Ahira's Hangar

Spoilers, for books, movies or TV. The information about crucial plot elements that now seems to be an integral and unavoidable part of the ubiquotous information that surrounds us all.

www.strangehorizons.com/ At the Strange Horizons website Debbie Notkin has written an essay about spoilers, primarily her focus is on literary spoilers. But some of her discussion can be expanded to movies and TV.

However, one of her points is are the plot elements, that are susceptible to being spoiled, the only reason one enjoys the underlaying text? Example, anyone who's read Of mice and men knows how the movie ends, does that mean anyone who read the book cannot enjoy the movie. Or anyone who knows maritime history knows what the ending of Titanic is, but millions continue to watch the movie.

Another more recent development in the realm of spoilers, spoilers that are deliberately given with malicious intent. Example, Million Dollar Baby, a plot twist, that AFAIK is absolutely congruent to the short story the film is based on, was deliberately leaked to the public at large by Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved. Their publically stated intent to releasing this plot element was with the explicit aim to damage and reduce the movie's box office receipts.

Follow up to follow. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

I got the following from one the Buffy lists I subscribe to Quote:To the viewer goes the spoilers
By Gail Pennington
Post-Dispatch Television Critic
08/25/2005


Don't you hate it when you've recorded a TV show and plan to watch it later, only to have somebody say, "Could you believe it that . . ."?

Or when you're looking forward to seeing a new movie with a much-touted "shocking twist," only to have the loudmouth at the office give everything away the morning after a sneak preview?

Me, too. Spoilers - as in, "You spoiled it for me!" - are a pain.

They're also inevitable, especially in an age of instant information, which awkwardly overlaps with the age of entertainment on demand. Today, we expect to see TV shows or movies whenever we want to, not on some schedule mandated by the networks or film studios, and technology increasingly lets us do that.
But there's a catch.

Plan to wait for "Million Dollar Baby" on DVD or pay-per-view? Fine, but don't count on a friend not to text-message you the pivotal twist from his theater seat.

Prefer to watch "CSI" on Thursday and save "The Apprentice" for the weekend? OK, but don't expect the Friday morning talk shows to withhold the news of who got fired.

Even watching in real time can't always protect you from unwanted knowledge. Recently, I stumbled onto a Web site that gives away crucial developments on "Big Brother" days before an episode airs, via blogs written by people watching the 24-hour live feed at cbs.com.

The folks who craft movie trailers and TV promos are also notoriously guilty of revealing too much.

Consider the spot CBS has been running for weeks to plug the new fall drama "Close to Home," with Jennifer Finnigan as a lawyer prosecuting crimes in suburbia. The promo blatantly gives away the pilot's big plot turn, a fact viewers aren't supposed to know until at least halfway through the episode.

Oops.

The creators of the new sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" ended their pilot episode with a punch-line twist that turns the show's premise on its ear. Now, they have to cross their fingers and hope that nobody who's seen the episode - including some critics who aren't crazy about the twist - gives it away and spoils it for viewers.

Anybody who writes about television winds up inadvertently spoiling something for someone. My theory used to be that if it's in the press release, it's fair game. Still, when the "Inspector Morse" series ended its run with an episode built around Morse's much-publicized death, some fans of the show blasted me for revealing as much in a preview.

Now, I'm even more careful. Nevertheless, my thinking is that the shelf life of a TV surprise can't be infinite. It's a viewer's responsibility either to make a good-faith effort to stay caught up or to give up the idea of surprise.

This brings me to the series finale of "Six Feet Under." In a cover letter accompanying a preview cassette, HBO politely requested that critics avoid giving away any twists.

Writing my review, then, I was cautious, even vague, when discussing the final plot developments. By Monday morning, though, I'd already received several complaints about spoilers.

Turned out, the complainers were unhappy not about anything I'd given away about the finale but about the fact that I'd "revealed" the death of Nate Fisher (Peter Krause), a pivotal character in the funeral-home drama.

