Give us your input regarding Film Threads in the Movies Area! (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Ok. Thanks for doing the poll

 

[Mark Booth]

Two threads for each movie:

1) Review thread - NO SPOILERS ALLOWED

2) Discussion thread - WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS

If anyone feels the need to use spoiler tags in the review thread, then their comments don't belong in the review thread! There should be ZERO chance of spoilers in the review thread.

Mark

 

[Jason_V]

How do you really talk about a movie (the review thread) without going into spoilers? As in, if you review "The Empire Strikes Back" and drop a line somewhere in there about the big twist in Act III, isn't that a spoiler in and of itself even if you don't mention the specifics?

If you're reviewing a new movie like "Noah" and want to mention events that happen at the ending as a way of reviewing the movie, what's wrong with that? Maybe someone has a different perception or idea about what has happened and it should be discussed. Two threads is entirely too complicated and it takes up twice the space as one Review/Discussion Thread.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Before I see a movie, I like the idea of there being a place here to check where I can get people's general impressions of a movie without really getting into specifics. There have been a few movies I checked out that I might have otherwised missed, because someone commented on the general qualities and made it sound interesting - by saying that it had great performances, perhaps cinematography unlike anything that had ever seen, etc., etc. Or maybe it's something that's opening overseas a week before it does here, and it's great to get early first impressions from forum members who have had that chance to see it first. I wouldn't want to lose that quality, but I'd understand why it was difficult to keep a thread around just for that. Perhaps for movies where there's been a discussion going for months leading up to the film, that existing thread is the place to post non-spoilery "first impressions"

But after I've seen a movie, I love coming to discuss it, and a good discussion usually involves plot specifics and things that would be considered spoilers. It's kind of annoying days, weeks or months after a movie's come out to have to use spoiler tags and consider what some people would and wouldn'[t be considered a spoiler. I agree with Jason_V in that just saying something like "I didn't see the twist coming at the end of Empire Strikes Back" is a spoiler. Whenever someone tells me "you won't see that coming!" about a movie, I almost always figure it out, not because I'm some kind of a super genius but just because I've been let on that not everything is what it seems, so I can't help but start subconsciously figuring out what else it could be. I love the discussions that we have on this forum; even if I'm not participating in a particular thread, I do lurk in Movies threads after I've seen a title, and I love to get people's impressions of it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see value in there being a "first impressions"/"spoiler free" early review page, and I do like reading those on the way out to the theater. But once I've gotten back from the theater, I want to get into what I just saw, and it's hard to do that without discussing everything that happens. I'd hate for film discussions to be curtailed to only what would be considered safe reading for people who haven't seen it yet.

On the other hand... there are plenty of films that aren't seen by everyone, and when I start a thread like that, even I don't know what the best way to go about it would be. A few weeks ago I saw "Under The Skin" and posted some quick thoughts, but they were all very vague and non-spoilerish. I'd love to get into further discussion on that movie with people who have seen it, but it's not playing very widely (I think it just expanded) and isn't for all tastes, so there hasn't been anyone to discuss it with. Since that's the case, it seemed to make more sense to me to write more abstractly about it, hoping that maybe someone might read that and decide to see the movie. But if other people had seen it and wanted to discuss it, I'd love to get in depth on that movie and there's no way to do that without discussing the beginning, middle, and end. I don't know that there's any way to ever really resolve that conflict.

 

[Edwin-S]

I decided to vote for the two thread option, even though I think it is unwieldy. Two threads is the only way to avoid spoilers if people do not want to use spoiler tags. A three day wait before making it unnecessary to use spoiler tags does not work for me. I rarely go to movies on the opening weekend. In fact, I hate that the "opening weekend" box office results have become the meter for determining if a film is "successful" or not.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

In fact, I hate that the "opening weekend" box office results have become the meter for determining if a film is "successful" or not.

I agree completely.

