Note: no spoilers in this article. I'm not a monster. People have never been more spoilerphobic about a movie than Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Whereas new trailers for the next Marvel flick are devoured with reckless abandon despite the studio's sketchy track record at maintaining mystery, for Episode VII we seem to have collectively chosen to treat new information like the Empire treats alien species (EU context - look it up). Oh, people are watching all these trailers, but perpetually with a mixture of trepidation and the trust that J.J. Abrams won't let anything too major slip. And each new release comes with cries that he's failed, with whatever new footage is shown allegedly unravelling the whole thing. Sure, some people will go into the dark depths of the web for spoilers, but I've heard of just as many avoiding every single element of promotion just so they can go into the movie fresh. The message from most is clear; people don't want to know anything about The Force Awakens. Well tough sh*t. We're just over a month away from release and you can already tell that the marketing blitz for the film is going to ramp up in ways the early ads couldn't have imagined. Gradually released over the past year, we've had two expertly-produced, nostalgia-infused teasers, followed by a narratively-slight "final" trailer. But that wound up being as final as Return Of The Jedi; a couple of weeks later the Japanese trailer and the first of no doubt many TV spots hit within days of each other, providing enough footage to speculate heavily on the narrative flow of the film and provide fuel for some very popular, and likely true, fan theories. And more is to come. There's some new footage coming out today (Thursday 12th November) on ABC and you can bet we now won't be able to go a week without a new TV spot showing something. But, in the words of Darth Maul himself, that's not all. Also this week Entertainment Weekly are running their second massive Star Wars cover feature, which promises to reveal even more about the new film, including details about the film's Death Star, what the craic is with Leia and some teases at where Luke's been after Disney apparently forgot to put him in any of the trailers. And that's saying nothing of the merchandising. Force Friday was just the beginning, with more toys hitting all the time teasing possible events from the film and potential alternative armour and character designs, while tie-in material has given up essential background on several of the new characters. Heck, the track list for the soundtrack was allegedly leaked recently, which could hold some maybe ruinous info on it, and various pieces of concept art are resurfacing that now come carrying a lot of loaded info. If you want to go into The Force Awakens cold, you're going to have to go into self-enforced exile (either of Tatooine or Dagobah will do) - we have a month left and you just know things are only going to ramp up. Of course we probably won't see Luke officially before release and the overall plot will remain a mystery, including most of the specifics of the third act, but otherwise it wouldn't be crazy to expect everything will soon be out there for all to see. You may want to go into The Force Awakens knowing nothing, but that just isn't going to be possible. But all this and/or-ing prompts a bigger question: what really is a spoiler for Star Wars: The Force Awakens? Does anything pertaining to any part of the production or film as a whole count? Is knowing that Rey is hiding out on Jakku, or that Finn used to be a Stormtrooper, or that the Empire became the First Order really a spoiler? To me, that's set up at best, yet people plug their ears when J.J. says Kylo Ren isn't a Sith Lord (because the Sith were destroyed). When you look at this rationally (a hard thing to do with Star Wars, but I'm trying) pretty much everything we've seen (at least officially) has still been engineered to tantalisingly tease, rather than blow up real plot details. In fact, I'd bet that we're being purposely shown what will end up being a lot of minor things specifically to get speculation going about details that will be revealed oddly early on (like parentage of new characters) and have little bearing on the real plot, leaving room for real surprises in the cinema. I could be wrong of course; maybe there is a Final Final trailer coming that will actually ruin everything, or one of the many prominent rumours really is bang on the money, or it'll turn out the teasers were much more spoilerific than we realised. But if I am, so what? Why do I say that? Well click next and realise why getting Star Wars: The Force Awakens spoiled for you doesn't matter one parsec (yeah, I'm not the only one who can misuse that term, George).
