A Word of Advice

I think this forum will be the best place for spoiled people to 'lurk', and see the reactions of the non-spoiled. For us spoiler-heads, all the scenes will have a context. we will know whats going on and why. For the non-spoiled people, they'll be saying, "Wow, what was that?" and "What's happening there?" It will be cool to read the theories about what is going on in some scenes.

 

BUT, for semi-spoiled people, all it will do is confirm what they might have accidentally see or heard.

Which is why I am still debating whether to watch it or not.

 

I appreciate the warning, yodaman.

For a moment I paused and thought, "Maybe I don't want to see this trailer....maybe I shouldn't...maybe I'll ruin the whole experience if I do...."

Then I thought, "NAAAAAAHHHHH!"

Look, gettin' all freakin' psyched after seeing the trailers is half the fun! I, and I bet many others here, will be buzzing for days after watching the trailer for the 89th time!

And come May 16th...will any of us be in line thinking, "Man...what a bummer...I watched the flippin trailer."??

"NAAAAAAHHHHH!"

We'll jacked up like all the other fools in line.

I admit it. I just don't have the will power to stay away from a trailer. I don't read the spoiler reports, BUT I look at every freakin' picture and trailer available.

Bring it on!

O-Qey?

 

Hatter, I'm with you...I've read some stuff here and there...so I'm afraid I might be able to piece some stuff together based on what yodaman and others are saying about the trailer.

I really don't know if I can resist, though.




Probably not.

 

I agree with Crimson Jedi all the way regaurding his statement about Darth Maul's "double" lighsaber. I remember when I first saw it in the teaser trailer, I gotta tell you, if my excitment level was at a 6 it quickly grew to an 10! I was like..."Wow this movie is going to be amazing! Did you see that guy's double bladed lightsaber? I can't wait to see this movie!" Never did I think it was a spoiler nor did it weaken my first viewing of TPM. Lucas is trying to sell his movie to the public including us, fan-boys and girls, and I gotta tell you it works! It is meant to excite us and also to inform us about the basic plot.

On the other hand if Lucas would have shown Maul killing Que-gon or Obi-wan killing Maul I would have been really pissed. They are meant to shock or surprise the viewer. These are major plot details that are meant to be enjoyed within the context of the film and not on a promotional trailer. Some movies completley depend on certain plot details and could be completley ruined if they do get leaked out. "Sixth Sense" and "Empire Strikes Back" comes to mind. So I do simpithize with with those that are afraid to veiw a trailer with the fear that they're going to get spoiled.

Opinion: "...plus george lucas is the biggest anti-spoilers guy around...hell tease us but he wont spoil us...come on he has been teasing us for years with the selects...this is just another huge tease..."

I agree.. Lucas will definatley not spoil us, he'll tease but not spoil us. I know there have been some cases before were film makers have shown to much on their own trailers but I think it's safe to say that we can trust Lucas.

 

Is George Lucas really such a great anti-spoiler ?

Well, he screwed up big time last time, I bought the music CD for TMP before the movie, and what the one of the title songs read ?

"Qui-Gon's Noble End"
and
"The High Council Meeting and Qui-Gon's Funeral"

ARGH !!! That sucked !!!!

At least I learned my lesson, no music CD for me this time, for a while.

 

Exactly.

Lucas and co. release the friggin novels before they release the film, so if you think they're afraid to spoil you, and the trailer won't really reveal much, you're just kidding yourself.

Just by watching the TPM trailers, and buying the CD, the only thrilling moment of surprise in TPM was Maul being sliced in half. I think of the adrenaline rush I got from seeing that, and I'm telling you, getting that rush many many times during Ep II's opening night will far surpass anything I'd get from seeing a two minute trailer in my living room on Sunday.

 

Man, this is tough. Between this trailer and the 4 minute Two Towers preview coming up in a few weeks, I don't know what to do. I agree with those who say that part of the fun is watching these trailers, but have you ever watched a Star Wars film without seeing the trailers? Maybe it makes it even more fun. Maybe it even makes the wait more bearable. That's why I really want to make it without seeing this trailer. While it might not give away the plot, it will definitely hurt that first viewing a little bit, if not a great deal. With TPM, I didn't know anything about the plot going in, but I felt like I already saw the movie after watching those trailers a million times. You know that feeling when you watch a movie multiple times at the theatre and part of the rush is observing how the casual fans react to the cool stuff that they have never seen before - I want to be on the other side for a change - I want to be affected like that when I see the movie for the first time. I think I can hold back - I'm at least going to give it my best shot. After all, it is only two months away! It will be tough, no denying that. I am really looking forward to seeing Ice Age - I'll have to wait outside the theatre until it's safe, and then endure the torture from my friends who won't stop talking about how cool the trailer was.

