The politics of online spoilers

[matgb]

One of the things that always bugs me online is different peoples reactions to plot 'spoilers' for media things-unpredictable and at times downright weird, as Nick Mamatas demonstrated last month. Now me, I tend to seek them out for shows I like-before the internet I had a subscription to SFX partially for the spoiler zone section, I loved reading

Comments

Soylent Green

[anonymous]

Mat, You should definitely get this T-Shirt then.

Andrew from OneHourAhead

[innerbrat]

I am lilmsmiraclegro there, sorry.

There are two types of spoilers - reveals and surprises. Reveals would be Psycho and Fight Club; surprises would be Harry Potter and Hamlet.

For me, the spoiler magnitude is based on how much the shock value should be. You're supposed to be shocked like Luke is to find out that Darth Vader is his Dad. If you already know your empathy is entirely dependent on Mark Hamil's acting which is why no one my age or younger really cares any more.

Tony Stark/Peter Parker is just the progression of the story; there's no moment of oh, he's the hero! so there's nothing to spoil.

And that's why they're called spoilers after all: they spoil one's experience as an audience. Fight Club is a big one for me - I remember what it was liek to have that reveal, and anyone who is spoiled won't experience the film the same way I did in that first watching.

Also, dude: HARRY POTTER 6. Not 5.

[minnesattva]

I'm glad to see The Sixth Sense blowing away the competition on that last question because M. Night Shamalamadingdong is such an appalling storyteller that it does actually ruin his stories to know the "twist" ending. They're just little puzzles to solve, and once you know the answer they're impossible to sit through again.

I'd twigged that he was dead a few minutes into the film (it reminded me a lot of an old one called Jacob's Ladder, which helped), and it was honestly so obvious to me that Bruce Willis was dead that I was expecting the plot to build on that. I thought that was the jumping-off point, not the big reveal at the end. So I found it watchable the first time only because I was expecting more.

I came out of the theater as surprised as anyone else, but for an entirely different reason: I was dismayed, I felt cheated.

Psycho, Citizen Kane, all that...those I can watch endlessly because the execution of the story is so good that it's enjoyable even if you know or guess the "spoiler." Knowing stuff like that never

[davidnm]

I think spoilers are actually a good thing sometimes. For instance, I wouldn't have taken that £40-shot-in-the-dark on the first series of the new BSG if I hadn't read some interesting-sounding stuff about it online. (I'd seen bits of the original series; some interesting ideas but also a lot of painfully bad stuff as well, so I wouldn't have assumed there was much potential in it otherwise.)

[pmoodie]

Generally, I don't have a problem with spoilers.

Obviously when a film or whatever relies heavily on a twist ending or a shock revelation for it's effect, then it's best not to know that beforehand, but basic plot points don't trouble me. I don't exactly seek them out, but I don't avoid them either.

For me, watching a film, reading a story, isn't just about finding out what happens next, it's about losing myself in another world, with a bunch of interesting characters. It should be an experience. If the film is good, then I'll still be carried along for the ride, no matter what prior knowledge I have of the plot.

Case in point - as a school kid, I read the novelisation of The Empire Strikes Back before I saw the film. And knowing that Vader was Luke's Dad in no way detracted from the OMFG power of that scene to my ten year-old eyes.

Similarly, I can enjoy watching my favourite films over and over again, so the pleasure I'm getting out of those clearly doesn't depend on not knowing the plot.

[sylo_tode]

The Star Wars books of the movies are an entirely different kettle of fish.

The first one, i.e., episode 4 before it got the subtitle, is a really good read. There's so much more detail and stuff that make it really cool to read.

And, most importantly, it doesn't read like the written form of a movie, like the other five do. (Well, I'm assuming that episodes 2 and 3 are like that, I haven't read them.) Empire has a couple of cool "scenes" (Luke training on Dagobah) that weren't in the movie (maybe because they're on the cutting room floor) that would help flesh out some scenes later. Return has virtually nothing additional.

I've read the original several times, the other two only once a piece.