Think back to some of your favorite movie experiences of all time. Maybe you had no idea what you were going to watch and were then blown away. Maybe you had high expectations, went to opening night, and the movie turned out even better than you could have imagined. After you walked out of the theater or turned off your television you couldn’t stop thinking about how great it was. You wanted it to never end, and when it did, you wanted to tell everyone about it. Maybe not everyone has felt this way about a movie, but I’m sure many have. For others, maybe it’s a book or a season finale that really got them feeling this way. How much was that experience worth to you? How upset would you have been if you never had it? Maybe it’s just a movie, but a truly great movie is a rare thing and you only get so many in your life. That’s why I just can’t understand why some people are so inconsiderate with movie spoilers. Some movies are enjoyable even if you know the ending; there will always be the Romeo and Juliets and the Titanics where the ending is no surprise, but the audience is engaged nonetheless. But most great movies rely on at least some suspense, and some shine in particular because of their twist endings. If you give away a twist ending to a great movie, you are stealing a great experience from whomever you’ve spoiled it for. I may be particularly extreme in this sense, but if a movie has a twist ending, I don’t even want to know that there’s a twist; half the excitement is in discovering the existence of a twist at all (as opposed to the content of the twist itself), especially when it blindsides you. For this reason, I found it nothing short of appalling when I was watching the daytime version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” today during my lunch break and one of the questions was actually: “What movie would this spoil: (sums up entire twist ending to movie)?” I’m not going to share which movie it spoiled for the reason I just shared above, but it was one of my favorite movies of all time that is especially renowned for its twist ending. It’s also from the 1990’s, but it’s good enough that it’s still watched today and often on television. Thankfully, I’m pretty sure I’m the only person that watches “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” at 12:30 pm on a Thursday, but if there had actually been an audience, it could have ruined a truly rare movie experience for a whole lot of people. Not only that, but the question easily could have been reworked to test for the exact same knowledge without revealing any information that would ruin the film. The move required a combination of stupidity and inconsiderateness that is unfortunately all to frequent today. For the record I like to think Regis never would have allowed this shit.
Incidents such as this one in “Millionaire” are unfortunately not particularly rare occurrences (though it is certainly more egregious than most). There have been many times when I have read reviews of movies that have contained spoilers. Sometimes they may not be obvious to the writer, but they still affect the viewing experience. Many reviewers feel comfortable commenting on a particularly shocking death or turn that takes place in the middle of the movie, perhaps thinking that if it doesn’t give away the ending, it isn’t a spoiler. Other times it’s not as obvious, but calling a movie who’s plot is about a person’s struggle to survive “sad” or any synonym for the word, is a pretty obvious giveaway that (s)he is going to die in the end; why not say it’s touching, poignant, or emotional instead? You would think that professionals who do it for a living and who certainly take the art of film seriously would be more attuned to these things. Especially considering that people read reviews almost exclusively before they see a film, so any spoiler will obviously affect them. It’s gotten to the point that after seeing a full trailer and reading a review or two I already know what’s going to happen in the majority of the films I watch (it doesn’t help that Hollywood doesn’t put in a whole lot of effort to keep the movies that it pumps out fresh or creative these days). Maybe I just care more than others, but for me even a very good movie is far less exciting when you know what’s going to happen. It’s like a car ride: you already know the destination, so you just sit around and wait to arrive.
I don’t know why spoiling movies (and any other form of media for that matter) is so common and so accepted. I suspect part of it is because a lot of people really don’t care and don’t realize how much others do. I also suspect that a large reason is that the damage that is done is never obvious, and thus no one realizes just how much can be lost to a spoiler. Once a movie is spoiled, you can never get the full experience of watching it, which also means you can never know just how good that experience may have been. You may never know that a movie that had been ruined for you could have been your favorite movie of all time, so you never see quite how harmful the spoiler was. Well, you can at least rest easy knowing that my fellow writers and I will do my very best never to spoil anything for you, and if we have spoilers, they will be very clearly marked at both the beginning and end so as to allow you to skip past them. A true critic should always respect the art to which (s)he dedicates him(her)self.
BV
Note: Sorry about the lack of concrete examples. I hope it’s obvious why this was necessary.
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