The post-weekend reporting doesn't make it any better. The hyperbole, the disconnect between the numbers and what that money would be worth to normal people, etc. When I was looking up movie times yesterday, I saw a couple headlines about "Transcendence" and its opening weekend numbers. I get that it's not done what they had hoped, but when you see an article begin with "Transcendence laid a goose egg at the box office, opening with an abysmal $10 million" - yes, I know it cost a lot of money, but just hearing ten million dollars referred to as an abysmal sum of money is quite ridiculous. Making ten million dollars in three days sounds pretty good to me. It would probably help if Hollywood remembered how to make good movies at low and medium budgets that had good casts, good production values, great writing and direction, characters you wanted to spend time with. I get why "Captain America 2" costs $100+ million to make. I don't see why "Transcendence" should have cost that much. It's amazing to me that the Hollywood system has gotten so bloated that they just don't know how to not spend money anymore. I feel like expectations on the Hollywood side could use a good dose of reality, cause things are really gonna suck if the only benchmark for success is "$200 million or bust"

 

[DaveF]

How do you really talk about a movie (the review thread) without going into spoilers?

Roger Ebert reviewed movies for 30 years in print and TV without spoilers.Folks here have been reviewing movies for over a decade without spoiling them. Subsequent discussion certainly involves spoilers. But initial reviews to help people decide whether to see the movie should be spoiler free.

 

[TravisR]

^ I'm not trying to be difficult but to me, discussing anything that happens in the movie is a spoiler so my idea of a spoiler-free review is basically saying whether I liked it or not. There's not enough agreement on what is and isn't a spoiler to have a spoiler-free review. Using The Empire Strikes Back as an example, I think we would all agree that saying "Vader is Luke's father" is a spoiler but in my mind, even saying that Luke and Vader have a lightsaber fight would be a spoiler but I'm sure that not everyone feels that way.

 

[Jason_V]

Roger Ebert reviewed movies for 30 years in print and TV without spoilers.Folks here have been reviewing movies for over a decade without spoiling them.Subsequent discussion certainly involves spoilers. But initial reviews to help people decide whether to see the movie should be spoiler free.

That's wrong.

Here's his review for the re-release of Empire Strikes Back: fourth to last paragraph is filled with spoilers.

Star Trek Generations review from it's original release: near the bottom is a major spoiler that was not in the trailers.

Snow White review from 2001, when the DVD came out: next to last paragraph tells you exactly how the movie ends.

Sure, we "probably" know the ending or major twists in these movies already. And my only point in mentioning these three movies is to show that Ebert did not adhere to a no-spoiler policy. (I purposely did not mention what he wrote so we don't get into spoilers here.)

 

[Chuck Anstey]

^ I'm not trying to be difficult but to me, discussing anything that happens in the movie is a spoiler so my idea of a spoiler-free review is basically saying whether I liked it or not. There's not enough agreement on what is and isn't a spoiler to have a spoiler-free review. Using The Empire Strikes Back as an example, I think we would all agree that saying "Vader is Luke's father" is a spoiler but in my mind, even saying that Luke and Vader have a lightsaber fight would be a spoiler but I'm sure that not everyone feels that way.

There is a difference between remaining spoiler free and going in totally blind. If a person wants to go into a movie totally blind then they wouldn't be reading reviews or watching trailers and had already decided to watch it regardless of the reviews or general consensus. Getting the basic outline of the plot from reading a review and the general opinion of the quality / entertainment value is built-in when trying to determine if the movie is worth seeing in the theater. A review should not be a scene by scene description of the plot or give away specific details that are revealed throughout the movie and are purposefully hidden at the start.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Roger Ebert was one of the WORST reviewers of all time when it came to spoilers, and he got worse about it over time. He simply didn't care. It eventually got to the point where I stopped reading his reviews at all until *after* I'd seen the movie!

The more I think about it, the less I like the wording of the poll. The first question especially is too vague. Maybe it should include the question "should there be separate spoiler-free and open-discussion threads for each film?"

 

[Vic Pardo]

I know I'm in a small minority here, but to me the only thing that deserves a spoiler warning is a surprise ending. Everything else is fair game. There are few movies that I automatically want to see, My starting point is usually that I don't want to see them. I have to be persuaded to. I have to read reviews. The more info I have, the better prepared I am to determine if I want to see any of the new releases or not. These days, Tarantino's films are the only ones I can think of offhand that I go to see as soon as they open and don't have to read a lot of reviews first.

