Spoilers!

The irony is that there are none in this post.

One might think the entertainment industry could use the help of a few well trained plumbers to fix all the leaks they have. Set photos from hot and heavy upcoming projects like The Dark Knight Rises or The Avengers have been flooding the Internet for a good chunk of the summer, but it seems that in recent years, with the aid of the Internet and intrepid bloggers, the spoiler has become infectious. Not only are major film scenes and plot points being spoiled, but entire video games are being leaked onto the web, weeks, sometimes months in advance of launch dates. I point you in the direction of the some of the recent Gears of War 3 leaks, or last year’s Halo: Reach leak (Reach was accessible via download on Xbox Live for a brief period by some fluke). Why is it that people want to uncover this stuff and spread it all around?

I for one like some spoilers, but not a lot. When it comes to my daily “research”, I’ve come accustomed to running into spoilers on many websites, but I do my best to avoid them. Things are just so much more interesting when you don’t know what is going to happen. I made sure to watch all of Stargate Universe and Doctor Who that way and I think it’s awesome. It’s not only the Internet that is spoiling things either, a lot of the newer movie trailers give away twists within the first 30 seconds. What gives? Shouldn’t you be waiting to give that away in the movie? After people have given you their money?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for a good trailer. It’s kind of what gets me in the seat in the first place. I do know plenty of people who would rather stay away from trailers and I respect that as well. You shouldn’t know everything before the film even begins rolling. For video games it’s a bit less the case since you affect the game to some extent, but it can still ruin the experience. Sure, everyone knew that Reach was going to get glassed, so it was no surprise that your character died in the end. But there was a lot of other story elements that I was plenty pleased to not have spoiled for me.

There are definitely some things in life where you don’t need suspense: the doctor’s or dentist’s office, getting your car fixed, pregnancy tests, and other things. In those cases you should definitely bring on the spoilers. In entertainment, probably not so. Am I suggesting a full reset on the whole trailer business? Well, maybe. Unfortunately, it seems that it would probably be harder to hold our attentions long enough to get us to the movie theater or GameStop if we weren’t shown some flashy stuff about the movie or game ahead of time. A poster just isn’t going to cut it.

What say you? Spoilers: yay or nay?