Spoilers, spoilers.. everywhere!!!

I don't care about spoilers. I don't seek info on movies I'm interested in beyond the short Imdb synopsis, but I don't mind if I catch a spoiler here and there. If someone is about to talk with spoilers about a movie I'm interested in though, I will watch it before resuming the video or article.

In fact, there's one thing I definitely want spoiled and that is the presence of a twist. I find that a significant portion of movies, especially on Netflix, tend to be underwritten garbage that people overly praise because they include a twist, and people seem to love that. I need to know so I can temper my expectations, or straight up avoid the movie.

Spoilers change the experience a bit, but watching a movie for the first time will still be a unique thing, so I don't mind it.

It’s always interesting on Twitter when some people get exercised over spoilers there for tv shows that are long over. The Sopranos, for example.

Conversely when a show is in play, don’t come to Twitter expecting not to find spoilers. It’s “in play”, stay away from Twitter!

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Generally spoilers aren't much of an issue for me. I stopped watching trailers years ago. Aside from a couple of people on here that I trust I don't read reviews of anything I've not yet watched. For the most part I don't bother with social media, and what little I do use I use very specifically so thankfully if spoilers are pervasive on such outlets my enjoyment doesn't suffer because of it.

Sometimes even knowing whether a movie has a happy or sad ending can prove a spoiler to me, so I try to go in to any movie with just the barest amount of prior knowledge whenever possible (sometimes that can be just knowing the title and that someone with whom I share certain cinematic likes has rated it well on here). Heck, I keep myself so out of touch with the general chatter that I generally don't even know what movies are in the pipeline or being released

"Spoiler" is hopelessly ill-conceived as concept. In actual practice, any narrative detail may be a spoiler. You just need one person who has not seen the film to learn something that they didn't know and to be upset about it and you have a spoiler.


People enter into detailed discussions of artworks, presumably to learning something about them, and frequently get offended when they find out something they didn't know.


Spoiler tags are obnoxious because they presume that people who have seen the film must veil their knowledge about it for the people who haven't bothered to see it before entering the conversation.



The notion that learning a single detail about a film can ruin it reductively assumes that an artwork fits exclusively under what Burke called the psychology of information. This is the notion that the purpose of a film is to communicate information and that aesthetic qualities are predicated on the experience of getting that information (e.g., surprise and suspense). Burke contrasts this with the psychology of form, which involves those formal aspects of artworks that make them enjoyable more than once. His paradigm case of this sort of thing is music, which is highly repetitive. The melody repeats. The chorus repeats. If you listen to your favorite songs more than once, then whole song repeats every time you listen to it. No one complains about songs being "spoiled" by being informed about chord changes.



Frankly, if a film can be "spoiled" by learning a single detail about it, it probably wasn't worth watching anyway.



Yes, the psychology of information can be wonderful thing. The first time you catch the twist of the 6th Sense is kind of like a first kiss. You enjoy the film on repeat, but enjoy it in a different way.



No, one should not deliberately blurt out details to unsuspecting people who are not prepared to enter into a discussion about a movie.



That stated, however, this whole business of "spoilers" has been precious for many decades. Watch the movie first and then talk about it.

For me a review and an analysis are two different things. There are articles that are meant to help you select a film to (go) watch, and others that are meant to discuss its cultural meaning (in terms of history of cinema, in terms of societal impact or mirroring, or whatever the reviewer's media is expected to focus on). That's two very different functions. Merge them, and you get "this is why you would have enjoyed that film's surprises if I hadn't been there", which is completely self-defeating.

So, I try to identify what kind of review or media it is, before reading it. Warnings about spoilers make it easier. Social media avoidance too. Then, of course there's clumsiness. My family is prone to it. "What movie is it, is is the one with the [mentions the end twist that reveals the real culprit]" ?

Thinking of that old french comedic sketch, an interviewer asking questions to two actors about the film they promote.

- So, what interested you in making that film ?
- I have a fondness for good whodunnits, good mysteries where no one can guess the culprit until the end.
- And you [turning to the other actor], isn't it the first time in your career that you play the bad guy ?