I don't know how many times I've not been persuaded and then years later I see the movie in question and then wish I'd seen it on the big screen because it has a scene or element or performance or something that I would really have liked but no one told me about it and no review mentioned it. (I can't think of a particular example right now, but if I do I'll come back with it.)

 

[DaveF]

That's wrong.

Here's his review for the re-release of Empire Strikes Back: fourth to last paragraph is filled with spoilers.

Star Trek Generations review from it's original release: near the bottom is a major spoiler that was not in the trailers.

Snow White review from 2001, when the DVD came out: next to last paragraph tells you exactly how the movie ends.

Sure, we "probably" know the ending or major twists in these movies already. And my only point in mentioning these three movies is to show that Ebert did not adhere to a no-spoiler policy. (I purposely did not mention what he wrote so we don't get into spoilers here.)

I concede spoilers in reviews are acceptable 27 years and 64 years after original release, as in the case of ESB and Snow White, respectively.

Roger Ebert was one of the WORST reviewers of all time when it came to spoilers, and he got worse about it over time. He simply didn't care. It eventually got to the point where I stopped reading his reviews at all until *after* I'd seen the movie!

The more I think about it, the less I like the wording of the poll. The first question especially is too vague. Maybe it should include the question "should there be separate spoiler-free and open-discussion threads for each film?"

Fascinating. I'm spoiler averse (as should be apparent). I'd have quit watching and reading Ebert if I'd had the sense he was ruining movies for me. But I didn't follow him the last decade of his career, so perhaps he become much more spoilery then.

In any case, I think it is quite reasonable to expect opening-weekend reviews to not reveal major twists or important spoilers in a movie. I don't find it common practice here at HTF or in typical newspaper and magazine reviews. I trust it won't become normal behavior here.

 

[Jason_V]

The Generations review was a weekend of release review.

The G I Joe: Rise of Cobra weekend of release review gives away a rather major point about the ending.

In any conversation about a movie a spoiler is bound to be included. How long do we say "nothing that might spoil the film"? A week? Two weeks? Three? Frankly, once the movie hits stateside theaters, it's fair game in my opinion. Same with TV shows. Having two threads doesn't make any sense to me since it promotes confusion about what belongs where and makes everyone tip toe around the conversation they actually want to have about a movie.

Any conversation about a movie should be seen as a spoiler, even if no actual spoiler is included. How do you talk about Noah without mentioning the events inside the ark in the last part of the movie? Is it a spoiler of me to say "the events inside the ark" since that implies something happens in the ark while the Earth is flooded? Pretty soon, as someone else mentioned, the entire thread is going to be filled with spoiler tags because everyone is afraid any comment is going to be a spoiler.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

What is so confusing about a review and a discussion? A Review is something written for people who have not seen the movie read to help make a decision if they should go see it. If you have seen the movie, why would you read a review that tells you how good or bad the movie is? You already know your opinion based upon actually seeing it so you would want to discuss the movie and thereby go in the Discussion thread. So if you are writing something that you hope provokes discussion by people who have seen the movie and expect feedback, it is a discussion topic, not a review even if it recaps the entire movie and gives your opinion about it similar to a review. A review expects no feedback because it is for people who have not seen the movie, not a point of discussion with people who have.

 

[TravisR]

A Review is something written for people who have not seen the movie read to help make a decision if they should go see it.

If that's the point of a review thread then it would be better to just have a poll with letter or number grades and keep it locked to discussion all together. That way, the people who want to get an idea of what people think can see other people's grades and there's no spoilers or 'reviews' that are ridiculously short, vague or contain points that are considered spoilers by some.

When I don't want to read spoilers, I stay out of threads discussing that topic. Once a movie has opened and I read a thread dedicated to it, if I get spoiled, it's 100% my fault for reading that thread.

