Years and years and years ago ,
I was channel flicking and started watching this scene where:
A construction worker is drilling somewhere way out west in America.
He stops the drill, confused, as blood starts welling up out of the ground and around his boots.
*Oh cool! A devil movie. Thought I.
The drill suddenly becomes possessed, and tears off down the highway, dragging the Construction worker with it.
*Awesome. I’m really in the mood for a devil movie.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, the sheriff is perplexed to find all the sheep in a field are dead.
*Nice touch. Lamb of god… This devil movie is quite clever.
And to find a corpse at the top of an electricity pylon.
…Turns out I was watching Tremors.
The fact that it was giant worm monsters instead of malevolent supernatural powers felt like a big plot twist to me, and made me enjoy it more than I would have otherwise.
I missed the first third or so of Titanic and basically got to the theater right when the boat started sinking. Thought it was a great action-adventure movie.
Definitely. For instance, once I started watching Madame Bovary without knowing what it was; if I had known the title beforehand, I probably would have skipped it, or at least I would have known in advance that it has a tragic ending. Some of the fun comes from trying to figure out if it’s a movie I’ve heard of or not based on the plot.
I walked into “Children of Men” without knowing anything about the film at all. I didn’t know it was a novel, I missed all the trailers, and I didn’t even see the movie poster until I arrived at the theatre to watch it.
In the country I was in at the time, the movie poster showed a picture of Clive Owen and Julianne Moore staring wistfully up unto a superimposed Planet Earth or something like that.
So I was expecting a fairly vanilla “let’s explore the fantastic future” type of light-hearted SF adventure, with goofy robot sidekicks and malfunctioning sidewalk conveyor belts.
Which was not what that movie was about. At all.
So the first half hour of “Children of Men” was the most jarring film experience I’ve ever had. I mean I’ve seen scarier and more disturbing films, but I always knew what I was getting into before watching them.
The first time I ever saw Ang Lee’s The Hulk I had missed the first 30 minutes. I thought there was a lot of action, felt it was fairly entertaining, and didn’t know why everyone disliked it so much.
Finally saw it later from the beginning and realized why. Those first 30 minutes would put anyone into a coma.
Not a movie but in an early episode of DS9, “The Passenger,” an alien cop/detective is rescued from her burning ship along with her dying prisoner. Once on DS9, she obsessively insists that since he’s faked his death so many times she doesn’t trust that he’s really died this time. It turns out she’s right and he’s managed to upload his consciousness to someone else as he died and continue his criminal doings.
If you miss the teaser like I did when it first aired, there’s actually a bit of mystery as to what’s going on and whose brain the criminal is hiding out in. Lots of technobabble and extremely cheesy acting ensue, but it’s a fun ride. Unfortunately, the opening segment made it blatantly obvious what happened (not only to the audience, but it should have been obvious to certain characters as well) and diminished the whole episode, leaving it similar in quality to the rest of the first season.
Dark City is a great example of this. For me it’s much more mysterious and interesting if one starts at the point where Rufus Sewell wakes up in the bathtub.
I feel like this is one of those phenomenon ruined by digital TV, where you can press for a synopsis of what you’re seeing.
I remember seeing Overboard while missing the first half hour or so and feeling pretty confused. But I also liked Kurt Russell a lot more than I would have had I known he was tricking an amnesiac into being his wife/mother. Also liked Goldie Hawn more because of what I missed.
I grew up coming into movies late. My father would get home at six and by the time we ate and went to the theater (there was only one nearby), it was after seven. And the movie started at seven. So we’d see the rest of the film and then catch the first few minutes we missed in the second show.
Once, we actually arrived at 8:00, so we came in half way. Luckily, it was Blue Waters, White Death, so there was no plot to follow.
I think it helped me in my development as a writer. If you have to figure out the characters and what happened before you arrive, it gives you a good instinct for plot.
Not quite the same, but years ago I missed the first episode of Sailor Moon when Cartoon Network started showing it. Upset me quite a bit.
Then the series cycled around, and I discovered that the “first episode” was something Cartoon Network had thrown together which revealed the big secrets for the whole series! Not that it was too hard to figure out the secrets of a cartoon, but still, I was very glad I missed that episode.
Tuned into Night of the Living Dead after the title and credits had rolled. Had no idea it was a horror movie until the first attack scene. “Enjoyed” is probably the wrong word here. Surprised and horrified, perhaps.
I got to Get Him to the Greek about four minutes late, neatly missing just the African Child music video that started it off. For the rest of the movie, there’s many, many references to African Child and how bad it is, but it’s never played again, so I was left thinking it was a Noodle Incident thing. Eventually, I saw the beginning, and found that African Child was hilariously bad, but not as much so as I had imagined.
I tuned into a movie once, where it was the middle of a wasteland, and a man whose family is living in a bomb shelter decides to watch the bombing that night, so after supper and tea, he goes out on the stairs, fills his pipe and smokes it upside down.
I thought it was an excellent subtle depiction of how war changes you - there were no long expositions about how we have become numb to war, so much so that we watch the enemy bombing. The upside-down pipe smoking was pretty clear in its purpose, and not explained.
Yes, a very subtle, not at all over the top portrayal of the hell that is living in a war zone.
I suffer from Woody Allen in Annie Hall syndrome. It’s hard for me to watch anything if I miss the beginning. If I’ve seen it before and there is nothing else on, then I watch it. If I’ve never seen it before, I absolutely have to see it from the start.
That’s actually how I remember it.
I’m thinking that’s because that’s where Ebert’s commentary starts.
Best DVD commentary I’ve ever heard. Watched it on a red eye flight, and said out loud “Wow, this is like film school in a box…”
I believe the scene in the bathtub was where** Dark City** was originally supposed to start. The studio execs forced them to add the expository prologue to the movie because they thought audiences would be confused about what was going on.
In the unlikely event that there is anyone here who hasn’t seen the Humphrey Bogart version of The Matese Falcon and you ever do see it, keep your eyes closed during the credits and the on-screen written prologue. For some reason it gives away the main plot mystery. You will enjoy the movie a lot more not knowing the story behind the Black Bird.
