Study shows that spoilers don't "spoil" anything

Besides, there's already a thread on this subject in another forum.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

As I mentioned in the other "spoiler thread" I think this idea glosses over the point the people can get TWO kinds of enjoyment from a story.

They get the first unspoiled experience that enables a storyteller to have fun establishing the plot and allow for all sorts of misdirection that makes an audience have to engage in trying to "figure it out". And then once a person knows a story they can get a second kind of appreciation of it because they can see how the elements led up to the known conclusion.

Spoiling stories simply ruins the first kind of experience to rush to the second kind. *shrugs*

The eureka moment is pleasurable, but it it is short lived and happens rarely as time goes on. Understanding is an enduring pleasure that sustains and i'd always put my money on and develop that. And if there happens to be a eureka moment while developing that then it is made all that much more pleasurable.

And yet sex remains popular...

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

It basically doesn't matter how "short-lived" the first experience with a story is. Why spoil it? If you always want to rush on to the "experienced" phase of enjoyment that's fine. If a story is good enough I'd rather have BOTH over multiple viewings/readings.

I'll admit it was hard to respond to that post without too many sexual innuendos.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you are trying to write or create something that will not be predictable and be a huge surprise you will fail almost always and those who can really tell will be the most immune to such trite surface writing. That conclusion/surprise is worthless. it's why M Night sucks so horribly. He thinks adding a surprise is going to make something great what it just betrays how bad a writer is.

When I say, He was dead all along, that ruins that story because that story is built on that surprise and pretty much nothing else... it the least problematic of his works and he got worse with it as it goes on. You "spoil" the twist and his movies and we as viewers recognize this instantly and say it sucks no matter how good or bad the rest of the movie was. Because while the surprise was pleasurable it's relying on being surprising and not so much in WHY it's surprising.

Now on the other hand when you write a story from what you would call the "experienced" phase you write so that the entire story builds and the surprise is not a monster jumping out at you, but rather the surprise is when you figure it all out and see how it comes together. You then read again because you ant to affirm your thoughts and such and as you go you discover new things and start thinking in new ways thus creating a wave of surprises and that increases your understanding and pleasure overall.

It still doesn't really matter if a story has been "engineered with a twist ending" or not. No matter the story there's always going to be a first time you experience it and a second time you experience it regardless of how well (or poorly) it's written. A person can devive a certain type of enjoyment from both instances, as long as they are not spoiled first. It's not really a matter of a writer trying to favor one experience over the other even if they could.

What you said implies that you can't spoil the experience then ^.^

What? Quite the opposite actually.

I've been constantly saying that there are TWO types of experiences involved with enjoying stories. The first time when it's unknown to you and the second time when you can see what leads to the conclusion you already know. Those are two separate and distinct experiences.

All I'm saying is that if you are gung-ho with the idea of always wanting to spoil yourself you're depriving yourself of the "first time" experience just to skip on to the "knowledgeable" experience. I'm simply saying I tend to enjoy the opportunity of experiencing a good story BOTH ways over multiple viewings/readings and the only way you can get BOTH types of enjoyment is to avoid having a story spoiled first.

No, I think Lothic has it closer to the truth. The study didn't even get to the heart of its own thesis, which is do spoilers actually spoil ANYTHING. They only asked the tangential question "do people like stories when they know the ending more, in general, than when they don't?" That doesn't answer the question: is there something about the surprise ending that people enjoy, that spoilers destroy?

I'm also sure the survey was taken immediately after reading, which means the survey ignored the process of integrating the ending. Its easy to poo-poo Shyamalan now that he's beaten his own style into the dirt, but The Sixth Sense is actually masterful in understanding the nature of the surprise ending. We call it a "twist" ending, but The Sixth Sense isn't actually engineered as a twist ending, its more of the "makes sense in retrospect" ending, which makes it a lot more powerful than a simple surprise twist. The flashback sequence at the end is the visual representation of the realization the audience should make (and some in the audience do and others need the memory assistance) that the story always seemed a little off kilter, but in a way you couldn't put your finger on. The ending is the surprise ending hiding in plain sight, and to be honest while I think some people watch movies with a certain cynical attitude that makes them immune to surprises, or storytelling period, most of the people today who claim to have seen it coming all along are either lying or self-deceiving themselves.

For most people, it takes time to integrate a "twist" ending, and revisit the story in their minds. It can prompt them to reread, or at least skim the story again to ultimately integrate that ending. And that process was likely skipped in the study.

Rewatching the Sixth Sense after knowing the ending provides a completely different perspective with which to enjoy the movie. This second experience might even be more satisfying - more "hedonistically enjoyable" but that doesn't mean anyone who had the ending spoiled didn't miss out on an equally interesting experience.

Shyamalan's later works tend increasingly to make the surprise a literal twist rather than the retrospective twist, and also when you're known for doing surprise endings you can't surprise anyone anymore. But this notion that actual "surprises" don't work, and its just a matter of realization of the conclusion, is extremely simplistic. The Most Dangerous Game is known specifically for its build up to the ending, where the ending is delayed as long as literally possible. Its an ending that can be spoiled, and it is something that is unknown and unpredictable to the reader, but it isn't a classical surprise or twist. Its literally an unknown that the story builds towards, such that spoiling it takes something away from the story.


