Dude, Spoilers

The Sum of All Movie/TV Fears

This blog is all about spoilers and contains a bunch of them… sooo spoiler alert

Don’t you dare…

Spoilers – we all fear them. If you’re sitting in the break room and you overhear coworkers talking about the newest episode of The Boys on Amazon Prime – whoa, spoilers! If you’re browsing the internet a week after a Marvel movie came out and there are videos and pictures posted on your feed – spoiler alert! You haven’t touched that chicken in the fridge for weeks – spoiled meat!

Wait, I trailed off. Now I’m concerned about the food in my fridge.

What is a spoiler?

By Merriam-Webster’s definition, a spoiler is information about the plot of a movie or TV program that can spoil a viewer’s sense of surprise or suspense.

So, anything like a surprise twist in a Shyamalan movie, someone dying in Game of Thrones, or a character reveal in a Marvel or DC movie. It can also be giving away a jump scare in a horror movie or revealing someone is not really dead when he’s playing possum.

Or it’s a clueless date loudly talking about a certain dark helmet-wearing villain being the father of a certain rebel fighter/Jedi-in-training.

“Simpsons did it”

That last example is a favorite Simpsons gag of mine from way back. Homer Simpson is running his mouth about Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker’s father in front of a crowd just about to see The Empire Strikes Back for the very first time.

Freaking hilarious, and it’s funnier the longer the episode ages. It’s become a movie twist that everyone now knows, but back then, it was a huge cinematic moment.

So what’s the big deal?

People want to experience those surprises and twists for themselves in the moment. They don’t want you to tell them everything ahead of time. It’s not their fault that they have work and responsibilities that keep them from movie premieres every Friday. They got shit to do first!

But for the rest of us who do go see them (I’m terrible with responsibilities), we’re super excited about what we saw! We can’t wait to talk about them with others.

You can’t even speculate

A friend of mine hates it when I’m even talking about speculations. For her, that can alter perceptions as a first-time viewer and prevent them from making their own assumptions.

Short story – I’m no longer allowed to talk about Wicked around her. Not even thoughts before the sequel came out.

What are the rules?

When does a spoiler stop being a spoiler? How long is long enough (giggity) to talk about them?

There isn’t a universal rule book for spoilers’ durations. For some, it’s a week or a month. Some even go up to a year before it’s okay to publicly talk about spoilers. Jeez.

Even in my reviews of recent movies, I give spoiler warnings despite my best efforts to avoid them. Typically, I’m cool enough to not talk about them around people. But really, if you haven’t caught up by a month, how invested are you really?

Spoiling the obvious

But is it still a spoiler when it’s obvious? If a clueless stoned teen in a horror movie hears a spooky sound outside and goes to see what it is, are you really ruining the moment by calling them a goner?

Not really. That’s a typical horror cliché, and those don’t always end with the stoner getting mauled to death. Sometimes, these horror moviemakers tease us and play with our expectations. I wouldn’t count that as a spoiler.

Do trailers count?

One of my personal pet peeves is how much they show in movie trailers. It seems the bigger the movie, the more they gotta show spoilers to get people to come spend money.

The problem is, they show so much that some are almost not worth seeing. You’ve seen enough to already know what’s coming.

In the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer, Spider-Man has to stop a ferry from getting split in half. Okay, that’s fine. It’s an exciting first look at the movie, and it ended with Spidey trying to keep the ferry together and save people. How will he do it?

Well, you didn’t have to see the movie to see how. Another trailer showed you Iron Man saving the day. So now, you’re just waiting for when Iron Man shows up. Cinema!

Thanks a lot, Marvel and Sony, and their marketing teams!

I can keep riding on Marvel’s trailers. Hulk in Thor: Ragnarok. Red Hulk teases in Captain America: Brave New World. Spider-Man appears in Captain America: Civil War.

I get it – It’s exciting and pulls people in. But come on, these kinds of reveals would be more exciting in the movie instead of slapping it in a trailer. It’s a Marvel movie; these puppies are already going to get a lot of nerds’ money. Let us enjoy the actual film!

And DC films, you’re no different. Superman was teased to come back from the dead in Justice League in their trailers. Yes, it was obvious Superman was never going to stay dead after Batman v Superman, but still.

At least 2025’s Superman didn’t have any spoilers in its trailers.

Marvel Spoiler Problem

Remember how I said a month is enough for spoilers? Marvel did not with Thunderbolts*. I’ll keep the ending to myself (for now), but Marvel was quick to unveil the mystery behind the asterisk (*) in the movie’s title. They didn’t even give it a week, announcing the secret just over the same weekend it was released.

Seriously, Marvel, what the hell? Avengers: Doomsday is about a year from now; there’s no need to rush things.

I see dead spoilers

Some spoilers are so old that they’re no longer spoilers anymore. People know them without even seeing the movie.

So then, do we need to protect these kinds of spoilers?

