A Spoiler Policy Should Be Instigated

[indy4 155]

I love visiting this board. I look forward to sharing jokes, heated debates, or casual conversations about the two forms of art I like the most: films and film scores.

I know that almost everybody here loves film as much/almost as much as they love film scores. In fact, many people love film more than they do film scores. But it is very difficult to enjoy a film when the ending has been revealed through spoilers, and it can be very very frusterating.

Now, some threads really require common sense. I would not enter the "Official Lost Thread" and expect to not be spoiled. But the more generic threads that are opened to all moviegoers ("What was the last film you watched?") or threads that just go off topic and aren't discussing a film that they originally intended to really should have some sort of warning, be it spoiler tags or just a big fat SPOILER ALERT! warning.

Similiarly, there are "fake spoilers" that pretty much achieve the same thing spoilers do. Aunnoncing that you only spread "fake spoilers," then proclaiming that a character dies in a film--well, now you've just revealed that that character doesn't die, and it's just as bad as normal spoilers.

It is really very selfish to expose the ending to films, if they are old or new.

I think that new rules should be instigated to protect us from spoilers. There should be some sort of punishment or suspension if one reveals spoilers in an inappropriate thread. I know everybody slips from time to time...I did a couple months ago. But for the sake of all the moviegoers who have yet to see a film, please try as best as you can to keep your lips sealed. It takes so little effort to tag something or to type the word "spoilers," and it really is worth it.

[King Mark 3,631]

No

If you watch Lost 2 years after air date on DVD or haven't read Harry Potter yet then it's your problem.

I only *try* to follow spoiler rules on movies just released in theaters ,this is a film music board and we talk about films and I don't like to see invisitext everywhere

One Elder has spoken

[Hlao-roo 389]

I love visiting this board. I look forward to sharing jokes, heated debates, or casual conversations about the two forms of art I like the most: films and film scores.

I know that almost everybody here loves film as much/almost as much as they love film scores. In fact, many people love film more than they do film scores. But it is very difficult to enjoy a film when the ending has been revealed through spoilers, and it can be very very frusterating.

Now, some threads really require common sense. I would not enter the "Official Lost Thread" and expect to not be spoiled. But the more generic threads that are opened to all moviegoers ("What was the last film you watched?") or threads that just go off topic and aren't discussing a film that they originally intended to really should have some sort of warning, be it spoiler tags or just a big fat SPOILER ALERT! warning.

Similiarly, there are "fake spoilers" that pretty much achieve the same thing spoilers do. Aunnoncing that you only spread "fake spoilers," then proclaiming that a character dies in a film--well, now you've just revealed that that character doesn't die, and it's just as bad as normal spoilers.

It is really very selfish to expose the ending to films, if they are old or new.

I think that new rules should be instigated to protect us from spoilers. There should be some sort of punishment or suspension if one reveals spoilers in an inappropriate thread. I know everybody slips from time to time...I did a couple months ago. But for the sake of all the moviegoers who have yet to see a film, please try as best as you can to keep your lips sealed. It takes so little effort to tag something or to type the word "spoilers," and it really is worth it.

I think you're spoiled.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

With legislation like this, it's no wonder you lost the election.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

If you watch Lost 2 years after air date on DVD or haven't read Harry Potter yet then it's your problem.

Why? What about the people who didn't know/care about it earlier? What about the people who couldn't afford it yet, or who watch it on TV in countries where it hasn't yet aired?

I read Potter shortly before the first movie came out. I know people who were spoiled because they didn't had time to read HBP early enough.

And I still consider anyone deliberately spoiling Citizen Kane an asshole, no matter how old the film is. Those POTA DVD covers are idiotic, too.

[Wojo 2,453]

But it's still laughable that people recently blackened out the ending of Jaws, just because there *might* be some people who don't know that the big shark finding dirigible crashed into the Orca at the end, killing everyone onboard. Sure, that movie is two generations younger than Citizen Kane, but that puts responsibility onto those who have seen it, and lifts it from those who have not.

You've got to draw a line in the sand somewhere between legitimately protecting viewers' innocence and just being anal, and I think that if it's been available to rent or buy longer than five years, you either have seen it or you're just not going to.

