Age of the Geek

By: 
Travis Fischer

Spoilers vs. speculation
New teasers for “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” were released last week, causing geeks everywhere to obsessively look over every frame for clues about the movie’s plot.
     This is nothing new. It’s what we do.
     From casting news to script rumors, we spend more time trying to piece together the details of a movie than we do actually watching it.
     We are more than a year away from the release of “Captain America: Civil War” and yet there have already been endless speculations about how the events of the movie will play out. What role Spider-Man and Black Panther will play in the movie? Who will side with Captain America against Iron Man? What exactly will be the philosophical argument that pits them against each other? This in spite of the fact that the movie isn’t even fully casted yet.
     Fans want to know what will happen in the movie. We want answers to these questions, but don’t you dare tell us.
     It has to be the biggest paradox of geek culture. We want clues, but not answers. Speculation without confirmation. For a community that obsesses over every rumor, set photo, and trailer, it seems strange that the worst thing you can do is tell somebody with certainty what will happen. And yet, here we are.
     By now, thanks to the popularity of serialized television shows, I think most people are generally acquainted with the etiquette of spoiler warnings. For instance, when two people start talking about the latest episode of “The Walking Dead,” it’s common courtesy to make sure everybody else within earshot of the conversation is either up-to-date or doesn’t care.
     Within geek culture, unfiltered spoilers are among the most serious of offenses. You would think that a community that spends so much time and energy speculating over what will happen in the next movie/episode/book would be happy for any new information, but there are actually an elaborate set of rules about what is or isn’t OK to talk about.
     To sum it up though, it’s not OK to talk about anything in a movie that can’t be known without actually seeing it.
     Trailers, for instance, are generally safe. They’re designed to give people a general idea about the movie, but scenes are generally offered without any sort of context. For instance, the first “Jurassic World” trailer features Chris Pratt riding a motorcycle alongside a pack of raptors. Are they chasing him? Are they following him? Are they running towards something or away from something? The scene is offered without context, so while we know what happens, we don’t know why it happens or how it relates to the rest of the movie.
     Of course, not all trailers are safe. The most recent trailer for “Terminator: Genisys” reveals a pretty significant plot point that most people agree should have been kept a secret. That’s a rare exception though.
     Timing can a factor as well. I watched the new Star Wars trailer no less than a half-dozen times within the first hour it hit the web. At the same time, I’ve actively avoided watching any of the new clips recently released for “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.” I don’t want to see them.
     Had these clips been made available a year ago, I would have been all over them. I know that for a fact because one of them is the clip I saw at ComicCon last July.
     But today we’re just a couple weeks away from the movie being released. At this point, these clips don’t offer any speculative value. They’re just spoilers.
     It seems like a contradiction, but there is logic behind it. It’s the difference between figuring out the answer to a puzzle and looking up the answer in the back of the book. If you spend so much time trying to figure out what happens in a movie, you want to see if you’re right by watching the movie, not by hearing about it from somebody else who has already seen it.
     The difference between speculation and spoilers is the level of certainty.
 
     Travis Fischer is a newswriter for Mid-America Publishing and will be closely examining the new Star Wars teaser on his YouTube channel, TeekVids, later this week.

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