In other news, spoilers are great because omg I have anxiety cannot deal with things that happen on the screen.

I'm struggling to think of even a single movie, TV series, or book that has genuinely been ruined for me due to spoilers. I agree with Flack that they can spoil a surprise, but my own overactive imagination tends to spoil just as many surprises as spoilers. Me watching Shutter Island: "I don't think this guy is a really a detective." Me watching Sleepaway Camp: "Heh, I bet she doesn't want to shower around the other girls because she's really a dude." Yeah, I just included spoilers in a thread about spoilers. The point is there's no way you can ensure you'll be surprised by art even if you hermetically seal yourself away from any possible spoilers. Art, even bad art, is always about the journey, not just the crescendos or the ultimate destination.

You often have a pretty good idea of what to expect going into art just from general cultural knowledge. You don't attend Romeo & Juliet and expect the young lovers to live happily ever after. You don't watch Game of Thrones without being prepared on some level for everyone to die. This doesn't prevent people from being upset about GoT spoilers because to fans it matters a lot if someone dies this season or next or in the first episode or the last, but, still, no one is as surprised about a character death as they pretend to be.

On the other hand, I have to admit Flack has a really good point when it comes to sports spoilers. Watching sports time-delayed is always a hazardous activity, and I have to admit I will rarely go back and watch an event when I've already heard the end result. But then at a certain point sports get so old that they're interesting to watch again.

The Happiness Engine wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 5:19 pm Sorry, but you might want to consider the life you've made.

Best advice ever.

Flack wrote: Wed May 01, 2019 11:02 am people are already posting Star Wars Episode 9 spoilers and it doesn't come out for another seven months.

It's a piece of shit. SPOILERS

Flack wrote: I heartily disagree that every movie I have ever seen was a piece of shit.

...and you're mainly wrong about that. Sorry, but you might want to consider the life you've made.

I heartily disagree that that's every movie I have ever seen.

Flack wrote: Wed May 01, 2019 11:02 amI heartily disagree that every movie I have ever seen was a piece of shit.

If you say so.

Spoiling a movie, book, or the outcome of a sporting event before people have a chance to view it is one of the biggest dick moves on the planet. It robs people of experiencing things the way they were designed to be experienced. And it doesn't necessarily mean you've "spoiled the movie," it means you spoiled a surprise. It's the same as handing someone a wrapped gift and then telling them what it is before they have a chance to open it. And going to the Thursday midnight showing is no solution as people are already posting Star Wars Episode 9 spoilers and it doesn't come out for another seven months. When I was looking for showtimes for Episode 7, I typed "Star Wars" into Google and it autofilled "Han Solo dies" after that. If they wanted everybody to know that before the movie they would have put a dead Han Solo on the movie poster.

I heartily disagree that every movie I have ever seen was a piece of shit.

Oh, this is about that new comic book movie that just came out.

I remember when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, to a huge fanfare. This is the book, not the movie. We were standing in line at a Starbucks and my wife noticed the person ahead of us had a copy under her arm. So my wife, being the nice friendly person that she is, asked her how she liked the book so far. They started talking about it and not ten seconds later the guy behind us interrupted and asked them not to talk about the book, lest we spoil it for him. Harrumph!

Now I can understand both sides of the coin here. You can't go anywhere and have people NOT talk about a social media event like Avengers or...or any big movie. That's why Star Wars gets filmed in secret, right? People are going to discuss these things. Sixth Sense would never have been the surprise it was if it had come out ten years later. It's just not gonna happen.
On the other hand, if anyone is such a fanboy that they can't possibly stand it if someone gives away even a minor plot point, they should have gone to the Thursday midnight show with the rest of the unwashed costume wearing dipshits.

Everyone is so plugged in anymore it's like having universal telepathy. Either unplug and live like it was 1987 or get over it. And Ben's right, you cant spoil art. But you sure can turn art into commercials.


THE
CHOOSE 1987
AARDVARK

movie
fanboy
spellcheck


P.S. These words show up as spelled incorrectly or are unknown to whatever spellcheck bot is running. I laugh at thee, bot!

AArdvark wrote: Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:14 pm So...where are you going with this?

That was it. I was gonna write a bunch of paragraphs full of examples and basically restating the premise over and over in different ways, but that's not really necessary, is it?

Jonsey pretty much summed it up, anyway. If something can be "spoiled" by learning who dies, it may be fine, fine entertainment, and I would be irritated to have it "spoiled" too, but the thing that's getting spoiled isn't worth getting too riled up over.

In 1997, Clash "spoiled" Saving Private Ryan before I got to see it. "Tom Hanks dies at the end," he told me. And it's true? That did NOT spoil the movie, because the point of the movie was the movie, and not just the resolution of the drama.

Fuckin' Jeopardy "spoiled" Phantom Thread for me with some clue about eating mushrooms during the final dinner scene. That sure as shit didn't spoil a thing, and when the scene got there, I was so knocked out, Alex Trebek could have been there narrating the whole scene and it wouldn't have mattered.

If knowing who dies at the end of something ruins it for you, then that something was a piece of shit.

Dying is the least interesting thing a character can do, anyway.

Plus, all anyone means by spoilers is "someone died." That's it. Game of Thrones? Oh, don't spoil it! (Watches episode.) Ah, XXXXX died. Watches Infinity War? Oh my god! XXXXX died!

That's not ... whatever, that's what it is. I amazed it got that far. The worst thing about comics is the cheap, unearned melodrama because a character died. They bring everyone back. Even two people that were supposed to be dead because it was central to another's arc - Uncle Ben and Bucky - Bucky is happily running around. Jason Todd, the Robin that was killed in the call-in vote, is running around. (And you get people saying what an OMG GREAT STORY bringing them back is. It's juvenile, awful for the genre.)

And that is what TV and movies do now. It's so dumb.

So...where are you going with this?

If all something has going for it is unresolved dramatic tension, it is entertainment, but not art.