Oh, and Rosebud was the bar where Welles' character had his first taste of beer. There, that's two I've spoiled without black font.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

You're such an asshole! <_<

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

I thought it was someone's naughty bits.

[Ollie 1,059]

I think if the movie has been released on DVD then it's fair game and you enter a thread at your own risk.

Oh and Dorothy gets stuck in the land of Oz and never makes it home. She ends up marrying the Tin Man.

[Wojo 2,453]

I was so relieved when Fredo Corleone admitted to being the knucklehead who threw away all of Michael's fishing worms. He was so mad, I almost thought he was going to kill him!

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I agree with what Mark O. said. I only use spoiler tags if a film is still in theaters.

[Wojo 2,453]

Oh and Dorothy gets stuck in the land of Oz and never makes it home. She ends up marrying the Tin Man.

Why, because the Scarecrow was a little too soft for her?

[Delorean90 42]

You've got to draw a line in the sand somewhere between legitimately protecting viewers' innocence and just being anal, and I think that if it's been available to rent or buy longer than five years, you either have seen it or you're just not going to.

What?! That's complete bullcrap. I know there are plenty of movies I've wanted to see for a while, but I just haven't been able to get around to it. People have lives. They can't just sit around watching every movie they might be interested that's been out for longer than a few years just so they don't get spoiled.

I completely agree with Marian and indy4. What about the people who are just now gaining a real interest in film? What about the people who weren't alive when movies like Jaws, for instance, came out? It's absurd to just say, "Oh, well. You should've seen it by now. Too bad."

Typing the code is not really that hard. Why not?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

But it's still laughable that people recently blackened out the ending of Jaws

Now, now, no need to flatter me....

[King Mark 3,631]

Typing the code is not really that hard. Why not?

it's annoying to write and read

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

But worth it if it saves someone from having a movie ruined, I would think.

[Wojo 2,453]

Ok, lemme see now.

No politics, check.

No religion, check.

No links to downloading illegal material, check.

No discussions on how to modify legally purchased material for illegal purposes, check.

No nudity or links to nudity, check.

No talking in all capital letters, check.

No spoiling movies for people who haven't seen them yet, check.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW???

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Ok, lemme see now.

No links to downloading illegal material, check.

No discussions on how to modify legally purchased material for illegal purposes, check.

No nudity or links to nudity, check.

No talking in all capital letters, check.

No spoiling movies for people who haven't seen them yet, check.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW???

Do you have any problems with those? I do not.

[Wojo 2,453]

All of them, including the two you chose not to repeat in your direct quote, are valid concerns -- except for the last one. I can understand not giving away the ending of Kit Kitredge: An American Girl, because it came out this past summer and probably not too many people saw it yet.

But to go out of the way to hide spoilers beneath black shading or white typeface for a movie that has been available for a few years, to a generation-old movie like Jaws, to an absolute classic Citizen Kane, is ludicrous. By then, not having seen it is still a choice, intentional or otherwise, but chastising us for spoiling something you chose not to see or read yet is selfish. If it's a legitimate spoiler, maybe we'll be nice, but don't make it a law punishable by death or worse, banning for a week, just because occasionally it slips out in conversation.

Because, by the way:

The shark eats Quint

Snoopy comes home

Big Bird comes back to Sesame Street

Darth Vader is Luke's Father

Rosebud is a sled

The entire color sequence of The Wizard of Oz was a dream

Michael kills Fredo

King Kong dies

Charles Grodin stole the Baseball Diamond, not Miss Piggy

The Titanic sinks

Rocky loses in a draw; then he wins; then he wins, loses, and wins; then he wins; then he wins; by then the franchise was silly

Charlie wins the candy factory

Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze

You are Revan

Shall I go on?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

I definitely agree that the two I did not qoute are very valid concerns (especially given this particular forum), but, nonetheless, I would still like to express opinions on those matters. And how dare you ruin my Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory "and/or" Charlie and the Chocolate Factory viewing experience? What else are you going to "spoil", this:

Bruce Wayne is actually Batman

?

[bruckhorn 105]

Ok, lemme see now.

