[jariten]

This is my first stab at making a thread that hopefully won't provoke any arguments, leg drops, illegal moves from the top rope or any of the other things the SW forums are known and loved for.

So, how much were you spoiled for 1, 2 and 3? Did you have a spoiler-free policy? Was it broken (accidentally or intentionally)? Did that marr your enjoyment? Did you read everything that came out before the film? Didn't you care?

I stayed spoiler free right until the end, despite the extreme difficulties involved when AotC came out in Japan 3 months after the rest of the world got it, and it was nearly impossible to avoid it.
So, I ended up getting accidently spoiled twice, and both times resulted in (I think) my enjoyment of the film being marred.

The first being Shmis death.
The second being that Dooku was a sith.

That second one seems like a no-brainer now, but at the time I knew nothing so I just thought they'd be another Maul-like introduction in the film.
Knowing that from the start ruined the whole mystery type scenes at the start, leading me to "its Dooku, move on already!".
I really knew nothing about 1 or 3, which meant that I enjoyed those 2 a lot more the first time round.

[barend]

most of the spoilers i heard turned out to be BS.

i knew GL would appear in blue (which was very approprate)
i knew Dooku would would get his hands and head cut off.
i knew Palpatine would be Anikans father

aside from that anything else was just obvious.

[HK 47]

I tried to remain spoiler free for TPM and I succeeded very well. I had only seen a couple of action figures out of context. After the initial shock had settled I realized that it might be a good idea to view spoilers to see whether Eps II and III would be as bad. They were of course, but now I was prepared for teh suck...

The PT is so bad, that for me, spoilers didn't matter one way or the other.

[Sailor Abbey]

The PT is so bad, that for me, spoilers didn't matter one way or the other.

Thats pretty much how it worked out for me too.

[KurganX]

So, how much were you spoiled for 1, 2 and 3? Did you have a spoiler-free policy? Was it broken (accidentally or intentionally)? Did that marr your enjoyment? Did you read everything that came out before the film? Didn't you care?

For Episode I the media saturation was so incredible, I stopped surfing the internet (only checked email or ran my IM program) and would turn off my TV or change the channel if I saw any Episode I related commercial or thing come up (and I didn't watch TV much then anyway, just on vacation to watch movies on cable usually). I avoided any magazine or newspaper articles about the movie.

I even avoided the toy aisle at the store (not that I spent much time there anymore anyway as I wasn't a kid anymore and didn't have tons of money to spend collecting).

The only thing I allowed myself was the teaser trailer and I think maybe the official trailer, but that was it (not even the "tone poems" or any of the other stuff). I will confess that when somebody leaked a low quality bootleg (recorded in a theater?) of the first real Episode I trailer I downloaded and watched it and was really excited, but I let my roommate view it first while I was out of the room so he could "screen" it for me in case it spoiled anything.

I was really zealously against spoilers for Episode I so basically I knew next to nothing about it. I mean I had this vague idea that there was some annoying character in the movie and there was a Sith Lord, but anything else not explained in the trailer I had no clue about.

After the movie I dove into all the crap and checked the internet (and laughed at all the Episode I spoiler and speculation sites about what they got wrong... this is about the time I discovered supershadow.com).

When I saw the trailer obviously I saw Darth Maul, but I didn't know his name or anything about him. I just assumed "okay this must be the bad guy they fight in the movie." When Palpatine's hologram says "wipe them out, all of them" it looks like he's saying it to Darth Maul, so I assumed this must be the beginning of the Jedi purge!

My imagination did run wild, hehe. I figured the skeletal looking droid must be C3PO of course, because I had heard Lucas wanted the droids to be in every Star Wars movie, like we all heard, but at the end of the trailer it shows a big explosion engulfing some droids. It happens so fast, but I thought perhaps the (turned out to be a simple battle droid, in the scene where Anakin blows up the control ship) body that gets engulfed by flames was C3po. So I thought perhaps it was like the original C3po was destroyed, so they rebuilt him or built another one (to throw you off).

For Episode II, it was a little tougher, because there wasn't so much crap in the media I wasn't as zealous. However I did the same stuff as before, avoided commercials, avoided star wars "spoiler" sites and message boards, avoided reading interviews about the movie, etc (I did watch the "exclusive Episode II preview" on my other roommate's new copy of the VHS star wars trilogy I think, but it was just talking and blue screens, nothing really of substance).

I mean yes, I'd heard since 1996 that the prequels were going to be about Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker when they were young and Palpatine's rise to power, but "everybody" knew that.

