Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Spoiler policy

Do you have an opinion about spoilers?

This is something that is a particular problem of the digial era, in decadent nations with free time, high literacy, and widespread entertainment. What exactly DO you do about knowing the plot of your favorite TV show, movie, book before you get around to experiencing it? Are you vigalent about avoiding that sporting event that is sitting on you DVR at home? Do you not listen to voicemails? Do you stop yourself from surfing over to your browser homepage because you're sure the results of the gold medal match are going to be sitting there for the wandering eye?

Somehow I doubt the Viscount Reynolds avoided talking to the Dutchess of Chesterton and the Earl of Nudington because he knew they had seen Shakespeare's Othello at the Globe the night before but he was going to go next week. I just dont' think people worried about it so much. But today, we take entertainment very seriously and we want to experience it devoid of anyone else's opinion or without prior knowledge.

At least, that's what many people do.

Myself? I tend to be pretty tolerant of prior knowledge. I certainly don't go out of my way to avoid the news and I often read reviews of movies before i head to the theater. If I know something is going to be a big mystery, I'll avoid it (such as with The Crying Game or The Sixth Sense) but it's not ironclad either. Sometimes I'll want to know AND I won't tell Lynda so that I can have the added layter of waiting to experience her reaction to something.

Maybe this stemmed from my childhood decision to read the novelization of Return of the Jedi prior to seeing the movie. (I can't even remember the sequence of events that made this seem like the thing to do, but hey . . . I was thirteen?) Anyway, it was because of this that I got confirmation of Vader's paternal relationship with Luke long before little puppet Yoda said "Your father he is." And that didn't destroy the movie experience for me. So, I'm mostly tolerant.

Now . . .

I bring this up to say that due to lots of different circumstances--work, church, Olympics, reading, "Doc" Jensen's posting delay--I am heading into tonight's episode of LOST blind. For the first time since the series first episode, I don't really have any idea what the plot will be, what the episode title is, what might happen, what we might learn, or anything at all. And I think I'm gonna keep it that way until 9:00 rolls around.

It'll be fun to see if this alters my experience a bit. I could end the suspense right now by zipping over to about a dozen different Web sites and getting informed.

But I won't.

(And don't come over here and ruin it for me, Sir Nudington!)

2 comments:

David said...

To further confuse things, I'm wearing my Obama/Akbar TRAP shirt tonight rather than my customary LOST shirt.

It's still all kinds of geeky, but a different sort of geeky.

Unknown said...

Have any of your thoughts changed regarding spoilers in what is 2022? Due to more and more movies (in my opinion) trying to put the unknown as more of an enticement to watch? Has that then changed how you look at spoilers? Or has going in completely blind has almost never changed anything about your overall perception of the movie/episode afterwards? In other words, have you been more grateful to see more specific reviews of x,y,z scene that may have revealed some specific scene or plot point, or more broad reviews only treading on the surface level of what the main plot or main trope may entice?