) to know everything before they go in. What's the point of a twist when you know it's going to happen? The initial point is to catch people off-guard, and whether or not that twist is a gimmick is revealed when you rewatch it. In the case of STID, the twist worked on me on the first viewing but became quite stupid on rewatch. It wouldn't have the same effect in the first viewing if you already knew it was going to happen.

 

Regardless, why you want to argue this point confounds me. It seems like everyone doesn't want to be spoiled and spoilers contain anything related to plot, character etc. as opposed to there's a crane shot in the movie, if that's what you're arguing, or whether a certain movie used quick cuts/edits, slow-mo, make up etc. And of course if there's no style, a good movie may not be as rewachable, but a bad movie with just style is even worse. Something like Sucker Punch or Smokin' Aces. You know how everyone says, "Just VFX" well yeah, no one likes a movie if it's just style over substance. In which case, we're going towards the agreement that everything is in balance, obviously, but once again, being in balance inherently puts weight on the story, so YES IT IS A SPOILER.

 

End of discussion.

[Water Bottle]

. It seems like everyone doesn't want to be spoiled and spoilers contain anything related to plot, character etc. as opposed to there's a crane shot in the movie, if that's what you're arguing, or whether a certain movie used quick cuts/edits, slow-mo, make up etc.

Actually, people in foreign markets like to be spoiled. In fact, until really recently, American audiences were okay with spoilers-it's the rise of the internet that has largely changed the culture.

 

As for everyone doesn't want to be spoiled, bullshit. There's so many spoiler websites out there for a reason: there's people out there who actually prefer to seek out spoilers. That's why I'm arguing this point and you can say "end of discussion" all you want but it also means that you are diminishing different ways to experience a movie for the first time.

 

I'm not sure why you keep saying "all style, no substance" because then that movie doesn't really have a plot to be spoiled. I think that style is just as critical as substance.

 

I don't think the director intends for everyone (unless you're Zemeckis, I guess) to know everything before they go in. What's the point of a twist when you know it's going to happen? The initial point is to catch people off-guard, and whether or not that twist is a gimmick is revealed when you rewatch it. In the case of STID, the twist worked on me on the first viewing but became quite stupid on rewatch. It wouldn't have the same effect in the first viewing if you already knew it was going to happen.

 

Ah, but I'm not arguing necessarily about spoiling twists. What about spoiling plot points that AREN'T twists? Not every plot point should be a twist after all-that's just shoddy writing.

 

Basically what I'm arguing BK007 is that perhaps we're taken spoilers too seriously. Perhaps there is more to a movie than the mere plot points and that knowing plot points ahead of time isn't necessarily a bad thing. Have you read the article I linked to? If so, read this:

 

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2006/11/in-defense-of-spoilers/

 

Some quotes:

 

Visiting a Thomas Pynchon chat room lately in conjunction with a recent prepublication reading of Against the Day, I find other Pynchon freaks breathlessly advising one another about whether they should read the short review of the novel that Time has already posted, which actually mentions — horrors! — one of the characters getting killed, something that happens, if I remember correctly, roughly a fifth of the way through this almost 1100-page novel. Percentage-wise, that’s about as far as you have to watch The Death of a President [see photo] before you witness the assassination that the title already announces. Honestly, does that spoil the movie for anybody?

 

Look at novels written from Don Quixote all the way through much of the 19th century, and you’ll find spoilers even in the chapter titles — headings that habitually tell you what’s going to happen before it happens. Hell, Pynchon  pays tribute that practice himself  in his own first novel, V. How come nobody complained much about this practice for a good three centuries before it started getting readers and moviegoers so hot and bothered — mainly, it would appear, over the past decade? And what about the titles of certain plays?

 

When the style itself is a twist:

 

the surprise ending isn’t so much the identity of the murderer as it is the revelation that he’s been narrating the entire novel in first person, just like Christie’s Roger Ackroyd.

[4815162342]

It depends on what is spoiled and when it occurs in the fictional work.

 

 

Two examples from movies old enough to be comfortably talked about now on the forum:

 

Bruce Willis was a ghost the whole time- Extreme Spoiler, anyone spoiling something like this during the initial release period deserves to get shanked

 

 

Loki brainwashes Hawkeye into a minion- A spoiler, but not a big deal since it occurs 5 minutes into the movie and doesn't spoil anything about future events in the movie

Edited July 4, 2014 by 4815162342