By: Greg Payne
The Internet is a beautiful thing. We love her, she loves us, and we all usually end up pretty happy, having had our objectives and reasons for using her completed by our session's end.
But sometimes she's just too full of information and too giving, dispensing information when we don't necessarily even want it.
I'm talking primarily about television and movie spoilers. The Internet has completely changed the way films are marketed and it revolutionized the news-providing process. Trailers, while still, without question, one of my favorite parts of the film process, are obsolete in terms of being our first exposure to a new movie. We now have trailers for trailers. Trailers might still give us the first legitimate footage, but by that point we've already been hit with set photos, which could reveal potential villains that were otherwise being kept under wraps (as was the case with Iron Patriot and potentially MODOK for Iron Man 3), news leaks from the set, and other speculative rumors that often end up being true.
And then comes the official marketing campaign, which, particularly for the big blockbuster films, is comprised of two to three trailers, each with different footage, a host of television spots, also with new footage, a Superbowl spot, if the timing is right,a viral campaign, and a tidal wave of images from the film -- all on top of promotional deals with several other companies so that you see advertisements for the film virtually everywhere.
The danger here is that we risk exposing ourselves to far too much of the film before we actually go and see it. And part of the excitement of seeing a new movie is that it's actually new. It's fresh. You're sitting there not being able to place certain plot threads together before they happen. You're not even wanting to. Because once you become wrapped up in all of the news that has been disseminated, you'll often take in one part of the film and immediately place it within the context of another plot point that's to come later on, and then you take away the ability to be surprised, which ultimately takes away from the overall entertainment value of the film as a whole.
It gets to the point where the duration of time between a movie's production and it's release becomes a figurative minefield, and it's up to us to navigate the lane without setting off any of the explosives, or, in other words, having too much revealed to us too soon.
Of course, there are people who want all of these spoilers ahead of time. They want as much news about their favorite upcoming films as possible, and consume it without caring about the potential pitfalls of enjoyment when they actually go and see the film. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe films these days, even the non-blockbusters, become more like events, and there's so much build up to them that that process becomes an entity all to itself, and the payoff -- the actual film -- rarely lives up to the hype that is built up when the promotional machine kicks into full gear. Because by that point we know the characters, we know the plot, we have a pretty good sense of who lives and who dies, and we've seen so much of the footage already that simply seeing it on a larger screen doesn't have the same effect as if we had never seen it at all before. It needs to still feel fresh to us.
It's a decision that we have to make for ourselves, ultimately. I finally had to cut myself off from The Avengers' promotional campaign. After watching the second trailer and the extended Superbowl trailer, I refused to watch any other television spots or official clips that were released. I couldn't do it. I was too excited for that movie and I couldn't run the risk of having it spoiled for me ahead of time. My roommates were shocked when I explained this to them, because I had gotten into the habit of watching the same trailer almost every day. But that's because it was safe. I had already seen that footage. I couldn't afford to take in any more.
Ultimately, I benefited from my decision. I went into The Avengers, and I was sufficiently surprised and thrilled throughout its run time. My strategy for that film will become my standard practice from now on, particularly with the films I'm really, really looking forward to seeing. I'm honestly clueless about The Dark Knight Rises. I'm completely detached from that, I will remain that way, and I couldn't be be happier about it. Sure, commenting and speculating on what might happen would be fun for this very blog, but I'd rather go in ice cold. The same goes for Prometheus, which hits theaters today. I'm clueless, except for a general understanding of what the plot is. Oh, and Fassbender's an android. Sign me up.
My greatest challenge will be Skyfall, the next James Bond flick due out November 9. If you read this blog on any consistent basis, it's no secret that the Bond film franchise is my absolute favorite, and I was positively giddy when the first teaser trailer was released late last month. But I'm still completely in the dark on that one, as well. I don't know what incident from M's past is coming back to haunt her, I don't know what Javier Bardem's motivations as the chief villain are, I don't even know why Bond is sporting some scruff. And that's a great feeling.
I say it's up to us, because the news won't stop coming. There are so many great movie websites out there, like Screen Rant and Collider, that do a terrific job of bringing us all of the latest movie news. And they're very good about warning us when certain news bits contain spoilers. Other sites aren't quite as helpful in that department. But distributing this information has become a business at this point, and, honestly, it's probably only going to get worse. Smartphones are used left and right to snap the spoiler-y production photos, apps like IMDB Buzz, while fantastic, reveal key plot points in headlines nonchalantly, and social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are often riddled with spoilers as soon as a film or popular television show has ended and if you missed out on the first airing, those sites can become very, very frustrating.
So, yes, it's definitely our call as to how much information about a film we want to take in prior to its release. The less, the better, in my opinion. We want our imaginations riveted by films -- that's why we go and see them. We want to be forced to think about things in a different light, and we want to be introduced to exciting new characters and stories. But all of that good stuff should be saved for the film. Why cheat ourselves by trying to access it all so early?
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