As a person whose third parent was a 45” television set, I can say that I have an unhealthy fascination with all things pop culture. Seriously. It’s an illness. I know who Odette Yustman is. Do you know who Odette Yustman is? I do. You probably never will. Because the only films she’s ever been in are all dead garbage that shouldn’t have been made.
Anyway. On the topic of pop culture, I want to talk about something that is very important. A hot-button issue that is rocking the United States: Spoilers.
Yes, the nerds across the galaxy are getting their panties in a bunch over the new film Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A cash-cow of a film that’s been thirty years and a Mickey Mouse sale in the making, the newest Star Wars has everything you loved about the first three and love to hate about the prequels: action, flirtation, plot holes, and *SPOILERSPOILERPOILERPSPOILERSPOILER*.
Apparently, across the country, nerds are getting beat up for spoiling this new film. I mean, sure, I wouldn’t want anyone spoiling the new Power Rangers movie set to bow in 2017, but that doesn’t mean I’ll make death threats.
Movies are really special to a lot of people, and I don’t think a lot of us understand that importance. Movies when I was little were always there for me in my loneliest times. It was like another passion for me; a chance to escape somewhere so far removed from my own reality that it allowed me not to think about the real world, but focus on the world in front of me.
That’s why, yeah, spoilers are kind of a big deal. Whether you’re a diehard fan of something or you just want a fresh story to look at, spoilers definitely ruin that experience. We don’t realize that although we may not be huge fans of something, many people put their whole lives into it. Hell, in "Star Wars’" case, people have been waiting thirty years for some sort of fan release, pouring countless amount of dollars into the Expanded Universe in order to capture the same feeling of wonderment those first three movies gave them so long ago.
The Star Wars movies, and movies in general, bring people together. It’s a franchise that’s been there for a countless amount of people in there loneliest hour of their lives and has the ability to allow people to just go crazy inside of their own imagination.
That’s why people are so vehement about not having the experience spoiled for them. It’s taking away what made the film so special in the first place—that brand of wonder and magic that allowed them to feel like the good guys win sometimes and the plot of someone’s life could be tied up nicely at the end of an hour and a half.
So don’t spoil movies. You never know what’s going to be special to someone.
