When discussing older movies, people seem to have a "You had X years to see it" sort of attitude, the crux of the argument being that if you had enough time to get your chance to see a movie, then it's on you for not having seen it by now.
While reasonable on the surface, this doesn't actually work in practice. What if you simply haven't heard of an older movie? For example, about 5 years ago, I was browsing movies and decided to put on the Unusual Suspects out of sheer randomness. I was just look for something to watch, and happened on this movie. I think a friend may have recommended it, but gave no details on what it was. Otherwise, I have never heard of it before, never seen any information about it, nothing. As far as I knew, it was a highly obscure movie. I watched it and when I saw the ending, and thought that was pretty good. Some time later, I saw someone randomly post the major spoiler from that movie in a thread, and when someone called him out on it, he simply made the above argument: It was a several decade old movie, so spoiling it was free game.
The thing is, if I hadn't seen the Usual Suspects by then, which only happened on pure whim from boredom, I'd have had a good element on a movie I didn't even know existed (but would have enjoyed) spoiled for me. And that kind of conflicts with the assertion "you had X years to see it" argument, because I really didn't. I didn't even know it existed until long after it was made and I could have easily not seen it for more years to come. I'd also like to point out that how old you are depends on this as well. If your 13 years old, there are a multitude of reasons you wouldn't have heard of all sorts of older films until you went exploring.
Lets take another example, the most famous one ever: Darth Vader is Luke's father. (and before you pedantic shits with delusions of wit even try to turn the tables and say "Well, you just had a spoiler in your thread, didn't you", no, because this is so ubiquitously branded into society that it doesn't count as a spoiler, even if it should, which is actually what the next paragraph is about....)
I was spoiled to this twist before I knew what star wars was. People make a big deal out of star wars being the most culturally important blockbuster phenomenon of all time and I guess I certainly make enough SW threads to validate that to some degree, but to be honest, I don't like the original trilogy that much, for various reasons. But a big part of them is that when I finally watched them for the first time, my mind was constantly thinking "I've seen this done better elsewhere". And in regards to the twist itself, any impact of it was robbed because I was spoiled to Darth Vader being Luke's father through parodies, references, tributes, and otherwise allusions to the material from as early as when I was 8 years old.
I was spoiled to "I am your father" before I knew what Star Wars even was. So how can it be said that I had a fair chance to see it for myself?
And how did that affect how I enjoyed the movies? It's impossible to say, but it makes me sad to think I'd have liked the movies more if I didn't have that information thrust into my face so early. I am not a major spoilerphobe, but I nevertheless remembered that when I watched it, I wasn't in the moment with Luke and his shock and horror at the revelation. My first thought was "Oh, so this is where all the references come from", and I just think that's a bit of a shame.
Now listen, you are all lovely, intelligent people who can readily comprehend nuanced and detailed arguments....it's just that a good portion of you also have the attention span of goldfish hopped up on some amphetamines. So I'm anticipating a lot of replies that didn't get past the title or else the first few paragraphs and just assumed my argument to be that we should not talk about spoilers ever regardless of time or something to that effect. But I actually don't think that's reasonable.
Mostly because I think some spoilers....evolve, for a lack of better word. It's become this thing that everyone who is a member of the geek community has seen, to the point where we make references to it in other works, which means it's commonality spreads further. Darth Vader being Luke's father isn't merely the twist of Empire Strikes Back, or even merely a story beat, it's a cultural touchstone. There was a thread either here or back at the old place, where some poster came in and said that they had not only never seen Star Wars but also never knew that "I am your father" referred to Luke and Darth Vader, so when he finally did see it, he was hit with the twist as close to as someone who saw it in 1980 could do. But more interestingly, the reactions of every poster was something to behold. Everyone was so baffled and confused how this person could have gone 20 years without ever seeing Star Wars or even making the connection of what "I am your father" was. Everyone honestly treated him like some kind of alien, just because it was THAT incomprehensible that a person would go through that much of their life without knowing about Luke's dad.
Currently, we have the fastest induced version of this with Thanos' snap. I don't feel the need to hide it for the same reasons I don't feel the need to hide Luke's Father, evne though the snap is still relatively new. It's not just because everyone and their mother saw Infinity War twice either. The Snap, like the SW twist, wasn't just a plot point, it was a was a big cultural moment for all of us where we saw our blockbuster heroes, who have never truly lost in a movie before, lose catastrophically. It was a moment that deeply affected us, so what did we do? Well, what we always do as a society with our art: we meme
And through those memes, the snap spread through the internet like wildfire, and eventually, everyone knew about it whether they had an interest in Avengers or not. You can't realistically contain that. And by consequence, plenty of people, especially kids who are just starting to watch these, are now gonna be in my star wars situation, where it is Superhero movies might be something they enjoy, but they will be told about the snap before they even have a chance. And, again, the snap is only one year old.
So, I'm not saying spoilers are offlimits because...well, they can't be. We make a good portion of our culture off some spoilers. However, whats the solution to this then? Are you supposed to just watch all of cinema...like, every movie ever made, as soon as you decide you like movies in general? Because even if you limit it to just the major ones, that's still hundreds of hours of watching movies (and TV shows and games and so on) just so some person doesn't innocently spoil it without knowing because they assume, since it's been so many years, everyone'd have seen it. That's not really practical. I think all we can do is hope people are courteous about it atleast. Just keep in mind that no matter how old a movie is, someone hasn't seen it before, and they might like to, and there is no reason you have to include it in the title of your threads where people would be forced to see it.
