First Bond 25 spoilers may have emerged

The first actual Bond 25 spoilers may have emerged. No, the blog isn’t going to say what they are. But they’re available for those fans inclined to check them out.

Over the past week, outlets in Norway have shown construction of an outdoor set that may be in Bond 25. I had taken a pass because it didn’t seem 100 percent confirmed. But ONE STORY TODAY, references applications from a production entity called B25 noting that filming will occur March 25-31.

The documents apparently also describe what happens in the scene involved. To learn more, you can click on the link above and then check out a translation. You can also check out THIS TWEET from @JBNews_mews on Twitter which quotes (in English) from the story.

Needless to say (well, it should be), if you’re spoiler adverse don’t click on either link.

To be clear, the description isn’t definitive in terms of Bond 25’s overall plot. This is far from what happened with SPECTRE (and the hacking at Sony Pictures) where entire script drafts were suddenly out there. It’s more akin to Skyfall, where bits and pieces leaked out ahead of time. Eventually, at least one significant one (that M died in the film) came out but we’re not at the point with these Bond 25 spoilers.

For those who’ve followed Bond 25 pre-production closely, some possibilities will come to mind from the latest out of Norway.

The blog’s list of (really) non-spoilers

The movie came out in 1941. By any reasonable standard, it should be OK to talk about the ending. That’s especially true in this case. It was a joke on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s and an Iron Man comic book in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

The blog was reminded while publishing a post about spoiler sensitivity. It’s a subject the blog has written about a number of times including HERE, HERE, and HERE.

In THIS 2011 POST, a reader yelped that a “spoiler alert” should be tagged with a spoiler alert about a movie that had come out years before (seven years at the time of the post, 14 years ago now).

I ended up doing that, but regretted it later. Spoilers should have a sell-by date. But spoiler extremists insist on spoiler alerts on everything, no matter how long ago the film or TV show came out. By that standard, it’s never OK to talk about any movie, now matter how old.

Spoiler police: “That’s a spoiler! You’re spoiling it for the 19-year-old who’s never seen The Great Train Robbery!”

If you suspect the blog is kidding with this example you’d be right. Still, The Great Train Robbery (1903) is considered a major example of early cinema, including the ending above. But if we take the position of the spoiler police to its logical conclusion, the ending would be forbidden to talk about.

More recently, but still back in the “old days,” trailers often gave away the best bits. Example: Trailers for The Spy Who Loved Me showing the ski jump Rick Sylvester performed while doubling for Roger Moore.

For that matter, sometimes soundtracks — which came out before the movie —  had track titles beginning with “Death of” followed by a character name. See the soundtracks for From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice for examples.

At that time, if you were disappointed about a spoiler, you sucked it up. You manned up and moved on. Today, it’s the source of complaining, complaining and more complaining.

I understand the concern about spoilers. You should be considerate, especially before and during a movie’s release. But I do think some people complain too much about them.

The idea of a forever ban on spoilers isn’t reasonable. Nineteen-year-olds have plenty of chances to catch up on classic movies without a gag order on the rest of us. And some members of the spoiler police define a spoiler as saying anything about a film.

So, with that in mind, here’s the blog list of not-really spoilers (but may offend the spoiler police).

Classic Movies

–Rosebud is the sled.
–Rhett breaks up with Scarlett.
–Ranse really didn’t kill Liberty Valance. Though I’m told some film analysts actually debate this point because it’s in a flashback. (Actually a flashback within a flashback, to be precise.)
–Shane decides to ride off.
–“Nobody’s perfect!”
–“WTF just happened?” (audiences at 2001: A Space Odyssey)
–Lawrence went home after the war, shaken and disturbed.
–“I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille!”

Genre Movies
–Harry still had a bullet left.
–The money got incinerated.
–The castle blows up.
–The lead character was really dead all this time. (multiple movies)
–Rock lost one leg, but is still alive even if most of his officers aren’t.
–Iron Man wins.
–Captain America wins.
–Batman wins.

James Bond Movies
–Bond wins (multiple films).
–Tracy dies.
–Vesper dies.
–Quarrel dies.
–Fiona dies.
–Aki dies.
–Tilly dies.
–Jill dies.
–Vijay dies.
–Kerim dies.
–Paula dies.
–Plenty dies.
–Scaramanga dies.
–Oddjob dies.
–Goldfinger dies.
–Largo dies.
–Dr. No dies.
–Klebb dies.
–Q gets a laugh from the audience showing Bond a gadget (multiple films).
–Q gets annoyed at Bond. (multiple films)
–Bond has sex with women characters (multiple films).
–Bond flirts with Moneypenny (multiple films).
…..There are many more, but you get the idea.

The spoiler debate

“Rosebud is the sled.”

With yet another James Bond movie in production, the old debate about spoilers flares up again.

Over the past couple of weeks, Eon Productions has been filming a car chase for SPECTRE, the 24th James Bond film. This has occurred on public streets in the capital city (Rome) of a major European country (Italy).

This is the kind of thing that draws publicity, including a video posted by The Associated Press, one of the largest news-gathering organizations in the world. Some 007 fans want to learn more. Some 007 fan sites have written about it. But others complain it’s a spoiler and shouldn’t be covered by the media at all and shouldn’t even be discussed by true fans at all.

Once upon a time, some of the biggest 007 spoilers came from the official Bond apparatus. The novelization of The Spy Who Loved Me came out before the movie’s U.S. debut. That pretty much gave away the ski jump stunt performed by Rick Sylvester in the film. Ditto the novelization of Tomorrow Never Dies, which gave away much of that film’s plot and action sequences. The only differences were changes made in the script after the novelization was written.

Nor was this restricted to novelizations. 007 soundtracks gave away key plot points. Goldfinger’s soundtrack had a track called Death of Goldfinger. Thunderball’s soundtrack had a track called Death of Fiona. You Only Live Twice’s soundtrack had a track called Death of Aki. Doesn’t leave too much to the imagination.

Still, this is the 21st century. There’s this thing called the Internet. Once upon a time, fans who experienced momentary disappointment with finding out details about a movie ahead of time had to accept their fate and move on.

With the Internet, you don’t have to worry about moving on. It becomes a big echo chamber.

As that applies to spoilers, well, people will complain about spoilers when a movie has been out for three months. (CLICK HERE for a September 2013 post on this blog and scroll down to one of the comments.) Some will even complain about spoilers seven years after a movie has come out. (CLICK HERE for a November 2011 post and scroll down to one of the comments there.)

The blog got some flak on Facebook this week for THIS POST, which embedded a couple of SPECTRE car chase videos, including the one the AP posted to YouTube. We arranged the post so, on Facebook, its preview would only show a SPECTRE logo. To actually see the videos, you’d have to click on the link itself. Still, that wasn’t good enough for some, who argued “true fans” shouldn’t even be interested in any video of one of the most expensive movies of all time filming a scene in a major European capital.

To be fair, SPECTRE is an unusual case. Because of the hacking at Sony (which will release the film in November), it’s possible to read memos and a script and get information as late as November. the Gawker website did so back on Dec. 12. (Warning: there are spoilers if you click on that link.)

In a perfect world, fans curious about the movie and those not wanting to see anything before it comes out could come to an understanding. But the Internet, for the most part, works against being reasonable. When people cry foul about movies that have been out for months and years, it’s hard to be reasonable.