The creators of Westworld have an interesting idea on how to combat spoilers for Season 2… by spoiling the entire Season 2 before it even starts. The hit HBO show’s creators, Lisa Joy and Jonah Nolan, floated their crazy plan to fight fake fan theories during a Reddit AMA.
“If you guys agree, we’re going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of Season 2. Everything,” Joy and Nolan wrote. “The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what’s ‘theory’ and what’s spoiler.” That’s one way to beat spoilers.
The duo said that if the Reddit post received 1,000 upvotes they would release the spoilers. At the time of publication, the thread had more than 3,500 upvotes. So where are the spoilers? I need to know what the samurai warriors are going to do. You’d imagine that HBO didn’t think spoiling the entire season and revealing all of the twists and turns that might have viewers checking in every week was a super idea.
The logic behind their wacky idea was that everyone who read the Song of Fire and Ice books knew the spoiler for Game of Thrones, yet they still tuned into the HBO show every week. Here is the entire post from the Westworld creators from Reddit:
Many thanks for your great questions and thoughts. As I’ve said before, I’ve been a member of the reddit community for years (no I’m not going to share my original username…). And I greatly enjoyed watching the friendly folks at this subreddit guess the twists and turns of the season.
It creates a larger problem for us, though, in terms of the way your guesswork is reported online. ‘Theories’ can actually be spoilers, and the line between the two is confusing. It’s something we’ve been thinking about since last season. The fans of Game of Thrones, for instance, rallied around and protected the secrets of the narrative in part because they already knew those secrets (through season 5).
We thought about this long and hard, and came to a difficult (and potentially highly controversial) decision. If you guys agree, we’re going to post a video that lays out the plot (and twists and turns) of season 2. Everything. The whole sordid thing. Up front. That way the members of the community here who want the season spoiled for them can watch ahead, and then protect the rest of the community, and help to distinguish between what’s ‘theory’ and what’s spoiler.
It’s a new age, and a new world in terms of the relationship between the folks making shows and the community watching them. And trust is a big part of that. We’ve made our cast part of this decision, and they’re fully supportive. We’re so excited to be in this with you guys together. So if this post reaches a 1000 upvotes we’ll deliver the goods.
Hasta victoria siempre!
Jonah and Lisa
Here’s a new “Westworld Season 2 – A Primer” video to get you excited and prepared for the show. Westworld Season 2 starts on April 22.
[Vulture]