Today is the day of spoilers, so, a fair warning for you all: If you haven't seen Skyfall, you may want to not read this until you have, because I'll be talking about that at length.
Right then, spoilers. Everybody's different on this topic - Moffat's managed to somehow make them sexy via River Song, for God's sake, but me personally? I hate them. Have done for years. For example; Harry Potter came out on my 18th birthday. You want to know what I did for that? (Aside from get up at five am and drive my entire household up the wall due to my impatience with the USELESS SOD POSTMAN who didn't show up til 2pm, the prat!) I pretty much inflicted deafness upon myself anytime I went out for the previous month, putting my ipod on at max volume just to avoid hearing anything even remotely spoileriffic. I've had tinnitus in my right ear ever since.
That's probably a bit overkill, and I don't recommend it - tinnitus drives me mad half the time, have to have something on just to distract myself from the bloody ringing, but I was 18, and I wanted to have a good birthday - if I had heard that Harry was a horcrux before hand, well, it wouldn't be pretty.
So, where do you draw the line? What's acceptable about spoilers? I've just given away one of the biggest moments in Harry Potter canon, for example, but, let's face it, the book came out five years ago, and the film's 2 years old this summer. Therefore, I think it's acceptable to discuss such spoilers; at this point in the series, anyone who hasn't seen the film(s) or read the books wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about, so it's not like I'm spoiling it that much for them anyway.
Now then, Skyfall. Boy howdy did my screenwriting lecturer get my goat on that topic. It came up in a class, two days before I was going to see it with the missus. I specifically stated that fact clearly (I sit at the front of the class cause it's the only place I can plug my laptop in, and, let's face it, I've got a big gob and I know how to use it), and yet my lecturer STILL went on about the climax of the film (and not only that, but he made a wrong point about the film, citing that James acted out of character when in fact he acted perfectly within his character). Bloody git.
You will note that while I did mention Skyfall, it was worded in such a way as to be as vague as possible, and I put a warning at the front of the post. That, in my view, is pretty much as good as you can get with spoilers these days. Clear warnings and vague wording that lets you get the point across is fine by me. But the difference betwen Harry Potter and Skyfall is simply one of time. It's like "Rosebud" from Citizen Kane, or "I am your father" from Star Wars - they're key revelations that are clearly spoilers, but because of the amount of time that's passed between their release and today, coupled with the fact that both are considered greats of thier time (though Kane pretty much made me go mad when I was forced to watch it in class), they've lost thier spoiler effect. In a year or two, once Skyfall is out of cinemas and safely in my blu-ray collection, I'll happily talk about how Bond and Harry Potter cross over when it transpires that Ralph Fiennes' character is actually Voldemort, who hid one last horcrux in an exploding pen, and Harry Potter and Bond have to team up to take him down forever...
The above is, of course, complete rubbish I've just made up based around one cast member being in both Potter and Bond. Just to clarify.
But, in this day and age, spoilers are getting harder and harder to avoid. The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, Doctor Who, all spoiled for me, thanks to social media. Cheers lads. Next round's on you. You know who you are. Unfortunately, this comes with the territory - more and more news is breaking through Facebook and Twitter by the day; I first heard of both the TDKR shooting and the Colorado shooting this week through twitter, and Lizo Mzimba (probably spelt that wrong, sorry) went top of the naughty list for me when he tweeted about Amy and Rory's exit from Doctor Who this year, even if he was only doing his job. That, I don't mind as much.
Facebook, however. Dear God do I hate Facebook in the big movie seasons (so summer and Christmas). Went to see TDKR on my birthday with the missus, as you do. Got spoiled from a friend the week before.
Thank-you. You git.
Right then, spoilers. Everybody's different on this topic - Moffat's managed to somehow make them sexy via River Song, for God's sake, but me personally? I hate them. Have done for years. For example; Harry Potter came out on my 18th birthday. You want to know what I did for that? (Aside from get up at five am and drive my entire household up the wall due to my impatience with the USELESS SOD POSTMAN who didn't show up til 2pm, the prat!) I pretty much inflicted deafness upon myself anytime I went out for the previous month, putting my ipod on at max volume just to avoid hearing anything even remotely spoileriffic. I've had tinnitus in my right ear ever since.
That's probably a bit overkill, and I don't recommend it - tinnitus drives me mad half the time, have to have something on just to distract myself from the bloody ringing, but I was 18, and I wanted to have a good birthday - if I had heard that Harry was a horcrux before hand, well, it wouldn't be pretty.
So, where do you draw the line? What's acceptable about spoilers? I've just given away one of the biggest moments in Harry Potter canon, for example, but, let's face it, the book came out five years ago, and the film's 2 years old this summer. Therefore, I think it's acceptable to discuss such spoilers; at this point in the series, anyone who hasn't seen the film(s) or read the books wouldn't have a clue what I'm talking about, so it's not like I'm spoiling it that much for them anyway.
Now then, Skyfall. Boy howdy did my screenwriting lecturer get my goat on that topic. It came up in a class, two days before I was going to see it with the missus. I specifically stated that fact clearly (I sit at the front of the class cause it's the only place I can plug my laptop in, and, let's face it, I've got a big gob and I know how to use it), and yet my lecturer STILL went on about the climax of the film (and not only that, but he made a wrong point about the film, citing that James acted out of character when in fact he acted perfectly within his character). Bloody git.
You will note that while I did mention Skyfall, it was worded in such a way as to be as vague as possible, and I put a warning at the front of the post. That, in my view, is pretty much as good as you can get with spoilers these days. Clear warnings and vague wording that lets you get the point across is fine by me. But the difference betwen Harry Potter and Skyfall is simply one of time. It's like "Rosebud" from Citizen Kane, or "I am your father" from Star Wars - they're key revelations that are clearly spoilers, but because of the amount of time that's passed between their release and today, coupled with the fact that both are considered greats of thier time (though Kane pretty much made me go mad when I was forced to watch it in class), they've lost thier spoiler effect. In a year or two, once Skyfall is out of cinemas and safely in my blu-ray collection, I'll happily talk about how Bond and Harry Potter cross over when it transpires that Ralph Fiennes' character is actually Voldemort, who hid one last horcrux in an exploding pen, and Harry Potter and Bond have to team up to take him down forever...
The above is, of course, complete rubbish I've just made up based around one cast member being in both Potter and Bond. Just to clarify.
But, in this day and age, spoilers are getting harder and harder to avoid. The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, Doctor Who, all spoiled for me, thanks to social media. Cheers lads. Next round's on you. You know who you are. Unfortunately, this comes with the territory - more and more news is breaking through Facebook and Twitter by the day; I first heard of both the TDKR shooting and the Colorado shooting this week through twitter, and Lizo Mzimba (probably spelt that wrong, sorry) went top of the naughty list for me when he tweeted about Amy and Rory's exit from Doctor Who this year, even if he was only doing his job. That, I don't mind as much.
Facebook, however. Dear God do I hate Facebook in the big movie seasons (so summer and Christmas). Went to see TDKR on my birthday with the missus, as you do. Got spoiled from a friend the week before.
Thank-you. You git.
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