The Sixth Sense, for one, where Bruce Willis was dead all along. I like that in 50 First Dates, Drew Barrymore and her family have to watch that same movie over and over again due to her daily memory loss. Her family has to fake their surprise every time, but she’s always shocked Bruce Willis was a ghost.

How about Planet of the Apes? The legendary Charlton Heston was on Earth all along, realizing he’s stuck on a future Earth where apes evolved from men!

Or, one of my favorites, The Usual Suspects, where Kevin Spacey was really Keyser Söze (I still hate that spelling) all along!

We can go older with Shakespeare spoilers. Romeo and Juliet die at the end of Romeo & Juliet. All the main characters in Hamlet die. I never even read Shakespeare or saw the movie versions, and I know these endings.

For those who didn’t know about these spoilers, surprise! Now you’re caught up with the rest of us.

Spoiler drama

So, people demand that everyone around them not spoil a film or show, yet they’re not trying to see it anytime soon. Is it fair to hold the whole break room back because you’re choosing to not watch The Mandalorian until the entire season is out? Just cause you want to watch it on your own time, you have to silence others around you?

I think there needs to be a mutual courtesy, yeah? Let’s all be civil in this uncivil world. If there’s an exciting new movie and not everyone has had a chance to see it, keep it to yourself. Or at least, ask someone if they saw it first. Don’t be a dick.

If you’re the one behind and everyone is talking about it, just excuse yourself. Or better yet, go see it and be free. If this movie or show is that important that you need to experience whatever moment for yourself, clear your schedule and figure out a way to see it. Yeah, you putting it off and making people quiet around you until that “magical moment” still makes you a dick.

Bottom line – Stop being a dick.

Alright, off my soapbox. Back to ranting.

Adaptations and remakes

Some spoilers are hard to avoid, especially when they’re coming from adaptations. HBO’s The Last of Us reenacted a main character’s death at the beginning of Season 2. If you know The Last of Us Part 2 (the game the series is based on), you’ll see this coming.

Bouncing back to Planet of the Apes, there was a remake directed by Tim Burton. Instead of redoing the same movie twist, Mark Wahlberg made it back home to his own time – but now it’s a time where apes evolved from men in the 21st century! I lost it seeing apes driving cop cars and wearing police uniforms!

Thank God there wasn’t a sequel; I wouldn’t be able to stop laughing!

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho had a monumental reveal where Norman was really a crossdressing psycho who had psychotic episodes imitating his deceased mother. In 1998, director Gus van Sant made a shot-for-shot remake starring Vince Vaughn.

I can hear your groans already.

Naturally, being a basic copy of the 1960 classic, the reveal is exactly the same and nowhere as shocking or surprising. How do you remake a movie that thrives on a shocking twist? Or how do you remake that same revealing moment that made your mind explode?

I don’t think you can.

Reviewing without spoilers

Writing reviews can be a pain when you’re avoiding spoilers.

It’s been a few years now, but I wrote a review for Spider-Man: No Way Home for college. I could only write about everything in the first half of the movie.  I was so excited that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield came back as Spider-Man from alternate universes, but I couldn’t write about it.

Spider-Man: Go See It – Just Trust Me, Go On!

It leaves me (and I’m sure other critics and writers) little to nothing to write about. Spider-Man: No Way Home felt like a boring review when it had three Spider-Men fighting five villains in an epic fight on top of the Statue of Liberty. Yes, I could just say, “Fuck it,” and talk about it anyway, but that’s just rude.

Other reviews I did with similar restrictions were Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The Venom sequel ended with Venom in the MCU universe. I can’t write about that, but damn, that was exciting.

Ghostbusters had Egon’s ghost helping his granddaughter at the last minute, after Harold Ramis died in real life years prior. That’s worth talking about, but, again, spoilers!

Oh, I dare!

Hearing spoilers can take away suspense and surprises. When it’s not from word of mouth, movie trailers can do it, too. They’re coming from both sides: trailers and viewers. They are everywhere and virtually unavoidable.

Did this article solve the world’s problem with movie spoilers? Ha, no! I’m not a problem solver.

Truth is, there are always going to be assholes out there leaking spoilers as soon as they can because, well, it gets them clicks and views on the internet. It’s like the Kardashians – no matter how much we want it, they are just never going away.

I think the real truth is in our own dread of finding out before we can see the movie. Maybe we just need to relax. If there’s a movie coming out and you’re excited to see it, don’t read about it. If you want to experience it spoiler-free, then checking out movie reviews isn’t the right move. And if it’s that important, make plans to go see it. Get a babysitter, make a schedule, or work on your free time.

At the same time, we as a people can do better about spoiling movies. Don’t be Homer Simpson and blab about the surprise out in the open (oooh, nice callback). Have a little situational awareness, or at least talk with people you know who have seen it.

And if any of my spoilers were ruined for you… Well, sorry, not sorry. I had the spoiler warning up in the beginning. You were warned!

The Kaiz has spoken!