 

[Jason_V]

What is so confusing about a review and a discussion? A Review is something written for people who have not seen the movie read to help make a decision if they should go see it. If you have seen the movie, why would you read a review that tells you how good or bad the movie is? You already know your opinion based upon actually seeing it so you would want to discuss the movie and thereby go in the Discussion thread. So if you are writing something that you hope provokes discussion by people who have seen the movie and expect feedback, it is a discussion topic, not a review even if it recaps the entire movie and gives your opinion about it similar to a review. A review expects no feedback because it is for people who have not seen the movie, not a point of discussion with people who have.

If that's the point of a review thread then it would be better to just have a poll with letter or number grades and keep it locked to discussion all together. That way, the people who want to get an idea of what people think can see other people's grades and there's no spoilers at all.

When I don't want to read spoilers, I stay out of threads discussing that topic. Once a movie has opened and I read a thread dedicated to it, if I get spoiled, it's 100% my fault for reading that thread.

I'm right with Travis. This is a message board where conversations happen. If you want a review thread, then it has to be locked to any comments from anyone else. That would be a one-sided conversation and, all things being equal, I wouldn't be interested in it.

Blu-ray and DVD review threads are open to conversation, as are the equipment reviews and music reviews. If conversation is going to be discouraged (and I think that goes against what Ron, Adam, Kevin and Dave are trying to do), then start a WordPress blog, have someone do the reviews and keep them off the HTF.

But then, I can very easily see quotes or links back to the blog review popping up in the Discussion thread, thereby negating the entire point of the exercise.

How about this: if you don't want to be potentially spoiled about anything (movie, TV, etc.), don't click into a thread about said topic? I don't watch any TV show in real time, but I'm okay reading the conversation before I see the show...and I don't expect everyone to use spoiler tags or not talk about the key parts of the episode in detail. If I was going to have a problem with it, I wouldn't subscribe or read the thread until I see the show.

 

[Chuck Anstey]

Every single person on HTF has grown up their entire lives with the concept of a movie review. It is a well understood concept and was the norm here for many years. We still have official reviews in HTF now and those aren't the discussion threads of the movie but of the disc itself, if there is any reply at all. I don't understand why all the hand-wringing and confusion in the last year or two about such a simple concept. What changed?

 

[Jason_V]

You're right, Chuck. We have. We've grown up with a Roger Ebert writing in the paper where the only way you could talk back or converse about the movie is through a letter or an e-mail...something only the writer sees.

We've also grown up, here on the forum, with DVD and BD review threads that are also conversations. Those conversations revolve around the movie, spoilers and all. Again, if you don't want spoilers in your review thread, you're going to have people jumping through hoops to avoid the spoilers. And someone will call someone else out and we have this whole conversation all over again.

I could write a review of the movie Noah (a current film) and most of my problem occurs at the end of the movie. So, in a review, do I tell everyone this is a spoiler or assume everyone knows the story and the details because of the source material? Do I not mention the issue because it is a spoiler? That would mean you have a disingenuous review.

Look, I really don't care one way or another. But this is the reason I generally stay away from the Movie Section here. Too much spoiler this and spoiler that. In my mind, it comes down to will power. You should expect to be spoiled in headlines, in news stories and in conversations. That's my $0.02 and now I'm done.

 

[Vic Pardo]

You're right, Chuck. We have. We've grown up with a Roger Ebert writing in the paper where the only way you could talk back or converse about the movie is through a letter or an e-mail...something only the writer sees.

We've also grown up, here on the forum, with DVD and BD review threads that are also conversations. Those conversations revolve around the movie, spoilers and all. Again, if you don't want spoilers in your review thread, you're going to have people jumping through hoops to avoid the spoilers. And someone will call someone else out and we have this whole conversation all over again.

I could write a review of the movie Noah (a current film) and most of my problem occurs at the end of the movie. So, in a review, do I tell everyone this is a spoiler or assume everyone knows the story and the details because of the source material? Do I not mention the issue because it is a spoiler? That would mean you have a disingenuous review.

Look, I really don't care one way or another. But this is the reason I generally stay away from the Movie Section here. Too much spoiler this and spoiler that. In my mind, it comes down to will power. You should expect to be spoiled in headlines, in news stories and in conversations. That's my $0.02 and now I'm done.

What's this world coming to? When did "two cents" become "$0.02"?