'X-Files 2', 'Star Trek' and Others… How Much Do You Want to Know?

Online spoilers are on the rise, but how much of the story do you really want?

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Sunday, March 30th 2008 at 5:34 AM

For those of you that read this site regularly you know that I have avoided the trailers for The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and others in an attempt to hopefully get more out of this summer's batch of films and go in as fresh as possible. As someone that reports on movies on a daily basis I understand my perspective is wildly different than the average moviegoer, but with online movie blogging on the rise more and more fans are able to get their mitts on set pics, spoiler stories and bootleg videos. The short of it is that a lot of details on each film are online before the film even hits theaters and studios have been trying to squash it all and fans can't seem to get enough. My question is, when is enough, enough?

My primary curiosity surrounds recent films such as The X-Files 2 and Star Trek, two films that already have massive built in audiences and two films that have already received their fair share of rumors.

X-Files 2 has seen rumored-to-be fake pics of werewolves and Mulder and Scully kissing. Star Trek gets spy photos of uniforms and sets along with time traveling plot details. The fans dissect each rumor down to the finest detail all while Fox hasn't even released the official title for X-Files 2 and Paramount hasn't said word one about Star Trek other than confirming it is an origin story focusing on the early days of Captain Kirk and his crew of the Enterprise. Seeing how I don't know anything about "The X-Files" my interest is limited to only wanting to see the film, but I do know a little bit of "Trek" and the details I know so far are enough for me.

My reason for writing this article stems primarily from an article I saw at Cinema Blend discussing the latest photos from Star Trek showing the uniforms, shipyard, etc. You can see them here if you are interested. Josh Tyler, the author of the story, gives us the following reason why fans clamor for even the slightest tidbit of news concerning their favorite franchises:

The only reason people are bothering to circulate stuff like this is that you continue to show us nothing from your movie. This is Star Trek. One of the original fandom’s, it’s been around for decades. People are rabid over it. The way you control what people see from your movie is to be the first to show it to them, not by cease and desisting. Sadly, they aren’t listening.

Personally I have to disagree with Josh on this one. I think these images would be flying all over the Internet regardless of how much the studio shows us. However, I do agree that if the studio wants to have a greater control over their films in the new age of the Internet they would be smarter to give the fans a little more than nothing to satiate their need for information. While I want to be surprised when I see these films it seems the die-hard fans will love it no matter want and just want more, more, more. For example, these fans are very dedicated to these franchises, especially these "X-Files" gurus. The damn show hasn't been on television since 2002 and there are still fansites up and running in full force. That's six empty years of dedication. Hey Fox, maybe throw 'em a bone. How big of a bone is the question.

Would "X-Files" fans be happy if they had the shooting script? Would they want that level of detail? If Mulder and Scully did end up hooking up after defeating a rabid band of hungry werewolves and ended up having Mulder/Scully spawn running around would they want to know before they even saw an official trailer? You would think "no", but I would bet "yes".

I am not sure how large the "X-Files" fan base is on a whole, but I am sure it's smaller than the "Star Trek" fan base, but I also believe that each and every one of them would probably take the script with open arms, read it, read it again, discuss it online, read it again, skim it while discussing and read it one more time before seeing the movie and ultimately end up loving the film. Seriously, these folks love these franchises so much it would be hard to get them to do anything other than love the movie despite knowing every last detail. Hell, Batman and Robin made $107 million at the box-office and I don't think there is a Batman fan in this world that enjoyed that film. Had the picture been good it probably would have doubled its earnings.

I don't know if there is a winning solution, but I do know there is a better solution. If studios want to appease fan sites they should give them poster and image exclusives just like New Line did with TheOneRing.net during the Lord of the Rings production and Universal did with KingofKong.net during the King Kong production. What would it hurt to make sure the "Star Trek" and "X-Files" fansites were getting a ton of info on their favorite franchises? These folks love this stuff so much they will dissect anything. I even saw a comment regarding the latest teaser poster for X-Files 2 in which one fan was disturbed that it looked like Mulder and Scully were walking away from each other. Trust me studios, the fans will talk about whatever you give them, the consensus seems to be just give them something and you can cut back on the number of lawyers on your payroll.

On top of this, it will mean we can finally stop looking at digital camera pictures of posters from ShoWest and I can stop getting emails about all the websites that have them. Let's get the good stuff online and the chatter about your films won't cease, it will increase, most likely adding dollars to your bottom line. If you show it, they will come.

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