 

...books and cd's aside...i dont think george lucas will "spoil" us with this "trailer"...

...the word "spoiled" is taking up different meanings for everyone in this thread...the trailers are part of the experience...of course we are going to see a lot of clips from the best parts of the movie...thats what trailers do...but i doubt we will be "spoiled"...

 

Well to me, "spoiler" means anything you see/hear that takes even the slightest bit of awe/enjoyment/pleasure from that first viewing of the movie in its entirety. Naturally, there are varying degrees of spoilers. This trailer is going to show us the best visuals from the film. That's what Lucas does. Those guys at Lucasfilm know how to market a movie. Star Wars is such a visual experience. From my definition, this trailer is going to be a MAJOR spoiler, even if it only reveals general plot points. With that being said, I'm not trying to convince anybody not to see the trailer. Just be careful.

 

Another thing about Lucas(film). He has a talent of making scenes from the trailer much better than they are in the movie, through better pacing and different music. Of course, I'm speaking entirely from my experience with the trailers from TPM, and this issue might be completely irrelevant depending on how good AOTC really is. But remember this line from the TPM trailer: "A communication breakdown can only mean one thing...Invasion". Cue the Imperial March theme with the visuals of the invading trade federation ships and of Darth Maul's spaceship heading to Tatooine. That was powerful stuff. And remember how it played out in the movie? After that line was delivered in the middle of that meeting, talk about a letdown.

 

The only three things in the two TPM trailers that I considered spoilers were the following:

Maul's double-bladed lightsaber
Jabba's cameo
Obi-Wan screaming "Noooo!", which strongly hinted that Qui-Gon, or another Jedi, would die.

I probably wouldn't have known either of those three things were in TPM otherwise, and they did somewhat spoil my enjoyment of the film.

 

The TPM trailers showed a lot of revealing things too. (And expect the Clone Wars trailer to do the same) But if you had no idea what the chronology or context was, you were probably oblivious to its importance at the time.

TPM TRAILER A:
-shows a shot of Qui-Gon's funeral with Jar Jar in the background hanging his head in sadness.
-Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber ignites./The entrance of Maul in the Theed hanger.
-Bits and pieces of the Final Duel and the final battle of droids vs. Gungans.
-Shots of the final space battle.

TPM TRAILER B:
-More shots of the final battle of droids vs. Gungans/ Maul vs. Jedi
-The explosion of the Trade Federation ship at the end of the film with the running droids flying toward the camera./A shot of Anakin space ship flying into the very TF battleship he will soon destroy.
-Obi-Wan's famous "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!"
-The final line of the movie by Yoda "Always two there are..." (if you don't count Boss Nass' line "PEACE!!")
-A shot of the Naboo cruiser escaping Darth Maul's assasination attempts (after his scuffle with Qui-Gon on Tatooine.)

As you can see, those are pretty major things for a trailer. But the thing is, if you were about 10-20% spoiled for TPM, or even less (like me), you had no idea what those shots meant. But if you were about 30%-50% or more spoiled, some things might've been ruined for you. I think the same goes for AOTC. It is guarenteed to spoil you to some degree. It just depends on how much you know about AOTC right now. I may even suggest to those folks that are dangerously hovering around the 30%-50% spoiled percentage be careful because you may see things that may spell out even more spoilers. [face_shocked] And for those that have nearly no clue what AOTC's storyline/characters are about are quite safe I think, if you look at the TPM example. You guys could look at the trailer and still not know too much.

 

"He has a talent of making scenes from the trailer much better than they are in the movie, through better pacing and different music."

That's true of all films. It's called marketing.

 

Sure, that's the point of marketing, but not everyone is successful at making great trailers. And I think most would agree that Lucasfilm excels at marketing. And because this trailer will undoubtedly be great, the spoiler potential will be greater as well.

Just another way of saying that hype can be a bad thing, unless you're Lucasfilm.

 

I think it was the makers of Independence Day who said they had a policy of mainly showing scenes from the first half of the film in the trailer. That way the conclusion of the film will seem compltely fresh to the audience. I think Lucas could do worse than use that same tactic. I mean, I'm sure there's more than enough action and eye candy in the first half of AOTC that we don't really need to see any of the final battle in the trailers.
Oh well, too late now

 

I plan to be there to record it tomorrow night. IMO, it'll be more fun to watch for and record the trailer than it would be to avoid it... Rather than torture myself trying to avoid the trailer. Life's too short.

