Hands up, if you like being told what is going to happen during or at the end of a film, tv series, book etc. ??
I just started reading an article on the Guardian about the new Basic Instinct film with Sharon Stone. I'm not even going to link to the article because in about three paragraphs the journalist gives details of the inital plot and carries on to outline where the film goes from there... ???
I mean yeah OK you get from the start the journalist makes it pretty clear that Basic Instinct 2 is not as good as the first film but is that a reason to spoil it all for everybody. Maybe it was just revenge, because the journalist didn't appreciate having to sit through the film and missed a date that was expected to be life-changing ?
The concept of showing what happens next can't bother everybody though because more an more tv series are going in for different variations of the concept. For example the american series NCIS seems to be having every 15 minutes or less a black & white picture from 5 minutes further on in the film. When I was in New York so many of the series I got glimpses of seemed to show scenes from the following episode that gave away more than often the plot of the next episode. They also do this in a candian series that I really like called ReGenesis, so I have to remeber to quickly jump on the TV mute or off switch in order to stop them from spoiling it for me...
I'm just curious as to whether this in aid of people that find the plots of these series too complicated and giving the plot away may help them understand who the bad guys are or hopefully whether they are just to entice people to watch the next episode. In any case I have a principle with films that if they give you a complete summary of what goes on in the film in the trailer/preview, then the film is 9 times out of ten, not worth watching. I'm starting to think this may apply to series as well !