Even the STAR WARS Toy Designers Have Their Ways of Strategically Avoiding Spoilers

Fans are in charge of how many spoilers they are interested in seeking out before a franchise favorite film hits theaters, and unless they have some jerk in the office or on their Facebook feed that carelessly ruins the fun, they can go into theaters knowing little to nothing about what they’re about to see if that’s their preference. But I never really considered much that the people who design the toys for the major franchise films are at a high risk for spoilers.

The guys at CinemaBlend recently attended the Triple Force Friday reveal event and caught up with Paul Southern, Lucasfilm's Senior VP for Licensing. They asked him about the difficult task of balancing their job with remaining spoiler free, and here’s what he had to say:

You need to have a basic understanding of the architecture but there are elements that are ‘no I don’t really want to know about that.’ There are actually people who are working on the film products that want to know nothing and they actually will not go to meetings. We have some briefings, we get some information that allows us to make the right decisions and also allows us to see the role of the character that we can reflect that in the toys and the rest of the merchandise. But there are people on my team that are ‘I don’t want to be there. I’ll work on it, and I’ll develop it but I just don’t want to know the context because I don’t want it to be spoiled when I go and see the film.' It’s a fine balance.

It’s pretty great that the company is so understanding of the employees and their feelings. While they could probably find people that didn’t care as much about spoilers, it’s cool that the guys making the toys are the big fans.