No politics, check.

No religion, check.

No links to downloading illegal material, check.

No discussions on how to modify legally purchased material for illegal purposes, check.

No nudity or links to nudity, check.

No talking in all capital letters, check.

No spoiling movies for people who haven't seen them yet, check.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW???

Aren't those the lyrics to "Imagine"?

I am of two minds about this. Many years ago, a friend stopped by when I was watching a movie and when a character said "I can't live without this," or something to that effect, my friend commented on how well it foreshadowed the character's suicide. I was upset for a few minutes, but forgave him due to the movie being five years old. (Still hold a grudge against him for recommending Cocktail, though.) I have heard tidbits about Harry Potter 6 and 7, but haven't read them yet. I've tried to avoid the spoilers, but if I was really concerned about keeping up the suspense, shouldn't I have read them already? I've read the first five, twice.

But, when it comes to mysteries, I say keep your mouth shut. I don't want to read the solution of an Agatha Christie book in a book by Terrance Dicks. Don't want to be told what "Rosebud" means, that the narrator was the killer, or that the Maltese Falcon was really a pigeon.

[Wojo 2,453]

Oh no, my friend. Spoiler tags absolve me of responsibility if you dare read it.

Yea, mysteries, and for that matter, thrillers, are touchy subjects. Whether they be Agatha Christie or Nancy Drew, Hitchcock or M.N.Shymalan, to give away that caliber of spoiler does make the movie unwatchable. And since I've seen only three Hitchcock movies, and walked in on The Sixth Sense when the boy handed the box to the dead girl's daddy and watched it to the end (d'oh!), I try to stay away from those kinds of spoilers.

On a sad personal note, I was glancing through a new Dune book in the store at a timeline, just to see how it condensed the events, and I casually glanced at the entry after the events of the first book to see that

Duncan Idaho kills God Emperor Leto

. Now WTF is up with that? That's like four books and thousands of years worth of events (which doesn't make sense, either, yet) in the future, and I have absolutely no idea how the story is going to get there. That's my fault for being a curious idiot, but I'll live with it.

Ok, so yea, by my own personal regrets and admissions, I'm a hypocrite to thumb my nose at indy4's "no spoiler" policy, but still want surprised on some issues. So I'll try to be a better poster and not post spoilers, or blacken them out.

Is this all because Joey posted something about the Terminator 4 movie in another thread, and it now deserved its own distinct platform?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I think we should should appoint a commitee to research the feasibility of electing a panel of experts that can determine wether or not a open and inclusive spoiler policy is required.

[John Crichton 4]

I think we should should appoint a commitee to research the feasibility of electing a panel of experts that can determine wether or not a open and inclusive spoiler policy is required.

Hm, I think I need to put that on my campaign platform.

[Hitch 57]

Turns out it's not Norman Bates doing the killing after all

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I don't care about spoilers if the movie is out on DVD. Seriously, I found out the ending to Psycho before seeing it, but that doesn't hinder my enjoyment of the film. It's still genius, and I don't mmmkaying care if I know any spoilers of old movies or ones that are on DVD. If I care enough about a film that I don't want it to be spoiled, I would have seen it by the time it could be spoiled for me.

[indy4 155]

Yes, but for that one moment in the film, it would have been much more shocking and frightening.

Not to mention the memories of the thoughts going through your head as soon as you found out the true ending.

Seriously, it takes so little effort to save a film experience for someone, I really see no reason to not tag.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

There are roughly 30 regular posters here. It's not we're spoiling things for the whole world.

[Delorean90 42]

I don't care about spoilers if the movie is out on DVD. Seriously, I found out the ending to Psycho before seeing it, but that doesn't hinder my enjoyment of the film. It's still genius, and I don't mmmkaying care if I know any spoilers of old movies or ones that are on DVD. If I care enough about a film that I don't want it to be spoiled, I would have seen it by the time it could be spoiled for me.

See, that's what makes no sense to me. If you care enough, you would've seen it by the time it could be spoiled for you? Sometimes stuff happens, man. I've got a lot of films that I'd like to see, and I DO care enough to not be spoiled, but I've also got a buttload of stuff going on, and I just can't get it all in. All this talk of "If they didn't want to be spoiled, they should've seen it by now" is nonsense. What if someone just found out about a movie that came out decades ago? Don't they have just as much right to going into an older movie untainted as they would going into a new one?

