So Essentially... (Off-Topic)

by Ibeechu , Portland, OR, Wednesday, February 12, 2014, 20:03 (4023 days ago) @ Kermit

I never want anything spoiled for me. I usually avoid trailers for movies I want to see whenever I can. It is definitely about not wanting my experience to be affected, but it's mostly about respect for the author. And those are two sides of the same coin. It just isn't fair to an artist for someone else to set up expectations about his work. Regardless of how many studies claim that spoilers don't actually matter, the point is that they change the experience.

(Spoilers for Hitchcock's Psycho incoming btw)

If you know that the first half of Psycho is a red herring, you watch it differently. You don't get as invested as Hitchcock wants you to. So when the apparent main character is murdered, it has a different effect. And that's just not fair to Hitchcock. It's not fair to anyone who's emotionally invested in crafting an experience in their work. It's also not fair to yourself, because then you'll never know what your true opinion of the work is. It'll always be influenced by an outside source.

Going off on a ranting tangent. I hated so much when The Sixth Sense came out, and people were going "I totally figured out what the twist was." No shit, dipshit. Everyone kept talking about what a great twist it had. They didn't need to give specifics. The point is that, even if you just know it has a twist, you watch it differently. Instead of watching the movie, you're trying to solve a puzzle. And when you figure it out, you go "Oh, that's neat I guess" instead of the intended "holy shit whaaaaaaaaaaaaa." That kind of thing really, really bothers me.