How long before something isnt a spoiler?

[phatty500]

With all the huge endings in games this year ive heard alot of talk about spoilers. This got me remembering a podcast i heard awhile ago where the hosts refused to talk about the endings of any movies or games in the past ten years. I remember thinking this was simply outrageous as i feel anything you feel that invested in you should consume sometime within a year of its release.

So escapist? How long is it before you consider it acceptable to give away the ending to something?

 

[White Lightning]

Well, technically it never stops being a spoiler because someone may not have seen it yet. Consider the following.


You're walking down the street with your friend, talking about whatever. Behind you is a guy on his way home from the store with a 3 year old movie in his hand. What you don't know about this guy, is he's batshit crazy, and REALLY wants to watch his movie. So your friend and you start talking some more, and by mere coincidence start talking about said movie, and as your friend finishes giving his opinion about the ending you hear a loud yell, you turn around to see the guy, red faced and angry as hell. He then kicks your friend in the groin, throws his movie on the ground, and storms past you muttering under his breath.

I ask you this, do you REALLY want to end up in the above situation? because I know I wouldn't.

 

[dumbseizure]

For me I say that it stops being a spoiler about 10 years after said movie/game/book/whatever was released.

If you haven't seen it in that time, chances are you won't see it.

 

[lechat]

i seen the ending of star wars ruined a few years back to a little kid
you'd think after 20 years of "luke i am your father" everyone would know but guess not
BTW spoiler alert

 

[ChupathingyX]

For me I say that it stops being a spoiler about 10 years after said movie/game/book/whatever was released.

If you haven't seen it in that time, chances are you won't see it.

What if said movie/game/book was released years before you were even born?

 

[TheIronRuler]

i seen the ending of star wars ruined a few years back to a little kid
you'd think after 20 years of "luke i am your father" everyone would know but guess not
BTW spoiler alert

.
That's further proof you need to ask a person if he had seen/read said piece of literature/movie/whatever before discussing it.

 

[Vegosiux]

It doesn't and anyone who tries to justify spoiling something for someone by saying "Oh but it came out aaaaaageeeeeees ago, if you wanted to you would've seen it by now" is a prick, plain and simple.

Well except in cases where the spoiler is the main draw of the film. I mean, how many people have seen Citizen Kane, yet pretty much everyone knows "the big reveal" at the end.

(Also, the entire movie makes no sense altogether, because how could anyone have known what Kane said in the first place?)

 

[Defenestra]

One full Mayan calendar cycle.

Also, Citizen Kane's big reveal/potentially spoilable ending was actually irrelevant to most of the movie, save for providing a fine framing device.

Although there are some films that are probably better off spoiled, if only to spare people the experience of viewing them. Take The Passion, for example. Christ, what an awful movie.

(He dies at the end)

 

[b3nn3tt]

Spoilers are always spoilers. I think it's better to assume someone doesn't know than to assume they do. Even with 'famous' plot twists, there are bound to be people that don't know them, and it seems a bit of a dick move to spoil it for them because they 'should have seen it by now.'

I think it's especially unfair to spoil stuff on forums, when it's so very easy to just put spoiler tags around what you're writing. Regardless of how well-known you consider a spoiler to be, that's no guarantee that other posters actually know it. Spoiler tags are your friend.

 

[teebeeohh]

i actually think it's not related to time but rather exposure, you can't spoil star wars because it's next to impossible to not know the vader is lukes father thing, but not because of the age of the film. you also can't really spoil the ME3 ending because it has been talked about to death and in great detail, and that game is not even a year old.

 

[Folksoul]

Publication date + 1 year. Whenever a sequel is released. Whichever comes first.
How do you talk about the premise of a sequel without spoiling the predecessor?

I personally LOVE spoilers. Half the fun of a story is seeing HOW the story unfolds and the other half is the fact of it happening.

X character dies.... but how does it come about? Is it foreshadowed properly? Does this event mean anything to the world at large? There are so many questions beyond "Does X happen?"

 

[Dascylus]

I'd tell you but I should probably wait until after you've all had a reasonable chance to discover it for yourselves first.

 

[blackdwarf]

There is always somewhere somebody who doesn't know the plot yet, so a spoiler is always a spoiler. If you are talking about a spoiler in general, be it in conversation or with videos. Just be smart and state that the following time will spoil part of games/movies/books/etc. Refusing to talk about it would be silly, because yo would stall a conversation.

 

[Woodsey]

i seen the ending of star wars ruined a few years back to a little kid
you'd think after 20 years of "luke i am your father" everyone would know but guess not
BTW spoiler alert

It's strange to think that people aren't simply born with such knowledge.

OT: I dunno, anything that's got about 10 years on it I tend to treat with "well, if you haven't seen it by now...". Depends on what it is though. It does annoy me when my lecturers blurt stuff out about novels that we're due to read, though.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

I usually give it a couple years after the movie comes out/airing the final season/publication of the last book before I feel that things are mostly spoiled. I'm usually that far behind with the video games I play (just finished New Vegas for the first time) and I don't think it's fair to expect other people in a group to cater to me. If it's on the Escapist, throw up some spoiler tags to be nice; in real life, you can have your conversation and, if I really don't want to hear it, I'll move or let you know.

 

[lunavixen]

I think about 3-5 years or by the time the next movie in the series comes out (for something mainstream/massively hyped/popular, take Star Wars for example), personally i don't really care if something gets spoiled for me, it's not that big of a deal, sometimes it can spare you from getting disappointed

Well except in cases where the spoiler is the main draw of the film. I mean, how many people have seen Citizen Kane, yet pretty much everyone knows "the big reveal" at the end.

(Also, the entire movie makes no sense altogether, because how could anyone have known what Kane said in the first place?)

I haven't seen it and don't know what 'the big reveal' is at the end (i'm probably gonna google it now...)

 

[malestrithe]

Well, technically it never stops being a spoiler because someone may not have seen it yet. Consider the following.


You're walking down the street with your friend, talking about whatever. Behind you is a guy on his way home from the store with a 3 year old movie in his hand. What you don't know about this guy, is he's batshit crazy, and REALLY wants to watch his movie. So your friend and you start talking some more, and by mere coincidence start talking about said movie, and as your friend finishes giving his opinion about the ending you hear a loud yell, you turn around to see the guy, red faced and angry as hell. He then kicks your friend in the groin, throws his movie on the ground, and storms past you muttering under his breath.

I ask you this, do you REALLY want to end up in the above situation? because I know I wouldn't.

Well, that would be assault at least. Meaning the guy who did that would get up to 2 years in jail for doing that. Since he left the DVD on the ground, we can get his fingerprints and run them. I live in a country where such an act is illegal and he does not get to kick my friend in the groin because he wanted to see the movie, crazy or otherwise. And yes, I would pursue it as far as we can take it, whether or not it makes it to trial.

 

[Auron225]

It doesn't matter when it came out - potentially spoiling it for someone is never ok. Just because it is old and they haven't seen it until they plan to doesn't mean they've always known about its existence and have simply been putting it off a long time as they're not bothered about it. They may have only heard of it recently or properly found out what it was essentially about and are now excited for it even though they weren't before.

So no, it's never alright. I always ALWAYS ask someone if they've seen whatever we're talking about and refuse to spoil it unless they give me permission to (which is very rare).

EDIT: For the record, most people know now to never even dare spoil something for me as I'm prone to getting pissed off about it. Many movies, books, games, etc have mastered an art of revealing the most shocking twists of a story, in a way that someone simply telling me the information like they're telling me what they had for breakfast will NEVER come close to. It just kills a lot of excitement and suspense if I know exactly whats going to happen.