Avoidance of spoiler story: I’m in a high school class that was called “Utopia” where we were reading books about utopias and (mostly) dystopias. The book that we were working on was “Brave New World,” which I had read before but was reading again.
During class, the teacher called out K in the back as to why he wasn’t reading anything. He said that he had finished the book. She asked how it ended. He said that the Indian (or was it Savage) had on steel toe boots and was acting like a compass. Me, the teacher, and I think one other person laughed out loud. No one else had a clue what that was all about.
At the end, the Indian (Savage) hangs himself, and the last paragraph is:
Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east. …
I had Return of the Jedi spoiled for me as soon it was released to theaters in 1983. I was listening to the news on the radio, and they revealed the whole relationship between Vader and Luke and Leia. It was telegraphed in the Empire Strikes Back, but still…to reveal it before the majority of theater-goers even had a chance to see it has to be the height of ruination.
It wasn’t a movie that was spoiled for me, but a television series. I remember reading in a newspaper, the twist capper to the series “Newhart.” That spoiled the show for me totally.
It wasn’t a spoiler right off the bat, but when she first appeared in the movie, she was the mild-mannered ladylike wife of Jason Bateman or Nathan Fillion or whoever played her husband. That image was too different from the image on the box, so you knew something was up, even though you didn’t know the details.
And it doesn’t make much difference if anyone in the story found out what “Rosebud” meant. Nothing hinges on it, like if Kane had an heir who will lose out on an inheritance if s/he doesn’t figure it out. In fact, there’s no indication that it was even a proper name. He could have been saying he wanted rosebuds on his coffin. If anyone had been there to hear him.
I assumed the camera guy told them. Or they just read the script.
Although I’ve seen the movie, I can’t remember the details of that scene very clearly–is Kane unquestionably alone, or do we just not see anybody else in them room?
The opening scene is on YouTube. There’s a closeup of Kane’s mouth, he says “Rosebud”, the snow globe falls and breaks, and a nurse opens the door to his room. No way to know if she came in because she heard him or because she heard the globe breaking.
This is answered (badly, IMHO) in the course of the movie, they mention that the nurse was there and heard it. Which seems contradicted by the montage where she seems to come into the room after he said it. But whatever.
Roddy
In the 1970s I worked as a projectionist. Several-times-daily viewings of the trailer for the movie The Eyes of Laura Mars had inspired me to make a guess as to who the murderer was. I went to see it, and told my date–and when I turned out to be right, she was enormously upset with me!
Not really a deliberate spoiler, but I remember seeing Saving Private Ryan when it first came out. Now to be sure, I wasn’t expecting Abbott and Costello, but when I saw the faces of the audience coming out as I was queueing to go in, it was pretty obvious that things weren’t going to end well for Tom. Still, the first 20 minutes were worth it anyway.
I always waited for the paperback Harry Potters. I went out of my way to avoid reading anything about the Deathly Hollows to avoid spoilers. Then some jerk posted a viral video revealing the twist at the end. Grrrr :mad::mad:
My cousin was at a theater watching Troy. When they roll the big horse up to the gate, the girl sitting next to him (they weren’t together) leaned over to her friend and whispered, “I bet there’s people inside.” He had to get up and leave the theater because he couldn’t stop laughing.
Then, when he was telling us this story, my sister in law didn’t get what was so funny.