So yes I was very surprised when I saw Episode II. I didn't know who Dooku even was. I had heard the name "Count Dooku" from somewhere, so I guess that was spoiled, but when I thought of a "count" I thought of some guy with a lacy dicky around his neck, an aristocratic dude. So when I saw Jimmy Smits' character (Bail Organa) in the trailer I assumed that must be this "Count Dooku" fellow. I thought the shadowy glimpses of some white haired human fighting Anakin must be a bad guy because he had a red lightsaber, but I didn't make the connection that this must be Sith Lord Count Dooku aka Lord Tyrannus.

For Episode III, that was the movie I was probably spoiled the most for, and I guess I was the least worried about because so "little was left to spoil." Yes, I did the same stuff as above, but I continued to moderate my forums, and as a result I had to censor a lot of "Spoiler" posts that were not spoilerified. So I learned about General Grievous having four arms (though I admit I had been spoiled about General Grievous because I had watched that Season 2 of Clone Wars finale episode where he first appeared and was a "Jedi Killer" after that I refused to watch season 3, though I'd heard it would have spoilers so I knew I wouldn't be watching it before the movie anyway).

I knew about Tarful and the Magnaguards and what General Grievous's ship looked like, because I allowed myself to play the Demo of Republic Commando (I was doing a mini-site about it so I had to really). Though I didn't realize that stuff was going to be in the movie until somebody told me and I then remembered what I'd seen in the trailer (I hadn't made the connection before that I guess). Thankfully those were fairly minor parts.

I had heard people say that Padme would die, but I just assumed that was speculation. I figured she could have died in it or she could have died when Alderaan blew (and that seemed more realistic anyway because Lucas wouldn't do something to deliberately contradict ROTJ would he? My faith in Lucas' continuity skills was my weakness... but I was surprised!).

Anyway, that was about all I knew going in to Episode III. Some of the stuff I could have guessed (like that Anakin would kill Dooku, and we see them fighting again in the trailer, but I speculated the scene happened very differently, like I thought it would be just like ROTJ, with Anakin already fallen, and Palpatine "testing" him by pitting him against Dooku to fight for his favor).

So yeah all in all I stayed fairly spoiler free from the movies, though I admit if I wasn't such an internet addict I would have stayed much more spoiler free for Episodes II and III (I didn't have cartoon network so the only way to watch Clone Wars was to download episodes). I think avoiding spoilers enhanced the experience of excitement and discovery for me.

I think those who sought out spoilers just got more excited in anticipation, and they got let down when things didn't happen as they had hoped, or what sounded cool on paper or looked cool in screenshots turned out to be lackluster or stupid. Though some things I'm sure that sounded stupid weren't always so stupid in the theater.

But anyway, it's insane the way people spoiled themselves for the prequels. Nobody does that for other movies (that aren't based on old novels of course). I mean we had people viewing spy reports every single day, and hitting refresh in the hope of new ones. They posted pics on forums to show off what they knew, they downloaded bootlegs and bootleg clips whenever they could find them. They watched every interview and read every article. I even heard of some folks camping out in line and reading the novel and all the tech books before they got to their seats! And of course they collected the figures as well. Basically consuming every drop of info they could find.

Would I have enjoyed the movies even more if I had kept as spoiler free for II and III as I had for Episode I? Possibly a little more, but not a huge lot. What I held back from enhanced it for me I think. It took at least two viewings to get all the details anyway. It just would have cheapened the initial "bang" to know more in advance so I wouldn't want to see it again to see what I 'missed.'

I stayed spoiler free right until the end, despite the extreme difficulties involved when AotC came out in Japan 3 months after the rest of the world got it, and it was nearly impossible to avoid it.
So, I ended up getting accidently spoiled twice, and both times resulted in (I think) my enjoyment of the film being marred.

The first being Shmis death.
The second being that Dooku was a sith.

That second one seems like a no-brainer now, but at the time I knew nothing so I just thought they'd be another Maul-like introduction in the film.
Knowing that from the start ruined the whole mystery type scenes at the start, leading me to "its Dooku, move on already!".
I really knew nothing about 1 or 3, which meant that I enjoyed those 2 a lot more the first time round.

I had some crazy speculation. I thought perhaps the Episode I battle droids were supposed to be the "Mandalorians" (re-imagined of course). I confess I actually saw a fan-made trailer for Episode II and thought it was real at the time (it showed some CG Boba Fett clones standing around, it was horrible quality, but I justified it in my mind as preliminary CG or something) and showed some Slave I clones flying toward a castle with smoke billowing out). I only later realized (duh) it was just a fan made thing (I had never seen a "fan made" trailer before). So when I went looking for the REAL Episode II trailer when it first came out, I just kept finding the fan trailer again. Needless to say this had thrown me off a little bit, heh.

