Joss Whedon Shares His Feelings About Spoilers
With the way things leak for big geek movies these days, spoilers have just become a part of geek culture. Some people don't mind the spoilers, and some people seem like they want to kill the person reporting the spoilers. The thing is, it's not going to stop. It's just the world of information that we live in, and more and more spoilers are going to spill out online. Sometimes you can avoid them, other times you can't.
I'm one of those guys that reads just about everything. It kind of goes with the territory writing for a movie blog, but there are a few spoilers that I know are out there that I have avoided. Some things I just don't want to know. For the most part, though, fans crave information on the big exciting films coming out. Especially when it concerns Marvel, DC, or Lucasfilm. It's all just a part of the blockbuster movie industry.
Some recent information that leaked came from actor Idris Elba, and it involved two characters that will appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Internet ran with it, and I didn't see a lot of backlash from readers regarding it. In a interview with Vulture, writer and director Joss Whedon was asked about this specific bit of news that the actor leaked, and he went on to discuss his feelings on spoilers, saying they are both expected and still disappointing.
"Yeah, when you have a cast of 19,000 people, inevitably, once every month, you pick up [a story] and you're like, 'Awww.'"
The kind of spoilers I try my best to avoid are the ones that deal with the ending of a film, or anything that deals with a big plot twist. Knowing something like that sucks the suspense out of the story, but certain plot points and character information don't bug me. I think those kinds of spoilers only help build buzz for the film, and they get fans engaged by talking and speculating. I like that kind of stuff because it's fun for me. That's actually a benefit of spoilers that Whedon understands, and he even kind of encourages it. When asked if he ever reads fan reactions and speculation, he replied,
"Sometimes. Sometimes it's depressing, sometimes it's enlightening. Every now and then, you definitely learn something from some random person on the Internet who sees your work in a way you didn't, who sees truth in it, that's worth it."
I think it's kind of cool that we can help influence the filmmakers on the movies they make. What kind of movie geek are you? Do you search out spoilers online to try to soak in as much information as you can? Or are you the kind of person that avoids spoilers like the plague? Or is there a middle ground for you?