3 ms·

When I say "at some point", I don't mean that that's the timeline for a particular movie. I mean at some point in your life, it is better to let go of the idea

by lambda 11y ago

When I say "at some point", I don't mean that that's the timeline for a particular movie. I mean at some point in your life, it is better to let go of the idea of walking into a movie in a completely pristine state with no expectation about what will happen in it. Otherwise, either you have to cut yourself off from all media and conversation that might possibly reference the movie, or try and convince everyone you might interact with, and everyone who might write anything online, not to discuss the movie. Neither option seems particularly pleasant nor realistic to achieve. I suppose you could also just see every movie you intend to see on the first showing of the opening day. What you are doing by asking for absolutely no information at all, even the basic exposition and setup of characters at the beginning of the movie, is imposing a large burden on everyone else around you to prevent a very minor inconvenience to yourself. I understand not wanting major spoilers, and that there should be a reasonable time before discussing those points openly without a spoiler warning. But it just seems that the trade-off is fairly poor for not even allowing the most basic discussion.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago
>it is better to let go of the idea of walking into a movie in a completely pristine state with no expectation about what will happen in it // I actually managed this pretty much with the new Star Wars movie - but then on the way in to find the screen was greeted with a massive poster showing lots of info about the movie. I averted my eyes. Then at the entrance there were sales staff touting character drink cups which successfully spoiled a couple of the characters who would feature heavily. After the movie I watched a BBC program which supposedly reviewed the Star Wars franchise and promised no spoilers. Pretty much the entire plot and many of the scenes could be determined from the content they gave. The problem I have nowadays is that trailers seem to include the entire plot, all major characters, all the best effects, all the most emotive scenes; ostensibly the entire movie in digest. These to me are very poor trailers. Generally I agree with your points however, lambda.
matrixagent 11y ago
In that case I guess my trouble with your point of view lies not with the "at some point" phrase but rather with the generalization implied by "any discussion". That argument is almost always used against people who complain about spoilers, and sadly it's often insultingly non-understanding. I'm not saying that all discussion are spoilers. While my personal wish is to not know anything about a movie before seeing it (which I have never regretted afterwards, by the way – the opposite, having advance knowledge, has not hurt the experience always, but it has never ever improved it), I realize that this is hard to achieve and requires me to take care of that, not everyone else. As you mention, that would impose too much of a burden on everyone else. But that does not mean there is not still a lot of stuff that really should be considered spoilers, and the complaints about these should not be brushed off just because you think I expect you to not mention anything about a movie. I think it's a very valid criticism when the article in question reveals something that even the trailers kept unknown by never showing that person, without any need for it in the context of the article. It's like saying "The Sixth Sense, where he was dead all along, was quite good, I loved the cinematography." a week after that movie was released. While I personally would not have wanted to know about the cinematographical quality either, I realize I can't complain about hearing something like that when reading a review or when I'm not fleeing a discussion of the movie quickly enough. I never would complain about that. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be pretty annoyed to read said plot detail in an article about e.g. "The decline of quality in M. Night Shyamalan movies" a week after that movies release. To sum it up: I agree with your basic point, but I think too often people that are fine with spoilers don't care about the fact that other people have a different level of acceptance and when confronted with that simply resort to saying "Well, it's silly to have this level of acceptance."

by lambda 11y ago

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

>it is better to let go of the idea of walking into a movie in a completely pristine state with no expectation about what will happen in it // I actually managed this pretty much with the new Star Wars movie - but then on the way in to find the screen was greeted with a massive poster showing lots of info about the movie. I averted my eyes. Then at the entrance there were sales staff touting character drink cups which successfully spoiled a couple of the characters who would feature heavily. After the movie I watched a BBC program which supposedly reviewed the Star Wars franchise and promised no spoilers. Pretty much the entire plot and many of the scenes could be determined from the content they gave. The problem I have nowadays is that trailers seem to include the entire plot, all major characters, all the best effects, all the most emotive scenes; ostensibly the entire movie in digest. These to me are very poor trailers. Generally I agree with your points however, lambda.

matrixagent 11y ago

In that case I guess my trouble with your point of view lies not with the "at some point" phrase but rather with the generalization implied by "any discussion". That argument is almost always used against people who complain about spoilers, and sadly it's often insultingly non-understanding. I'm not saying that all discussion are spoilers. While my personal wish is to not know anything about a movie before seeing it (which I have never regretted afterwards, by the way – the opposite, having advance knowledge, has not hurt the experience always, but it has never ever improved it), I realize that this is hard to achieve and requires me to take care of that, not everyone else. As you mention, that would impose too much of a burden on everyone else. But that does not mean there is not still a lot of stuff that really should be considered spoilers, and the complaints about these should not be brushed off just because you think I expect you to not mention anything about a movie. I think it's a very valid criticism when the article in question reveals something that even the trailers kept unknown by never showing that person, without any need for it in the context of the article. It's like saying "The Sixth Sense, where he was dead all along, was quite good, I loved the cinematography." a week after that movie was released. While I personally would not have wanted to know about the cinematographical quality either, I realize I can't complain about hearing something like that when reading a review or when I'm not fleeing a discussion of the movie quickly enough. I never would complain about that. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be pretty annoyed to read said plot detail in an article about e.g. "The decline of quality in M. Night Shyamalan movies" a week after that movies release. To sum it up: I agree with your basic point, but I think too often people that are fine with spoilers don't care about the fact that other people have a different level of acceptance and when confronted with that simply resort to saying "Well, it's silly to have this level of acceptance."