When Is It Ok to Spoil Movies? Did Wicked: For Good’s Character Posters Spoil It?
Isn’t it the worst when a movie’s plot twist or big surprise gets spoiled for you? With Wicked: For Good’s character poster being revealed there’s been lots of talk as to whether they spoiled the film’s twists and turns or not. I wanted to share my thoughts! Let’s talk about it!
My Thoughts
I find this to be an interesting topic of conversation as I think there’s multiple ways you can think of this and I feel spoiling a movie is different depending on what you’re spoiling and which film or tv show you’re spoiling. What I’m going to be talking about here is a lot of contradictory statements, because I feel like that’s just how it is and I think it’s different depending on the person.
The topic that this comes from is Wicked: For Good’s character posters. Universal released the character posters last month for the main cast, I believe there’s about 9 of them. The detail on the posters, mainly Fieryo, Boq, and The Wizard spoil the outcome and the twists involving their characters. If you haven’t seen the posters, I don’t want to tell you what they are but they do spoil reveals in the film. This caused some conversations about whether or not Universal spoiled the reveals for Wicked: For Good. The simple answer is yes, I think inherently when you give information away that’s designed to be a twist or reveal that’s spoiling something. I don’t think the character posters or trailers are where you should let audiences know this information, save that for the movie for the first time watching. The counter argument that people have been making and I think it’s valid is “the source material has been out for decades, it’s not a spoiler.” On the one hand, yes they’re correct that the source material is out there we can all Google how this story ends and how it connects to The Wizard of Oz. Maybe we don’t need to label the reveals as spoilers, but it’s still information that shouldn’t have been revealed in the marketing. For people that don’t know how this story ends, it’ll be a very surprising moment when the reveals start to happen. The other piece that I’d counter argue with is while the source material is out there and we can see how the story ends very easily it’s still a new experience for so many people. Of course, it is a very popular Broadway play but not everybody has seen a Broadway play because they’re expensive and don’t go everywhere in the world. For a lot of people, these movies are their first exposure to this story and those moments shouldn’t be taken away from them.
The other thing to talk about here unrelated to the Wicked: For Good stuff is just how people talk about other movie spoilers, specifically a big iconic twist like The Sixth Sense. That is one of the most iconic plot twists of all time that has made its way into popular culture. Several movies and tv shows over the years have spoiled it and talked about it. You reach a certain age and even if you haven’t seen the film you know the plot twist. It does take away from the shock value of if you didn’t know the twist going in. I think that’s part of the problem of social media and the internet where you have idiots that think everybody on there has seen everything that they’ve seen. Even though that’s not true. At the same time, I talk about the big surprises in Endgame and No Way Home on my blog without warning, because everybody that wants to see those movies have seen those movies because they were big cultural events. I wanted to see those movies multiple times in the theaters because I wanted to be in the excitement of the room when you had certain people appear or certain objects being lifted. But I know that if I talk about Tobey and Andrew showing up in No Way Home, I’m probably going to spoil that experience for people that haven’t seen the film. It’s not fair on them because the movie is only 4 years old and not decades old like The Sixth Sense or The Empire Strikes Back.
Ultimately, I think it’s more ok to discuss specifics about movies because it’s easier to see a movie then it is to see a Broadway play. Movie tickets are more expensive now, but it’s still cheaper than paying to go see Wicked on Broadway. I think it’s more justifiable to talk specifics about Endgame or No Way Home then it is to talk about specifics for Wicked: For Good, despite the source material being out much longer, because it’s easier to watch a movie then it is to see a Broadway play. But if you know that somebody hasn’t seen No Way Home, then don’t be a dick and spoil it for them. If you’re going to hang out with movie fans and be a part of movie conversations online, you’re going to have stuff spoiled for you.
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