Revenge of the Spoilers?
Warning: This story does NOT contain spoilers about the new Star Wars movie. Just common Jedi sense.
“All fans should know how it ends,” says Philip Wise of TheForce.Net. “Anakin turns into Darth Vader.”
But all fans don’t know how once innocent Jedi knight Anakin Skywalker turns into the black-helmeted overlord of the Empire (and the three original Star Wars movies). Although, with spoilers abounding on everything from the Internet to tie-in merchandise, they could get a pretty good idea.
“There is always someone who thinks they know something and has to share it with the world,” says Chris Mikkelsen, cofounder of California’s South Bay Star Wars Fan Club.
On Thursday, George Lucas did some sharing himself, unveiling the first full-length trailer for Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith during Fox’s The O.C.. As of Thursday night, it was also available on America Online. And then on Friday, it was set to debut in theaters, attached to prints of Robots.
Lucas continues the tease on Sunday. In an interview to air on CBS’ 60 Minutes, the Star Wars guru says that Revenge of the Sith, opening May 19, is so “dark” in chronicling Skywalker’s descent into the pits of hell–literally, there’s “lava at the end” and everything–that it’ll likely draw the kid-friendly sci-fi franchise’s first PG-13 rating.
But Lucas only teases, he does not spoil. He does not do what one Website did last month: Lay out the movie, from beginning to end, in pictures apparently scanned from a children’s tie-in book. (At last check, the site, which also had what appeared to be actual footage of a light-saber battle, was down.)
Wise, who runs the leading unofficial Star Wars fan site (one that doesn’t trade too heavily in spoilers), says the amount of “visual information” out there on the new film is unprecedented.
“It’s one thing to read about it, but to see a picture of [spoiler deleted], that’s different,” Wise says. “Even many people who are spoiler-friendly probably wish they hadn’t seen it.”
Mikkelsen knows from experience about knowing too much too soon.
The fan club organizer says he read way too many spoilers in advance of seeing The Phantom Menace in 1999. For 2002’s Attack of the Clones, he tried to stick to officially disseminated Lucasfilm product.
“I would love to have the conviction to go into EIII blind, and just experience it for the first time, but I know that I can’t do that,” Mikkelsen says.
Though TheForce.Net pulled back from spoilers once it began working more closely with Lucasfilm, Wise says he knows many of his users still want them. Badly.
“There are people who make great sport of this, who want to know every single details, periods and exclamation points, about the movie,” Wise says.
Lucasfilm did not want to comment on Revenge of the Sith spoilers. Well, except for the well-known one.
Owing to the new film’s chronological pecking order–its story must end, more or less, where the first Star Wars movie begins–there is a big given.
“The whole premise of the movie is that this is the movie that finally answers all the questions as to why Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader,” says Lucasfilm spokeswoman Lynn Fox.
The devil–and the suspense–is in the details. Assuming you can resist temptation.
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