Then of course, movies are a domain where ignorance is fragile (you can't deny a spoiler like you'd deny a historical fact). Fictions are mostly explicit, with none of life's ambiguities, difficulties and persistent falsehoods, and that's one reason why they are such a refuge (think of the vast, cheap, easy, pointless, clear-cut, consensual and reassuring knowledge of nerds). So, easily acquired incontestable knowledge is an unambiguous though fleeting power. Spoilers are its manifestation. Easy and mighty like kicking a sand castle. Needless to say, the ideal internet sport.

So, "spoilers" can be a by product of analysis, a carelessness, or an ill intent. At stake, people's entitlement to (and appreciation of) surprises. I say : treat a film's surprises as you'd treat a friend's surprise birthday party.

But it's not easy when the surprise is what makes a film better than it looks like.

Agreed. One would think that some people only love movies because 'they had a twist I didn't see coming'...To me that's like putting movies on par with a day at an amusement park. And of course that's why I don't bother with Netflix movies or even new Hollywood movies in general as the unexpected twist plot seems to be everything these day.

People say they hate hearing movie spoilers, but people tend to watch the same movie over and over again....Nothing spoils a movie like having seen it before!

spoiler: we all die

Which doesn't prevent them to wish they could be seeing that movie for the first time once more.

Experiencing a film spoiler-free and a film being endlessly rewatchable are two different things and not mutually exclusive.

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Since the cinephile world as a whole has made Hitch the biggest name in the room we may need to take it easy on the “these kids today and their twists” narrative.

Someone may be able to help me out because I couldn’t find it. There’s a movie poster that has a tag something along the lines of don’t tell your friends the surprise ending. It’s from the 50’s or 60’s.

Movie narratives having a mystery is certainly not new. Rosebud had done alright over the years.

I usually don’t care if I get spoiled but I also try to see new movies that interest me pretty quickly, so it’s probably somewhere in the back of my mind that I want to go in fresh.

I do think that it’s upon the person who doesn’t want to be spoiled to avoid them. Everything I hear about a movie is because I am reading, listening, or talking about the movie. Never had anyone come out of nowhere and shout a spoiler at me.

The spoiler thing in SM seems strange to me. Because I don't want to waste precious moments in life or spend money for movie tickets when I'm not going to like the movie, I do read about them before I go. In a movie reviewing past, I wanted to know what I was about to see so I could economize the effort required to write the review.

So, is the spoiler the entire plot line or is it the last few minutes or is it how the plot resolves or is it whether I liked the movie? I've had people pronounce about all of those.....from "Don't tell me anything!!!" (including the starting point that's in the trailer).

Because I don't generally want to see a movie twice in a short time, I generally do the equivalent of reading the Wikipedia article since I'm way past the point in life where a shocker ending changes my life and I've seen pretty much every plot line in the universe already anyway. I'm generally much more interested in the "how" part of the plot resolution, the cinematography, music, acting, etc since, about 5 minutes into the movie, I already know that - "Awkward guy meets pretty, high social-status girl and unlikely romance ensues until social pressure gets in the way but about 5 minutes before the end, both realize that they are meant for each other."

Spoilers give me advice on whether I want to see the movie.

That’s very well put, I would agree.

Oh trust me, I've heard my share of spoilers over video store aisles and restaurant tables. But yeah, I try to do everything upon my reach to avoid them, and as long as I don't sense any bad faith on the "spoilerer", I don't get worked up on it.

Problem is spoilers can pop up in unlikely places.

The NY Times ruined at least 3 plot points for me with spoilers that weren’t even in tv/movie reviews sections. They ruined an SATC plot point for me in the real estate section & blurted out the demise of a very favorite character in The Sopranos even though her death had nothing to do with the article at hand.

Prior to watching Reservoir Dogs, if anyone had told me what was gonna happen in the final scene, the entire movie would have been ruined for me.

You guys read too much.

Pulp Fictions structure means it spoils itself kind of. I don’t think anything about the diner scene could have been spoiled for me. The joy of that scene is in the dialogue and performances. One of my favorite scenes ever.

It was supposed to be a surprise.

I wasn’t talking about the diner scene, but, yes, maybe my favorite opening scene of any movie. And the slow-walking exit from the diner is brilliant. With the music.

What scene or moment were you talking about?

⬆️ This one.

Makes perfect sense, right?