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On the Los Angeles Times’ culture desk back in the 2010s, reporters would have a shorthand for readers’ hypersensitivity to spoilers. “And Rosebud was a sled,” a journalist might say upon reading aloud such subscriber feedback, which might prompt another to volley back, “And Bruce Willis was dead the whole time.”
Those two references, of course to the surprise endings of Citizen Kane and The Sixth Sense (sorry if that just ruined them for you), were meant as a jaded eye roll to a tiring complaint. When a movie’s ending is so well known, the feeling went, there are limits to how much a reporter needs to hold back. Asking a journalist to avoid twist endings isn’t just impinging on their story — it’s disrespectful to the work. If you cared that much about what happens in the movie, why didn’t you ever take the 90 minutes out of your life to see it?
And yet despite the justified ennui over archaic reveals — just wait till you hear what happens to the Egyptians at the Red Sea! — this column comes to make an anti-spoiler case.
Not for a film that came out years ago. For a film based on a story that came out years ago.
Which, in these IP-larded days, is pretty much everything.
The most obvious example this Oscar season is Wicked, which with that artificial cliffhanger at the end of Part One has led some people to anxiously put their hands over their ears when the subject of Part Two comes up. (A subject of daily, er, debates on TikTok.) To these people it can only be said: Keep cupping. And to everyone else: Stop yupping. Stop talking freely about the story’s resolution. Stop risking someone within earshot having their next November ruined.
Yes, it’s true, the show has been out 20 years and the book nearly 30. Point taken. But a film is its own creation — as every director and writer constantly reminds us — and that creation deserves not to be tipped by garrulous Galindas. Oh, you can blame Universal for dragging out this thing longer than the Cowardly Lion’s tail. But moviegoers still deserve to come in fresh.
But if only it was restricted to the Emerald City, you say. Don’t so many jewels this season sparkle with such a familiar light?
Conclave‘s whopper of an ending was revealed in the 2016 novel. That’s the same year we learned of the fate of Roz at the end of The Wild Robot book. A Complete Unknown is completely known to anyone with even a passing knowledge of music history — the Bob Dylan concert in question happened in 1965. That’s the same year, incidentally, that Frank Herbert published Dune, whose contents prophetically gave away what happens in 2024’s Dune: Part Two.
And then there’s September 5, whose stunning climax was first revealed at the Olympics … in 1972.
Spoilers? In such well-worn tales?
Yes.
One of the great joys of moviegoing these days is the startlement of the new. We live in a time when no detail stays private and no news story goes unblasted, when all cultural creations are parsified and every current event takeified. Even time-shifted sports — a plausible possibility just a few years ago — has gone the way of the single-wing offense. Good luck not finding out about that Chargers-Chiefs doink an hour after it happened. Or five minutes. We must now know how everything ends before we even know it began.
Yet there is an exception. With not much effort, we can still walk into a dark room with a giant screen and be utterly floored by something we didn’t see coming. It’s what makes new-release movies different from pretty much any cultural product out there (including streaming, which people watch on their own sweet schedule).
So if you have a temptation to casually drop the plot details of those movie endings — “But they’ve been out there for years!” you exclaim — this column comes to say: Don’t.
Don’t taunt your cousin who’s trying to avoid learning about the second half of Wicked.
Don’t torment your significant other who will definitely, certainly catch up with Conclave this weekend.
Heck, don’t even tease your friend who’s unsure of the fate of the hostages at the end of September 5 (though feel free to mock their education). Instead, let them enjoy the last little morsels of surprise this world has left to offer.
So go ahead and knock yourself out when it comes to older movies. Shout out to your friends that Kevin Spacey was really Keyser Söze, Tyler Durden was imaginary and both Billy and Stu were Ghostface. Blast it on your social feed; write it in the sky. If these friends never made it a Blockbuster night, that’s not your fault. You can even tip the family history of Luke, Leia and Darth. But don’t say a word to them about the ending of a current movie. They’ll be happier now. And you won’t hurt cinema’s cause forever.
This story appeared in the Dec. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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