Apparently, there is a massive spoiler for Star Wars: Episode VII available on the internet. When I say “massive,” I mean something that could completely ruin your enjoyment of the movie before seeing it. And we’re still 15 months away from Episode VII ‘s Dec. 18, 2015 theatrical release.
Badass Digest’s Devin Faraci had someone explain the story point to him as the “I am your father” moment of this new Star Wars installment. Think about how different The Empire Strikes Back would have been for you had you known beforehand that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father and would reveal that bombshell to him during the film. Would that moment have had anywhere near the drama and shock value to it?
Part of me really wants to find that spoiler, even if it threatens to ruin Star Wars: Episode VII for me. While I’m not as starved for Star Wars-related stuff as I was before Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released in 1999 (and I went to see that movie at 5:30 a.m. because it was the first showing I could get into), I’m still enough of a fan to have an itch that occasionally needs some scratching. And there is all kinds of information and misinformation available online to provide just the right amount of friction, even if it’s not for my own good as a movie watcher.
For the most part, I love spoilers. I’ve rarely been able to resist any tidbit regarding any of the superhero movies I love and await so excitedly. Sometimes, I’ll look at the spoiler warnings that writers hopefully posted before their big (or small) revelations and ponder whether or not I want to keep scrolling down. Much more often than not, I’ll take that peek.
Somewhere along the line, however, I did begin to realize that finding out everything about these movies I wanted to see so badly was ruining the experience for me. I can’t remember exactly when this happened. I believe it was during either Spider-Man 3 or Iron Man 2 that it became clear to me that I wasn’t enjoying what I was watching the way I should be — because I already knew everything that was going to happen.
There were no twists or unexpected plot points for me. It was like I was seeing the movies act out what I’d already read. There was no fun to it. Watching the movie almost felt joyless. Why was I doing this to myself?
Ever since then, I’ve tried to be more careful about looking at spoilers online. I still love all the casting rumors and news, concept art, production photos and maybe even some plot summaries. But if there’s anything that could be considered a major story point or something that could take away from my experience of enjoying the movie, I try like hell to avoid it.
When it comes to Star Wars movies, I may be particularly sensitive to having the story ruined for me. I remember working at Borders before The Phantom Menace came out and a co-worker telling me that — Spoiler Alert — Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon Jinn would die in the movie. How could she possibly know that? She pointed to a track on the official soundtrack titled “Qui-Gon’s Noble End.”
Well, dammit. I still enjoyed The Phantom Menace when I went to see it. (Though it obviously hasn’t held up as my adoring “geek fog,” as I like to call it, dissipated. At one point, I had to see these types of movies twice to truly form an objective view. Now that sci-fi and superhero blockbusters are so prevalent, the geek fog is no longer so blinding.) And I was still jolted when Qui-Gon was killed by Darth Maul. But how would I have felt had I not known beforehand? That moment was taken away from me, and I haven’t forgotten.
I still hate that co-worker, by the way. And I won’t look at a movie soundtrack until after seeing the film. Fortunately, many of these soundtracks are now released after the movie hits theaters, perhaps to avoid similar situations as occurred with The Phantom Menace.
But the point is that I can avoid those spoilers if I make that effort. (At least I can most of the time. I’m still sore about Entertainment Weekly ruining season 4 of Dexter for me by revealing what happened to Dexter’s wife, Rita. There was no spoiler warning or anything. It was just right there in the paragraph — BOOM! —like a giant pothole in the road. How could I possibly have enjoyed the full season after that?)
We obviously live in a very different culture than we did in 1980 — or even 1999. Thirty years ago, there was surely an appetite for Star Wars-related information and some leaks may sprung from the production, but where would that information go? Starlog magazine, maybe? Entertainment Tonight? Star Wars fan clubs? Perhaps it would just circulate as gossip among select film writers and Hollywood insiders who just happen to know the right people.
Nowadays, the need for any and all information related to blockbuster, geek-appeal, franchises like Star Wars is voracious and insatiable. Hundreds of movie blogs and writers are seeking and aggregating even the smallest story points — no matter how seemingly trivial — involving projects attracting a phenomenal level of interest among the curious and devoted.
Those outlets, along with social media, provide so many, many more opportunities for information to get out to the public. People want to show that they’re “inside,” that they have access to these productions and the details that fans and bloggers yearn for so desperately. Fans want any morsel related to their favorite movies, even if it arguably works against their best interests in terms of taking away from the enjoyment of the films they’re eagerly anticipating.
That’s the environment in which something like this Star Wars spoiler becomes available for wide public consumption. It’s not quite the “wretched hive of scum and villainy” that Obi-Wan Kenobi once described. Revealing such information doesn’t necessarily come with malicious intent, meaning to ruin these movies for fans. There’s almost an innocence to it. Hey, I found this out and thought you might want to know.
Of course, there could always be some asshole who posts something to Twitter or Facebook and you just can’t avoid that spoiler because it’s in the river current of your timeline. So we have to be cautious out there. Or at least I feel like I have to be. Maybe I just follow too many of these damn sites and their writers on social media.
Perhaps we also have to depend on movie sites and their bloggers to keep the spoilers to themselves or make them available to readers. Though Faraci has incredible sources and is privy to many story points that could ruin these movies for so many of his readers, he keeps that info to himself. (He has revealed plot details, but has still been careful not to reveal anything filmmakers want to conceal.) Even if it costs Badass Digest potentially massive traffic that would pour in if he posted those revelations.
Yet this climate of blowing spoilers and depriving fans of meaningful enjoyment scares me. Can I really avoid finding out key story elements of Star Wars: Episode VII from now until Dec. 18, 2015? It almost doesn’t seem possible, unless I just avoid and unplug from virtually everything I enjoy about internet culture. That’s not going to happen. But I’ll try to stay strong. May the Force be with me. At least for the next 15 months or so.
