The big battle of the summer movie season is not Batman vs. Joker (spoiler: Batman wins) or Indiana Jones vs. whatever they are (spoiler: they’re aliens from another dimension. I think.), it’s the spoilerazzi vs. the spoiler Nazis. Entertainment Weekly comes at this most pressing issue of our time from a couple of different angles.
“Welcome to Spoiler Nation,” writes Jeff Jensen, “an irritating minority whose noisy, nosy engagement with Hollywood has deeply aggravated many of its most powerful players — and inspired many others to change the way they do business. How these leaks happen is no mystery. Spoilers have come from every corner of Hollywood, even from agents and studio execs themselves, motivated by the desire to promote an agenda or glean potential audience response.” Some spoiler sites self-flatteringly view themselves as industry watchdogs, making sure that studios aren’t taking undue liberties with their favorite franchise, serial arc or comic book character. Then there are filmmakers like J.J. Abrams who would prefer the hardcore spoiler geeks go get themselves lives, at least until his version of Star Trek comes out in 2009. "Learning raw detail and experiencing that detail as it was intended are two totally different things," he says. "I would argue that not knowing those details in advance is a more refreshing way to live when it comes to entertainment."
I agree that spoilers can be an unwelcome intrusion on the creative process as well as our enjoyment of said creation, but on the other side of the coin we find the spoiler Nazis – the miserable few who get all bent out of shape at your offhand mention that the planet of the apes was Earth all along. “Thanks a lot for ruining that 40-year-old movie I haven’t seen yet, dickweed!” Personally I can live without these people, although Ken Tucker goes a little too far in his “I spoil if I must!” manifesto: “When it comes to spoilers in reviews, I'm pretty hard-core: I don't care about 'em. Whether I'm writing a review or reading one, I don't want any held-back information to prevent that review from being the most interesting, thought-provoking one possible.” Leaving aside the question of when was the last time Tucker wrote the most interesting, thought-provoking review possible, I’ve got to take some issue with this. I’ve been writing movie reviews for nearly a decade now, and there are definitely some tricks of the trade – ways of writing about a movie’s secrets without coming right out and saying “Indiana Jones gets whacked by Tony Soprano!”
Oh, sorry. Did I ruin it?
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