As far as spoilers for EU novels go, I honestly don't care. I don't plan to read them, so if I want to know the storyline, I'll read the spoiler. Now if I just bought a book or checked it out from the library you can bet I'll read it, I won't just skip to the end to see how it turns out, but the vast majority of EU stuff I don't have the time or money to bother, and they sound crap anyway, so I don't mind spoilers.

For the TV series I'm not really avoiding spoilers, but then we haven't really had any yet. Maybe I'll avoid spoilers on the pilot just in case (the live action one I mean). Since the movies are over I don't feel like it's that big a deal anymore. I don't have very high hopes for the TV shows, but when they do come out, I'll try to watch them in order and won't read the reviews beforehand (only check the scores if they do post any) to make up my own mind.

Now for GAMES I do think it's a big deal. Any game I plan to play I'll avoid spoilers on if I can. Playing the demo is okay though, and that tends to reveal a lot about the game anyway (if it's done decently). It's a trade-off between whether or not a game is worth buying or not and wanting to be surprised about the story.

[jariten]

The whole spolier pre release world became a whole curious sub-culture in itself, supported only by fans and a handful of websites.

Theres never been anything to rival it before, am I right?

Someone ought to jump on this and get a book out.

[KurganX]

The whole spolier pre release world became a whole curious sub-culture in itself, supported only by fans and a handful of websites.

Theres never been anything to rival it before, am I right?

Someone ought to jump on this and get a book out.

It's been true of movies for a long time, probably even before Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars itself was a low budget film that tried to start a grass roots publicity campaign with sci fi conventions and fans), it's just much easier for it to happen now with the internet and such.

The kind of "spy reporting" and voyeurism is akin to the cult of celebrities with your paparrazi posting up photographs of so-and-so sunbathing or what they had for lunch, just applied to a movie.

Lucas himself I think did it both ways. On the one hand he held up tight security on his scripts and on the set, giving out fake info, etc. Yet he also sponsored (note, this was OFFICIAL not just fans) for the prequels the infamous Hyperspace premium account where you could pay to recieve advanced info. He purposely released various books and info before the movies came out and did little spoilers he attached to other products to increase sales for the curious. So he took advantage of that.

Of course when you think about the original Star Wars in 1977, a year prior the novel had been released, so you could easily spoil yourself for that movie, even though the novel differed in places. Same with the other movies.

The presence of "twist endings" that would spoil a movie have been around for a long time. Alfred Hitchcock anyone? "No one will be seated after the ____ scene" originated with him IIRC. Modern examples are the Sixth Sense, the Crying Game, etc.

Anyway, this huge internet fandom with the insatiable desire FOR spoilers for an upcoming movie, might be something "new" with Star Wars, but I'd have to research that to be sure.

Certainly other movies based on books already would have a curious fanbase, and secrecy on movie sets is nothing new. Obviously somebody has always been interested in getting the "scoop" on a new movie. I'm inclined to think that Star Wars didn't "start" this phenomena, it just supercharged it to the point of sheer annoyance.

It's like there's an attempt to be swept up in this massive "peer pressure" (of geekdom) to spoil yourself for a Star Wars movies just because "everyone" else is doing it. But it's not just fans, during the Episode I hype it was the advertising companies, the news media, and Lucas himself which were doing the spoiling. This was done to make money, of course, not a grass roots movement by fans. The fans merely dutifully jumped on the bandwagon, and any fan curiosity was supercharged by the whole mess. I mean you had folks waiting 42 days in line to see Episode I! How crazy is that? It's just bigger and more ridiculous...


Quick addendum... let's face it, most of us didn't forsee Episode I being terrible. These folks who were all hyped up must have included folks who got spoiled.

Everybody acted like this was going to be the Second Coming. It was going to be Empire Strikes Back X1000. People ate it up and wanted to see it so bad. Why spoil yourself so rotten for something you think will suck?

Once the dust cleared and reality set in you had the "fights" breaking out over whether the movie was utter crap or to be defended and "it'll get better."

Still, despite how disappointing Episode I was, Episode II hype was also huge (though not nearly to the degree of the first one, which was definately over-media-saturated). Gone was the euphoria that Lucas could do no wrong, people seemed to be turning against the Special Editions (I guess there was still some sense that Lucas was going to release the originals on DVD or something I don't know what was up with that, but it brought those negative feelings to the surface once again).

And yet here we went on this spoiler trip for the third time with ROTS. ROTS hype was huge, though again, not nearly as big as Episode I hype. I guess a lot of fans had sobered up by that time, and many of them were just more relieved "it was better than the first two" though you still had plenty of "I told you it was going to get better... best Star Wars ever" etc.

But back in 1998? Any Star Wars fan you asked was excited for Episode I and thought it was going to be great.

Quick addendum... let's face it, most of us didn't forsee Episode I being terrible. These folks who were all hyped up must have included folks who got spoiled.

