Over/Under-rated movies: the redux

bill-ted-wildstallions

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Not the whole thing. Itā€™s a movie I intend to get to. It seems to be one of the few movies that get the 1930s right.

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Iā€™m a little late for the spoilers discussion, but in the context of this thread I think itā€™s perennially relevant. I also think itā€™s pretty clear-cut, and that some of the common arguments donā€™t really hold up.

Thereā€™s no statute of limitations on true spoiling, which I would define as revealing so much that youā€™re possibly lessening someoneā€™s experience.

At the time of its release, we couldnā€™t escape discussion of and reference to The Sixth Sense. When itā€™s that ingrained in the wider culture, itā€™s harder to argue that you have to refrain from talking about it - at least, after the video release. Itā€™d be nice if people didnā€™t blatantly spoil but it was hard to avoid being spoiled in that case, because people are rude.

Itā€™s now nearly 20 years later (yikes) though. Itā€™s no longer so deeply ingrained in the culture that being spoiled is inevitable. If I were to discuss any twists or catchphrases from that, I would make sure everyone had seen it first. There are millions who havenā€™t seen it yet, many of whom werenā€™t even born when it came out and are only now at an age where they can enjoy it.

Itā€™s easy to forget this. I think of my friendā€™s 10-year-old daughter, who is getting into movies (including old ones) - I want her to have the whole experience I got to have watching a movie like that, or any other. Itā€™s surprises like in that movie that make people fall in love with movies, and I want to encourage that.

Itā€™s just common decency not to outright reveal information that could potentially lessen somebodyā€™s experience of watching something for the first time.

This applies even to things that have a huge cultural impact like The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects or The Empire Strikes Back or Casablanca even, it applies to things where the plot doesnā€™t have twists and turns and may seem obvious like romantic comedies (is this obvious to a 10-year old?), it applies to things that donā€™t even really have a plot (the WW1 ending of Blackadder comes to mind), and it absolutely has no statute of limitations.

Witness for the Prosecution is twice as old as I am but youā€™d have to be a total dick to reveal the ending to someone who hasnā€™t seen it, particularly a young person. I mean thatā€™s enjoyable even if you do know the ending, but being genuinely surprised is a relatively rare and wonderful thing that makes movies enjoyable.

Thatā€™s not to say that you canā€™t discuss spoilers - obviously you can and should (I enjoyed the TLJ discussion). Just state at the beginning that youā€™ll be discussing spoilers. In most cases it doesnā€™t even need to be spoiler-tagged out, except in cases of a major surprise point.

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Somehow, I missed having the Sixth Sense spoiled. So when I watched it years after it had been out, I was actually pleasantly surprised.

What I hate more than blatant spoilers such as Olā€™ Yeller kills everyone and and moves out to the west coast to work in Hollywood is the Movie FOO has this amazing twist. At that point, I would rather have the spoilers so I can enjoy Movie FOO and not keep wondering when the TWIST is going to occur.

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Agreed. Knowing there will be a big twist is often worse than knowing what the twist is.

Of course, if the movieā€™s actually good, Iā€™m able to be absorbed into it enough that I forget that thereā€™s a twist and can still be surprised. I think with how The Sixth Sense is structured and how good they build atmosphere and everything, that could happen for most people seeing it today even though itā€™s famous for its twist.

I donā€™t know if that works for everyone - maybe Iā€™m just forgetful. Likewise if I read a spoiler for something, if I wait even just a few weeks chances are I may remember that I read the spoiler but I wonā€™t remember what it was, since I didnā€™t see it in context with the rest of the movie, and will still enjoy the movie as if I didnā€™t know.

I still prefer not to be spoiled, of course, and there are plenty of people who donā€™t forget as easily!

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And then thereā€™s when people call ā€œspoilersā€ or ā€œgoofsā€ on things which are not spoilers or goofs at all. See: things which are in the trailers and which obscure plot twists in the rest of the plot, or when good continuity is mis-labelled as bad because the reporter doesnā€™t understand how the mechanics work. Example: man removes rain-dotted glasses to wipe them on his tie, replaces now-clean glasses in next shot; ragenerds complain continuity was broken.

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This me. I sometimes will seek out spoilers, solely so I can pay attention to the plot. A well-plotted story has spoiler resistance built in. If a spoiler can completely ruin a story (IMO), it generally wasnā€™t well-written for the rest of it. Twists are fun, and sometimes spoilers really do, even on well written things, but I am, generally, more captivated in how they set things up. I guess I prefer Fridge Brilliance to a wham moment twist.

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I like trailers but I rarely watch them anymore. The last one that really excited me was for Dunkirk. (I did already know what was going to happen in that story). Of course I was interested when the Solo trailer came out, but I actually still havenā€™t seen the movie. Itā€™d almost be better in some cases like that to not see the trailer.

I always liked trailers (I remember as a kid watching a show on late-night Sci-Fi channel that was all trailers for old sci-fi b-movies) but in college I went in deep - I joined the executive board of the movie club on campus (which Iā€™ve mentioned before, we showed second-run 35mm movies in a lecture hall with a full-size movie screen every weekend) and my job was setting up the advertising slides that played before the movie, and then of course the trailers for next weekā€™s movies.