Its entirely possible the entire study was invalid due to a simple, but important error. Imagine you're trying to determine if, say, people enjoy watching porn more before having sex or after. So you have one set of couples have sex then watch a porn movie, and another set watch a porn movie then have sex. Then you survey them and ask if they liked the movie, and the couples in the first group say "sure" and the couples in the second group are too out of breath to answer your question so you assume the answer is no.

I'll bet that was a surprise ending to this post.

I don't think you're catching the argument people are making.

Personally, I like watching a story unravel the way the author intended. Knowing what happens before hand, having the plot twists revealed from outside sources, anything like that; it taints the build up that's intended.

Just because Shammylammy drove a concept into the ground doesn't make Sixth Sense any less brilliant. There was plenty of character development, plot build up, and suspense outside the twist at the end, that the movie could have ended without it and still be a good movie. The plot twist at the end was what made it a great movie. It made you look back at the whole movie with a new perspective. You'd never be able to have that experience if it was spoiled.

Some people would rationalize that knowing a whole experience before you go through it would make it better or doesn't affect the experience itself, but it always sounds like BS. To me, they just come across as people with no real sense of adventure. If you have to know everything before you can try something, what's the point of bothering?

I'll admit that if there's a movie I want to see but I think the main character might die in the end; I'll find out before I go see it. Because if I go see a movie that I like, but the character dies or it's a depressing ending, I feel cheated.

Other than that, I don't need to know any spoilers.

Of course, I'm not overly upset if I come across one by accident. Sure, it's fun to see it unfold fresh, but it's not gonna spoil the movie for me if I know some plot points. I think people CAN be a little over-touchy about spoilers.

I scrolled to the end first and decided it wasn't worth reading!
(Kidding!!)

Actually, you nailed it. They're using an answer to one question and disguising it as the answer to a completely different question.


And I think people CAN think that you're a little overly uncaring about learning things before they're revealed in the actual piece of art.
It's called personal preferences!

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

Lady in the Water was, well, I'll settle for weak. But I agree that the Sixth Sense was really the only classic "twist ending" of the bunch, and not in the "surprise, gotcha" sense, but like I said he was going for the "in retrospect, it all makes sense" kind of twist ending that was intended to make you go back and revisit the entire movie in your mind, just as the flashback visualizes.

But the ending is different in Unbreakable: he isn't going for the "aha, gotcha" surprise ending. I think it was almost predictable, but it was actually intended to be just a tiny surprise to the viewer, and more of a big surprise to the actual *character* of Dunn. The ending was intended to fit in with the entire story of the superhero origin: he discovers his powers, he realizes he has to use them for good, *and* he meets his nemesis. Its sort of the "oh, of course" kind of pseudo-surprise ending that is intended to be a surprise for some, but not necessarily one for everyone.

Signs doesn't, to my mind, have a surprise or twist ending at all in the normal sense. It has The Big Reveal where we find out why Graham lost his faith. I think Shyamalan himself tells the audience directly through the character of Graham that the ending isn't intended to be a "twist" ending. He says, through Graham, that whether we find meaning in things depends entirely on perspective. If we *look* for meaning, we find it. If not, its all just coincidences and random events. The importance of the ending is not that God was working through Graham's dying wife or that it was an incredible coincidence that his wife said just the right thing to save her family, it was that Graham in a moment of crisis decided to *interpret* that moment as being a message, and when you really try to find meaning, you will. Sure, the sci-fi elements of the movie are incredibly weak, but I think the criticism directed at the ending itself missed the point.

The Village, though, was kind of silly.

Obviously. That was just my personal preference.


What's your point?

My point was obvious, yes, but still an important one.
Saying that you think that people can be over-touchy about it isn't understanding of that difference. There's nothing touchy about not wanting to know anything about something because they enjoy discovering it during the process of watching, reading, listening, experiencing of the event. That's how they enjoy it... There's no in-between to be touchy about. It's sort of an on or off, yes or no type situation. It seems pretty simple to respect.

And I only say this since you asked. It's nothing to get into an argument about.
Respect differences. Everything is cool.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

Teaching someone something is qualitatively different from entertaining them, though.

How many times have we seen a movie trailer that basically lays out the film's plot? Audiences regularly rail against such things. There are websites devoted to such rants, in fact. Cracked just had it as part of a recent list they did.

Some Columbo episodes had a similar format. Matlock as well, I think. They'd start out showing you the crime then the character would have to discover the evidence to build a case. The format emphasizes the importance of the journey over the destination.

In shakespear's time, they had mini versions of the plays pantomimed before the actual play so people would be able to follow along better. Not exactly the same thing, but still. Also the "Resolution, exposition, build up, resolution." method is used in books and movies, quite oftern ala "in media res" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res