 

Everyone is making good points on the TPM trailers, but you have to realize as well that we are viewing it in the context of us knowing what happened in the movie. I am certain that at the time we (the unspoiled ones) didn't know quite what was going on. You may have seen something and thought, that was cool, but I doubt you knew what was going on.

In the end, it is up to each person whether or not to view the trailer. For myself, the trailers for TPM didn't ruin any of the movie for me. Yes, maybe some things weren't as big of a surprise, but it didn't take away any of the enjoyment I had for the movie. If things like Maul's double-bladed lightsaber spoiled things for you in TPM, then I guess watching the trailers isn't the best idea for you. Each person must choose the path they will take.

 

Well, the spoiler board managed to sneak a peak at some screenshots of the trailer and I'm even more convinced it should be avoided. Oh believe me, if you watch it you'll have a heart attack over the excitement, but as I mentioned you might compromise your non-spoiler ways. As I've said all along, this isn't about plot points. It doesn't matter if you know the context of the shot or not. This is a purely visual thing. Yes, I used Maul's double bladed saber as an example, but the truth is it might be quite a lot of "Maul saber" type spectacles, not merely just one. There are cool looking ships, but do you really want to know what they look like? There are battles you haven't seen before. Do you want to know what they look like? What LFL seems to be doing is offering a small appetizer of each important main course. I'm sure there are those of you who wouldn't want to know what certain main courses are being served altogether. I realize there are those that wouldn't miss the trailer for the world. That's cool. But mostly I'm talking to those that are unsure and who although would absolutely love the trailer, might regret it afterwards.

 

I have to agree with Mace on this one. Spoiled people know what all these scenes mean for the most part. Non-spoiled people will have no clue what these pictures are telling us. We won't be able to go "Oh that connects with that scene and that is the scene where so and so kills so and so." We can't do that kind of a thing because we don't know any of the plot points. Sure it might tell us some new stuff but that is new stuff that we expected to happen and that has been hinted at already. I don't think one image will really spoil the movie for someone who will not understand.

When we saw Maul's lightsaber it didn't spoil the whole movie. We just saw something cool. No one can say that when they saw his saber that they learned what the movie was about. I think the same thing can be said about the new trailer. One shot like the Maul saber thing doesn't tell us the plot. It just excites us and that is the point.

 

Yodaman could say it twelve billion times and still not one of you would get it!

The images themselves are the spoilers! New planets! New creatures! New vehicles! New Characters! Not the context of anything! In TPM it was one mind-blowing visual after another, but between the two trailers, the music video, the merchandise, and tone poems I had seen everything there was to see before I walked into the theatre.

The Phantom Menace was the most gorgeous and visually inventive film ever made by a HUGE margine. Seeing all the new places, creatures, sets and machines for the first time was more exilarating than watching the scenes play out. Unfortunately, it was not during thew actual movie that I had seen them for the first time.

I can't imagine missing a trailer (anticipating these movies is possibly more fun than watching them), but I will do my best to avoid all other images from the movie. I actually wish I had not seen that picture of the reek that's an icon on these boards now. To me, THAT is a spoiler! Get it?

"These movies are about new things to look at." --Roger Ebert

 

We understand what he is saying, but we dissagree with him. Do you get THAT?!?

The fact of the matter is, a spoiled member really has no idea what will spoil us or not. Seeing an image of this or that is going to excite us, not spoil us. It may show us a few, or even several things that we didn't know, but that is part of the fun of watching these trailers.

Also, I'll say it agian. Even these "images" are not going to harm us as much as you think that they are. We have no idea as to what we are seeing, when we watch this trailer. We can only guess. If we see scenes from a battle, we won't know why it is being fought, we'll only know that there is a battle in the movie. Face it, all of us here no Star Wars, and will not be shocked at seeing images of droids, creatures, battles, or characters. All of us know that we are to expect these things. The fact that we don't know the context is what will soften "the blow" drastically....



Mace Windy,
windier than the signature feature!

 

Yodaman has just about convinced me...

Just about.

EDIT: A question for those who have seen the first three trailers. Did they spoil you in any way?

 

Meesa back, at least for today. I can't miss the excitement of Trailer discussion...

Well, I didn't know that ObiWan would be chopping off any hands so in that way...

--Joey

 

Only a matter of hours to go now...

Personally, I wouldn't miss the trailer. To carry on the TPM example, you may catch a glimpse of Maul's double-bladed saber in the trailer but you then spend the time until the film wondering exactly what he's going to do with it. George knows what he's doing.