Avalonian, at least you found out before you rented/bought the DVD. My biggest gripe with DVDs these days is the mandatory “pre-menu” cut scenes, where they show huge chunks of the movie before they’ll let me click on play. Dammit, just let me watch the scenes the way I paid for them…the place they belong in the movie!
nisosbar, I’m with you on book summaries.
I am disappointed!
With your encyclopedic knowledge of pithy quotes, you should have picked the classic one for recalling whether prone is face-up or face down:
Is it really that difficult to resist the urge to turn the book over and reveal the plot that you have to physically cover it, lest you accidentally start reading and can’t stop yourself?
That’s tough man.
-foxy
Not just the backs of DVDs, and not just the scenes they flash before coming to play, but don’t forget the ads for the soundtrack which helpfully also show you some of the more memorable moments before you even see the movie!
Damn that irritates me.
Just yesterday I saw the DVD for the original Planet Of The Apes in a London HMV, and thought at the time that the cover art was mind-blowingly stupid.
It was a painting of a still from the final scene (y’know, with the statue and everything), which basically gave away the entire thing. You didn’t even have to read the back of the box, let alone watch the film!
Maybe they figure that 35 years later most people aren’t going to be surprised anymore. That most people don’t buy DVDs for movies they’ve never seen.
That it was better to evoke the feeling you felt the first time (by showing a final image) that trying to protect a non-secret.
Somebody above said “they’re starting to do that in movie previews now.” This is by no means a good thing and I would argue that trailers are much better now than they used to be. Go watch the trailer for Seven Samurai – it practically starts by saying “these five of seven samurai die on this hill to protect a village’s rice from marauding bandits. Let us now show you their deaths.”
I thought prisoner6655321 was referring to the Sandra Bullock chick-flick. 
You could tell from that one painting that Soylent Green is people? Wow, that is a giveaway!
Is the OP ever going to come back and tell us what movie he was looking at?
And don’t forget the Episode 1 soundtrack, released in advance of the movie itself, whereon one of the tracks was unambiguously titled Death of Qui-Gon
Eh? Soylent What is what?? 
What are you on about? I was talking about Planet Of The Apes, original version of.
Reuben, to some people every Charlton Heston Movie is the same.
But can you explain again how the picture of the statue of liberty gave away, that the Omega Man dies in the end???