We mostly did new second-run movies, but would fairly regularly have old ones as well, or for example another student group would want to have a movie relevant to their group. In those cases, it was often harder to track down the trailers - I would have to get DVDs of them from the school library, and rip the trailer from the DVD. For Ghostbusters, of all things (which was awesome on a beat-to-hell 35mm print), I got a library card for the county the university is in so I could check out their Ghostbusters DVD because the school didnā€™t have it.

When you get into watching old trailers, itā€™s mildly shocking how chock-full of outright spoilers they are - with no obfuscation or anything clever. Many of them just flat-out reveal the entire plot - check out the trailer for The Graduate for a good example (we showed that, and I debated whether to show the trailer or not because itā€™s so spoilery, but it would have been the only time I didnā€™t show a trailer and I wanted people to come see it).

In theory I like the idea of obfuscating in the previews, but really I think you actually need so little in the trailer to give a feel for the movie that it seems unnecessary at best, and counterproductive at worst - personally if I think I know everything from the trailer (even if Iā€™m wrong because the trailer was intentional misdirection) Iā€™m certainly less likely to want to see itā€¦ unless of course it has a lot of other things going for it in which case Iā€™d probably want to see it whether I watched the trailer or not.

IMO the best previews are the ā€œteasersā€, not full trailers. Those make you actually want to see things, even when they end up being bad movies. So I guess one could argue that the full trailers are necessary to avoid wasting oneā€™s time on bad moviesā€¦ but as you point out, trailers can be very misleading - intentional or not.

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Agreed completely, and I think a very good point in the spoiler discussion. Itā€™s absolutely true that if the movie is good, spoilers donā€™t really matter in the end. It doesnā€™t matter that I already know the twists and turns, I enjoy Casablanca every time. If anything, the twists get even more enjoyable on each subsequent viewing of that one.

In the initial draft of my rant about spoilers I mentioned Lawrence of Arabia, where they famously intentionally spoil you at the very beginning. But, I was going to get into detail about it and I didnā€™t want to spoil that intentional spoil for anyone who hasnā€™t seen it :sweat_smile:

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So less clips from the movie more deadpool 2 trailer.

I was talking about how I thought it was odd that Toy Story spoilered the ā€œI am your fatherā€ line with my daughter, and she was like, oh everyone totally knows that twist, even little kids. ok. Seems like a big surprise to leak out there, but I guess itā€™s out there.

I assume you mean this?

Iā€™m only loosely familiar with the movies, but yeah, that is a great way to get people interested, IMO. (I noticed that there are of course a couple of regular trailers for the movie too).

Actually, some old movies did something sort of similar, having an actor or the director say something about it, sometimes shown on camera talking, sometimes just a voiceover. A personal appeal to the audience that they should see their movie.

I think today, creating something like the Bob Ross spoof exclusively as pre-release advertising is the way to go. Obviously would be harder for a serious drama, though regular trailers for serious dramas are usually pretty good these days.

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I think thatā€™s one of the most interesting examples actually - everyone seems to know Star Wars by osmosis. Itā€™s perhaps the one example where the surprise is permanently spoiled, not that it really matters that much, though I do wonder what it was like to see it on opening day in 1980 not knowing that yet.

I think also though that perhaps that plot point isnā€™t as interesting or shocking to kids as the hive mind seems to think it is. Or maybe I was a weird kid.

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Interesting thought. Iā€™m reminded of Planet of the Apes, where the 2001 remake tried to have a different twist, presumably because everyone whoā€™s heard of the original knows the end. But I doubt thatā€™s so permanent.

If you go beyond movies, I think the definitive example would be Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, where what was once a surprise is now not just well known but a common idiom. Thatā€™s something I would love to have been able to read without knowing, but even dictionaries have the spoiler.

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And then PK Dick did something similar in A Scanner Darkly, where somewhere in the narrative Bob Arctor and his cover ID Fred diverge into two different characters.

And the reader knows theyā€™re one and the same person at the start of the narrative, same as Arctor/Fred knows. But by the time he/they no longer know, the reader isnā€™t so sure either.

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I remember it as ā€œWhoa! Vader is Lukeā€™s DAD!ā€

But 10 year old me didnā€™t have his life turned upside down by the revelation. Not when we had all the bounty hunters to think about.

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Truth: anyone who knew any Dutch knew ā€œVaderā€ was someoneā€™s dad as soon as the character names became known in 1977. Yes, Lucas claims itā€™s a coincidence, but since itā€™s also how things worked out, it counts.

My brother and I had it narrowed down to either Luke or Han, with the real money on Luke since he was the hero.

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aside from seeing the original movie cold ā€“ knowing only about the opening sequence back in 1977 ā€“ the one thing i VIVIDLY remember about the original trilogy was being completely BLOWN AWAY by the reveal of Vader as Lukeā€™s father when we saw ESB when it came out. i was as disbelieving as you could imagine. i was certain it was a fake-out, until it was clear it wasnā€™t. i remember the whole theater gasping. i was as stunned as i was when ben kenobi was killed, and that devastated young me ā€“ he was my favorite, not luke, not han, not chewie. so Vaderā€™s reveal was a gut-punch all over again.

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When there were only the first two films, meaning no confirmation from the shade of Obi-Wan, why did viewers believe Vader?

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Search your feelings. You know it to be true!

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