Has it ever bothered anyone else how they know the endings to a lot of the best movies ever made before they even saw them?

Citizen Kane, for instance. How can you watch it the same way people did when it first came out, when you've known what Rosebud is since the first time you saw it spoofed on the Simpsons?

Then there's Thelma and Louise, Gone With The Wind...great movies that you'll never get to experience fully because they've been ubiquitous in our culture for over half a century.

I agree with you that it is probably going to spoil things for most. That's where the age factor kicks in for me. Media saturation hadn't reached anything like it is now when I saw those and many other movies the first time. That's something good about growing up without a computer and only seven TV stations.

Wow Mark, I can't imagine what your people went through.

I too am disappointed by this media saturation of movie endings. That is the reason I will probably never see Fight Club, or if I do I will look at it differently than how it was intended. I was lucky in that the first time I saw Citizen Kane I didn't know the ending, so when the camera was panning over all of Kane's possessions I was literally on the edge of my seat wondering if they would finally reveal what "Rosebud" was. However, I've probably gotten more out of Citizen Kane after watching it several times than I did the first time I saw it, even though I knew the ending. Knowing the twist or the ending makes you pay more attention to style and you can enjoy the subtler points.

That's true. A really great movie, you won't fully appreciate until you've seen it multiple times. But, it's still nice to be able to watch it the first time without knowing how it's going to end.

Planet of the Apes
I haven't seen it yet, but I've seen the end a dozen times everywhere else. Funny thing: People regard it as common knowledge to the deegree where the picture on the cover (or container or whatever you call it) of the movie is the ending scene with the Statue of Liberty on the beach and the dude kneeling in despair. That's the way we do it in Europe, I don't know if you have that problem in the states.

Bobthespirit,

Not sure what you're expecting. If a film has been out for 50 years, are we just not supposed to talk about it, because someone hasn't seen it before? It's simply unrealistic.

What would your solution be?

Although these films may not have been out of for much more then a decade, I had the endings of both The Sixth Sense and Fight Club ruined for me.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Citizen Kane, for instance. How can you watch it the same way people did when it first came out, when you've known what Rosebud is since the first time you saw it spoofed on the Simpsons?

Oh, this was done waaaay before 'The Simpsons'!