On Spoilers, or Spoiler Warning For Pretty Much Anything

[scifantasy]

With the flood of people discussing possible spoilers for Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, I started thinking about spoilers in general.

First, some ground comments. The Darkfriends of my acquaintance have a rule about spoilers: Once you get past maybe a year or two tops, it's no longer feasible to protect against them. Certainly not for old material like Citizen Kane. The rule is summed up best by prince_corwin: "Caesar dies. Frodo lives. Christ does both."

Spoilers are often not the whole story anyway...as in the case of Citizen Kane, the spoiler doesn't destroy the movie, because it's often just as much about the process. Babylon 5 mastered this.

That said, there are some movies (or books, or possibly even video games) that have spoilers, now long since past expiration of course, that qualify as Big Deals, or would have when they came out, or are just ones that people pretty much know or know about. Revelations that really change the equation, or are historically significant. I'm curious what some of you think they are. I'll seed the pot with a few of my own; feel free to leave a comment with more.

Ground rule: If it's still spoiler-protected (read "less than a year or two old," unless you'd have to be living under a rock not to know it), don't post it. This is about more "classic" spoilers. If you complain about spoilers, don't do it here, because you're given plenty of warning. Don't piss me off about that either...you will get no sympathy.

The Current List Of Big Spoilers (last updated Saturday July 16 0215 PDT):
Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Star Wars
The Usual Suspects
Soylent Green
The Sixth Sense
War Of The Worlds
The Crying Game
Final Fantasy VII
Fight Club
Psycho
Harry Potter
Memento
Vertigo
Babylon 5
Spartacus
Escaflowne
The Third Man
Watchmen
Old Yeller
Planet Of The Apes
Primal Fear
Chinatown

(Those are the ones I really consider spoilers, or recognize. There are some that really don't count in my mind [such as, I kid you not, Kefka being crazy in Final Fantasy VI] or whose source material I am completely unfamiliar with that I've not listed here.)


Citizen Kane: Rosebud is his sled.

The Maltese Falcon: The statue's a fake.

Star Wars: "I am your father."

The Usual Suspects: "Verbal" is Keyzer Soze.

Soylent Green: Is people. (credit to jchance)

The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis is dead. (credit to JC as well)

War Of The Worlds: The Martians die of the common cold.


Any more from the peanut gallery? What spoilers are (or were) big?

Comments

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I think you really need to define "spoiler" better.

If "spoiler" means "thing that people going into the movie are not expected to know", then everything has lots of them.

If "spoiler" means "revelation of critical plot point, which is built to by author of work, which diminishes the rest of the movie if revealed to the viewer BEFORE that point", then your suggestion list needs to shrink, a lot.

Since we're only listing classics, that shrinks us further.

> Citizen Kane

Can do.

> Star Wars

Sure.

> The Usual Suspects

Okay.

> Soylent Green

Not particularly avoidable, but sure, knowing it's people ruins most of the build. Okay.

> The Sixth Sense

It's the point of the movie, so okay.

> War Of The Worlds

No. The story is still the same, regardless of the Deus Ex Virii.

> The Crying Game

Yes.

> Final Fantasy VII

Knowing that Cloud is a clone does not change this game.

> Fight Club

Yes.

> Psycho

Yes.

> Harry Potter

Uh, no. Children's books, especially children's mysteries, always rely on the sudden twist.

> Memento

Knowing Joey Pants' story doesn't invalidate the rest of the movie.

> Babylon 5

Classic and large, remember?

> Spartacus

#1: Not a spoiler because it's not a secret.
#2: Not a spoiler because it doesn't spoil the story.

> Escaflowne

Including this would imply that there is something to spoil.

> Watchmen

I'd take it off, because it's limited to the trivial subset of "comic book geeks", and hence doesn't fit any of the mainstreaming requirements

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

I could agree that some of the suggestions are straying afield of the original intent but:

Final Fantasy VII

Knowing that Cloud is a clone does not change this game.

That's not remotely the spoiler in question. The spoiler in question (and I have to stop my hands twitching toward typing in the spoiler warning here) is that Aeris (or Aerith if you prefer) dies quite violently partway through the end. And I would argue that it really changes things if you don't know it ahead of time.

[stormfeather.livejournal.com]

And that should be "partway through the game" not "the end."

[divabat.livejournal.com]

For Harry Potter, if you know some of the spoilers in advance, the perception of the WHOLE story changes quite dramatically. The effect is lost.

And with Memento - because of the way the movie is set up, anything in the second half of the movie becomes a spoiler, and honestly it does change your perception if you know about it beforehand. Knowing Lenny chose to forget his earlier kill, or that he was responsible for his wife's death, makes a complete difference in the way one perceives the movie, especially since the movie deals very much with memory and perception.