[indy4 155]

Exactly, I agree completely.

When you combine this with the fact that it is so easy to tag/warn something/someone, there is really no reason.

Think about it:

By tagging, you loose 1 second of your life.

By not tagging, multiple people can loose a film going experiance.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Tagging this sentence took more than 1 second.

[indy4 155]

Really though, when you weigh the pros with the cons, tagging is easily the right thing to do.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

From my experience, most trailers have the final shot or scene from the film included in the trailer. Doesn't that technically spoil? Hell, I just saw a commercial for the Iron Man DVD and all it was was the last line from the movie.

[indy4 155]

From my experience, most trailers have the final shot or scene from the film included in the trailer. Doesn't that technically spoil?

Um.....no

[QMM 4]

From my experience, most trailers have the final shot or scene from the film included in the trailer. Doesn't that technically spoil? Hell, I just saw a commercial for the Iron Man DVD and all it was was the last line from the movie.

Are you told it's from the end? Context is what makes the difference here.

[Hlao-roo 389]

By tagging, you loose 1 second of your life.

By not tagging, multiple people can loose a film going experiance.

I'm afraid you've loosed me.

By the way, are you a sex education instructor?

[Wojo 2,453]

I do understand the argument about discovering about a movie many years after it was released, and wanting to be surprised when seeing it for the first time. It all depends on what you know and come across, and who you know and what they like, that'll determine, say, if it takes you until you're 20 years old to start reading The Lord of the Rings, or until you're 55 to see Bambi. The first Trek movie I ever saw was IV, and the first Star Wars movie I saw was Jedi. For that reason, I didn't understand the whole Spock

dying

thing, and for me,

Vader

was always undeniably the

father

of

Luke

. Haha, joke's on me, sucka.

On the flip side, I know people who when they buy a book, immediately jump to the last page or chapter to see how it ends, with the theory that if they die while reading it, at least they know it ends. I kid you not. For me, that ruins the book because it frames how you perceive the story.

It's one of a few reasons why, as dramatic stories, the Star Wars prequels didn't work so well: you automatically knew which characters were going to live, and which ones had to die before Episode IV starts -- unless the story would've thrown in the cheating curve balls of "well, this character died but came back as a clone" or "this character went into hiding and just dropped out of the story."

I suppose, though, by definition, a prequel never be as spoiler-free as a sequel, unless you manage to find someone who's never seen the original work and can thus start with the prequel. I suppose we take a portable DVD player, the whole Star Wars saga, and some batteries and sail up the Amazon to find some remote tribes, and start experimenting...

[Koray Savas 2,251]

From my experience, most trailers have the final shot or scene from the film included in the trailer. Doesn't that technically spoil? Hell, I just saw a commercial for the Iron Man DVD and all it was was the last line from the movie.

Are you told it's from the end? Context is what makes the difference here.

Yes I agree, but it could be something like say you see the Tumbler get destroyed in The Dark Knight trailer. Technically a spoiler.

[Wojo 2,453]

Speaking of spoilers, did anyone catch the season premiere of ER last night? All I can is

wow, very sad

.

[Marian Schedenig 8,193]

From my experience, most trailers have the final shot or scene from the film included in the trailer. Doesn't that technically spoil? Hell, I just saw a commercial for the Iron Man DVD and all it was was the last line from the movie.

Not all trailers spoil. But too many do. Which is actually why I often avoid trailers for movies I'm really interested in. And I have a friend who will absolutely refuse to watch any trailer for any movie at all.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

What will he find out there, doctor?

[Ollie 1,059]

Speaking of spoilers, did anyone catch the season premiere of ER last night? All I can is

wow, very sad

.

Yes it was.

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Finally E.R. is on it's last season. I forgot to change the channel after The Office, and E.R. was on. Hard to believe the same show that started George Clooney's career is still running.

[Wojo 2,453]

So I suppose this sort of activity is frowned upon?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4x_WUb68RQo