Disclaimer: if you haven't seen the film, don't read this. Why? There are spoilers and frankly, reading the spoilers defeats the whole purpose of this specific blog post. If you have seen the film, let me explain:
You should first know I have this friend, Gregg, who has been trying to teach me something about movies for years and I have only just started to listen. "Sammy," he says - occasionally yells - to me, "NO SPOILERS. Don't research movies before you go watch them." Uh, huh. Sure. I mean, Iwon't go looking for spoilers for a whodunnit, or a thriller, or anything like that, but for a superhero movie? Or the newest Star Wars? Or a Disney/Pixar? Why not look up spoilers? Why not find out as much as possible about the film short of the ending?
I'll tell you why.
So, a day prior to seeing Big Hero 6, I didn't know much more than the trailers had told me. Big, cute robot. Guy in a Kabuki mask. Brother dies. Kids fight and (presumably) save the day. Hairy baby. It's what most of us knew. I didn't go looking for information on it, I didn't research the comic, I decided to try it Gregg's way.
Until I didn't.
See, I'm big into Disney and live close enough to warrant owning a Disneyland Annual Pass. In the park, they have a "sneak peek" of the film in Tomorrowland and so on my most recent visit with a friend, we went and saw the sneak peak. She had seen the film. I had not. The sneak peak showed part of the school sequence in the opening - no spoilers, just some fun exposition - where Tadashi takes Hiro to see his lab; it showed part of the scene after the funeral with Hiro and Baymax - again, it didn't tell me much more than I already knew - and the "levels of pain" bit; and then it showed part of what I'm calling "the First Flight Sequence." You know the one I'm talking about.
Hiro and Baymax flying high above San Fransokyo, trying to get the thrusters right, Baymax's treatment working--it's a cool sequence. (Not as good as it should have been, but that's another discussion entirely.) They didn't show Baymax scanning the city so no real plot points were revealed and we already knew this scene would happen from the trailers.
The problem is that in its entirety this is a key scene for the film. Not really for plot development, but for character and emotional development. Hiro and Baymax bond, they start to get into a groove, and their relationship deepens greatly. It's supposed to be this great, beautiful scene. Flying is exciting and so the scene is there, also, to excite and enthrall us. We're supposed to get swept up into the adventure with Hiro and go soaring through the clouds above the city.
While part of the problem, objectively (well, ish), is that the music is underwhelming - particularly when compared with the music from How to Train Your Dragon's "first flight" sequence - for what the scene is doing, I ran into a completely separate problem.
I saw the film the night after I was at Disneyland where I'd seen the sneak peak with some other friends - Gregg being one of them, actually - who had not seen the film and when we got to that scene--
It wasn't as magical as it should have been. When I saw it in the sneak peak, I almost cried. When Baymax declared that his treatment was working, I welled up. I figured I would bawl in that scene when I saw the whole film. The problem is that I had been told one of the underlying concepts on the film: Baymax's driving force is that he is going to emotionally heal Hiro. It's a massive "duh," I know, but when I figured that out out of order it lost part of its effect.
I was told the emotional underpinning of the film without knowing it and it took root in my brain therefore not letting me experience it firsthand.
Without knowing it, the sneak peak had spoiled the film for me and I wasn't emotionally impacted the way I should have been.
Now part of this is Disney's fault. You shouldn't show us stuff like this. For example: if in the trailers Disney had shown us the fist bump with Baymax complete with sound effects, my buddies and I would not have laughed riotously for a solid minute in the theater. The impact of that moment was gold. I can feel my abs tensing up just remembering laughing so hard. So while Disney does know when to keep stuff to itself, they need to learn to keep more of it to themselves.
But part of this is my fault. I shouldn't have gone looking for it. I should not have walked into that theater in Tomorrowland looking to experience part of the magic of a film without experiencing all of it. I should have listened to Gregg: "NO SPOILERS."
So, the point of this blog post: what did I learn from Big Hero 6? DON'T GO LOOKING FOR SPOILERS. Even - especially - the little ones. I know you want to research the heck out of Age of Ultron. Don't. Resist. Or Star Wars: VII. Don't. Just wait. Or Jurassic World. Do I have to say it again? Cease and desist!
Why? Because when we go looking for information about a film we may get that momentary satisfaction of knowing what's going to happen, but it will ruin the experience the filmmakers are crafting for us. We will lose the magic of the moment. We won't be able to get swept away in the grand adventure of it. We'll already know. And really, how much fun is that? None.
Not convinced? Let me put it this way: if you could go back and watch Star Wars without knowing that Darth Vader was Luke's father and experience that moment of shock and horror for the first time, wouldn't you?
Yeah. You would.
We all would.
No comments:
Post a Comment