Interesting article from io9.com:

http://io9.com/disney-takes-action-against-a-possible-star-wars-vii-le-1683436351

I can’t help but think about the changes that have come to the entertainment industry since the arrival of the internet.

For music, the effects have been pretty devastating.  Pirate copies of songs are all over the place (should you be so inclined to find them) and what was once a staple of malls, the music store, is long gone.

For reading material, a similar thing is happening.  With computers and tablets and smartphones, we now have more and more people reading books/newspapers through their personal devices.  Piracy is a threat, again.

With movies, we have essentially eliminated the video store (Blockbuster, R.I.P.).  But a bigger problem is the fact that it takes a while to make movies and, again because of the proliferation of tablets/smartphones/etc. leaks are becoming far too prevalent.  Spoilers regarding storylines or guest stars are becoming an issue to the point where there seems to be no movie released that you don’t have at least some idea of what’s going on, if not the entire plot.  Screenplay leaks are particularly damaging, but so too are sequences filmed by passerbys who witness something being made.

I pointed out before how I first learned about films like Escape From New York and Robocop (the original) by seeing their posters at a movie theater.  These films were literally a week or so from being released and that was the very first I ever heard of either!  I’m sure there were articles regarding the features released beforehand, but back in those pre-internet days, unless you actually had the articles/magazines, you didn’t know about the features until you either saw the previews or the posters.

Hell, I recall going in to see Raiders of the Lost Ark when it was first released back in 1981.  At that time, I lived outside the USA and when I traveled back and noted there was a new film by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg released, a film I had seen absolutely no commercials and knew nothing about, given the talents behind it I assumed it had to be a cosmic saga, perhaps a mash up of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind.  Boy was I surprised when the film’s opening crawl noted it took place in the 1930’s!

This kind of cinematic surprise is practically unknown today.  Getting the word out on your film can be a good thing, but at what point does it become too much spoiler information?

And more importantly, is there anything we can do about it?

I doubt it.  We’re in the rapid information age and every one of us quite literally has the world at our fingertips, for better or worse.