Anyway, snape kills dumbledore.
While reasonable on the surface, this doesn't actually work in practice. What if you simply haven't heard of an older movie? For example, about 5 years ago, I was browsing movies and decided to put on the Unusual Suspects out of sheer randomness. I was just look for something to watch, and happened on this movie. I think a friend may have recommended it, but gave no details on what it was. Otherwise, I have never heard of it before, never seen any information about it, nothing. As far as I knew, it was a highly obscure movie. I watched it and when I saw the ending, and thought that was pretty good. Some time later, I saw someone randomly post the major spoiler from that movie in a thread, and when someone called him out on it, he simply made the above argument: It was a several decade old movie, so spoiling it was free game.
The thing is, if I hadn't seen the Usual Suspects by then, which only happened on pure whim from boredom, I'd have had a good element on a movie I didn't even know existed (but would have enjoyed) spoiled for me. And that kind of conflicts with the assertion "you had X years to see it" argument, because I really didn't. I didn't even know it existed until long after it was made and I could have easily not seen it for more years to come. I'd also like to point out that how old you are depends on this as well. If your 13 years old, there are a multitude of reasons you wouldn't have heard of all sorts of older films until you went exploring.
Lets take another example, the most famous one ever: Darth Vader is Luke's father. (and before you pedantic shits with delusions of wit even try to turn the tables and say "Well, you just had a spoiler in your thread, didn't you", no, because this is so ubiquitously branded into society that it doesn't count as a spoiler, even if it should, which is actually what the next paragraph is about....)
I was spoiled to this twist before I knew what star wars was. People make a big deal out of star wars being the most culturally important blockbuster phenomenon of all time and I guess I certainly make enough SW threads to validate that to some degree, but to be honest, I don't like the original trilogy that much, for various reasons. But a big part of them is that when I finally watched them for the first time, my mind was constantly thinking "I've seen this done better elsewhere". And in regards to the twist itself, any impact of it was robbed because I was spoiled to Darth Vader being Luke's father through parodies, references, tributes, and otherwise allusions to the material from as early as when I was 8 years old.
I was spoiled to "I am your father" before I knew what Star Wars even was. So how can it be said that I had a fair chance to see it for myself?
And how did that affect how I enjoyed the movies? It's impossible to say, but it makes me sad to think I'd have liked the movies more if I didn't have that information thrust into my face so early. I am not a major spoilerphobe, but I nevertheless remembered that when I watched it, I wasn't in the moment with Luke and his shock and horror at the revelation. My first thought was "Oh, so this is where all the references come from", and I just think that's a bit of a shame.
Now listen, you are all lovely, intelligent people who can readily comprehend nuanced and detailed arguments....it's just that a good portion of you also have the attention span of goldfish hopped up on some amphetamines. So I'm anticipating a lot of replies that didn't get past the title or else the first few paragraphs and just assumed my argument to be that we should not talk about spoilers ever regardless of time or something to that effect. But I actually don't think that's reasonable.
Mostly because I think some spoilers....evolve, for a lack of better word. It's become this thing that everyone who is a member of the geek community has seen, to the point where we make references to it in other works, which means it's commonality spreads further. Darth Vader being Luke's father isn't merely the twist of Empire Strikes Back, or even merely a story beat, it's a cultural touchstone. There was a thread either here or back at the old place, where some poster came in and said that they had not only never seen Star Wars but also never knew that "I am your father" referred to Luke and Darth Vader, so when he finally did see it, he was hit with the twist as close to as someone who saw it in 1980 could do. But more interestingly, the reactions of every poster was something to behold. Everyone was so baffled and confused how this person could have gone 20 years without ever seeing Star Wars or even making the connection of what "I am your father" was. Everyone honestly treated him like some kind of alien, just because it was THAT incomprehensible that a person would go through that much of their life without knowing about Luke's dad.
Currently, we have the fastest induced version of this with Thanos' snap. I don't feel the need to hide it for the same reasons I don't feel the need to hide Luke's Father, evne though the snap is still relatively new. It's not just because everyone and their mother saw Infinity War twice either. The Snap, like the SW twist, wasn't just a plot point, it was a was a big cultural moment for all of us where we saw our blockbuster heroes, who have never truly lost in a movie before, lose catastrophically. It was a moment that deeply affected us, so what did we do? Well, what we always do as a society with our art: we meme
And through those memes, the snap spread through the internet like wildfire, and eventually, everyone knew about it whether they had an interest in Avengers or not. You can't realistically contain that. And by consequence, plenty of people, especially kids who are just starting to watch these, are now gonna be in my star wars situation, where it is Superhero movies might be something they enjoy, but they will be told about the snap before they even have a chance. And, again, the snap is only one year old.
So, I'm not saying spoilers are offlimits because...well, they can't be. We make a good portion of our culture off some spoilers. However, whats the solution to this then? Are you supposed to just watch all of cinema...like, every movie ever made, as soon as you decide you like movies in general? Because even if you limit it to just the major ones, that's still hundreds of hours of watching movies (and TV shows and games and so on) just so some person doesn't innocently spoil it without knowing because they assume, since it's been so many years, everyone'd have seen it. That's not really practical. I think all we can do is hope people are courteous about it atleast. Just keep in mind that no matter how old a movie is, someone hasn't seen it before, and they might like to, and there is no reason you have to include it in the title of your threads where people would be forced to see it.
Anyway, snape kills dumbledore.
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