Nate died July 31, four episodes back. Since then, I've heard the development discussed at length on radio and television. I've read about it in magazines and online. On Aug. 1, the day after the demise, The Associated Press - picked up by newspapers and Web sites across the country - headlined, "Six Feet Under Kills Off Nate."

Nevertheless, some people had managed not to know, and they wanted to keep it that way.

Sorry.

But seriously, after Romano's arm was cut off by that helicopter on "ER," were we supposed to wait until everybody who had recorded the episode had watched before launching the water-cooler discussion?

When we learn what's in the hatch in the second-season opener of "Lost," are we supposed to hold off until the DVD box set comes out before talking about it?

Discuss among yourselves. Meanwhile, want to know who dies in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"?

Just kidding taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>

I don't like spoilers, of course, but I don't exactly run from them in fear. My opinion is that if the story is so weak they can't stand to have one detail revealed, it can't really be that great.

Like Million Dollar Baby. My wife accidentally revealed that key bit ("I thought this movie was about..."). Annoying, yes, but that didn't change the quality of the movie. ________________
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured within my shadow. Change is coming. Now is my time. Listen to my muscle memory. Contemplate what I've been clinging to. -Tool, "Forty-Six & Two" <i></i>

I'm not too happy about spoilers, and I try to avoid giving them out myself while typing on the internet or what have you (or I at least try to mark them well) -- but they are pretty inevitable.

Especially with television. I don't get to see much tv, as I work permanent second shift, and by the time I do get to see stuff, its on video and the original airing was sometimes years ago.

It sure wouldn't be fair for me to scream "spoiler" at people who are talking about something that happened months or years ago for them.

I do have to admit, though, that I stopped going to movies with a good friend I had back in my college days. He inevitably saw movies before I did, and when I would get a chance to go it would be his second or third time seeing it. And he would talk along with the dialog and reveal everything that was going to happen, and it drove me positively crazy. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Sylvanus wrote Quote:My opinion is that if the story is so weak they can't stand to have one detail revealed, it can't really be that great. This is sort of Notkin's point.

Duchess wrote Quote:I do have to admit, though, that I stopped going to movies with a good friend I had back in my college days. He inevitably saw movies before I did, and when I would get a chance to go it would be his second or third time seeing it. And he would talk along with the dialog and reveal everything that was going to happen, and it drove me positively crazy. And that leads to the following observation. My friend in California, Maureen, she is a big Buffy fan, too. Well, her husband only became a BtVS fan after they got married, and during the last season Maureen's husband got to looking up all the spoilers he could find on the Internet for the new episodes. Then when they were watching the episodes together, he would supply a running verbal commentary right before each plot development. Maureen, told me it nearly drove her to demand that he watch the episode in their spare room, it was so annoying.

taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i>Edited by: taraswizard at: 8/27/05 6:07 pm
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That would have driven me nuts -- Bad enough if its a movie you haven't seen, but has been out a month or so. But something that has never been publicly aired before??? ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i></i>

Not advocating wholesale distribution and availablility of spoilers, BUT are they really critical. Syl's example of Million Dollar Baby a case in point, and I agree with his judgement about the film. Another recent example, RotS, I already know how the story ends because I've seen A new hope and Revenge of the Jedi. But I still went to see it, and enjoyed it (my fuller explanation is in another thread).

It's interesting to me that the agenda driven release of spoiler information by Mssr. Medved and Limbaugh got no response or comment. Does anyone think that's going to be an increasing occurance when some pundits and critics have specific agenda axes to grind regarding specific plot elements in movies and books. Another instance comes to mind. Medved again, this guy is kind of irrepressible, has called Revenge of the Sith an anti George W. Bush film, and leaked in his review of the film specific plot elements he feels make the film anti-Bush. taraswizard
Allan Rosewarne N9SQT/WDX6HQV
Chicago area
W/T forever, always
Plan C - http://planc.bravepages.com/main.html<i></i>