Everybody acted like this was going to be the Second Coming. It was going to be Empire Strikes Back X1000. People ate it up and wanted to see it so bad. Why spoil yourself so rotten for something you think will suck?

Once the dust cleared and reality set in you had the "fights" breaking out over whether the movie was utter crap or to be defended and "it'll get better."

Still, despite how disappointing Episode I was, Episode II hype was also huge (though not nearly to the degree of the first one, which was definately over-media-saturated). Gone was the euphoria that Lucas could do no wrong, people seemed to be turning against the Special Editions (I guess there was still some sense that Lucas was going to release the originals on DVD or something I don't know what was up with that, but it brought those negative feelings to the surface once again).

And yet here we went on this spoiler trip for the third time with ROTS. ROTS hype was huge, though again, not nearly as big as Episode I hype. I guess a lot of fans had sobered up by that time, and many of them were just more relieved "it was better than the first two" though you still had plenty of "I told you it was going to get better... best Star Wars ever" etc.

But back in 1998? Any Star Wars fan you asked was excited for Episode I and thought it was going to be great.

[barend]

i have to say by and large the PT was spoiler free...
most of what was said on the internet, in pubs, and in the original films, in no way reflected what we saw in the new films.

[Despondent]

I saw the name Anikan Skywalker in a book prior to JEDI coming out. Far as I knew (I shut the book right away), it was that lady in the white in the "Everyone here? Good. Everyone a General?" war room scene.

But nothing prepared me for the teddy-bear scenes. THIS is what I waited three years for?
It's still in the OT, has the great space battle photography and throne room heroics.
And yes, how it inspired gleeful cheers from the throngs of even younger and dumbered down, SW fans.

There were no spoilers for the cuddly warriors.
There was no warning.

They never even asked any questions.

[KurganX]

For the classic movies:

ROTJ: Knew nothing except the title. I think I had a vague idea it was an adventure or something. I thought it was spelled "Jet Eye" so I thought maybe it might be about Jets. I didn't think about it too hard, and was very suprised (and wowed) when I saw it in the theater as a child.

Needless to say, that meant I knew a lot of things like that Luke would become a Jedi, that Leia was his sister, Vader was his father, that Obi-Wan was a ghost, that Yoda was a Jedi master, that the good guys win, etc.

Seeing ANH in the theater soon after, I thought it was the same stuff only everybody was younger and just kind of bumbling around taking forever to go anywhere or do anything. It bored me at the time. I remember well my dad reading the Greedo subtitles to me though.

Seeing Empire for the first time all the way through on video made me afraid to go to sleep, I guess because I was afraid the wampa might get me when I wasn't looking (it was winter time, and I was at my cousin's house).

I remember thinking Empire seemed so much "darker" (translated from kid language to adult language here what I was thinking at the time). Vader seemed so much more evil, killing people left and right, Luke's hand getting sliced off and he was all beat up several times in the movie (bloody from the wampa, bruised from Vader). Even Han gets tortured (and you hear him screaming, not like Leia and the interrogator droid, when I saw ANH I thought maybe the droid's needle had poison in it and it was just to scare Leia into talking about the rebels, I didn't understand the talk about the "mind probe"). Lando betrayed Han? Whoa (though I knew he ended up a good guy so I figured it had to turn out okay). ANH just seemed mostly boring for me, until I got older.

Prequels:

TPM: Almost spoiler-free
AOTC: Almost spoiler-free
ROTS: Somewhat spoiled

I didn't consider the theatrical trailers to be "spoilers" since virtually nothing is explained in them, and I usually only saw the teaser and one official trailer (usually a short one, not the longer one).

[master mixer]

star wars is for powny n00bs

[Little Nippatiz]

My best memories of the PT are of being spoiled.

Like Christmas eve and picking up wrapped boxes and shaking them to get a clue added to what might be in store ahead. Seeing early photos of characters and sets helped get me over the failure of the film before and maybe this time it will work. My expectations were still low, but I felt that some how, this next one might improve and get it.

Thank goodness for those spoiler memories, otherwise it would of all been a total waste for me. I still have my thoughts on what might of been.

[SithAvenger]

I wasn't spoiled, unless you count that I knew that Anakin was going to be Vader.

Well, much of Episode 3 was spoiled to me thanks to some website I don't remember.

[Cobnat]

most of the spoilers i heard turned out to be BS.

i knew GL would appear in blue (which was very approprate)
i knew Dooku would would get his hands and head cut off.
i knew Palpatine would be Anikans father

aside from that anything else was just obvious.

WOW WOW WOW!

Palpatine is Anikans father!? This is the first time I heard of it!

[barend]

yes... apparently during the opera scene everyone else went to the bathroom.