10 Things Everyone Hates About Modern Movies
3. Spoiler Culture & Its Impact On Cinema
The last decade has seen phone technology advance enough that most everyone has a high-resolution camera in their pocket, allowing an enterprising extra or curious passer-by to take a sneaky photo while on a movie set.
Due to the ease with which set leaks can find their way online, filmmakers are more entrenched than ever, fighting to preserve contentious and surprising aspects of their project and ensure most audiences get to see the movie un-spoiled.
This level of secrecy can be fun, for sure - the MCU has done an outstanding job subverting audience expectations with trailer fake-outs and faux-spoilers - but the rise of "spoiler culture" in the last 10 years also feels somewhat to the detriment of storytelling itself.
Things have gotten bad enough that directors will flat-out lie about controversial aspects of their narrative, such as J.J. Abrams famously trying to keep the lid on Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, despite the cat already being out of the bag.
This relentless desire to surprise audiences above simply telling an emotionally resonant story is harmful to both filmmakers and audiences, who may become "spoiler-phobic" to the extent that it can stifle meaningful discussion about a film both during production and after release.
It is most likely a bell that can't be un-rung, sadly, so we can only lament the time when leaks weren't so easy to come by and the overall culture wasn't so dogmatic about the damaging potential of All The Spoilers.
Secrecy has always been a part of filmmaking to an extent, but our collective fascination with the "mystery box" and deference towards big plot reveals as the true substantial content of a film honestly feels like a backwards step.
It invites us to consider a film "ruined" if someone tells us what happens beforehand, rather than appreciate the storytelling, performances, and general filmmaking which will make that moment work.